Chapter Text
He wakes up in the dirt.
Considering the last thing he remembers is raging so hard at a stupid webnovel that he choked—this, of course, is the opposite of comforting.
Did he die? Or slip into a death-like coma? Was he buried only to suddenly revive like those horror stories he once read?
Wait, no. That’s stupid; why would his family bury him without a coffin?
Either way, he’s gotta get out of here, so he starts digging. His body feels a lot…stronger than it should. Considering he’d spent his life as a lazy, semi-otaku NEET, his muscle mass should be in the negatives.
And yet.
He digs. He claws his way to the surface, feeling very much like one of the many in a zombie movie. Is he a zombie? That would explain the extra strength, so maybe. Zombies aren’t usually sentient though, right? He can’t remember; that genre was never really his thing.
There’s also this weird, buzzing energy running through his veins.
He finally breaks through the surface of the dirt and hauls himself out, crawling for a bit just to get away from the hole he was buried in before flopping over to rest. Not that his body needs to, but his brain is certainly used to the idea of needing to rest after such strenuous activity.
It’s nighttime, and there’s a full moon in the sky. For some reason, the moonlight feels nice on his skin.
His naked skin.
He’s naked.
Fuck.
His hair is also weirdly long; was he buried there for a decade for it to grow out like this? His surroundings don’t look familiar at all and nothing makes sense, but there’s an idea forming the back of his mind that he can’t shake off. So, in the light of the moon, he hauls himself up. It takes a second glance to realize that there’s a convenient pile of clothes in the hollowed-out trunk of a nearby tree, which he gladly swipes before stumbling down to the nearby river.
This body of his is uncoordinated.
One look at his reflection in the river has him wondering if the moonlight is playing tricks on him. He doesn’t look quite like…himself. Or, he does, but there’s also traces of someone else there for some reason. Like his face is made with six parts of his own features and four parts of another’s.
Either way, it confirms that this is very much not his body. That idea in the back of his mind starts to take on a more solid shape.
The water is cold, but he’s certainly not going to put on new clothes whilst covered in dirt. He half-wishes for some scissors to cut off this ridiculous length of hair, but he supposes that can wait. He reaches for the pile and shakes out the top article—
It’s a robe. Like the kind of thing used in costuming for historical dramas.
He blinks at it.
Alright, it’s all but confirmed—he’d hit the jackpot! He’d transmigrated!
Ah, what a strange entrance to a world though—buried in dirt in the middle of nowhere. He can’t recall any webnovels or manhua he’d read recently featuring a significant character rising from the dirt. He wasn’t transmigrated into some universe he knows nothing about, was he? That would suck.
It’s also possible he’d transmigrated into some background, cannon fodder character.
…He’s not sure which would suck more.
After spending ages figuring out how to arrange the (four!) layers of historical clothing, he doubles back to that hollowed-out tree and confirms that he’d missed the pair of boots tucked away on his first look. He gladly puts them on.
The clothes feel like some sort of clue; clearly someone knew about his presence in the dirt and planned for him to emerge. The problem is that he has no idea who that is, how to contact them, or whether they’d come to check on him. Should he wait?
…No, what kind of transmigrator just sits and waits around after waking up in a new world?!
Shaking his head, he sets off down the hill. It looks like there’s a small town in the distance.
After some investigating, it seems he’d lucked out even further; he doesn’t have some shitty System telling him what to do! Those things are always so annoying in isekai stories—restricting the transmigrator’s actions, punishing them for doing something ‘wrong,’ etc, etc. He’d probably tear his own hair out if he had to deal with one!
…Then again, it would be nice if some sort of pop-up could just tell him, real quick, where the hell he is. What world is this?
But it’s okay. He’s an easygoing person who can go with the flow and figure things out as they come and—
The cawing of a crow turns his attention to the branch it’s perched on. Fully lit in the glow of the moon, its features are easily discernible—ten eyes grouped together like that of a spider with a body consisting only of a skeleton. The featherless, skeletal crow tilts its head curiously at him, then caws again.
Is that—
Is that a Many-Eyed Corpse Crow?!
He nearly chokes on the spot, stumbling back a bit. No way. It couldn’t be.
Did he transmigrate into Proud Immortal Demon Way???
It turns out that that ‘weird buzzing’ in his veins is actually spiritual energy—who knew? With no frame of reference other than cobbled-together theories from various xianxia stories he’d read, he practices molding and using qi for various purposes. Oddly enough, this body of his seems to have a sort of muscle memory and responds pretty easily. Thank goodness for that.
As he descends the mountain he’d exhumed himself from, he comes across various other creatures that further confirm that he had, indeed, transmigrated into Proud Immortal Demon Way.
As someone completely irrelevant, apparently.
No matter how much he wracks his brain, he can’t recall any sort of plot, sub-plot, or wife plot that involved someone emerging from dirt and encountering Luo Binghe. Which is just fine with him, honestly, because being a relevant male character is pretty much a death flag. All the relevant women go to Bing-ge’s harem, and all the relevant men die as villains or cannon fodder.
