When I finally trudged back to our makeshift campsite—shouldering a bundle of damp firewood like a heavily fatigued martyr and clutching a few Golden Sun-Drop Fruits—I was fully prepared to find Xiaofan either crying, eaten by a demonic beast, or actively plotting my assassination for leaving her alone.
Instead, she was sitting neatly on a mossy log, looking impossibly fresh.
I, on the other hand, looked like a drowned rat that had miraculously survived a cycle in a washing machine, only to be dumped into a pile of aesthetic midnight-blue silk.
My tattered rags were damp, my hair was clinging to my cheeks in perfectly framed, tragic anime layers, and I was still radiating the profound existential dread of a man who had just realized his character model belonged in a reverse-harem otome game.
The moment I stepped into the clearing, Xiaofan froze.
Her jaw literally dropped.
She looked utterly stunned, staring at me as if a mythical nine-tailed fox had just sashayed out of the underbrush to hand her a tax assessment. She blinked once. Twice. She rubbed her eyes—exactly as I had done at the riverbank—as if trying to clear a glitch from her visual matrix.
When she finally confirmed that the shimmering, incredibly delicate-looking creature standing before her was, in fact, the same mud-encrusted goblin who had wandered off to "forage" twenty minutes ago, her expression melted into absolute amazement.
Her eyes went wide, round, and slightly sparkly.
"Gege...?" she whispered, her voice practically dripping with a newfound, terrifying level of respect
.
*Oh, great. The 'gege' has dropped.*
I winced internally. "Yeah, it's me. Don't look at me like that. I fell in the river. The river... had properties. Do not question the lore, Xiaofan."
"Gege is so beautiful," she murmured, still looking at me like I was a rare porcelain vase she accidentally found in a bargain bin.
"I am a rugged survivor of the wilderness," I corrected her firmly, setting the damp wood down with as much masculine authority as I could muster, which was severely undermined by a stray sunbeam hitting my hair and making it shimmer like a high-end shampoo commercial.
"Let's just eat."
That night, the atmosphere shifted completely. The awkward, suspicious tension from before was replaced by a strange, cozy reverence.
We roasted the Golden Sun-Drop Fruits—which tasted remarkably like warm mangoes infused with high-fructose corn syrup—and talked about absolutely nothing of substance, which suited me just fine.
My System was still completely dead, leaving me without a map, a status screen, or a snarky digital entity to yell at.
I was flying completely blind in a world where a single wrong step could get me turned into cultivation paste.
When morning came, the real trial began.
As we packed up our meager belongings, I turned to her, crossing my arms.
"Alright, kid. We can't wander the woods forever. Where exactly are we going?"
Xiaofan adjusted her tiny satchel, looked me dead in the eye, and said, "To the Imperial Palace, Gege."
My soul did not merely leave my body; it booked a first-class flight to the stratosphere, flipped me the bird, and refused to return for a solid three minutes.
*The palace?!* The absolute epicenter of political intrigue, high-level cultivators, poisonings, hidden guards, and the most dramatic plotlines known to man?
I was a level-one civilian whose only skill was looking like a delicate protagonist! Going to the palace was the equivalent of taking a cardboard box to a tank fight.
But then, my frantic, survival-driven brain cells forced themselves to collaborate. I stopped internalizing the panic and actually analyzed the situation.
*Wait. If the System gives me missions, they're inevitably going to involve the main plot. The palace is where the plot lives.
If I go there with her, it's a direct ticket into the heart of the narrative. Plus, she's clearly a plot-relevant VIP disguise-wearing spy child.
If I stick close, I can navigate the tutorial parameters.*
"The palace," I repeated, my voice cracking just a tiny bit on the syllable. I cleared my throat, channeling the energy of a profound, stoic master.
"Right. The palace. Exactly as I anticipated. A perfect destination."
Xiaofan looked impressed by my fake bravery.
"Gege, we need to change our dress to disguise ourselves. If the people who want to kill me see us like this, then we are dead." Worry was written all over her face, her tiny brows knitting together in genuine anxiety.
"En," I agreed, nodding sagely.
"An excellent tactical deduction. We look like a pair of wandering targets right now."
=====°°°°°
The Great Tailor Shop Debacle
We bypassed the main trade routes and slipped into a small, bustling border town on the outskirts of the capital region.
It was filled with street vendors, traveling merchants, and an alarming number of people carrying weapons that looked entirely too sharp for comfort.
