Chapter Text
All alone I watch you watch her
She is the only thing you ever see
How is it you never notice
That you are slowly killing me?
I hate you, I love you,
I hate that I love you
Don't want to but I can't put nobody else above you
~ I Hate U I Love U by gnash and Olivia O’Brien
Part One
Going to sleep in a hospital bed and waking up in a completely different place was always confusing.
Especially when someone woke up in a strange place that looked nothing like anything they had ever seen before.
Shen Yuan blinked the sleep out of his eyes and stared up at the red canopy over his bed, the bed that felt almost as soft as his own back in his childhood home.
He didn’t have a canopy bed, not in there, and most definitely not in the hospital. He never owned anything in this shade of red either, why would he?
It looked like it was the true festive red, the one people used in their weddings.
Shen Yuan was a chronically single 20-year old that spent the last… what? Two years maybe, moving between his hospital bed and his bed back at his parent’s place instead of living in a dorm.
He wasn’t exactly husband material for anyone to even consider decorating with such a joyous color, it was all solemn and clean whites and non-intrusive pastels.
He squinted up at the gauzy red curtains and pressed a hand against his head, as it was pounding something fierce and he reached out his other arm towards the nightstand where his meds should have been. He found neither wood nor utilitarian metal, just warm silk sheets. He turned his head slightly to see the reason why and a wholly different red caught his eyes, making him stare at the strange bruises covering his skin.
Red spots, purple spots all over his arms leading up to his shoulders. They didn’t look like mosquito bites, his mind told him, comparing them to his past experiences with those little bloodsuckers... the only experience he had in such matters.
Eh?
He tried to sit up, and the first time he couldn't even manage halfway, his body just refused to cooperate. He suddenly felt that every part of him felt sore, the pain hidden behind his headache previously.
Everything hurt and it wasn’t exactly like how he felt when he was still allowed to participate in PE when he was still well enough to learn some self-defense.
His squirming around made him aware of another issue when he noticed the gentle swell starting just past his shoulders, making the thin blanket covering him be raised in the chest area. His hand moved towards the bumps, poking one of them with a finger, making him hiss at the slight uptick in the amount of pain he felt. Moving the blanket down, he revealed breasts, marked red with bite marks and purple splotches, viciously contrasting against his pale skin.
Since when did he have boobs? They weren't that large, barely filling a palm, but he didn't go to sleep with them and none of his meds should have a side effect that caused swellings such as those on his chest.
Headache, throwing up, and nausea? Sure.
Irregular body discharges, the occasional insomnia episodes, and fevers? Sure.
Developing breasts during the night? No, that wasn’t an option.
He didn’t remember reading anything like that in the drug manuals and there shouldn’t have been anything that would affect his hormones like that in his med mix. Not even the interactions between the different drugs should have been able to cause something like that.
Not without anyone noticing from his daily examinations by the nurses that included checking his blood too regularly.
And speaking of that, he was naked under the blanket, he could feel his skin slide against the silk, making him shiver.
He needed to sit up, he needed to look around properly, because he was starting to get panicked and he didn’t want to feel like a wrung rag for hours after that. The silk blanket pooled in his lap when he managed to work himself up to sitting, still covering his lower body, but something was wrong. His hips were wider than before, his legs were stronger too from what he could see by their outlines.
Nothing like the sickly, fragile thinness he had before he went to sleep.
And there was no hint of a bulge between his legs either.
With a trembling hand, he lifted the covers, peeked down, and then let them fall back in muted shock. There was a groan behind him and he absently turned still reeling from what he had just seen.
He had a… he had a… Well, he didn't have a dick anymore, but there was definitely a dick in him at some point though because his thighs were caked in the remains of a fun-filled night.
So he was not a virgin?
Great. Just fucking great and he should have known when he noticed the bruises covering him from head to toe.
He lost his virginity and he didn't remember anything and he lost his dick too and he felt his breathing start to pick up. He was ready to panic, he was fucking ready to go into an utter panic, the worst kind imaginable.
Was this what being incredibly hungover felt like?
Briefly, a small part of his brain hysterically contemplated whether he would have to do a walk of shame or not. This wasn’t a situation he thought he would ever find himself in, waking up in a different place, probably kidnapped, possibly in a different body or just a very changed one, and being fucked until everything hurt.
What the ever-loving fuck?!
Then what he was seeing before him actually registered… and damn. His mind went utterly blank, just the blue screen of death flashing in a jaunty rhythm, his panic, and the entire kidnapping theory forgotten for the moment.
He managed to bone that?
How did he manage to bone that?!
Shen Yuan leaned over the guy with the red mark on his forehead and he didn't whistle even when he wanted to do nothing more.
It was incredibly tempting, but he managed to reign himself in enough to stare only.
The guy who was spooning him was the most beautiful person he had ever seen and previously he had thought that there was no person more beautiful than the actress he had a little crush on when he was twelve. Or the not-crush he had on those band members when he was thirteen and he tried to explain to his older brother that he only liked their music when he was questioned about using their posters as wallpaper across his entire room.
