Transmigration

"Ugh, my head hurts. I knew I shouldn't have drunk so much..."

Qi Fei blearily opened his eyes.

A purple bed curtain came into view, making him feel a little puzzled.

He remembered that his bed at home didn't have anything like this.

Just as Qi Fei was about to get up and investigate, a rustling sound beside him caught his attention. He glanced over without thinking.

The instant he looked, Qi Fei was wide awake.

There was a woman who seemed both unfamiliar and familiar, and she looked like a foreigner, too.

Her features were more defined than those of most Asian women, and her long, pale-blond hair gave her an exotic air.

Someone had set me up.

Those four words appeared in Qi Fei's mind in an instant.

He'd heard that some hospital departments couldn't resist temptation and would join pharmaceutical reps for all sorts of improper eating, drinking, and entertainment.

Then the police would happen to pass by and take the whole department down in one fell swoop.

Apparently, he'd run into something similar.

And his situation was even worse.

At least those people were fully conscious as they ate, drank, and enjoyed themselves.

He'd been drunk and tossed into bed. He hadn't gotten to enjoy a thing before they caught him in a compromising position and forced him onto their pirate ship.

No. He couldn't just accept his fate. He had to run.

Qi Fei made up his mind in an instant.

Those bastards wanted to drag him into their scheme without even letting him have any fun first. They were absolutely shameless.

He couldn't let them get their way.

Qi Fei immediately looked around, trying to find a way to escape.

He'd already made up his mind.

Once he got out, he'd borrow a phone from a passerby and call the police, teaching those bastards a harsh lesson.

Then, as Qi Fei looked around, he discovered something even more despairing.

There wasn't just one woman in the bed.

Besides the blond foreigner, there were two more.

One was a mature beauty with blue streaks in her black hair, and the other was a silver-haired girl.

Damn, they'd even ordered the special package.

So they'd framed him with a whole scenario, too?

Qi Fei was even more furious.

Just you wait, you bastards. Even if I get locked up for a few days, I'm taking all of you down with me.

But just as Qi Fei was about to get out of bed and flee, the pale-blond foreigner beside him seemed to wake at his movements.

She shifted her position, then opened her eyes while Qi Fei watched in despair.

The foreigner yawned as she woke, then propped herself up in bed.

Qi Fei, who'd been single since birth, glanced over without thinking.

That would have been fine, except the sight drew him in with an irresistible force, making him marvel at the power of gravity.

But Qi Fei quickly looked away.

It was a beautiful sight, but this wasn't the time to admire it.

His top priority was figuring out how to keep her calm, then seize an opportunity to escape and call the police.

"My lord?"

The foreigner sounded puzzled.

What was strange was that she wasn't speaking a language Qi Fei knew.

Not Chinese, Japanese, or English...

Even stranger, Qi Fei understood her perfectly.

The bizarre situation made Qi Fei question his own mind, and he hesitated for a moment.

Then the foreigner seized that moment, lunged at him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him on the mouth.

Qi Fei couldn't dodge in time and got a solid kiss.

Qi Fei tried to break free and escape, but the woman was unbelievably strong. He couldn't get away.

Even more despairingly, perhaps because of the commotion he'd made while struggling, the silver-haired girl on the other side woke up, too.

She looked at the two of them kissing, mumbled something, then burrowed under the covers.

"It's over."

Tears welled in the corners of Qi Fei's eyes.

It was over. It was all over.

This wasn't a setup after all.

Perhaps because his little head was connected to Qi Fei's big head, memories gradually flooded into his mind as the battle raged.

By the time the chaos had ended, he'd managed to sort through most of them.

"So I wasn't framed. I crossed over to another world?"

Qi Fei lay in bed resting, muttering to himself.

According to the memories he'd obtained, this place was the Yulan Continent, in the Fenlai Kingdom, one of the many kingdoms in the Holy Union.

It was also where Linley Baruch, the protagonist of the novel Coiling Dragon, had been born.

As for whether it was just a coincidence that the names matched, and this wasn't really the world of the novel—

Qi Fei could guarantee that it wasn't a coincidence.

The most glorious moment in the Cadmus Family's history, according to the original owner's memories, was when their ancestor, three generations back, had fought an even match against a Level 9 Warrior from the Dragonblood Warrior Clan.

—Of course, that was before the other man transformed. Once a Level 9 Dragonblood Warrior transformed, he became a Saint Realm expert and could beat an ordinary Level 9 Warrior to a pulp.