Locating a modest tailor shop tucked between a blacksmith and a tea house, we slipped inside.
The shop smelled of old cotton, starchy fabrics, and cheap dye.
"Welcome, young travelers!" the tailor, a stout man with a measuring tape slung over his shoulder, called out.
Then, his eyes landed on me. He stopped mid-stride. He looked at my face, then at my damp, tattered rags, then back to my face.
His expression became incredibly complex, transitioning from capitalist greed to profound confusion.
*Why is an immortal fairy wearing a potato sack?* his eyes seemed to ask.
I ignored him and began rifling through the clearance rack.
Xiaofan tapped my elbow.
"Choose something fitting, Gege. Simple clothing. For commoners."
"En."
She paid for the garments using a few copper coins she pulled from a hidden lining in her sleeve.
I didn't ask questions. I didn't have a single coin to my name; I was a kept man, entirely dependent on a fourteen-year-old's espionage budget. It was humbling, to say the least.
The clothes were simple, rough-spun cotton in muted, earthy tones. Not high quality by any stretch of the imagination, but durable enough to handle a brisk walk away from an assassin.
We retreated to the changing stalls to alter our appearances. Xiaofan emerged first.
She had handled her transformation with remarkable efficiency: she tied her hair into a neat, braided style that made her look like a sensible farm girl, and she used a thin strip of pale silk to cover the lower half of her face.
With her sharp eyes and covered features, she looked anonymous, blending perfectly into the background.
Then, I stepped out.
I had tied my annoying, silky midnight-blue hair back into a high ponytail, leaving just a few stray strands to frame my face because my lack of a mirror made precise styling impossible.
I wore a plain, loose-fitting brown tunic and simple trousers. I had actively tried to slouch to diminish my "dainty doll" energy.
Xiaofan stared at me for a long, silent moment. She sighed, her shoulders slumping.
"Gege," she said, her voice muffled by the silk mask.
"You don't look like a commoner. You look like a young master from a prominent clan who is cherished dearly by his ancestors and has dressed down to mock the poor."
I looked at her with a completely deadpan expression. My face was a monument to unexpressed suffering.
"Listen to me," I said, my voice flat.
"This is the lowest-tier fabric in the shop. I am wearing brown. I am slouching. If society refuses to accept me as a peasant, that is a societal failure, not mine. Let's just go. I think this disguise is alright."
"En," she agreed hesitantly, though her eyes still screamed *you're going to get us kidnapped by a rogue princess*.
Well, objectively speaking, there was a difference. I didn't look *exactly* like the mud-covered creature from the forest, and with Xiaofan's face completely covered, our duo profile had completely changed.
No one looking for a specific young girl and a ragged boy would immediately jump to the conclusion that we were the pair of commoners walking down the street. Or so I desperately hoped.
=====°°°°°
The Wanted Posters and the Grip of Panic
We proceeded to walk down the main thoroughfare, heading toward the northern gates that led to the capital highway.
The atmosphere in the town had grown noticeably heavier since we entered the shop.
The casual chatter of market-goers was overshadowed by the heavy, rhythmic thud of armored boots. Up ahead, the street was partially blocked by a checkpoint.
Men armed with long, gleaming swords were aggressively questioning anyone traveling toward the palace.
They were rough, imposing, and wore uniform leather vests emblazoned with a sharp, stylized crest.
"The Tang Family," Xiaofan whispered beside me, her hand instantly tightening around mine. Her fingers were cold.
*The Tang Family.*
I didn't know much about the local politics yet, but given how Xiaofan's aura flared with subtle, icy rage, it was safe to assume these guys were the "dogs" sent to eliminate her.
As we walked closer, one of the guards slammed a heavy sheet of parchment onto a wooden notice board against the wall.
He applied a thick glob of paste, flattening the paper with a rough swipe of his gauntlet.
Curiosity, that notorious cat-killer, forced me to look at the board as we walked past.
My gaze landed on the freshly posted wanted picture.
I almost vomited right there on the cobblestones.
The drawing of Xiaofan was accurate enough—a decent likeness of her before she donned the mask.
But the drawing next to hers? The one labeled *'Accomplice / Dangerous Rogue'*?
It was a masterpiece of slander. The artist had somehow managed to capture my massive, watery eyes, but gave me a devious, wicked smirk, a villainous chin, and an aura that screamed "I steal candy from spiritual beasts."
It was a horrific blend of my actual face and pure, unadulterated criminal propaganda.
