Chapter 1: Transmigrated as a Substitute Bride?
When she opened her eyes, her vision was flooded with a shock of glaring crimson.
Scarlet drapes hung heavy from the windows, framing the nuptial bed swathed in blood-red silk. A pair of dragon-phoenix candles sputtered erratically on the low table, their wicks struggling against the thick wax. Outside, past the low-hanging window, the stark silhouette of double-joy characters (囍) glared mockingly from the shutters and door. Gu Qingxi frowned faintly. Lowering her gaze, she took in her own attire—
A phoenix crown pressed down upon her temples, heavy with artifice. The ceremonial wedding robes—a vibrant, unsettling shade of red—felt less like clothing and more like a suffocating cocoon.
A bridal chamber? Wedding candles?
Hadn't she died? How then was she trapped within this alien wedding suite, clad in this mockery of a bride's garb?
"How does it feel?" A voice, venomous and slick with malice, suddenly hissed right beside her ear, chilling the air. "Bridal bliss... the groom, though ancient, retains his potency. Before he bleeds you dry, he'll surely grant you… absolute ecstasy. Are you… yearning for it?"
Before the last syllable faded, biting cold pressed against her cheek!
Gu Qingxi jerked her head up.
A young woman's face leered mere inches away, twisted with malice. She held a dagger, its blade gleaming wickedly in the candlelight, the chill steel digging into the soft flesh of Gu Qingxi's face. The girl's eyes—they weren't just filled with hate. They brimmed with vicious satisfaction, a gloating, predatory amusement.
What… was this?
Alarm surged through Gu Qingxi. Worse, a horrifying realization struck—this body felt bound as if in lead weights, utterly and terrifyingly immobile!
Poisoned? A restraining spell? Regardless—a bridal chamber, a drugged bride, a knife-wielding lunatic… No scenario spelled anything but disaster.
Agony—a savage, blinding pain—exploded deep within her skull!
Memories, vast swathes of memories that weren't hers, ruptured into her consciousness like floodwaters bursting a dam.
Amidst the pain, understanding crystallized.
She had died. Yet she lived again—reborn into this body bearing her name. This Gu Qingxi's existence… was far more pitiful than she'd imagined.
The knife-wielder? Gu Wenlian. Her… "beloved elder sister." Gu Qingxi's birth mother had died under mysterious circumstances years ago. The head of the Gu family, Gu Hongbo, remarried, bringing Gu Wenlian and her mother into the household. From that moment, Gu Wenlian became the cherished daughter. The true heir, Gu Qingxi, became an object of escalating disdain and neglect.
Gu Qingxi's world crumbled. Cultivation resources ceased entirely. The food and finery allotted to her were inferior even to the servants'. Gu Wenlian revelled in leading packs of her cronies to taunt, humiliate, and beat her. The once-exalted young miss became a 'pitiful wretch' trampled by all. Scars—new layered upon old—never faded.
Her father, Gu Hongbo? His contempt was a palpable thing. Mockery, scathing words, violent rages that sometimes descended into blows… it was his naked revulsion that emboldened Gu Wenlian and the extended clan members to treat her as less than human.
This very wedding, this grotesque farce… it was meant for Gu Wenlian.
Possessed of slightly better innate talent, Gu Wenlian had caught the eye of a powerful elder from a major cultivation sect. Not for marriage. For a cultivation cauldron! Facing declining fortunes and a hundred-year stagnation in his own cultivation, Gu Hongbo saw an opportunity. Eager for advancement and the resources only a powerful sect could provide, he had sold his "cherished daughter" without a shred of hesitation, offering her body and essence for the elder's parasitic harvesting.
Gu Qingxi's inner voice dripped with contempt. Cultivation cauldron… Draining another's vital essence to fuel one's own cultivation—it was taboo, an offence against the Heavens! The "righteous" elder knew it perfectly well. Hence, this elaborate charade, this pantomime of a wedding—a mere fig leaf to conceal the obscenity beneath.
A hypocrite pretending to virtue. Utterly despicable!
Gu Hongbo and the elder had conspired neatly. But they had grievously underestimated Gu Wenlian's ruthless ambition. She had dared to seize Gu Qingxi—the scapegoat, the despised—and force her into the sacrificial role. To Gu Wenlian, Gu Qingxi was a worthless burden, beaten down and utterly expendable. Surely, the elder, confronted with this unexpected substitute of breathtaking beauty and conveniently useless cultivation, would find her acceptable? Complaints were unthinkable.