In that respect, Qi Fei and the original owner had quite a bit in common.

Qi Fei was called Qi Fei because the director of the orphanage where he'd grown up loved the dragon-slaying epic, the Nibelungenlied.

The names of the children in their orphanage mostly came from it.

For example, Sieg, Qi Fei (Siegfried), and Siegfried...

And as it happened, the original owner's family had some connection to this world's Dragonblood Family.

Could the reason he'd crossed over be so he could deal with the protagonist of the original story, Linley of the Dragonblood Family?

I'm supposed to take on the Controller of Hongmeng, who can create worlds?

Seriously?

Qi Fei forcefully shook his head, clearing away the distracting thoughts, then continued sorting through the memories.

In short, although the ancestor's battle had only been a friendly spar, it had still won the Cadmus Family tremendous prestige.

The Cadmus Family had consequently become one of the top families in the Fenlai Kingdom.

Unfortunately, later generations of the family had little talent for cultivation.

Forget Level 9 Warriors—even Level 7 Warriors had become rare.

Their ancestor's wish—that one of his descendants would reach the Saint Realm and fight a Dragonblood Warrior—had never come true.

The Cadmus Family had gradually declined.

That was, until the original owner's father was born.

By his early thirties, the original owner's father had reached the level of an Level 8 Warrior.

That kind of talent might not have meant much to the protagonists of other stories, but to ordinary people, it was already remarkable.

The future he'd longed for—breaking through to the Saint Realm and fulfilling his ancestor's hopes—had seemed within reach.

Then, as these things tended to do, things had gone wrong.

The original owner's father had met an unfortunate end while adventuring in the Magical Beast Mountain Range. The original owner's mother, a Level 7 Great Magus, hadn't survived either.

The Cadmus Family's promising revival had been cut short.

Even Qi Fei, who'd lived in a peaceful age, could tell that there had to be something fishy going on.

The original owner, who'd grown up on the Yulan Continent, naturally understood that, too.

But there was nothing he could do. Back then, he'd been just a Level 5 Warrior.

A Level 5 Warrior was the bare minimum for a captain of the guard in one of the great families of the Fenlai Kingdom.

In that situation, the original owner couldn't investigate who was behind it. He could barely even protect himself.

So he acted decisively, handing over all the businesses his father had acquired while rising to power to the Fenlai Royal Family.

At the same time, he announced that he would return to the family's estate, leave the royal capital, and withdraw from the struggle for power and wealth.

To further lull whoever was behind it into a false sense of security, the original owner had even bought three beautiful maids.

He'd spent every night carousing with them, acting like he'd completely given up on himself.

All those measures had worked.

The original owner had not only made it out of the royal capital unharmed, but the royal family had also let him keep a tenth of the profits from his businesses.

—A tenth of the businesses built by an Level 8 Warrior was enough to ensure the original owner would live comfortably for the rest of his life.

If the original owner had been the protagonist, what came next would have been a story of enduring humiliation and biding his time, before finally rising to victory against impossible odds.

Unfortunately, he wasn't.

The extravagant, debauched life quickly eroded his will.

Six years passed, and the original owner had completely abandoned the idea of finding out the truth.

During those years of reckless living, his cultivation had fallen from Level 5 to Level 2.

In fact, if not for the Dou Qi in his body, he wouldn't even have been able to hold on to his Level 2 cultivation.

Because his constitution was so weak, he'd caught a chill while playing in the water with the maids two days ago and fallen ill.

Under normal circumstances, he should have rested properly and waited until he'd recovered before doing anything strenuous.

But the original owner refused.

Last night, after holding back all day, he'd insisted that he was already well and had gone on to enjoy himself with the maids.

Then he'd died in bed.

And that was how the transmigrator Qi Fei had taken over his body.

"..."

Qi Fei sat up in bed in silence.

That rather imaginative way to die had certainly shaken him, a lifelong bachelor.

He'd rather believe that someone had secretly poisoned the original owner than believe he'd died like that.

But all the signs in his memories showed that this was reality.

If whoever was behind it had wanted to kill him, they could have done so long ago. They wouldn't have waited until his cultivation was completely ruined before going to the trouble of assassinating him.

And the current Fenlai Royal Family wouldn't have allowed the original owner to die under mysterious circumstances.

That wasn't just because the Fenlai Royal Family had taken all the businesses the original owner's father had built. The original owner himself was a symbol.

He symbolized the rules of the game played by the kingdom's nobles.

