Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Because they had run into the eldest young master, and the eldest young master had called a physician for Xie Licheng, Xie Licheng was not locked in the woodshed.

It was while his wounds were being treated that Xie Licheng slowly absorbed all of the original owner's memories.

It was only at that moment that he realized he wasn't a time traveler—he had transmigrated into a book.

It wasn't that Xie Licheng was slow to catch on; it was mainly because the original owner was a nameless extra in the novel. If he hadn't later absorbed the original owner's memories and recalled the eldest young master's name, he probably still wouldn't have known he was in a book.

The original owner was a horse groom, a convict slave from the slave camp.

Because the original owner was tall and had a fairly decent face, he caught the eye of someone from the Gu family.

That Gu family member who took a liking to him was a young master born of a concubine from the second branch of the Gu family, who had a taste for men.

The other party had originally wanted to bring the original owner into his courtyard for his own amusement, but unexpectedly, the moment he brought him home, his father discovered it.

The master of the second branch was a reasonable man. He didn't take out his anger on the original owner just because his son had acted foolishly. Instead, he placed the original owner in the outer courtyard of the Gu estate as an ordinary servant.

For the original owner, this should have been a good thing, but unexpectedly, he later encountered the youngest young master of the first branch of the Gu family.

The old master of the Gu family had three sons in total. The youngest had died early from illness, leaving only the eldest and second sons' families.

He had few children, so he didn't have his two sons divide the family estate—everyone lived together.

For a family like theirs, even though they seemed to live together, they were actually divided into several courtyards.

The old master had one large courtyard, the first branch had one large courtyard, and the second branch had one large courtyard.

Then the children of the first and second branches, after marrying, would each get a smaller courtyard.

And so large courtyards contained smaller ones—the entire Gu mansion was so vast it was impossible to fathom, truly a sprawling, labyrinthine estate.

The young master the original owner encountered was the youngest young master of the first branch, and a pampered omega.

Omega was a gender—the third gender in the book Xie Licheng had transmigrated into.

In the world of the book Xie Licheng had entered, besides men and women, there was also a third gender: omega.

Omegas looked similar to men but could bear children like women.

Because omegas lacked the physical strength of men and couldn't impregnate women, their role was similar to women's—they were generally expected to marry men.

Gu Tinghe was an omega, and he had been raised to be spoiled and tyrannical.

The original owner had a somewhat dim-witted personality. Once, he accidentally crossed Gu Tinghe, and from then on, Gu Tinghe bore a grudge against him.

Gu Tinghe began to pick on the original owner from time to time. He would even publicly abuse and beat the original owner to show off his authority as a young master of the Gu family.

In the original text, the original owner was beaten to death by Gu Tinghe, and until his death, he never even had a proper name.

Oh, and I forgot to mention—this novel was an old-school danmei power struggle novel, which could also be called a male-lead harem novel.

The entire story revolved around the male lead, Song Qiyue.

Song Qiyue was a transmigrator who had transmigrated into an ancient era of chaos.

Relying on the advantages of being a transmigrator, when the chaos erupted, he stockpiled grain and built high walls, becoming a warlord who carved out his own territory.

Because he was the male lead of a harem novel, he collected many beauties.

Among these beauties were not only men but also young omegas—he took whoever came his way.

Like the male leads of many male-oriented harem novels, he seemed passionate but was actually cold-hearted, seemed kind but was actually ungrateful.

Of the beauties he collected, he would treat them well when he liked them, and casually hand them off to his subordinates when he didn't.

The lucky ones might find someone to marry.

The unlucky ones might end up as army camp prostitutes.

And among the beauties he collected, one of the great beauties was named Gu Zhangyuan—the eldest young master who had saved Xie Licheng today.

Gu Zhangyuan was different from the other beauties. He didn't want to compete for affection with a crowd, nor did he want to be stuck in Song Qiyue's harem.

He didn't like Song Qiyue. The reason he had followed Song Qiyue was that when Song Qiyue attacked Lingzhou, he had ambushed the Gu family's carriage convoy on the road.

The Gu family was very wealthy and had several beautiful omegas, so Song Qiyue took both the people and the wealth.

Gu Zhangyuan was unwilling to follow Song Qiyue, nor did he want to compete with a crowd for a man, so he tried everything to get away.

Unfortunately, Song Qiyue was rather vicious. He didn't want anyone close to him to escape, and he viewed their attempts to flee as betrayal.

When he learned that Gu Zhangyuan didn't want to be with him, he decided to gift Gu Zhangyuan to his subordinates.