(Not even a year later he took down all of them and started up a new collection much to the ire of his family. He couldn’t recall their faces anymore? How strange...)
He looked like he was easily over six feet, he was a total beefcake and he had the most amazing curly black hair that looked perfect on him.
His face was like a carving of an angel, all high cheekbones, and with a jawline that could cut a bitch.
As Shen Yuan noted previously, in the middle of his forehead there was a red mark, and the placement and the general look of it reminded him of something, but he couldn't figure out what. Something important, he was sure, but maybe his mind was just playing tricks on him.
Maybe all of this was just a giant hallucination.
Blood red eyes stared into his and he suddenly realized that it was… kind of creepy the way he just watched the man sleep, wasn't it?
Shen Yuan drew away, embarrassed, clutching the sheets to his chest.
To his breasts.
Because he had breasts.
Not pecks, not like the incredibly well-built hunk next to him, before him, kind of over him but who cared about semantics, who just pulled him closer, molding their bodies together. slotting his head under his chin.
His face felt hot like it was flaming when he felt something warm and hard pushed against his stomach.
Oh, good gods above. Oh, fucking fuck.
He didn’t need to look down to know that... that was a dick.
A dick, right on his naked stomach, just chilling there.
It felt large. Very large, very much proportionate for the guy who was also large in other areas, like the width of his shoulders and his chest. Just raring to go if he knew his dicks, and he had woken up with his fair share of morning wood too over the years before his meds kind of tanked his libido.
What the heck, was this some kind of a dream? A fever dream, a nightmare, a wet dream?
Was he back in his years of puberty having to suffer through it again?
Oh, fuck, the guy moved slowly, rolling against him, pushing his dick into his stomach, and what was up with this size-difference between them? He was tucked under the guy’s chin, his dick shouldn't be on his stomach unless he was really tiny or the guy behind him was really massive. In every way.
He was also the epitome of hotness and he meant both meanings, both figuratively and literally.
He was the most beautiful man, nay person, Shen Yuan had ever seen and he radiated heat like he was a fucking radiator in a human form.
Well, mostly human.
He couldn't help but notice the slightly pointed ears and the sharper than normal canines when the guy opened his mouth and he got a premiere view of the blinding white teeth hidden behind red lips that smushed against his forehead.
"Good morning." He rumbled out, voice rough with sleep, kind of growly and Shen Yuan felt a strange feeling of growing warmth inside.
Seriously, even his voice just oozed sex and he was just an old virgin, he wasn't ready for any of this.
…Okay, so he probably wasn't a virgin in this body anymore, but he didn't remember shit so he still counted as one. And based on the appearance of this guy he was in some fantasy world right now, so the rules about sex and social conventions should be different and if this wasn’t some hallucination then he would need to figure it all out. One day eventually if he didn’t get killed immediately.
Though… The ears could be just prosthetics? Like one of those ears on any elf cosplayer during conventions.
Shen Yuan reached out and pressed a hand to one of the guy's ears he could see poking out of all that hair. All that curly, glorious mane of hair that felt soft and fluffy like… cashmere maybe?
It was real. The ear was real, or at least the left one was so Shen Yuan brought his other hand up to the right one to check that one just in case.
He couldn't feel a seam, it was warm, it felt like healthy skin-covered cartilage.
The guy pressed the side of his head into his touch, like how a giant cat would rub into the hand that was petting him and it was kind of cute and Shen Yuan forgot to breathe. There was a very real possibility that he was in some kind of fantasy China, probably some kind of an ancient fantasy China. Who needed oxygen when faced with that?
Blood red eyes went half-lidded, peeking out from under incredibly long eyelashes, and Shen Yuan kept carding his fingers through his hair. Just kind of marveling at the softness while mentally screaming and returning again and again to those ears.
Holy fucking shit.
With his other hand, he pinched himself, which he should have done earlier, but he didn't wake up. It was also painful because his body was stronger than he thought and he was still covered in bruises.
But at least it made it clear that this was not a dream.
‘A hallucination then?’ He asked from himself.
Did some of his meds get accidentally switched or was this a new side-effect? Some previously unknown interactions between them? Did he eat or drink something that shouldn’t have?
Were you even supposed to feel pain in a hallucination... he didn't know. Were hallucinations supposed to feel like this, so all-encompassing?
Because he could see, hear, and feel everything perfectly.
The guy suddenly flipped them and Shen Yuan stared up at him in shock, his eyes darting to the rippling muscles a few times.
Also, he noticed that the cover was slipping down, down, down and he wasn't ready to see the monster between the guy's legs. Even if he already felt against his stomach.
So he grabbed the slipping blanket, pressing their lower bodies together unconsciously with the move.
The guy seemed shocked for a few seconds, Shen Yuan realized what he did and his face flushed even worse. He turned his head to the side, hoping to suffocate himself with one of the numerous pillows.
