Chapter 1: Good or Evil End in a Leopard

First Arc: Panlong

On a treacherous mountain trail, a young man decisively abandoned his horse and followed a trail of bloodstains.

The prey was a limping cliff ram. It had briefly appeared halfway up the mountain before vanishing into the dense forest.

Sunlight could not pierce the thicket; heavy shadows were cast all throughout the ground. Even though it was midday, the dew from the previous night still clung to the fruit of the rose myrtle trees. The ground was littered with a patchwork of leaves, and twisted old roots coiled beneath, ready to trip the unwary.

Tracking prey in such an environment was no easy task, but the young man still managed to spot a few drops of fresh blood on the leaves and a tuft of wool snagged on a tree trunk.

Hm, it went this way. Cliff rams do tend to flee uphill when they’re threatened.

He climbed swiftly, but he failed to notice a pair of eyes staring at him intently from the shadows of the underbrush just a hundred meters away.

Those eyes were filled with searing rage and hatred.

As he clambered over a large rock on the ridge, he saw the cliff ram again, lowering its head to lick its wounded leg. He was just about to reach for the bow on his back when, from the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a shadow rushing toward him, swift as a flash of light.

What’s tha—

His mind had yet to even fully process the thought before the thing slammed right into him.

It was a massive leopard, large enough to rival an adult tiger. Its front paws were bigger than his head, and its fur looked as though it had been bleached, faded to the color of sand.

The giant leopard opened its jaws, and its foul breath hit the man in the face. Instinctively, he raised an arm to shield his vitals. A loud crack rang out as the leopard’s fangs pierced straight through his armored forearm. He was not sure whether the bones in his forearm had been broken, but the sound of the crack did not bode him well.

In the face of such brutal force, he could not keep his footing and tumbled down the ridge.

The leopard clung to him, tearing at him in a frenzy. He could not help but cry out in pain, but he still ultimately managed to draw a dagger from his waist with his free hand and thrust it repeatedly, leaving over a dozen bloody wounds on its body!

The blade was razor sharp. Even if it may have failed to fatally wound the leopard, the two well-placed strikes to its chest had caused blood to spray uncontrollably out of its body, splattering his face and hair.

All living things have the instinct to survive, this went even for the fiercest of beasts. By now, the leopard should have retreated.

But it showed no signs of retreat!

It dragged him along, charging forward with everything it had, leaving a trail of blood behind.

He met its bloodshot eyes and realized that it had gone mad.

A sand leopard has no business being here. Where the hell did this damned thing come from?

Just as that thought crossed his mind, the leopard did the unthinkable. It roared at him in human speech, “The divine bone will never be yours!”

“Let go! Let go, damn it!” Terrified, he stabbed the leopard three times in the neck, summoning every ounce of strength to break free.

There’s nowhere for me to run!

But no matter how grievous the wounds, they did not slow the beast’s charge. The very next instant, there was no longer any ground beneath them. Man and leopard, locked in a desperate embrace, plummeted into a three-hundred-meter-deep ravine.

Even in death, the leopard would not let him go. Its final act was to sink its fangs into his neck.

With a crisp snap, the protective talisman hanging from his neck flashed red and shattered into pieces.

And in that moment, frozen in his mind like the final frame of a painting, were four blood-slicked fangs.

* * *

“Ah—!”

He Lingchuan jolted upright with a scream, scaring everyone nearby out of their wits.

The maid closest to him stumbled back three steps in fright. A plain-faced man, who seemed to appear out of nowhere, rushed to his side and scanned the room anxiously.

“Young Master?!”

He found himself in a finely furnished private box. Twin folding screens painted with fantastical mountains and flowing rivers stood on either side, and a small stage sat at the center. Performers were neatly dressed onstage, while the audience below snacked on melon seeds, sipped tea, and chatted idly—over two hundred people in all, and they were now staring up at him in unison.

Right, I’m in a second-floor theater box, not at the bottom of some deadly cliff.

The faintly sweet scent of pear incense burned in the corner, and on a silver platter beside him, grapes and honeydew still glistened with moisture.

This was a theater called Immortal-Plucking Terrace, not a ravine of death. He Lingchuan came to his senses and instinctively touched his neck. “I’m fine.”

There had once been four deep puncture wounds there, about a centimeter and a half away from his carotid artery, but now the skin had healed, fresh pink tissue in its place. Scars like that—new and tender—marked at least a dozen spots across his body.

Around his neck still hung a necklace.

He remembered clearly that the round jade talisman had shattered under the force of the leopard’s bite, splintering into eight shards. And yet now, inexplicably, it was whole again, hanging undisturbed around his neck.

At some point, he had developed a habit of touching it whenever idle, as if it shared some strange and inexpressible bond with him.

Also in the private box was a pampered young master named Liu Baobao. Seeing He Lingchuan awake, he snapped his fingers at his attendant. The servant shuffled to the balcony and called out, “The young master is awake, resume the show!”