Yes—he would rather hand over the people around him to his subordinates as playthings than see them happily regain their freedom.

He was truly cruel and utterly vicious.

He didn't treat others as people at all, but as items in his personal collection.

In the story, Gu Zhangyuan refused to become a plaything for a bunch of men and was completely disillusioned with Song Qiyue and those around him. When he had no way out, he chose to burn himself to death.

It wasn't that he was especially loyal—he just wanted to preserve some dignity.

Before the chaos, he had been the Gu family's most precious eldest young master, and when he died, he should have had the dignity that was his due.

The reason Xie Licheng had read such a morally dubious novel was mainly because the world he lived in was an apocalypse.

Civilization in his world had collapsed, and things like novels had become a rare luxury.

Because everyone was busy surviving, no one had the time or energy to write novels anymore.

After the apocalypse, if they wanted to read novels, they could only read paper novels that had been published before the apocalypse.

Xie Licheng had a portable space, but it wasn't just any ordinary space—more accurately, it could be called a portable otherworld.

His portable otherworld was very, very large—an undeveloped game world.

In this game world, there were no human NPCs, only animals, plants, and many empty buildings.

Xie Licheng was the only player inside. He could level up by hunting animals, gathering plants, or building houses.

After leveling up, he could obtain attribute points.

These attributes could be added to strength, agility, and other personal stats.

These attributes weren't just useful in the game world—they were just as useful in the real world.

It was exactly because of these attribute points that Xie Licheng was so powerful during the apocalypse.

Back in the apocalypse, Xie Licheng had only unlocked the starter village map of his portable world, so he had no idea what the other maps were like.

But even with just the starter village unlocked, there was plenty of space in it for him to stockpile supplies.

Since the portable world had tons of space, he grabbed novels along with everything else while scavenging.

Just web novels alone numbered in the tens of thousands in Xie Licheng's portable world.

This vintage "total top" novel was probably put out by some bootleg publisher.

The content of this novel was full of outrageous stuff, and no proper publisher would dare to publish it.

Xie Licheng got bored easily, and since he was a lone wolf who liked doing things solo, he'd read novels to pass the time while hanging out in his portable world.

But who'd have guessed—he was just reading to kill time, and one day he actually ended up transmigrating into the book?

Xie Licheng had a lot of complaints about this novel.

But there was one thing that worked in his favor.

Namely, this was a world without natural disasters or viruses.

Even though it was a chaotic world, it was still much safer than his apocalyptic one.

The only regret was that he'd come as a soul, so his portable world was probably gone.

If his portable world was still around, even a world this messed up wouldn't faze him at all.

With that in mind, Xie Licheng instinctively tried to summon the player panel.

If his portable world was still there, he'd be able to summon the player panel.

He instinctively felt that his cheat ability was tied to his body.

Now that his body was gone, the cheat naturally went with it.

But to Xie Licheng's surprise, the moment he summoned the panel, it actually showed up.

Seeing the panel was still there—just the data was wiped—Xie Licheng let out a soft, happy laugh.

Seemed like... fate wasn't too cruel to him after all.

He'd transmigrated into a novel, and as a soul at that, yet his cheat still followed him over.

Back then, the player info on Xie Licheng's panel was all his own.

The player name was Xie Licheng, and the stats listed were his own.

Now that he was in a new body, the player name was Horse Slave, and the stats belonged to the original owner.

Xie Licheng glanced at the original owner's data.

Name: Horse Slave

This was changeable—the first rename was free, but after that, you had to pay.

Xie Licheng immediately changed the name to his own.

Gender: Male

Race: Human

Age: 21 years old

Height: 190 centimeters

Weight: 53 kilograms

This weight was way too skinny.

But given that the original owner was a criminal slave who'd been constantly abused, it really wasn't his fault he was this thin.

This section couldn't be changed—height, for instance, was locked in as is.

Weight could shift with his real weight, but the other stats were fixed.

Aside from those, the stats below could be adjusted.

By "changeable," it meant he could take points from a high stat and redistribute them to other stats.

For example, the original owner had low strength but high looks.

He could pull points from appearance and dump them straight into strength.

His looks would drop, but his strength would go up.

He could also earn attribute points from leveling up and put them wherever he wanted.

The original owner's strength was 23.

Back then, Xie Licheng's starting strength was 47, which was pretty high for a guy.

Later, through his own hard work, he pushed his strength up to 98.

With that kind of strength, he could punch an ox to death with one hit.

Defense: 39

The original owner's defense wasn't bad; the higher the defense stat, the better you could take a hit.

If defense got high enough, even fatal wounds wouldn't do much damage.