He was caged soon within muscled arms, the man's weight pressing on him but not actually crushing him.
It felt a lot like an incredibly warm weighted blanket and he unconsciously relaxed before he tensed up again when one of his ears was nibbled on. He snapped a hand out to cover his ear and realized that he had pointed ears too.
"G-good morning." He squeaked out when he remembered that the guy greeted him previously, his hands going back to flexing around his biceps. His mother didn't raise no slouch.
Well, he was kind of a sloth in some things, but she would be appalled if she realized that her son didn't return a greeting.
His fingers couldn't reach around even half-way.
He was also realizing that it wasn't him who was suddenly smaller, this new body aside from the obvious differences seemed rather similar in size to his old one.
The guy was just massive.
In every possible way.
Shen Yuan wanted to whimper as his legs flexed on either side of the hips between them.
"How is my pretty wife, on this morning?" Came the inquiry as the guy's nose brushed against his hair and a small kiss was pressed against the skin next to his ear. Shivering at the sensations, but Shen Yuan was still kind of stuck on the wife part.
Him?
There was no one else there.
His?!
There was no one else there.
Wife?!
There was no one else there.
Black screen of death this time.
His head was empty aside from all the screaming.
So it was a wedding.
His wedding and his wedding night.
He didn't quite know how to feel about not remembering anything and just experiencing the aftermath. Though this guy was a total stranger and he was in a stranger's body too, so maybe he should be fucking happy that he didn't arrive a few hours earlier.
"Sore." He blurted out in lieu of an answer. the guy only chuckled, while gathering him into muscled arms once again and hugging him gently to those defined muscles. He kind of wanted to die, because what was up with those guns? With all that warm and pleasant-smelling skin?
"That does happen." The guy told him, even as he shuffled to the side and stood up with Shen Yuan still in his arms like he didn't weigh anything.
It was hot.
Very very hot, and Shen Yuan didn't know that he had such a kink.
Let's say that he had a somewhat surprising night so far. Day.
Morning.
Whatever it was.
The guy - his husband apparently - hummed in answer and walked to a folding screen that had a steaming bath behind it. Then he stepped over the ridiculously decorated tub’s edge and he sat down in the water with Shen Yuan on his lap.
The warmth soothed some of his hurts away and he relaxed into the cradle of the man's body, feeling his exhaustion hit him hard.
"Does it feel good?" His husband - holy shit on a stick he had a husband and wasn't that mindblowing - asked and Shen Yuan nodded.
"Well, our Lord is a demanding lover." A new voice cut in and Shen Yuan froze while staring at the woman who appeared in front of his face, peering into his eyes.
"A fox demon, my Lord?" She asked the man who patted his sides gently under the water like he was a spooked horse. And he resembled one because there was a terrifying thought crystallizing in his mind slowly.
"Hualing." The chiding hid quite a lot of affection. It was also a familiar name and Shen Yuan felt a sudden dread pool in his gut with each passing second. "What was so important that you would disturb us in our wedding chambers?"
The woman clad in the gauzy, red silks grinned at them toothily, her eyes sweeping over Shen Yuan's face and his skin that peeked out of the water, making him want to hide somewhere. Or cover up completely.
She looked at him like a predator would look at prey, though the hunger wasn't quite… hungry.
No there was some difference to it, she didn't look at him like he would look at a stick of tanghulu.
It was strange.
"The Yang tribe crossed over the Sui river and Mobei-jun wanted your permission to make an example of them." She stated, sitting on the edge of the tub, her red claws close to Shen Yuan's skin. The small ripples she created in the water caressed his skin and he looked up at her while not seeing her or his surroundings.
Mobei-jun?
Hualing?
Yang tribe?
Sui river?
It couldn't be.
No.
Just no.
He had been rereading the shitfest that Proud Immortal Demon's Way became and all of those names were too familiar.
This exact scene was too familiar.
This was the beginning of the new arc after the Celestial Fox Demon Clan's utter destruction.
The marriage and the wedding night of Yan Xiyan, the last Celestial Fox and Luo Binghe, the Lord of the united Human and Demon Realms.
Why was he in the body of one of the flavor of the week wives in the harem?!
Shen Yuan was still in shock over his luck while he was ushered into his new rooms in Luo fucking Binghe's palace and instated as one of the several demon wives under Sha Hualing's authority.
Kind of.
Sha Hualing was the unofficial leader of the demonic faction in the harem as one the first wives of Luo Binghe. One of the main three.
But Shen Yuan wasn't.
He was Yan Xiyan.
He needed to dig up his memories because she happened a bit after the harem was established but she wasn't quite the first. Or the second. Or even the third.
Maybe the 67th member?
The only reason Shen Yuan still remembered her name was because her 'recruitment' arc was one of the last plottier ones. And it also ended in the destruction of her entire clan, leaving her as the only survivor.
She was 20 - incidentally or not so incidentally the same age Shen Yuan was too - at the time she got wedded to Binghe, drank his blood, and fed Xin Mo.
