When Xu Ziwei woke up, the world was nothing but a scream of agony.
Her head throbbed with a violence that felt like a chisel cracking open her skull. Memories were being hammered into her brain, forced into a space that was already full.
"Ugh…" Ziwei groaned, clutching her temples as she curled into a fetal position on the dirt.
She had never considered herself a coward when it came to pain, but this was soul-tearing. It was a terrifying, invasive heat. She rolled for what felt like an eternity, cursing through her teeth until—just as suddenly as it had started—the pain vanished.
Ziwei lay panting, her limbs feeling like sodden cotton. As the forced memories began to settle, scenes flashed before her eyes like a high-speed film. It was the life of a stranger—a young woman who looked exactly like her.
She forced herself to sit up, squinting against the harsh glare of the sun. She looked down at her hands, which were covered in grit and crushed stone. She froze.
The hands were slender, elegant, and pale, with light calluses on the fingertips from sword practice. They were beautiful, feminine hands, but they belonged to a girl of barely twelve years old.
"Damn it… I was just sleeping in my own bed!" she groaned. Her voice was higher now, a clear, youthful soprano.
The sunlight filtering through her small fingers felt like a mockery. In a fit of frustration, she punched the ground beside her.
Thud!
The earth didn't just dent; it exploded. Ziwei stared, wide-eyed, at the massive crater her small fist had just carved into the forest floor. She swallowed hard.
From the flood of memories, she knew this was a cultivation world, but the physical reality of it was terrifying. She struggled to her feet, her long silken robes fluttering around her ankles. She was in a child's body, in a strange world, with a head full of someone else's sins.
Growing up all over again… how depressing.
She shook her head to clear the remaining fog when she noticed it. A shimmering, square void was floating in the air right in front of her. It was an invisible box, roughly fifty centimeters wide, that followed her line of sight like a persistent HUD.
Inside the box sat a single object: a paperback book.
Ziwei reached into the void and pulled it out. It was an ordinary-looking novel, except for the cover art—which featured four men tangled in an embrace that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. Ziwei's eye twitched.
As an older sister to a gay younger brother back on Earth, Ziwei had spent years educating herself to be the ultimate ally. She'd researched, she'd listened, and she'd accepted her brother Ziyu's orientation with zero judgment. But she hadn't exactly signed up to be trapped in a world where this was the destined plot.
Curiosity won out. She sat against a tree and began to read.
Three hours later, Ziwei felt like her soul was leaving her body.
She hadn't just transmigrated; she had fallen into the plot of a "stallion" BL novel. And according to the text, she was one of the primary characters—the "vicious" eldest daughter of the Xu family.
"Born a winner," Ziwei muttered, rubbing her face. In the book, the "original" Ziwei was the eldest daughter, a genius with a rare Lightning Heavenly Spiritual Vein. She had everything, yet she spent her life tormenting her younger half-brother, Zirong.
The backstory was a cliché nightmare: Their father, Xu Xiao, had a mistress. His so called "true love" he was forced to abandon. That woman left behind a child—Zirong—and eventually died. Zirong was brought back to the Xu family as an illegitimate son.
The original Ziwei had been a monster to him. She'd encouraged the other children to bully the boy and had even pushed the ten-year-old Zirong into a snake valley. Their father, Xu Xiao, had just turned a blind eye because Ziwei was his "genius" daughter.
Ziwei's blood boiled. Back on Earth, she would have slapped a man like Xu Xiao into next Tuesday. If you didn't want the kid, why father him? she thought. You brought him into this world and gave him nothing but a target on his back.
No wonder Zirong eventually turned to the dark arts, became the Blood Devil, and slaughtered the entire Xu family—starting with his "vicious" older sister.
But that wasn't the part that made her stomach turn.
...
...
...
The "romance" part of the book was what truly made Ziwei's face turn green.
In the story, Ziwei survives the initial massacre and goes off to find Zirong for revenge. Instead, she gets caught in the orbit of the protagonist, Bai Hua. Because she was a woman in a BL novel, her role was to be the "tragic rival" or the "fujoshi" supporting character who eventually gets ignored while Bai Hua collects his three husbands.
Wait—the book even hinted that in some versions of the legend, Ziwei was supposed to be a man, but in this world, she was a woman destined to watch the man she "loved" get shared by three other guys!
"Sharing a lover? Watching a harem?" Ziwei slammed the book shut, her face pale. As a woman who was straight as a ruler and valued exclusive relationships, the thought of being a side-character in a four-way male romance was her personal version of hell.
She threw the novel back into the invisible box and stood up, her resolve hardening.
"Heaven, you've got the wrong girl," she said to the trees, her voice firm. "I'm not bullying any kids, I'm not playing the tragic rival, and I am definitely NOT letting my little brother turn into a villain."
She looked toward the direction of the Xu manor.
"Zirong is just a kid. I'll raise him right, keep him away from the devil arts, and turn him into a perfectly straight, upright hero. He's going to be the kind of man who respects women and stays far away from guys like Bai Hua."
She rolled up her sleeves, her eyes flashing with Lightning Qi.
"I've got a little brother to fix. And this time, nobody is turning gay on my watch!"