The opera of Yuan was known for being short and fast-paced, favoring novelty and spectacle. It skipped lengthy arias and went straight for the action, which made it popular with young people. Today’s performance at Immortal-Plucking Terrace featured two brand-new operas, headlined by a renowned star. But shortly after the curtain had risen, Young Master Lingchuan had fallen asleep.

When the play moved into a raucous fight scene, Liu Baobao, afraid of disturbing his guest’s dreams, ordered it paused.

Having waited for nearly half an hour, the audience below had started grumbling. But now, finally, the guest of honor was awake, and the show could continue.

Downstairs, the music resumed with a flourish. A clear, lilting tenor sang, “Now comes the sacred guardian beast of the West Luo, the golden bull, unstoppable in battle—”

He Lingchuan’s brow furrowed.

This one again?

It was this very song that had lulled him to sleep earlier, yet now they were actually starting over?

Liu Baobao noticed the look on his face and immediately laughed, “Not your thing, Brother Chuan?”

He Lingchuan replied slowly, “It’s alright.”

In truth, this was a special show Liu Baobao had arranged. He was the one footing the bill, and the performers had been handpicked over two months ago. Immortal-Plucking Terrace had spared no expense to bring this entire troupe from deeper within the state out to this backwater town of Heishui City.

And yet the guest of honor had been napping the whole time, only to mutter now, “Next time let’s try a different theater. And don’t call it something like Immortal-Plucking Terrace. What, are immortals just peaches now? Something you can just pluck at will?”

Liu Baobao grinned, “It used to be called Star-Plucking Terrace, but the owner thought that having immortal in the name was better for business. People like naming things after what’s lacking, after all.”

He Lingchuan, with eyes half-lidded, asked, “Oh? Heishui City’s lacking in immortals?”

“No, no, not at all! With Lord He here, Heishui City lacks nothing!” Liu Baobao hastily said. “Immortals? Those are mere legends, nothing more. They’re only good for storybooks. Who would really need them?”

He quickly changed the subject. “Then how about switching to Saber-Setting Mountain, starring the great Lord He himself?”

“Fine.” With his father’s name being trotted out, how could He Lingchuan refuse?

He leaned back and half-closed his eyes again. The middle-aged man beside him waved off the nearby attendants before leaning in to quietly ask, “The nightmares again?”

“As if,” He Lingchuan said firmly, cutting off all arguments. “Uncle Hao, just watch the play.”

This was in character for him. The middle-aged man whom He Lingchuan referred to as Uncle Hao did not argue, standing silently at his side.

The famous performer’s act was superb; the crowd roared in approval. He Lingchuan watched for a while, then his gaze drifted to the rising smoke from the incense burner, and he slowly slipped into a daze once again.

Or rather,

the man called He Lingchuan

slipped into a daze.

The real He Lingchuan was long dead. The young man sitting in the private box was, in fact, just a no-name nobody from another world, inexplicably dropped into this life as a stand-in.

Back there, he had lived a perfectly mundane life: a bland job at a bland workplace for a bland salary. As a young man, he often felt a deep, smoldering dissatisfaction, but no matter how righteously indignant he was in private, in public he always had to be polite and keep the peace, to pretend that life was tranquil and good.

Sadly, reality has a way of hammering people into the holes it needs filled.

The economy had taken a downturn. His job had withheld three months of pay, but he lacked the courage to slam the table and say, “Screw this, I quit!” and just walk off.

As for how he got here?

That was hard to say. He just remembered pacing in front of a diner that day, going in circles several times before finally deciding to support a small food cart on the corner. After all, it was freezing out, and business was hard in the wind and cold.

“Boss, one jianbing[1]. Extra scallions, extra sauce... No egg, no meat... yeah, none of that.”

Just as he finished ordering, he saw a car veer toward a little girl on the curb. The driver panicked and unintentionally stepped harder on the gas.

With disaster just seconds away, he did not even think—he just acted. In that instant, he did the bravest thing he had ever done in his life. He lunged forward and scooped the girl up.

𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

And then... what, did you think he got hit by the car? Nope, he suffered not even a scratch.

He handed the child back to her frantic parents, scolded her a bit to “watch the road next time,” then turned to leave.

He had not walked two steps when a flowerpot fell from the sky and landed squarely on his head.

And just like that, he was sent here.

When he next opened his eyes, he was lying in pain on a bed in a room of antique decor. The faces around him were full of joy. A handsome middle-aged man even had tears in his eyes as he cried out emotionally, “Lingchuan, you’re finally awake!”

He soon came to discover that he had become He Lingchuan, the eldest son of He Chunhua, the Grand Administrator of Qiansong Commandery, Jin Province, Yuan.

1. A jianbing is a traditional Chinese street food similar to crêpes. It is generally eaten for breakfast. ☜