Chapter 1: Awakening

In the back courtyard of the Yu Estate, the morning light had just spilled over the blue-tiled eaves.

Yu Chenxue stood before Chen Yanfan, looking down at him.

He sat chopping firewood. His axe came down, splitting a log cleanly in two.

Beside him stood a neatly stacked pile of firewood that reached halfway up a man’s height. It was much like Chen Yanfan himself: orderly on the surface, with nothing but schemes underneath.

Yu Chenxue had only just recovered from a serious illness, and her face was still a little pale. For days, she had burned with fever. She had slept in a daze for three days and had a very, very long dream.

In it, she lived inside a book. She had never read it, yet she knew perfectly well she was in one.

She was the vicious supporting villainess who appeared in the second chapter. Her sole purpose was to torment, in the stupidest ways imaginable, a man who would one day slaughter his way across the eight realms. Then he would crush her without a second thought, making her the first stepping stone on his path to the pinnacle.

That man was Chen Yanfan.

In the dream, she bullied and humiliated him. She made him kneel in the snow all night, and even took the sword he kept close to him—Wuyan, she thought it was called—to a pawnshop. She traded it for three hundred spirit stones and promptly bought a jeweled hairpin.

She remembered laughing as she said, “What does a servant like you need such a fine sword for? We might as well trade it for something useful.”

Later, he killed her. One swift strike of his palm shattered her skull. The book didn’t even let her have a last word.

Afterward, Yu Chenxue seemed to become a wandering spirit trapped between its pages, forced to watch Chen Yanfan’s story unfold.

He shattered the void and ascended to the upper realm. Countless cultivators bowed and pledged their allegiance. Beautiful women gathered at his side: some wielded swords for him, some poured his wine, and some kept a lamp burning as they waited a thousand years for his return.

In a book more than three million characters long, not even the narrator mentioned the young lady of the Yu family after she died beneath his palm.

When Yu Chenxue awoke, she was drenched in cold sweat and gasping for breath. Her fingers clutched the bedding so tightly they shook, and she couldn’t make them stop.

She lived in a story where her whole life had already been written, with no chance to change her fate.

Now, watching Chen Yanfan chop wood, she felt that Heaven had played an enormous joke on her.

This man, sitting in the courtyard in a servant’s clothes, who could haggle for ages over a few copper coins, was the protagonist?

He was the mighty figure who could overturn mountains and rivers with a flick of his fingers, the one even fate itself would yield to?

What kind of male lead was this stingy and obsessed with money?

Chen Yanfan didn’t look up. His axe rose and fell in a steady rhythm.

Why was the young lady here again? What was she doing, standing there without a word? What trouble was she looking to make this time? How annoying. He still hadn’t finished chopping the wood. If Steward Song came back and started nagging, his wages would be docked again.

Lately, Chen Yanfan really couldn’t be bothered to stir himself. His dragon bloodline had awakened, and his cultivation level was rising in secret. He could destroy a mere Yu Estate with a turn of his hand. But exposing himself now would be courting death.

Annoying as the Yu Estate was, at least it fed and housed him and paid his monthly wages on time. That was far better than sleeping rough outside.

Best of all, its young lady might have a bad temper and enjoy making things difficult for him, but she was remarkably easy to deal with. All he had to do was let her scold him a little, and she’d storm off in a huff. Then she’d forget all about it and come looking for trouble again, over and over.

It was a humiliating sort of life, Chen Yanfan thought, but at least it was easy.

“Chen Yanfan.”

Yu Chenxue cleared her throat. Her voice was still hoarse from her illness, but she deliberately put on the air of a young mistress. “Come with me.”

His axe paused.

Again? What did she want this time? Last time, she’d made him move flowerpots, only to complain halfway through that they weren’t arranged properly. Three trips back and forth, and about an hour wasted.

The time before that, she’d sent him into town for osmanthus cakes. He’d gone two streets over and brought them back, only for her to say they were wrong: she’d wanted chestnut cakes.

How was he supposed to know what she wanted? She couldn’t even make up her own mind.

Without lifting his head, he said flatly, “Young Mistress, I haven’t finished the firewood. If Old Song comes back and sees it, he’ll dock my wages.”

Yu Chenxue nearly laughed in exasperation.

She had been gravely ill and dreamed of her own death. She’d finally worked up the courage to come and find him, hoping to change something. And all this man could think about was firewood and wages.

“Are you obsessed with money?” She glared at him. “It’s only money! I’ll pay you!”

She reached into one sleeve pocket, then the other, and searched around her waist. The longer she rummaged, the stiffer her expression became.

Yu Chenxue had never made a habit of carrying money. Raised in comfort and luxury, she had always had a maid pay whenever she went shopping. Right now, she couldn’t produce a single copper coin.

Chen Yanfan finally looked up at her, undisguised disdain in his eyes. Just as he’d thought: she didn’t have any. Why put on such a show?

He lowered his head and resumed chopping, his voice even flatter than before. “Young Mistress, you can give me your orders once I’ve finished the wood.”

Color rose in Yu Chenxue’s fair cheeks, though it was hard to tell whether it came from anger or embarrassment. She bit her lower lip, determined to keep up appearances. “I… I’ll give it to you later. Put it on my account!”

“Even if I do, there has to be an amount. How much does Young Mistress intend to pay?”

“You!” Yu Chenxue clenched her fists. In her mind, the image of him killing her in the dream overlapped with the infuriating face before her.

She took a deep breath and tried again. “When I tell you to come with me, you come. Why all the questions? I’ll have someone help you with the wood later, and I’ll make up your wages at double the rate.”

Chen Yanfan’s axe stopped.

Double…

After a moment’s silence, he laid the axe on the woodpile, stood, and brushed the wood chips from his clothes. “Young Mistress, let’s be clear first,” he said, perfectly at ease. “How much is double? How are we calculating it?”