Agility: 18

Agility was tied to speed and reaction time.

His agility was on the low side, which would be a weak spot in fights later on.

Health Points: 14

A healthy person usually had 100 HP.

Getting sick or hurt would drain HP.

If HP dropped below 20, it was dangerous—the kind of situation where you might kick the bucket at any second.

Now this body's current health points really can't take any more hits.

Stamina: 9

When stamina hits zero, he'll pass out on the spot.

And with his health being so low, if he faints, things could get really dicey—he might not even wake up.

This is... a real problem.

Looks: 89

The original body's looks are about on par with Xie Licheng's.

That's insanely high for a guy.

But since he's a dude who's been through the apocalypse and is now in a war-torn era, he's not about to rely on his looks to get by. Honestly, having such a high looks stat doesn't seem all that useful.

Might as well shave some off and dump the points into other stats later.

The last two stats are Charm and Luck.

The original body's Charm is 79, but his Luck is a pathetic 3.

No wonder the original body was so cursed—first he caught the eye of the second branch's young master who liked dudes, and then the main branch's hot-tempered young master zeroed in on him.

And neither of those two are any good—one wants to play with him, the other wants him dead.

With looks and charm that high, the original body was bound to stand out like a sore thumb.

And on top of that, his luck is rock bottom—you could say he's pretty damn unfortunate.

Given all that, being a criminal slave with zero way to defend himself, it's no wonder he's struggling to stay alive.

Xie Licheng stopped mid-step on his way back to the original body's place. He decided to tweak his stat points before heading back.

His current state is rough—if he runs into any more trouble, he might actually kick the bucket.

No matter why he ended up here, he's determined to make it.

With that in mind, Xie Licheng found a spot to sit and dropped his appearance from 89 to 80.

If he cut his appearance too much, his face would change too drastically, and that would just invite unnecessary problems.

After pulling 10 points from appearance, he also yanked 30 from charm.

Charm is invisible and hard to pin down, so shaving off a bit more doesn't matter much.

But he can't drop it too low either—if it's too low, people will just inexplicably start disliking him.

With forty stat points in hand, he first dumped 10 into health.

Getting health above twenty means he won't be on the verge of death.

Health recovers slowly with rest and faster with medical care, so there's no point wasting too many points on it.

For the remaining thirty points, he put 20 into defense and 10 into agility.

Defense and health go hand in hand—the higher your defense, the slower your health drains even when you're hurt.

So why didn't he boost strength?

There's still about half a year until the war-torn era from the book kicks in.

That's plenty of time—he can earn stat points through other methods.

Stepping into his portable world puts him in full gamer mode, where he can level up in all sorts of ways.

Like leveling up by fighting monsters, foraging, fishing, and so on...

Right now, Xie Licheng's portable world only has one map: the starter village.

The starter village is an old-school village, with a big mountain right next to it.

Up on the mountain, there are wild beasts, wild greens, wild fruit, herbs, and a stream...

Of all these, fighting monsters levels you up the fastest—the monsters you kill are all wild beasts, and you can also score hides, bones, and meat.

These hides and meats can be sold at the starter village's shop, or taken to the real world to sell.

The starter village shop buys stuff for dirt cheap, so selling your hunted goods there is a total rip-off.

Also, the shop barely sells anything—just farmland, seeds, and stuff like that.

As for other stuff—clothes, food, tools—they don't have any of that.

As for farmland, Xie Licheng's farm already has eight plots.

He can't work that much land by himself, so there's no point in saving up to buy more.

Farming gives crap XP too, and since he's not planning to level up that way, he's not interested in land.

Seeing his health at 24 points now, Xie Licheng finally breathed a little easier.

This stat adjustment isn't something you can do every day—it's a once-a-year thing.

Now that he's used up his shot, he's gotta be more careful from here on out and absolutely can't let his health drop that low again.

Satisfied that he wouldn't kick the bucket anytime soon, he got up and headed back to the original body's place.

The original body's place was in a side courtyard of the Gu family's outer compound, where the lowest-tier servants lived.

The original body was a horse slave who'd only just arrived at the Gu estate.

He shared a room with five or six other male slaves, all crammed onto a filthy, messy communal sleeping platform.

When Xie Licheng walked in, the guys he shared the room with were in the middle of gossiping about him.

They didn't even bother to shut up when he came in, just kept yapping away.

A male slave with a square face, bushy eyebrows, and close-set eyes glanced at Xie Licheng and chuckled, "Some people are just idiots—pissing off one person after another. Now they've gone and pissed off the young master too. Who knows how many lives they've got left?"