So I Had Transmigrated After All

The State Preceptor in Xie Huizhou's memory was a madman.

Five years earlier.

Amid the chaos of war, every faction had been driven blood-mad. More than half of the Capital City had been reduced to ruins by slaughter, arson, and looting, with countless dead and wounded. Its former prosperity had vanished like passing clouds.

Soldiers fought all around him, and blades showed no mercy. Experiencing war for the first time across two lifetimes, Xie Huizhou was terrified. He huddled in a corner, clutching a saber.

So scary.

Zhang Lanhe wore no State Preceptor's robes. Instead, dressed in armor and mounted on a black horse, he slaughtered rebels in the streets. His features were striking, his handsome face aggressive. With effortless flicks of his sword, he sent several insufferably arrogant men flying, as though he alone were the ruler of the world.

His silver hair flew, and his dark green eyes stood out among the crowd. The contempt in them was as though he were looking at ants.

He looked toward Xie Huizhou, and his killing intent made Xie Huizhou, who had never seen a dead person before, shudder.

This is the State Preceptor? He looks less like a State Preceptor and more like an executioner. Or a general.

That was what Xie Huizhou thought.

Suddenly, Zhang Lanhe thrust his sword toward him, so swift and vicious that he seemed intent on killing him.

Xie Huizhou instinctively raised his saber to defend himself and stabbed back. The blade, sharp enough to slice through iron, wounded Zhang Lanhe.

Just as Xie Huizhou thought he was certain to die, the sword passed beside his temple and pierced the chest of a soldier who had been about to ambush him.

Warm blood sprayed over Xie Huizhou, leaving him even more disheveled and scaring him witless.

"Your young Highness, it is dangerous here. I shall take you somewhere safe."

All Xie Huizhou remembered was how violently the horse had jolted that day. The plot of the original novel filling his head had shocked him so badly that he had no time to think about much else.

Xie Huizhou realized with horror that he was short-lived cannon fodder.

Wasn't this the novel I read before?

Xie Huizhou had found this book, titled The Beloved Flower-Seeking Scholar Is Everyone's Darling, on his younger sister's bookshelf. A cannon-fodder character in it had exactly the same name as him, so he had started reading it out of boredom.

The story was simple.

After passing the imperial examination, Third Place in the Imperial Examination Zhou Yanqing encountered the young marquis, Fang Yuanke. The bickering pair met and got to know each other, and Fang Yuanke helped him out of trouble, beginning a tangled romance of pursuit and evasion.

Zhou Yanqing possessed an irresistible charm with nowhere to go, and every man who saw him found himself unable to walk away.

There was, for instance, the great general who fought on the battlefield, the prince regent who held immense power, and the State Preceptor who seemed as otherworldly as an immortal...

All sorts of delightfully messy Shura Fields erupted among them. They went mad for him, lost their minds over him, and pounded walls down for him.

The Shura Field between these men was seriously exciting.

Xie Huizhou had basic tastes. This kind of cheesy plot was his absolute favorite.

More, please. Thank you.

In the original novel, however, Xie Huizhou was a cannon-fodder prince who lusted after Third Place in the Imperial Examination's looks. Seeing how handsome Zhou Yanqing, the protagonist and bottom, was, he developed lecherous intentions and used his status as a prince to threaten and entice him into submitting.

The villain Zhang Lanhe, who had never been able to forget Zhou Yanqing, killed Xie Huizhou. Fang Yuanke used this as a pretext to raise an army, swiftly gathering a sizable force, killing Zhang Lanhe and the imperial family, and becoming emperor, with Zhou Yanqing assisting him throughout.

From then on, Fang Yuanke and Zhou Yanqing lived sweetly together, creating a deeply moving tale of a ruler and his minister.

The entire novel was a sweet little treat.

If he had not been the cannon fodder destined to be killed, he would actually have shipped this couple quite hard.

Damn it!

Everyone lusted after the protagonist's body, so why was I the only one who couldn't-and got killed for it, too!

Where was the justice in that?!

Thinking of his miserable ending, Xie Huizhou wanted to cry but had no tears. He had barely lived a few years, and he was going to die again.

Xie Huizhou had never been someone who sat around waiting to die. If fate was unfair, he would fight it to the end.

From then on, Xie Huizhou had planned to pack his valuables as soon as an opportunity arose, fake his death, escape the imperial palace, and live as a wealthy man. With the whole wide world before him, no one would ever find him.

He had already secretly bought plenty of houses and land in different places, enough to become a landlord under a new name. If all else failed, he could simply switch to a farming life.

To hell with all those struggles for imperial power.

I'm not becoming a sacrifice for your romance.

Who could have known that the two of them, whom he had thought would never have another chance to meet in this lifetime, would cross paths again because of a cup of drugged wine?

Xie Huizhou's head was about to burst. "I ended up in bed with the villain. This plot has gone completely wrong. I can't let him find out. I need to leave, now."

His most urgent task was to get away quickly and keep Zhang Lanhe from finding out that the person last night had been him.

As the State Preceptor, Zhang Lanhe was a clean freak and disliked strangers touching him.

He had heard that someone had once tried to take liberties with Zhang Lanhe, only to have both arms chopped off and be left crippled.

What he had done went far beyond merely taking liberties.

Run, before my death comes ahead of schedule.

Xie Huizhou quickly dressed and slipped away under cover of darkness.

The quiet departure of the person beside him ultimately disturbed the naturally vigilant Zhang Lanhe. His voice was husky, and he seemed far from sated. His green eyes opened in the darkness and locked onto his prey.

"Who are you? Don't go. Let me see your face."

Zhang Lanhe vaguely remembered that the person who had spent a passionate night with him was a beauty. That light figure moved like a breeze, a corner of his medicinally scented clothes slipping through Zhang Lanhe's hand and stirring his heart.

He did not dislike that scent. In fact, he liked it very much.

Interestingly, upon coming into contact with this person, certain things had quietly changed.

He wanted to keep these variables under his control.

"Don't go."

Hearing Zhang Lanhe's deep, magnetic voice, Xie Huizhou stiffened for an instant. Not daring to look back at all, he ran even faster, his slender back beneath his thin clothes a lovely sight.

How could he dare let the mercurial State Preceptor Zhang Lanhe know that the person who had spent a passionate night with him was Xie Huizhou?

Didn't I have any dignity?

Xie Huizhou knew all too well how formidable this State Preceptor was, a man who had confiscated the estates of three powerful ministers and exterminated their families in a single day. No one could tell what he was thinking.

Once he was discovered, he would either be killed ahead of schedule for defiling the State Preceptor or be locked up by this immensely powerful man.

He wanted neither outcome.

He might as well treat tonight as a dog bite. As long as he refused to admit it even under pain of death, no one could do anything to him.

"I'm ugly, so I won't offend your eyes, my lord. Besides, your technique was terrible. I didn't like it."

In an instant, Xie Huizhou bolted outside in one headlong rush, jumped into the lake, and swam away.

"May we never meet again, Lord State Preceptor. Let's just say we weren't meant to be, and never see each other again."

Didn't expect that, did you? I can swim!

Xie Huizhou vanished into the lake's dark waters.

By the time Zhang Lanhe came after him, the lake outside the window had already returned to stillness, and the mysterious youth was nowhere to be seen. His beautiful, dangerous eyes gradually turned cold.

The moisture masked Xie Huizhou's scent, preventing him from tracking the man.

The lake connected to waterways in every direction, with hidden currents surging beneath its surface. No one unfamiliar with the area would dare take this route.

Zhang Lanhe gave a cold snort and summoned his spies.

"Trying to run? Investigate. Who exactly was the person here last night?"