First Arrival in Another World

Shi Nan felt as though his mind were a muddle. His whole body was groggy, as if he were locked in an endless, pitch-black dream, unable to move.

After an unknown amount of time, Shi Nan gradually regained his senses. He felt his limbs again and struggled to slowly open his eyes.

His gaze wandered, unfocused. Only after a long while did a spark of life gradually return to Shi Nan's eyes.

"Where is this...?"

Shi Nan felt that his body was incredibly weak. Even lifting a hand was difficult, so he could only laboriously shift his gaze and take in his current situation.

It was a room of modest size. In Shi Nan's eyes, its furnishings were rather old-fashioned and simple: a desk, a chair, and a wardrobe standing against the wall.

Beside the wardrobe stood a nearly person-tall mirror, facing Shi Nan where he lay.

Looking at the scene reflected in the mirror, Shi Nan's eyes suddenly widened.

The mirror showed a large bed with an antique look. A young man of about twenty lay upon it, handsome and delicate-featured, his gender difficult to discern. His hair was disheveled, and his face was full of shock.

"Is that... me?"

Shi Nan was startled. With difficulty, he propped himself up and sat against the bed, staring blankly at his hands.

The skin on these hands was fair and tender, and the fingers long and slender, like bamboo shoots emerging after rain. They were worlds apart from his former rough hands.

He'd only had a few extra drinks at a class reunion because an old classmate wouldn't stop urging him. How had he ended up here after falling asleep?

Before Shi Nan could think any further about his current predicament, an enormous stream of information surged into his mind. It came too fast, making his head throb as if it would split. He couldn't help closing his eyes and drawing a sharp breath.

The flood of information consisted of jumbled memories. Shi Nan struggled to sort through them.

"Lingyang Realm... human race... Chengtian Domain... Tenglong City... Shi Lan... eldest legitimate son of the Shi Clan... born with a worthless body?!"

After sorting through a small portion of the memories, Shi Nan couldn't wait to keep going. He excitedly opened his eyes, and brilliant light flickered in them.

"People transmigrate every year, and this year it's finally my turn! Heaven, you've treated me well!"

The eldest child of a great lineage, born with a worthless body—Shi Nan had seen and heard of this kind of transmigration setup at least eight hundred times, if not a thousand. Next, his cheat should arrive, and then he'd overcome one setback after another, growing stronger with each defeat until he finally reached the pinnacle of life!

At the thought, Shi Nan stared eagerly at the tightly shut door.

According to the usual formula, next a charming little maid who was utterly devoted and obedient to him should come in—or a genius younger sister, not related to him by blood, who'd grown up with him like childhood sweethearts. She'd push the door open and throw herself at him, overcome with excitement.

Shi Nan stared at the door for a long time. His eyes began to ache, but it remained completely still.

Maybe no one outside had heard him because he hadn't made a sound.

Shi Nan nodded to himself and let his gaze wander around, wondering how he could make some noise to draw someone inside.

Unfortunately, the room was far too sparsely furnished. There wasn't even a vase or any other decoration.

After hesitating, Shi Nan began to move with some difficulty, hoping to get out of bed and make a commotion.

But this body was far too weak. Shi Nan had only managed to shuffle to the edge of the bed, and before he could lower his legs, his body went limp and he rolled off.

"Thud—"

Shi Nan hit the wooden floor with a muffled bang.

He lay sprawled on the floor, his face scrunched up. He nearly lost his breath—the bed was way too high, at least a meter off the ground.

After a long while, no one had come in.

Slightly disappointed, Shi Nan caught his breath and continued sorting through the memories in his mind.

After a good while, Shi Nan opened his eyes. The first thing he did was roll over, raise his middle finger to the sky, and unleash a full barrage of curses.

Shi Nan—or rather, Shi Lan—had lost the sparkle that had been in her eyes. They were now dull and lifeless.

Her grand dream of following in the footsteps of her transmigrated predecessors, making waves in this otherworldly land, living a free and unrestrained life, and building a harem of beauties had already gone up in smoke, reduced to absurd nonsense.

Shi Lan had only one thought now: she wanted to go home.

After absorbing the memories left by the original owner, Shi Lan's heart was a field of ashes.

This was the Lingyang Realm, where the sky was round and the land square. Its circumference stretched an unknown number of millions of li, and ordinary people could spend their entire lives without finding its edge.

In the Lingyang Realm, the human, demon, and devil races divided the world between them. The human race occupied the Shenzhou Vast Land, the Demon Race ruled the boundless Demon Domain, and the Devil Race held the immeasurable Devil Cave. Clashes often broke out along the borders between the three races, and battles of all sizes were constant.

Here, martial cultivators could attain divine power, burn mountains and boil seas, and destroy peaks and cleave mountains with a turn of the hand. The mightiest could even ascend to the heavens to pluck stars and scoop down the moon.

All of this was beyond her understanding.

In the entire Lingyang Realm, only Shi Lan herself and her birth mother, Su Lanyue, knew that she was a girl. Even her cheap father, Shi Tianlu, had no idea.

The head of the Shi Clan of Tenglong City was so powerful that he could be said to have trampled the whole city beneath his feet.

When Shi Tianlu was young, he hadn't given a thought to having descendants. It wasn't until he was past fifty and stood at the pinnacle of Tenglong City that he began to consider passing on the family line.

For this purpose, Shi Tianlu took seven or eight wives and concubines. Su Lanyue was one of them.

However, martial powerhouses refined their vital essence into one, making it difficult to leave behind offspring. Conceiving a child was no easy matter.

In the blink of an eye, Shi Tianlu was nearly sixty, and he couldn't help growing anxious. So he made a promise: whoever bore the eldest legitimate child of the Shi Clan would become its matriarch.

The difference in status between an ordinary wife or concubine and the matriarch of a household couldn't be measured in words.

To secure Shi Tianlu's promise, the women of the inner courtyard each brought out their own tricks. All manner of folk remedies and secret methods were put to use.

Before long, there was news from the inner courtyard: two women had become pregnant at once, one of them Su Lanyue.

Su Lanyue was determined to claim the position of matriarch of the Shi Clan. She not only got her hands on labor-inducing medicine but also secretly asked someone to find a newborn boy, just in case.

After giving birth to Shi Lan, Su Lanyue used that baby boy to stage an elaborate switch, passing off the boy as the girl. She just barely managed to fool Shi Tianlu and get the position of matriarch as she'd wished.

The first thing Shi Tianlu did after picking up the child was check his cultivation aptitude. In the Lingyang Realm, where strength reigned supreme, power was the foundation of everything.

The boy's cultivation aptitude was abysmal. He was born with a worthless body and could only ever be an ordinary mortal.

In a foul mood after hearing this, Shi Tianlu didn't even give the child a name before hurrying off.

Later, to protect her position as matriarch, Su Lanyue had no choice but to let Shi Lan survive disguised as a boy. She couldn't bear to part with her own flesh and blood, either. Shi Lan had lived that way for nearly twenty years.

After digesting all this information, Shi Lan felt as if an invisible hand were gripping her throat, making it hard to breathe.

She didn't dare imagine what would happen if Shi Tianlu learned the truth. And now that she'd transmigrated into a woman with no ability to protect herself, how was she supposed to survive in the strength-first Lingyang Realm?

No wonder, even after she'd made such a racket and wailed for ages, nobody had come in. There wasn't a single family member nearby—not even a maid or servant.

The secret that Shi Lan was a girl concerned the lives of both her and Su Lanyue. Naturally, there could be no one else by her side.

Once outsiders knew a secret, it was no longer a secret.