To make matters worse, they had added a little note at the bottom: *'Approach with caution. Target possesses a deceptively frail appearance but is highly dangerous.'*
*Dangerous?!* I couldn't even lift a heavy log yesterday!
My heart began to hammer against my ribs like a trapped bird. My breath caught in my throat. I was staring at a literal death warrant with my face on it.
Before I could spiral into a full-blown, modern-day panic attack, Xiaofan's grip on my hand tightened significantly. She didn't look at me, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on the road ahead, but her steady, grounding squeeze pulled me back from the edge.
*Act natural,* her posture said.
*If you panic now, we're done.*
I forced my facial muscles into a neutral expression, swallowed the bile rising in my throat, and kept my legs moving.
We couldn't turn back now; turning around at a checkpoint was the international universal signal for "Please arrest me, I am guilty."
We proceeded to walk directly toward the line of armed guards. Five meters. Three meters. Two meters.
We were just about to pass the threshold of the checkpoint, slipping past the shoulder of the lead guard, when a heavy, iron-clad hand shot out and clamped down firmly on my shoulder.
I froze stiff. My pulse completely stopped. My soul, which had only recently returned from its brief trip to space, immediately packed its bags again.
"Wait," a gruff, gravelly voice barked directly behind me.
I stood completely paralyzed, the cold steel of his gauntlet biting into my collarbone.
*This is it,* I thought.
*The tutorial is over. I'm going to be executed in a brown tunic. What a humiliating way to go.*
I forced myself to turn around slowly, plastering a weak, submissive, completely terrified smile across my face.
Given my natural *bishōnen* features, the look probably translated to 'fragile maiden in distress,' but at this point, I was willing to weaponize the pretty boy aesthetic if it kept me alive.
"W-what is it, noble sir?" I asked, my voice trembling with entirely genuine, unscripted fear.
The guard looked down at me. He looked at my high ponytail, my big, doughy eyes, and my cheap commoner clothes. He blinked, a flicker of brief confusion passing through his rough features—undoubtedly experiencing the same "why is this peasant so pretty" cognitive dissonance that everyone else did—before he let out a loud, irritated grunt.
He reached into his leather pouch, pulled out a loose copy of the wanted flyer, and forcefully shoved the crumpled paper into my chest.
"If you see these people, report to the Tang Family authorities immediately," he commanded, gesturing vaguely toward the poster with his sword hilt.
"There's a hefty reward. A dangerous rogue and a runaway girl. Keep your eyes open, peasant."
I stared at the paper in my hands. It was my own villainous, smirking face staring back at me.
"Y-yes, of course!" I stammered, nodding stiffly like a broken wind-up toy.
"We will definitely report them if we see them! Absolutely! Thank you for protecting the peace, noble officer!"
The guard gave me one last dismissive, pitying look—clearly concluding that a scrawny, terrified kid like me wouldn't last five seconds against a "dangerous rogue"—and waved his hand to shoo us away.
"Move along, move along. Don't block the path."
"Thank you, sir! Blessings upon your cultivation!" I chirped, my voice an octave higher than usual.
I turned around, kept my pace steady for exactly ten paces, and then practically accelerated into a brisk, non-suspicious power walk. Xiaofan matched my stride perfectly, her small hand still anchored to mine.
The moment we turned a sharp corner into a narrow alleyway, completely out of the guards' line of sight, I let out a massive, shuddering sigh of relief. My shoulders sagged so low I thought they might detach.
"Holy mother of transmigration," I whispered, wiping a cold sweat from my forehead.
"That was entirely too close. My life expectancy just dropped by ten years."
Xiaofan glanced back at the main street, her eyes sharp beneath her silk mask.
"You did well, Gege. Your acting was... very convincing."
"That wasn't acting, Xiaofan. That was pure, unadulterated cowardice," I corrected her, crumpling the wanted poster into a tiny ball and stuffing it into my pocket out of sheer spite.
"But it worked. Come on, let's keep moving before they realize the 'dangerous rogue' is actually just a guy with a really nice skincare routine."
With the checkpoint behind us and our makeshift disguises holding up against the lowest common denominator of the Tang Family military, we proceeded on our journey toward the capital without any further delays.
The road ahead looked long, dark, and entirely too full of plot complications. But as I glanced down at my cheap commoner sleeves and adjusted my high ponytail, I accepted my reality.
If I had to navigate a high-stakes cultivation palace looking like a delicate romance protagonist, I was going to do it with the absolute best posture possible.