All of the great families had been passed down for hundreds or even thousands of years. Their fortunes rose and fell. That was normal.

When you lost a power struggle, all you had to do was give up your interests and retreat to your estate to lick your wounds.

That way, everyone else would leave you alone.

It was an unspoken rule among the great noble families.

Otherwise, if every struggle ended with one side trying to kill the other's entire family and wipe out their line, who could stand it?

So Qi Fei had no choice but to accept reality.

"My lord, are you getting up?"

Elena, the pale-blond foreigner Qi Fei had seen first, asked.

The other two were Nancy, the mature beauty with streaks in her black hair, and Aisha, the silver-haired girl.

They were the three maids the original owner had bought.

The maids had all cultivated a special water-type Battle Qi Secret Manual, which was why they had such fair skin and beautiful looks. The original owner had been very fond of them.

Elena, in particular, had recently broken through to the level of a Level 3 Warrior.

No wonder he hadn't been able to push her away earlier.

"Mm. I'm going to get up and practice my Dou Qi. Otherwise, I won't be able to keep up with you when we're having fun."

Qi Fei imitated the original owner's manner of speaking.

The original owner had made some attempts to work hard along the way, and he'd used the same excuse: he wanted to have more fun with the maids.

—Except for the first time, when he managed to keep it up for a month, he usually didn't last even a week.

So Qi Fei's excuse didn't arouse the maids' suspicions. As usual, they got up and helped him wash and dress.

"I wonder if it's too late now."

Qi Fei thought to himself in silence.

He'd suddenly decided to cultivate not just because he was curious about supernatural powers, but more importantly because he felt unsafe.

The person behind the original owner's father's death was one reason. Another was that the entire Fenlai Kingdom would face disaster in the future.

In the original story, the protagonist, Linley, had once obtained an artifact in the Magical Beast Mountain Range called the Violet Blood Soft Sword.

But the artifact had actually been one of the supports holding in place the magic array sealing the breach in the Plane Prison.

Not long after Linley drew the artifact, a magical beast of divine rank escaped from the Plane Prison.

To seize faith for itself, it united the many magical beasts in the Magical Beast Mountain Range after escaping.

Later, it launched an attack on human cities, seizing half the territory of both the Light Alliance and the Dark Alliance.

The Fenlai Kingdom, a core region of the Light Alliance, was among the occupied lands, too.

As for the people in those places,

except for a handful of powerful individuals who managed to escape, almost everyone else ended up as food for the magical beasts.

Qi Fei, who had lived a second lifetime, naturally refused to accept such an outcome.

"First, I'll do my best to recover my original body's strength as a warrior. At the same time, I'll send people to find out what Linley is up to and confirm when we are."

Qi Fei planned his next steps in his mind.

If Linley hadn't graduated from the magic academy yet, Qi Fei would still have plenty of time to train.

The stronger he was, the safer he'd be if he went elsewhere.

This world was nothing like his previous one. Here, if you weren't strong, even going out could get you killed on the road.

But if Linley had already graduated and was planning to sell Dream Awakening, the stone sculpture he'd created after a heartbreak,

then there was no need to think about anything else. He should get out of there immediately.

The deadly magical beast siege had happened about half a year after Linley sold that sculpture.

As Qi Fei pondered, he ate breakfast, served by the maids.

Afterward, he summoned the castle's steward and asked which famous stone sculptures had appeared recently.

He wasn't worried that the order would arouse anyone's suspicion.

After all, nobles were allowed to have hobbies. That was especially true of stone sculpture, which had a long history on the Yulan Continent.

If your family didn't collect a few remarkable works, could you really claim to have a long and distinguished heritage?

"The sculptures scheduled for auction soon include Lion King and Wolf Pack, which depict magical beasts, as well as Divine Light and Angel, which praise the Holy See..."

The steward rattled off a long list of sculpture titles.

The name Qi Fei was worried about wasn't among them, which put him somewhat at ease.

"Are there any masterworks on the themes of beauty and love?"

To make sure he had the right information, Qi Fei asked one more question.

"No. Works of that type are usually personal in nature, so they're rarely put up for sale," the steward explained.

"What a shame."

Qi Fei sounded disappointed, but inwardly, he was delighted.

"If any sculptures of that kind come up in the future, be sure to let me know."

Everyone's lives depended on it.

"Yes, master."

The steward wasn't surprised by Qi Fei's instructions.

He simply assumed Qi Fei had grown bored and wanted to find something new to interest him.