Too Hasty

Too Hasty

Pei Renli had lived an ordinary life from childhood to adulthood. He was neither exceptionally gifted nor fabulously wealthy, but as mentioned before, creative works needed logic. Reality did not.

So right now, he felt...

Unbelievable?

Or perhaps "completely dumbfounded" was more accurate.

He had heard of transmigration before, but he had never expected it to happen to him. Other people who transmigrated either arrived amid miraculous omens, with the whole world chanting their name, or they cultivated a breath of innate true qi while still in the womb.

Yet he had transmigrated while sitting on a toilet, taking the toilet with him...

Truly, he was no ordinary man.

Only after the person who had just spoken to him left the room to find some paper did Pei Renli stand up from the toilet. He had seemed so calm just now solely because he had not processed what was happening.

He had merely wanted to experience taking a paid dump and slack off for a bit. How had he suddenly transmigrated?

He clearly needed some time to calm down. Asking for paper had only been an attempt to see whether he could send her away. He had not even taken off his pants. So he quickly sat back down...

—Of course, it was also possible that his legs were a little weak.

He casually shoved his phone back into his pocket and pinched his thigh hard, confirming that he was not dreaming before Pei Renli looked around.

Although there was only a flickering candle in the room, and its flame was extremely dim, it was enough to barely see by.

This was a very classical, and very luxurious, room.

Every piece of furniture was inlaid with gold trim. Several paintings that looked expensive hung on walls covered in pale green patterned wallpaper.

Directly in front of him was a mahogany door. To the left was a four-poster bed with a canopy, the kind he had only ever seen on a screen.

Looking down, beneath the flushing toilet that had transmigrated with him was an exquisite carpet. Perhaps because of the water in the toilet, a large patch of the carpet had been soaked.

He suddenly worried that he could not afford to pay for it...

Turning around, he saw a writing desk with an ink bottle, a quill pen, some books arranged in a simple bookshelf, and a crystal ball that seemed to be made of something similar to glass, pressing a dent into its velvet cushion.

That was roughly what the surroundings looked like, and it confirmed for Pei Renli that he truly had transmigrated.

After all, one second he had been playing on his phone in the bathroom under the guise of taking a dump. The next, his vision had been swallowed by white light, and when it cleared, he was suddenly in an entirely different place. Transmigration was the only explanation.

His expression abruptly changed. He reached down and felt around, discovering that what should have been there was still there. He immediately let out a breath of relief.

These days, quite a few people transmigrated and changed sex. Pei Renli clearly had no desire to become one of them...

From that perspective, he truly was no ordinary man.

After taking a moment to recover and feeling the numbness from sitting too long lessen somewhat, he stood up and planned to inspect the furnishings properly.

At that moment, the mahogany door directly opposite him thumped twice. The woman he had seen earlier pushed it open and entered, holding a stack of...

It should have been toilet paper, right?

As far as she was concerned, it did not matter what Pei Renli wanted paper for. If he asked for it, she would go find it.

Seeing Pei Renli standing up, she placed the toilet paper on the cabinet beside the door, lowered her head respectfully, and said:

"You must have many questions right now, but please do not panic."

Of course he had questions, such as how exactly Pei Renli had transmigrated.

She said:

"You may call me Lavna. I am your loyal servant. Everything here, including all this property, will belong to you, as long as you are willing to..."

"I'm in. Tell me what you need me to do."

Pei Renli answered so decisively that it was practically a reflex. Lavna hesitated instead and cautiously asked:

"You will not consider it first?"

"Things are so competitive these days. A deal where they hand you property and throw in a female secretary only exists in dreams."

Although Lavna did not understand what "competitive" meant, nor did she know that Pei Renli had agreed so readily because the rat race had left him traumatized, it did not stop her from letting out a huge sigh of relief when she heard him agree.

A prophecy was only a prophecy, after all. No one could be certain what the real situation would be.

"Oh, right. What did you say I had to be willing to do?"

Only then did Pei Renli remember that. Only then did he belatedly notice that the person speaking to him seemed to have a pair of horns on her head?

The moment he realized that, a sudden dizziness overwhelmed Pei Renli's mind. He could see Lavna, the horned unknown creature who looked human, opening and closing her mouth as though speaking, but her voice was blurry, like a radio with poor reception.

In the end, his vision went black.

The feeling of that was too hasty lingered in his chest before he completely lost consciousness.

In terms of sensation, dreamless sleep was not much different from unconsciousness. It was difficult to feel time passing.

When Pei Renli regained consciousness, he could feel himself lying on a soft bed.