"Worthless Gu Qingxi!" Gu Wenlian hissed, pressing down, her fetid breath hot against Gu Qingxi's ear as the dagger bit deeper. Her words were pure venom. "Just die already! I am the true heiress of the Gu!" True Heiress… Those words were the barb in her heart. So long as Gu Qingxi drew breath, the lineage of the rightful wife, the first spouse, stood above her, the daughter of the replacement. Even… even if that heiress was a talentless cripple!
Gu Qingxi's eyes remained unnervingly calm, betraying no shred of panic. Her mind was a whirlwind, sifting ruthlessly through the deluge of inherited memory—details of this body's torment, the fundamental laws governing this alien world…
"Little girl… finally awake?"
A voice—ancient, gravelly, weighted with untold ages—reverberated deep within her sea of consciousness.
Who? Gu Qingxi's thoughts snapped back instantly. Where are you? The intrusion was jarring. Gu Wenlian showed no sign of hearing; this communication was spirit-to-spirit, existing solely within Gu Qingxi's mind.
"Who am I… matters little," the voice sighed, heavy with a tired eternity. "Within your bracelet. Focus, child. Free yourself… now. Or all is lost."
Bracelet?!
Gu Qingxi didn't move her head. Only her eyes flickered downward, catching the glint of pale jade around her wrist. The elegant, intricately carved jade bracelet—it was here! The same one she'd worn since childhood in her past life! The artifact had travelled with her soul? Her intuition screamed: this was no coincidence. Her rebirth was intrinsically tied to this object.
This bracelet was an heirloom, passed down through generations of the once-glorious Gu lineage. Her previous family hadn't been mere mortals; they were masters of the Arcane Arts, the paramount family in that dying world's mystical circles. She, Gu Qingxi, had been hailed as the preeminent master of her time. Then came the Apocalypse. In the chaos, her blood had smeared the cool jade. Only then did its true nature awaken—a spatial artifact. A storage bracelet. Her final act in that lost world was wielding its remaining power to shield vital assets—detonating herself and taking a horde of evolved monstrosities with her into oblivion…
To awaken… as this Gu Qingxi, in this utterly alien place.
But… the bracelet of her past had held only inert objects. This voice… how had a sentient presence invaded it? Who or what spoke?
"Girl, hesitate not! Flee!" The ancient voice held a sharp edge now, an unfamiliar urgency.
"Bound." Gu Qingxi's thought-response was clipped. Her brow knitted infinitesimally. Processing the chaotic memories had confirmed it: this wasn't poison. A rudimentary immobilizing hex. Simplicity itself… if one had Qi. Yet… the ambient Qi here… it crashed against her senses! Immense! Thick! Vibrant! A torrent compared to the desiccated trickle of her apocalypse! It screamed of potent opportunity.
The calculation flashed: Break free. Now. Her core tenet held true across lives: rely only on oneself. This world—this was the legendary realm of Cultivation! That explained the overwhelming Qi saturation. A stark and wondrous contrast to the barrenness she'd known.
The mental exchange took less than a heartbeat. Above her, Gu Wenlian was still crowing, savouring the poison on her tongue: "Enjoy your final moments, you wretched piece of—?"
Gu Qingxi's face remained impassive, cold jade. The restraints frayed like rotten twine under the relentless surge of Qi she channeled. Almost there…
Then—
A shock of warmth!
It erupted from the heart of the jade bracelet, flooding her meridians with the speed of lightning!
Snap!
The invisible shackles shattered.
Her body, hers once more, felt suddenly, gloriously light. A finger flexed, unhindered.
The bracelet's occupant? Gu Qingxi's eyes, deep and fathomless, flickered imperceptibly towards her wrist for the merest fraction of a second. Was this a boon? Or merely interference?
"Do you know?" Her voice, a startlingly clear whisper after the suffocating silence, cut through the bridal chamber's cloying air like shaved ice.
Gu Wenlian jerked back slightly, the taunt freezing on her lips. "Know…? Know what?"
Gu Qingxi offered no answer.
Instead, a slow, utterly unnerving curve touched her perfect lips. It was silent, icy. Yet in that moment, on that devastatingly beautiful face, it blossomed like forbidden flower—terrible, captivating, soul-shaking. It held the lethal allure of a Manjusaka bloom by the River of Forgetfulness. It promised nothing but oblivion.