__________________________
Lui Ming has stayed over a month in this world and found out it is a world of cultivation. He really felt uncomfortable about his situation, the unusual thing was that the memories only surfaced when he saw familiar faces or details.
In all honesty, it was stupid.
He couldn't control when or how it happened. The flow of information in this body wasn't like a book to be opened, or even a locked diary waiting to be picked. It was more like a leaking faucet—dripping when he least expected it, and completely dry when he needed it most.
The more he thought about it, the more irritated he felt. At least, he thought it was irritation.
It was hard to tell
So far, everything he'd learned about this world came through fragmented recollections and scraps of conversation. It was a cultivation-based society—he'd figured that much out. There were sects, clans, immortal arts, and people who could apparently fly using swords.
He was not one of those people.
Instead, he was the third son of a small noble family, left behind in a remote side courtyard of the estate where no one visited, and the roof leaked when it rained. The entire house had four rooms, two windows that didn't open properly, and three maids who looked at him like they were being punished by the heavens.
They rarely spoke to him unless it was necessary.
When they did, it was in short sentences and longer stares.
The kitchen was missing half its utensils, there wasn't even enough money to buy charcoal to heat up water, and the only spirit stones in the house were the ones the cat liked to bat around. He didn't know if the cat was his, or if it just showed up because the rest of the courtyard was too depressing to be occupied by humans.
He didn't mind it.
Silence was easier to manage than people.
At first, he'd hoped for some kind of miraculous golden finger or system, something that would explain why he had been thrown into this world. But nothing came. No screen. No narrator. No mysterious old man waiting to teach him the way.
Just Mammy Qin crying in corners, Mammy Lu throwing dishes and god knows what the third one was doing.
It was familiar, in a way.
Back in his original life, people had avoided him. His face always gave the wrong impression—especially to strangers. Deep black eyes, pale skin, flat affect. It wasn't his fault his default expression looked like mild disappointment.
But apparently, patients didn't like being diagnosed by someone who looked like they were plotting a murder.
His aunt had tried to help him blend in. She'd taught him how to smile, even if it didn't come from the heart. How to use his hands when talking, even if he didn't care. It took years before he could pass as someone functional.
Then he died.
Now he was stuck in a new life… one with a faulty memory bank, a disgraced identity, and extreme OCD that had him reorganizing the teacups every morning before he could eat.
It was exhausting.
But more than that, it was inconvenient.
If the heavens had transmigrated his soul to give him a second chance, they could have at least chosen someone with a bigger room. Or better curtains.
He looked around the small space, noting for the fifth time that the bed was two inches off-center with the wall behind it.
He'd fixed it twice already.
It moved every time someone came in to clean.
Probably on purpose.
Probably Mammy Lu.
He sat back down, stiffly, and folded his hands in his lap. His thoughts wandered again to the memory fragments, it's useless unless triggered by something recognizably specific. The technique was unreliable at best, completely defective at worst.
It was like trying to solve a puzzle blindfolded while someone slowly rearranged the pieces just to spite you.
He sighed. Or maybe it was just breathing. He couldn't tell the difference.
Still, dying again wasn't part of the plan.
Not because he feared death.
He just didn't want to feel pain again.
The pain of dying was something he'd already experienced once. That had been enough. But waking up here—head pounding, bones aching, limbs heavy—it had felt worse. Worse than dying.
That was deeply unfair.
So if there was anything he could do to avoid going through that a second time, he would do it.
Quietly. Efficiently.
He just had to understand this world first. Piece by piece. Face by face. Memory by fragmented, inconsistent memory.
And until then… he would keep the teacups aligned, the bed straight, and his expression unreadable. Could it be Lui Ming is annoyed?
"...." Exactly!
______
Its been raining heavily for a week now and thought the roof over his head was going collapse but luckily it didn't and ended up with a dozens or few leaks.
Lui Ming nudged the basin under the drip without thinking. It had become part of his daily routine, like waking up sore or pretending he didn't care.
He was sitting near the window when voices drifted in from the back courtyard. Mammy Lu, as always, was talking too loud for someone trying to gossip.
"I heard it straight from the laundry girls! Mu LingFeng's blood is black."
Mammy Fang gasped. "Black? That's—"
"Demonic," Mammy Lu cut in proudly. "You didn't hear it from me, but the elders are already investigating. He might've fooled the sect for years. All that cold and noble act? Lies."
Lui Ming blinked.
Mu LingFeng.
Why did that name sound… too familiar?
He stared at the basin for a moment, as if it would answer him. Then it clicked.
That was the male lead in the novel he was reading before he died. The wrongly accused genius.
In all honesty, Lui Ming didn't know if he was smiling or if he just liked the news. This place he was currently in was really a hell—even the rats looked like they were on the verge of filing complaints.
He leaned back against the cold wooden post near the window, staring blankly at the rain-streaked glass. The wind howled like a bitter ex-wife outside, and inside, a basin clinked softly under another fresh leak from the roof.
"Mu LingFeng, huh…" he muttered under his breath, the name still echoing in his mind.
The falsely accused protagonist. In the novel he read before dying, Mu LingFeng was supposed to be the heaven-blessed genius, cold, arrogant, untouchable… and tragically misunderstood. It wasn't until much later that everyone realized he wasn't a demonic cultivator, just framed for it by jealous enemies. Naturally, by then, half his allies were dead, and his name was already dragged through ten provinces and a dogfight.
And now the rumors were starting.
Which meant—if the timeline matched—then the plot was just beginning.
And so was the bloodbath.
Lui Ming blinked slowly. Then blinked again.
"…Haa."
He didn't care about the fate of the world. He didn't care who was wrongly accused or who fell from grace. What he *did* care about was one very important thing:
**It seems he was a character.**
One of those side nobles mentioned briefly in chapter two. The kind that either got slapped to show the main character's dominance or conveniently died to raise the stakes. And judging by how Mammy Qin had already staged a full dramatic breakdown and he was slapped within five minutes of waking up—his survival rate wasn't looking too hot.
But now that he knew which story he was in?
Golden thigh: located.
All he had to do… was cling to it for dear life.
Quietly. Strategically. Preferably without being stabbed.
He glanced down at his sleeve, tugging it into alignment with robotic precision. The thread was still uneven. He really hated that.
Still staring at the rain, Lui Ming exhaled slowly.
"…Mu LingFeng."
He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Or maybe both. But that was the thing with Alexithymia—he could only guess.
Either way, one thing was clear: he was now living in the background of a cultivation novel.
And he was **not** planning to die in chapter three.