After that she was never mentioned by name again, one of the long lines of women who got shafted to the side when her assets didn't bring in enough new readers.
Shen Yuan would like to state that Yan Xiyan's main problem wasn't her kind of ditzy and innocent behavior, she just didn't appeal to the newer readers who were clamoring for another sexy femme fatale.
In this case, this was his luck.
Because if the plot progressed at the same pace… then he wouldn't have another badly written sex scene with the protagonist, his existence would be all but forgotten in the background.
It was kind of sad, because Yan Xiyan only accepted Binghe's proposal, his protection because she wanted a family. She wanted to be loved, she wanted children.
And she never got that.
It was all that hack writer's fault.
Shen Yuan felt bad on her behalf especially as he transmigrated into her role.
He hoped that she didn't die when he arrived.
He hoped that she didn't stay, trapped in the body he was occupying now too.
Speaking of this body, her body, his body. Their body now.
It was strange, it looked strange to him at least.
One of the first things he did was look into a reflective surface once he was alone and he was shocked for the hundredth time since he first woke up in this world.
The face that looked back at him was familiar.
Incredibly familiar, because it was his own face, from before he transmigrated.
Mostly.
Some of his features were just slightly softened while his eyes were not his previous dark browns but rather bright golds. He even had his faint freckles.
His hair was fluffy now, it could even be called somewhat curly though nowhere close to how Luo Binghe's was. Also, it was pure white and long, easily reaching his knees if he let it loose and he numbly thought about braiding his… sister’s hair when she was much younger.
Celestial Fox Demons' true form was of a big snow-white fox with numerous tails, their numbers depending on their power levels or their age. Or both, it wasn’t quite clear in the novel.
It was easy to figure out that Airplane mixed mythologies until it wasn’t possible to make heads or tails out of it entirely, but his main inspirations probably came from Huxian Niangniang and Inari Okami if Shen Yuan had to guess.
And this was the most important part!
It meant that fox demons in Proud Immortal Demon's Way could shapeshift.
Not just throw on a glamor, an illusion, but change their bodies to whatever they wanted to look like.
It could have been Yan Xiyan's biggest asset, but it was kind of forgotten in the clamoring of the newer readers who wanted something different and new. They just wanted to see who or what the new flavor of the week was because in their words they were ‘bored of Xiao Yanyan's cutesy actions’.
They wanted a fox demon, yes, but one who was seductive. An older woman, a MILF would have been the best and they got cute and young Yanyan instead.
Not that it mattered, later on they all forgot about her even when she could have been useful in later plots, but her abilities meant that for example… Shen Yuan could have his dick back.
Once he figured out how to use her abilities.
There wasn't much about that in the novel, but why would there be anything about something like this?
Xiyan was the pampered and sheltered princess of their Clan and everyone died before she could learn how to deal with her powers. She only had a rudimentary understanding of them and she did not express any desire to figure them out while her plot went on.
As she had no further role in the novel, Shen Yuan thought that there shouldn't be any problem if he tried to figure them out.
He transmigrated, but there was no Transmigration System greeting him and thus he knew nothing about the rules he might have to follow. It was possible that his System would show up later, or that he had a System that just would stay silent...
But maybe because the character he transmigrated into had no role anymore, there weren't any character settings. And there weren’t any OOC restrictions either.
So, for now, he would do whatever he wanted and the first thing on his agenda was getting his dick back.
Hopefully, before he could experience the joy of menstruation because he had seen his little sister sobbing from cramps and he definitely didn't want to experience that.
Also, he had no fucking idea what menstruation in this world was actually like but he remembered Ning Yingying's first period being incredibly bad and almost causing a qi deviation before the shitty author dropped that entire topic like it was a hot potato.
So it was entirely possible that menstruation wasn't a thing, or that for demons it wasn't a thing. But he still didn't want to chance it.
He went through his new room and found that while it was luxurious, there was nothing homey in it, it was like one of those rooms out of a catalog. Beautiful but impersonal.
He found a small satchel that hid a few things on a small embroidered chair.
The cloth that held a few items smelled of smoke almost overwhelmingly and Shen Yuan had to take a few deep breaths away from it as his sensitive nose itched from the scent.
The Yan Clan was destroyed by the Yang tribe, their home burned to the ground, and their ashes scattered across the four directions. The following retribution arc should have cemented Yan Xiyan as one of the more important, main-er wives of Luo Binghe, but because of her lackluster reception… The retribution was finished in a few throwaway lines and she was never heard from again.
And that was the reason why Shen Yuan even contemplated staying there in the harem.
With no sex scenes, no plotlines, and Luo Binghe mostly being away governing his territories or seducing another woman or finding long-forgotten treasures?
Jackpot.
Shen Yuan could stay in the palace, the most protected place in this entire world (aside from the occasional negative-IQ kidnapper, but Xiyan didn’t have a plotline like that) and he could pretty much do whatever he wanted.