With his eyes still closed, he stretched hard, enjoying the faint, satisfying cracks from his joints. He even mockingly thought that he had somehow dreamed of transmigrating.

But when he opened his eyes, he saw an unfamiliar ceiling.

"So I really did transmigrate..."

Unable to help himself, he patted his forehead to wake himself up, then sat up with the soft bedding beneath him supporting him.

He was on the luxurious bed he had seen before. Judging by the indentation in the pillow, he had slept—or rather, been unconscious—for quite some time.

Pei Renli got out of bed and looked around. The toilet that had transmigrated with him had actually been solemnly placed atop a cabinet, as though it were some ornament worth showing off...

Having just gotten up, Pei Renli felt a faint stabbing pain, as if someone were repeatedly hammering the inside of his head with a small mallet.

His heart was filled with questions. He had suddenly transmigrated, then suddenly fallen unconscious. What the hell was going on?

Feeling along the edge of the bedsheet, Pei Renli shuffled to the bedside and saw the sandals he had worn here placed neatly below. The fact that he was lying in bed had probably also been Lavna's doing.

But Lavna was not in the room. It was empty except for Pei Renli himself.

He got out of bed and put on his shoes. Enduring the lingering headache and dizziness, Pei Renli thought it over briefly and decided to go outside and take a look.

Things had developed too quickly, like a roller coaster.

One second he had been playing on his phone; the next, he had transmigrated. And just after accepting that fact, he had inexplicably fallen unconscious. After that entire chain of events, even Pei Renli, who considered himself highly adaptable, felt unable to keep up.

He desperately needed someone to explain what was happening. Never mind whether the pair on Lavna's head were really horns—she was currently the only person he could properly communicate with, yet she was nowhere nearby. So Pei Renli decided to head out and look for her.

The heavy mahogany door was not locked. A casual push opened it. Once he stepped outside, the first thing he saw was another large door.

Compared with the mahogany door to the room, this one was a double door and enormous, nearly as large as a small city gate.

Looking to either side, he found himself in a corridor.

It was entirely built from cut stone bricks, with a "torch" emitting dim blue light set into the walls every few meters.

Following the corridor with his eyes, it seemed to connect to many rooms. He could see quite a few mahogany doors similar in style to the one he had emerged from. The sight made him think he might be inside a castle, which felt rather novel.

However, the blue-flamed torches were simply too far beyond common sense, so Pei Renli did not dare approach them casually. After looking left and right, he reached out and pushed the heavy double doors before him.

The doors were much lighter than expected. With barely any effort, he opened a gap wide enough to pass through. Damp yet unusually fresh air poured in through the opening, and Pei Renli, who had been suffering from dizziness and a headache, felt instantly invigorated.

But when he walked outside, he discovered that beyond the doors was actually a natural cave with no signs of human construction whatsoever.

The uneven ground and shadows cast by inverted stalactites and sharp stalagmites filled his view. The air that had seemed fresh moments ago now felt more like a cold, damp wind, raising dense goosebumps across Pei Renli's skin. No wonder there had been no windows in either the room or the corridor.

The cave was not dark, however, because it was too short—at most around ten meters. Standing beside the doors, Pei Renli could see the bright sunlight outside at a glance through the slightly winding cave.

Humans, like insects, were phototactic creatures. Seeing sunlight instinctively made them feel safe, and Pei Renli was no exception.

He hesitated briefly, but in the end, his curiosity and urgent desire for an explanation won out. Step by step, he walked over the uneven rocks toward the cave entrance.

The abrupt change from darkness to brightness made him raise a hand to shield his eyes. Once his eyes adjusted to the strong light, he saw a scene that this city boy, who had lived in urban areas his entire life, had never seen with his own eyes.

Lush trees crowded densely before him. It was impossible to tell where they ended, because farther away there was only green—at most varying shades of dark green, pale green, and deep green.

A small river roughly four or five meters wide wound through the nearby woods. The babbling of the water mixed with birdsong and insect calls from the forest. Crystal-clear droplets still clung to leaves and branches, sparkling in the bright sunshine, as though a heavy rain had fallen only recently.

Following the river's course, he could clearly see a body of water to his left—not quite a lake, more like a large pond. Bubbles occasionally rose from the water, perhaps from fish below.

It was probably morning. A faint milky-white mist still lingered among the trees and over the water, creating an air of mystery.

He was in the middle of a vast primeval forest with no end in sight. That was Pei Renli's first impression.

"You're awake?"

Just as Pei Renli was observing his surroundings, a voice came from his right.

Turning his head, he saw Lavna standing there at some point, carrying a woven basket. Inside it, the most eye-catching thing was a wild chicken with brilliantly multicolored feathers...