So it’s safe to say he’d rather be irrelevant.
Also, thank goodness he’d had no means to cut his hair earlier! In a setting like this, that would have branded him as some sort of criminal or something. Not nondescript!
He’d found a small pouch of money in one of his sleeves (and really, he can’t help but be curious about his mysterious benefactor) which he uses to purchase some food in the small village he comes across. He also purchases a basic-looking sword, a ribbon for his hair, a weimao,1 and—after his eyes linger on it for long enough—a nice-looking fan. The fan feels like a comfort as he waves it, which is a bit odd. It’s not like he was in the habit of using such things in his past life. Maybe, like the qi habits, it’s simply something ingrained in this body of his.
Does that mean he’d stolen someone else’s life?
Well, that’s not uncommon in transmigration stories, and since he has no idea who he could possibly be, it’s hard to feel more than the slightest pinprick of guilt over the matter. As he ties up his hair in a high tail that can still fit under the weimao (honestly, he can accept that he needs to have long hair in this setting, but damn if he’s going to deal with it draped all over himself), he chats with the owner of the stall to try to get a gauge for where he’s at in Proud Immortal Demon Way’s timeline. Said stall owner knows a convenient amount of information, all things considered.
Luo Binghe is in charge of Huan Hua Palace.
Alright, that’s good to know. That places him squarely after the Abyss but still relatively early on in the two-hundred-year timeline of the story.
Bai Zhan’s peak lord, Liu Qingge, storms Huan Hua nearly every day to challenge Luo Binghe in combat.
That’s…huh?! Liu Qingge, the muscle-y power fantasy guy? Wasn’t he supposed to die way early on—killed by Shen Qingqiu while Luo Binghe was still a disciple? How the hell is he still alive?
For a moment, he wonders if Liu Qingge is another transmigrator. But—no. No transmigrator with any sense would throw themselves against Bing-ge’s OP-ness like that. Especially not this late in the story, after he’s broken his demonic seal and retrieved Xin Mo. That’s like asking for death!
…To that point, why hasn’t Luo Binghe killed Liu Qingge? The protagonist has certainly killed stronger people for lesser transgressions. Why allow Liu Qingge to live and keep challenging him? Why is Liu Qingge challenging him in the first place?
Luo Binghe is in possession of his late master’s dead body.
What?
Shen Qingqiu self-detonated five years ago in Hua Yue City.
Huh?!
Luo Binghe also kidnapped Qian Cao Peak’s Mu Qingfang in hopes of trying to revive Shen Qingqiu.
…
…Alright, don’t ask any more questions. Clearly, there has to be something or someone messing up the whole plot for things to end up like this. The dots are easy enough to connect—this version of Shen Qingqiu must have determined that death is preferable to the endless torture Luo Binghe would instill as revenge, and so killed himself. However, such an easy end could never be satisfactory to Bing-ge, who is now dead set on reviving his old master so that he can torture and kill him himself. As for Liu Qingge…there’s still the question of how he’s alive, but his motivations seem a bit more clear; even if he hated Shen Qingqiu, Cang Qiong Mountain Sect was always known for banding together and protecting their own no matter what. A grievous offense like holding onto the body of one of their peak lords instead of allowing it to be properly buried can’t go unchallenged.
Of course, that only makes sense at this point in the timeline. Later on, when Luo Binghe razes Cang Qiong Mountain to the ground and becomes the Supreme Emperor of the three realms, no one would dare challenge him over something like this.
Either way, it’s none of my business! As an insignificant NPC, he has no reason to try to get involved in this fucked-up version of the plot. What’s more, doing so would likely only raise a death flag. No thanks! He’s perfectly content to live out his days observing the (admittedly interesting) flora and fauna of this world for the next hundred-or-so years until Bing-ge merges the realms and (probably) kills him in the process. A quiet life idled away in obscurity—what more could he want?
The stall owner who had been very helpful and informative smiles and tilts her head. “By the way, Daozhang, I forgot to ask—what’s your name?”
He gives a pleasant and kind smile and says, “Shen Yuan.”
Armed with a charcoal pencil and an empty booklet, Shen Yuan starts traversing the world and taking note of the interesting things he encounters. It’s no decision at all to turn around and hurry away from the borderlands—no encounters with demons yet, please! Let this one get a better handle on sword fighting and qi usage first!
He wanders aimlessly, following a main road and stopping often to ooh and ahh at an interesting plant or creature, as well as sketch them in his notebook with some notes.
Volcano Swallow-wort: Good for recovering someone from frostbite and hypothermia.
Jade Ash Squirrel: Cool-looking but mostly insignificant. Abundant in the borderlands.
Venomous Parsley: What it says on the tin.
Aromatic Cave Pig: Not the pleasant kind of aromatic. Also, very territorial. Also also, somehow tastes more like chicken than pork.
Solar Itchweed: An aphrodisiac. Makes one break out in itchy hives until they papapa (He steers clear of them).
Glacial Assassin Viper: Their venom is potent enough to freeze a grown man with one bite.