Eat, sleep, read for example.
Nobody would bother him.
He would be essentially a freeloader… but because of Binghe or actually one of his wives, an entire Clan was wiped out. An entire demonic bloodline was completely gone.
He didn’t remember much more about the previous arc, but one of the human wives took an artifact of the Yang tribe and they retaliated against the Yan Clan for some convoluted reasons that never really got explained.
Effectively, Yan Xiyan’s entire life got destroyed because of a misunderstanding.
She didn’t have many options left and Binghe was one of the few stable-looking beings in their world.
He could afford to feed another mouth at this point without any issues, and Xiyan like all the others wasn’t a freeloader entirely.
Xin Mo needed to be fed, its demonic energy needed to be regularly distributed otherwise Luo Binghe would be overwhelmed.
Well.
Now that he was thinking about it.
It was a lot like he just sold his body for room and board?
Hm.
Okay, moving on, he thought as he opened up the satchel.
It was a pouch with a space enchantment on it, but there weren’t many things in it.
These were all the earthly possessions Xiyan got left, a few trinkets, a few scrolls, some minimal amount of clothing.
It was heartbreaking to see the remnants of her entire life condensed into stuff that didn’t even cover half of the bed. Not that Shen Yuan had anything other than his memories… but still.
He felt pity for the young girl whose body he stole? He had no idea what happened to her, to her soul. Maybe she died, maybe she was in his body in his world.
Whatever happened, he hoped that she was happy and safe.
He spread out the clothes, all whites, gauzy things, delicate embroidery and he folded them somewhat clumsily and placed back into the space pouch.
He wouldn’t wear them, possibly ever.
They were beautiful, that wasn’t the problem, or at least not in the way that they wouldn’t be appropriate to wear… No, they were beautiful and delicate and he didn’t want to have them dirtied, or destroyed.
There was some jewelry and he placed those back into the pouch too.
Maybe if it came down to it, if something happened and he had to leave the harem, he could sell some of them. Though it would be his last resort.
Scrolls. Ten of them to be exact.
He opened them up one by one and made two piles.
One of them contained things that could be useful, there were only three scrolls in there, things that were rescued from their Clan’s archives in the fire. Some of them burned partially or were charred in places. The other was larger with the rest of those ten scrolls. They were romance novels, pretty much the Proud Immortal Demon’s Way version of harlequin novels. He placed those on the small side table, they would be good for reading before he went to sleep.
The remaining three were more interesting to him as he needed to figure out how to use his powers and they had at least some likelihood of containing useful information.
One of them was something of a genealogical tree? Shen Yuan took a cursory look at it, but he didn't go through all of the names.
If it was still Xiyan here… it would be an awful reminder of how much she lost, and what she had left now. What he owned now.
The second was a scroll on defensive techniques, this one looked like it has been read numerous times. Mostly spell arrays and ward crafting, some of them seemed quite easy and basic to memorize. That might come in handy, he decided and reached for the last scroll.
That one had drawings of some kind of martial art, an instruction manual. Shen Yuan thought it could be useful if he ever managed to learn them though it would be an interesting experience trying to learn like that. Especially as he didn't know if those techniques - both spiritual or martial ones - were part of a series or not.
Maybe none of them were for beginners and he was fucked.
And he still had no idea how to use those demon powers he had as a fox demon.
There should be a library in the palace, maybe something would be there?
He closed the scrolls and looked around the empty room for a while. Everything was silent and the air was too still. It was so different from the ever-present quiet noises of the hospital room he left behind.
He had no family here either, no friends, no acquaintances...
This was going to be a lonely existence, huh?
He went to sleep on a somewhat empty stomach and he woke up to a knock on the door telling him that dinner was ready. And if the Mistress didn't like it she was free to cook for herself or get food for herself from another source.
Shen Yuan nodded at the small imp and decided to wash up first before he checked what was under the lid.
He splashed some water on his face in the small bathroom and tried to psyche himself up to eat.
It was just a hunch, but he didn’t think that bowl contained some of Binghe’s supposedly heavenly tasting cooking. Just a hunch.
But if he was right and it wasn't made by Binghe then it was probably demon-made food. The palace was placed in Demon Realm territory. Demons who thought that rotting human flesh was a delicacy.
He hoped that it was something normal.
Human food.
He raised the lid and let out a relieved breath because it was just congee and some vegetables and he ate it quick enough.
It wasn't bad.
It wasn't good either.
It didn’t matter much, because it filled his stomach and that was good enough. So Shen Yuan shrugged before he started going through his room once again to find something to wear.
The imp didn't blink too much at seeing him in what constituted as underclothes here but it was a demon (like him now, he shouldn’t forget that) and they shared different views from humans about decency.
It was easy to think of Sha Hualing’s clothing that was pretty much made of scarves and almost every other demoness that showed up wore revealing clothing.
