The scent of overripe peaches and the distant, rhythmic thrum of a training courtyard were the first things to greet her.
But it was the persistent, nagging itch of a coarse linen binding around her chest that truly signaled something was wrong.
Lin Ji'an opened her eyes to a dizzying canopy of emerald leaves. Above her, the sky was a piercing, crystalline blue, the kind of blue that only existed in worlds untouched by industrial smog, where the air tasted faintly of spiritual ozone and ancient earth.
She was perched precariously on a sturdy branch of an ancient peach tree, her legs dangling over a drop that would easily break a normal person's ankles.
"System," she whispered, her voice cracking. It was deeper than her own, a husky, boyish alto that felt alien in her throat. "Tell me I'm in a gourmet cooking simulator. Tell me I'm here to open a five-star tavern in the middle of a cultivation sect."
[Ding! Integration Complete.]
[Welcome, Host, to the world of 'The Immortal's Blood-Stained Path.']
[Role: Lin Ji'an, Third 'Son' of the Marquis of Lin.]
[Current Status: Cannon Fodder / First Death Flag Trigger.]
Lin Ji'an's stomach did a slow, nauseating flip. Not from the height, but from the memories that began to flood her mind like a burst dam.
This wasn't a cooking game, but the world in a BL novel she had finished reading just before her soul decided to take an unplanned vacation across the veil.
And she wasn't just any character; she was the spoiled, vicious, crossdressing brat who served as the first major trauma for the story's ultimate villain.
She sat up, balancing on the branch with a natural grace she didn't know she possessed. The original Lin Ji'an had been a cultivation prodigy of sorts, though she'd wasted every ounce of her talent on being a local terror.
Lin Ji'an looked down at her hands, calloused from holding a sword, but slender and pale. This body was a masterpiece of deception.
Her mother, the late Marchioness, had been a woman of terrifying foresight. She had known that in the shark-infested waters of the Lin Mansion, a daughter without a powerful maternal clan would be nothing more than a bargaining chip.
Worse, with the rise of the ambitious Concubine Qin, now the acting Madam of the house, a girl would have been married off to some decrepit, distant lord the moment she reached puberty, her dowry stripped and her mother's legacy erased.
So, the "Third Son" was born.
Her father, Marquis Lin Zhen, was a legendary general and a high-tier cultivator. In the original novel, he was portrayed as a stern, distant figure.
But as Ji'an tapped into the body's deeper memories, a different picture emerged. Lin Zhen was a "daughter-fool" in the most literal sense. He knew the truth behind her birth.
He had allowed the charade not because he wanted a son, but because he was so terrified of losing the only thing his beloved wife had left him that he would rather she lived as a boy than suffered as a lady.
The original Lin Ji'an, however, was a classic "rebellious youth." She hadn't seen her father's protection; she'd only seen his silence.
She had grown up bitter, hiding her gender with a sense of resentment that manifested as cruelty. She bullied servants, spent gold like water, and, most dangerously, had a penchant for "collecting" beautiful things.
And that was where the "Game Over" began.
Ji'an's gaze drifted from the leaves to the courtyard below. There, near the well, a young boy was hauling buckets of water. Even from this distance, his presence was like a cold shadow in the sunlight.
Xie Wangchen.
He was barely fourteen, his frame gaunt from the massacre of his clan and weeks spent in the chains of a slave merchant. His clothes were rags, his hair a matted mess of black silk, but his back was as straight as a spear.
He was the future Ashen Calamity Lord, the man who would eventually burn this Empire to the ground, but right now, he was just a "young servant" sold to the Marquis's mansion for a handful of silver.
[System Warning: Current Blackening Value of Xie Wangchen: 65%.]
[Plot Progression: You are currently three hours away from the 'Unspeakable Incident'.]
Ji'an felt a cold sweat break out on her neck. In the original plot, the "wicked" Lin Ji'an had taken a liking to the slave boy's icy, feminine beauty.
Tonight, the original soul was supposed to lure him into the back garden, intending to force him into becoming her "personal plaything."
In the novel, Xie Wangchen, pushed to the brink of his sanity and dignity, would find a discarded bronze dagger in the grass. In the struggle, he would accidentally plunge it into Lin Ji'an's heart before fleeing the mansion and beginning his path as a demonic cultivator.
"So," Ji'an muttered, her face twisting into a grimace that would have terrified a small child. "I just woke up, and I'm already on death row. And my crime is... attempted sexual harassment? Of a future mass murderer?"
She leaned her head back against the tree trunk, her eyes narrowing.
"System, give me the full description of the original Lin Ji'an's behavior. Don't leave out the ugly parts."
The data dump that followed made her want to hurl. The original girl was a nightmare. She didn't just bully others; she enjoyed the power trip.
She had used her father's doting nature as a shield to commit all sorts of petty atrocities. No wonder Xie Wangchen didn't hesitate to stab her in the original timeline. To him, she wasn't a person; she was the final indignity.
"What an ugly face," she hissed, referring to her own character. "If I were him, I'd stab me too."
As she contemplated her imminent demise, a sharp, familiar pang echoed from her midsection. Her stomach growled, a sound so loud it seemed to vibrate the very branch she sat on.