Little-Death Dewberry: An aphrodisiac. Consuming one will make you hot and bothered with twenty-four hours to live unless you papapa.
Naughty Walking Lavender: An aphrodisiac.
Prurient Echoberry: An aphrodisiac.
Wedding Night Wormwood: An aphrodisiac.
Moonlight Passionfruit: …
…
…
Shen Yuan rubs the space between his brows. He’d briefly forgotten that he’d transmigrated into a porn novel. Good thing he has the sense not to just poke at random plants he encounters.
He trips and falls into a field of Bouncing Joy Tansies. The less said about it, the better.
(At least it isn’t a plant that requires a second participant.)
Shen Yuan continues in this way for a few months. He grinds and levels up his cultivation and sword skills enough to reasonably claim to be a rogue cultivator and perform odd jobs for money whenever he finds himself in a town. He saves up for a qiankun pouch and various supplies. The sword he has is just a plain sword, and spiritual swords aren’t exactly easy to come by if one isn’t part of a sect, so he also saves up for a horse.
It’s a rather gentle, cream-colored mare. He names her Bai Lian.2 It just felt right.
Bai Lian is a lovely travel companion and a very good listener, which makes him much less self-conscious about the habit he’s picked up of talking to himself. He’s been alone for months, okay? Besides, now he’s talking to Bai Lian, which is much less pathetic.
Ahem.
Unbeknownst to Shen Yuan, he’s nowhere near as nondescript as he thinks he is. The sight of a pretty-faced cultivator in pale green robes and a white-veiled weimao riding atop a white horse is more along the lines of ‘captivating’ than ‘nondescript,’ and various heads turn in his direction whenever he rides through a town. The white veil slightly obscuring his face only adds to the allure by creating mystery, and a number of the more bold commonfolk try to call out to him.
“Daozhang, Daozhang! Does the handsome daozhang need more cinnabar ink for his talismans?”
“Daozhang-gege, buy some fresh loquats! I’ll give you the first one free if you call me meimei!”
“Daozhang, try some of our fine wine—extra strong! If the immortal master can drink ten jars without passing out, I’ll change my last name to yours!”
The people in this town sure seem desperate for a sale, Shen Yuan thinks. Do they not see much in the way of travelers and new customers?
With this conclusion in mind, he indulges a few of the people calling out to him and pays no mind to how some of them blush during their conversations. It’s a rather warm day, after all.
He takes a wrong turn and finds himself lost in the middle of a forest.
Look, the map he’d bought turned out to be a lot shittier than it seemed, okay? And he certainly hadn’t suspected that a wide, easy-to-follow road would lead to a seemingly never-ending forest with trees that feel like they’re repeating and—
Wait. The trees are repeating. He’s definitely seen that oak before.
A cold sweat breaks out on Shen Yuan’s back. He’s stuck in a maze array. A good one, at that. Even if he thought with his toes, he’d easily be able to guess whose territory he’s in.
Fuck, I really should have bought a better map!
No sooner does he think these words than a patrol of two disciples in Huan Hua gold appear on the road and approach them. Bai Lian is far from a skittish horse, but she flicks her ears and tosses her head ever-so-slightly at the sight of them. Shen Yuan narrows his eyes, recalling how in PIDW, Luo Binghe had brought human-passing demons into Huan Hua palace to further solidify his power within the sect. One or both of these people must be a demon.
The plain-faced boy on the left takes in Shen Yuan’s appearance, noting the veil obscuring his visage, the insignia-free robes and the sword on his hip, and draws the correct conclusion. He bows slightly. “May this one ask what brings a rogue cultivator into Huan Hua territory?”
The other one is a sweet-faced girl with a bored expression who would rather examine her nails than even look at Shen Yuan. She’s pretty enough to be one of Bing-ge’s wives, but that begs the question of why she’d be out performing menial tasks like patrolling the borders. Perhaps he hasn’t taken notice of her yet?
Shen Yuan inclines his head. “Ah, so that explains the maze array. This one had no intention of wandering into a great sect’s territory, but it seems I must have taken a wrong turn. Apologies for the inconvenience; this one would appreciate simply being guided out so he can continue on his way.”
His voice is calm and cool, belying none of the panicked chorus of fuck repeating in his head. It’s alright; he’s just an insignificant NPC. As much as Shen Yuan would admittedly love to catch a glimpse of the protagonist in all his glory, he’d very much like to keep his risk of death as low as possible, thank you. Luo Binghe surely has too many things on his mind to pay any attention to a rogue cultivator who accidentally wandered into his territory—
A stiff breeze sweeps through the trees, blowing back his veil and revealing his face. The boy gives a start and the girl’s eyes widen, actually looking at him now.
After the wind dies down and his face is covered again, the two disciples clear their throats and exchange a look, and then the boy bows again. “We would be happy to escort the master on his way. May this one ask for the master’s name?”
“Shen Yuan.”
They exchange another look.
Shen Yuan doesn’t realize that he’s been duped until they arrive at the gates of Huan Hua Palace.