However, Shen Yuan didn’t feel comfortable with that thought, he didn’t want to show skin. He hoped that there were some high necked and covering articles of clothing inside the closet for him to wear, especially as his skin still had those red marks and he didn’t know whether Xiyan’s healing ability would even clear them up or not.
There was obviously Xin Mo’s influence and he had Binghe’s blood running through his veins too. Every wife did. There was a thin slice over his heart, that looked fresh and red when he opened up his robes.
Well, not his.
It was Binghe’s.
Shen Yuan saw the complicated looking lingerie on the floor and he raised it to his eye-level and got embarrassed, then he just grabbed his husband’s robes instead.
They were large on him, both in shoulders, in length, and everything, but he worked with it.
He hoped Binghe didn’t want it back.
He dropped it on his bed, determined to never give it back.
He shouldn't have stolen the protagonist’s underwear, but it would be good to sleep in. It smelled nice and it was very soft.
So hopefully, maybe Binghe wouldn’t even notice the missing robe. He probably had several of them and it wasn’t even one of the more elaborate or decorated ones so he should be okay.
He found some robes in black and red mostly, so he started dressing up in them. He didn’t have any idea whether he was wearing them correctly or not, but he was a demon and these seemed more like cultivator’s robes than anything else.
As long as he was covered well enough, he cared not how much of a social faux pas he was doing with them.
Layer upon layer, until he felt warm enough.
He didn’t even notice how cold he felt since he left Binghe’s rooms.
His door banged open and there was a whirlwind of red before Shen Yuan found himself on his bed with the same red blur on top of him.
“And you are dead.” The demon said and shook out a clawed hand that caressed his throat.
Sha Hualing.
She was beautiful and deadly and apparently prone to scare innocent bystanders.
To be honest, that shouldn’t have been such a surprise, but there was nothing in the novel that even resembled this scene. Sha Hualing kept away from most of the harem as one of the main wives. She only had a few scenes with the other two - Liu Mingyan and Ning Yingying, but nothing with the newer wives once the harem started to get established and the flavor of the week thing started.
She ruled the demon section of the palace with an iron hand as the strongest demon after Binghe. The second strongest maybe, it wasn’t clear where Mobei-jun stood between Binghe and her. But she was the strongest demoness in the harem.
“Well, I seem to be still breathing.” Shen Yuan snarked back before he slapped a hand on his mouth. She wasn’t someone he should talk back to as she could make his life really difficult, he really didn’t need her on his ass in the future.
He blinked up at her and she smirked, before leaning down and nipping his slightly pointed ear.
He yelped and tried to cover it, but she caught his hand and pinned it down.
“Careful, kitten.” she purred and Shen Yuan went red. Redder.
Her smirk just grew much larger at that and there was a predatory glint in her eyes.
Xiyan didn't have many fighting skills, certainly not enough to win against a Demon Saint.
But it wasn't Xiyan anymore, but Shen Yuan and while he wasn't much of a fighter himself he was a completely different person with different past experiences.
His family was fairly rich and high up on the social ladder. Which made him and his siblings targets from an early age. And that meant that they all had to learn some self-defense when they were kids.
Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky didn't do much with martial arts in their novel. It was all spiritual weapons and spell arrays, the only martial arts that showed up were mostly the 'sexy kind'.
Shen Yuan didn't claim to be an expert in any case.
But when he wrapped his legs around Sha Hualing's and twisted, she flipped with a small, weird sound. He had the element of surprise, that was the only reason that move worked.
Shen Yuan sat on Sha Hualing's middle, his thighs pressing her down into the sheets, his arms wrapped around his chest protectively. Her hands fluttered on his knees before they wrapped around his waist.
Shen Yuan looked down at them before he mentally shrugged.
As long as those hands didn't make any further moves he was okay with them being on his waist.
"Not a kitten. One would think you would recognize a fox when you see one…" He told her with narrowed eyes and a slight snarl showing sharper canines, and then his little shit side came out and he was going to fucking regret letting his mouth run loose. "Ling-er."
But it was already out and… he couldn’t help but notice that she didn't seem like she would rip him a new one. Her eyes were wide, completely blown open before she regained her predatory look and she sat up.
Making Shen Yuan shift slightly before those hands supported his back and he couldn't move further away or fall.
"What did you just call me?" She asked, voice deadly quiet and Shen Yuan swallowed audibly.
Was it too late to tell her that she misheard? Eh, it was.
"Ling-er." He whispered dreading her reaction.
But she just perked up and suddenly Shen Yuan found himself being hugged, her face rubbing his chest and he would have yelped if he didn't hear her whispers.
"Xiao Yan remembers me. You remembered me!"
And he could only pat her head and mentally freak the fuck out.
What the fuck?
What the fucking fuck?!
There was nothing in the novel about this.
Sha Hualing was the bratty, young demoness who grew up to be a seductive, terrifying Demon Saint.
There was nothing about her having any connection with any of the wives, there was nothing known about her that wasn’t in relation to Luo Binghe.
Otherwise, Shen Yuan would have thought that it would have been mentioned that Yan Xiyan and Sha Hualing had some kind of a past.
It made a certain sense, they were both pure-blood demons, high-ranking and similar in age.
Though with Xiyan's isolation from her peers… he would bet that it was more of a childhood thing.
It still didn't make him too happy.
He had no idea what to make of this development, so he just decided to shut up and try to survive. Sha Hualing was exactly the kind of person who would happily kill him if she realized that he wasn't her ‘Xiao Yan’.
So he stayed quiet and awkwardly continued patting her on her back, acutely aware of her every move and suppressing his urge to shiver. He was in over his head, but he didn’t have much choice.
The story came out in parts, dropped hints, and small morsels over the course of the next few hours.
The good thing was?
They were childhood friends, but they haven't met in years. In more than a decade, almost two. Exactly sixteen whole years.
Which would put Yan Xiyan around four years old at their last meeting and Sha Hualing around eight at the time.
It was kind of hard to stomach that while he had been reading this novel from the beginning, seeing the children grow up into adults… he was actually younger than most of them.
There were four years between him and Sha Hualing.
Six between him and Luo Binghe.
So what was the bad thing then?
Apparently, before everything happened, Yan Xiyan and Sha Hualing were engaged. In an arranged engagement since Xiyan's birth.
She was the original fiance of Sha Hualing and now her sister-wife?
They shared the same husband.
Talk about fucking irony.
"I don't actually remember you." Shen Yuan told her when they laid on his bed and he was aggressively cuddled. He didn't know shit about their relationship and he didn't want to fuck anything up by lying.
The only lie he could make if needed to lie was that he lost most of his memories a few years ago. No one could deny that. There was no one else left alive who could deny that.
"You were very young." Sha Hualing shrugged and Shen Yuan felt the smoothness of the movement. "It doesn't matter."
Okay, he was fine with that. That was at least one less lie he would have to tell.
"I don't… it feels like I lost something. I'm forgetting things." He mused out loud and she went rigid before hugging him harder. And as he said it out loud he abruptly realized that there was something about that.
"It's going to be alright." She reassured him. "Our Lord's sword feeds on us too."
Sha Hualing started explaining and Shen Yuan listened closely even if he knew some of this already from reading the novel. Hearing it from one of the affected character’s mouth was a very different experience.
"It's mostly energy, but it's a spiritual weapon. It has its own mind almost and it has a certain appetite to feed with demons."
Suddenly he understood what she was trying to say but not actually saying out loud… and Shen Yuan tried to bring up how his family looked like.
His. Not Xiyan's.
Smoke.
He knew generally that they resembled him, should have resembled him, but he wasn't sure. He didn't remember what they looked like.
"I don't remember my parents. I don't remember what they looked like." He whispered without thinking, shocked, and growing more and more horrified.
Did that mean that Xin Mo fed on him, not on Xiyan, or was this just a side-effect of his transmigration?
Could Xin Mo really absorb his memories like that?
Sha Hualing certainly seemed to think that it was possible.
"I don't remember the previous night." He blurted out staring at Sha Hualing with wide eyes.
She nodded and shrugged. "That happens too. Sometimes."
Shen Yuan would have had something of a sexuality crisis, but he had to admit that his favorite character wasn't Liu Mingyan. And that he didn't quite read Proud Immortal Demon's Way as a male empowerment fantasy.
He didn't want to be Luo Binghe… But that didn't matter at the moment.
He squirmed around listlessly for a while before Sha Hualing got fed up and shoved his face into her neck. He didn't know what instinct she triggered but his body went slack and he relaxed completely.
She petted his hair making shushing noises and he snuffled into her neck quietly.
He woke up alone and he didn't even remember falling asleep.
The room was quiet and there was only the slightest sliver of light peeking through the heavy curtains. Not that it mattered much because it was always the same red sky outside.
He sat up in the large bed, his sheets falling away and he looked at his body for a moment or two.
He was tucked in.
He was tucked in by Sha Hualing, Demon Saint, and wife of Luo Binghe.
Which he was now too.
He leaned down to grab his head in his hands and had a quick freak-out now that he was alone.
Nobody would see him, there wasn't anyone he could hear breathing in close quarters. He tried to keep the panic away, but it overwhelmed him.
This was the first time, but certainly not the last, when it just bowled him over that he transmigrated into his most hated (favorite) novel.
And not even as a cool guy, but one of the forgotten wives, who had their screen time then they were never mentioned again.
He fucked the protagonist. Or well, the protagonist fucked him, because he didn't have a dick.
He sure hoped that was a situation that could be quickly remedied though.
Shit.
He was in deep shit.
Like truckloads of shit that much shit and he was in there up to his neck.
Married to a guy he didn't actually know, who already had 66 wives before him and would get more… It was interesting to read and he mainly read it at the beginning for the romance and plot before the stallion genre was added.
Later on, he read it for the cool treasures and the spiritual beasts, cursing himself for every time he bought a chapter though he knew that nothing that Airplane wrote could save the dumpster fire he created.
Did that make him a masochist?
He wasn't sure why else he would have put himself through that.
He valiantly ignored the little voice that dared to say the truth, that he had read so much of the novel because he liked Binghe first. He liked him even when he blackened.
It wasn't Mingyan/Binghe he read the novel for, it was only for Binghe.
Every nerd's dream was to transmigrate into their favorite novel… he even had sex with his favorite character!
Then why was he so heartbroken about it all?
Why did it all feel like a complete and utter nightmare?
He sat there with his white hair curtaining his face and stared into his lap trying to figure out some things.
Because…
Because…
Because he didn't have a role to play out.
Because he was only wife 67th, gone, and forgotten.
He would never speak with Binghe again, the novel would go on, he would be just another notch on a bedpost.
His favorite character would still be a miserable mess in the end, and he could do nothing.
He could only watch, stuck in this pretty much nameless NPC role.
Nobody would care if he died, no family to speak of… not like at home where he had a… What did he have again?
Two siblings, he was sure, but what were they?
Brother, sister, younger, older, twins? Triplets?
No. A sister and a brother?
Hm, he didn't remember.
And knowing what he already forgot, what possibly Xin Mo devoured of him already, he tried to remember everything he could remember.
He scrambled out of the bed and set out to find a pen and some paper. Or ink, brush, and a scroll?
Those were this world's version of writing supplies.
He needed to write down everything, to draw what he could before he forgot them all.
It felt like he could feel the influence of that sword gnawing through his mind, and it made him start to hyperventilate.
Black spots danced across his vision and he didn't notice the door swinging open.
No, he was too busy trying to get oxygen into his lungs, but it felt like it wasn't enough like it could never be enough and he blacked out.
His head pounded and there was something wet on his face.
He tried to lift a hand to push it away, but it fell back after raising only for a few centimeters.
It felt like gravity was turned on a bit more than usual.
Every limb felt like it was weighed down with stones and he couldn't even open his eyes at first.
"Careful…" A calm voice ordered him and Shen Yuan wanted to see who it was because it was a pretty voice, all mellow and calm.
He fought with himself and opened his eyes to a sliver and found two faces peering down at him. Or, one face and one half-covered face.
Sha Hualing and someone with a veil.
He could see under it.
He would have been shocked any other day at seeing Liu Mingyan’s face, but he couldn’t dredge up anything other than mild interest.
He had a panic attack, he was almost sure of that.
Joy of joys.
Whatever he was half-laying on shifted under him and there was the faint sound of bells tinkling.
He was laying on the lap of Sha Hualing and he was carefully inspected by Liu Mingyan. Half of the fandom would kill to be in his place.
And he still felt nothing, he mused in his mind. He wiggled his toes, then tried to sit up.
“Slowly.” Liu Mingyan said urgently.
Four hands were immediately on him and helping him up, supporting him from left and right.
“Xiao Yan… What happened?” Sha Hualing asked, brushing his hair out of his face.
He shrugged before he realized that making any sudden moves made his head throb too.
“I had a panic attack.” He said out loud before he added. “I think.”
Were panic attacks a thing here? Did he just speak what amounted to nonsense in this world?
Like, was there ever a character who had a negative reaction like that?
He didn’t remember. Luo Binghe had a nightmare every once in a while, but it was an excuse for more papapa 90% of the time.
There were no therapists here and that was probably one of the reasons why the plot ended up the way it did too.
An argument could be made that while the entire harem acquisition thing was a staple in stallion novels, and one of the main dynamics of the genre. A male power fantasy. But in the end, it was more like Binghe trying to find some kind of love so that he wouldn’t feel like a lonely and abused little boy ever again.
If the two women said anything he didn't notice.
"I was trying to write down everything I can… still remember." He mumbled mostly to himself but it was an answer to them too.
His mind felt like swiss cheese peppered with holes through and through.
"Will those memories come back?" He asked frantically from Liu Mingyan. She watched him before she shook her head and Shen Yuan slumped back into Sha Hualing's hold with a small. "Oh."
"She can't be on the roster." Sha Hualing stated and Shen Yuan looked up confused.
What roster?
Liu Mingyan nodded at the two of them.
"She won't be. I will speak to her."
And then she stood up and left without a further word.
Shen Yuan watched all this unfold feeling rather confused before he turned to Sha Hualing for answers only to find her already watching him like a hawk.
"What roster?"
"Our Lord's... dual cultivation roster."
Ah, the Xin Mo feeding schedule, okay.
It wasn’t like he wanted to papapa with Luo Binghe again.
But, if he wasn't used as a cauldron to feed the parasitic demonic sword, then what use did he have? He would be nothing but a freeloader.
The unfavored concubine banished into the cold palace so to speak.
However, he didn't ask any of this from Sha Hualing.
No, there was another more pressing matter he had to deal with.
"Can I get some writing materials?" He asked in the end after several minutes of silence.
He didn’t want to forget anything else.