Don't Raise A Black Lotus Flower; Use The Emperor As A Substitute [Transmigration novel] - Chapter 1

“The main villain peeled off the male lead’s face?”

Lin Ruoxuan stared intensely at his phone screen, unable to believe what he was seeing. After following the web novel The Secret History of the Forbidden City for half a year, was this the ending the author was giving him?

The main villain personally peeled off the male lead’s face, severed his limbs, and placed him in a wine vat in the dungeon, turning him into a human swine.

Lin Ruoxuan gripped his phone, feeling as though a mouthful of blood were stuck in his throat, unable to be spat out.

As a miserable thoracic surgery resident, he had just finished an overnight shift. After handing over his duties and returning home, he was so preoccupied with the series finale of The Secret History of the Forbidden City that he did not even take the time to sleep before opening the app to check for updates. This was what the author had given him.

There are plenty of novels that torment the protagonist, but the early plot of The Secret History of the Forbidden City was clearly a standard power fantasy about a comeback.

The male lead, Xiao Tunan, was the only grandson of the Xiao family. The Xiao family had been loyal for generations, but the foolish old Emperor listened to slander and ordered the execution of the entire clan. Xiao Tunan was only six years old at the time; a loyal servant carried him on his back as they escaped. After decades of effort, he finally cleared the Xiao family’s name, assisted the Crown Prince in ascending the throne, and became the only prince in the Great Yuan Dynasty with a different surname, the Prince of Ningyuan, to guard the frontiers.

The story could have ended there, but for reasons unknown, the author went mad. In the final three chapters, the plot took a sharp turn and pulled a complete one-eighty.

Thirteen years later, the Emperor whom Xiao Tunan had helped died in his prime. The young new Emperor summoned Xiao Tunan to the capital and imprisoned him in the imperial jail on charges of treason. In the end, in the pitch-black darkness of that prison, Xiao Tunan was personally skinned and dismembered by the new Emperor, becoming a human swine.

The innocent readers were left speechless. This was not just a plot twist; it was a disaster.

Upon closer inspection, this was not entirely unexpected, as the author had planted foreshadowing early on: Xiao Tunan’s face was exactly the same as that of the new Emperor, Ji Ruxue.

Why did they look identical? It was simple. Xiao Tunan had assisted the late Emperor in ascending the throne, and the late Emperor had married Xiao Tunan’s sister, Xiao Yuerong, naming her Empress Duanshu. In simpler terms, Xiao Tunan’s biological sister was Ji Ruxue’s mother. As the saying goes, a nephew resembles his uncle, and Ji Ruxue and Xiao Tunan looked like they were cut from the same cloth.

To make matters worse, Empress Duanshu died of a hemorrhage while giving birth to Ji Ruxue. The late Emperor and the Empress had been deeply in love; after she died, he became obsessed with Taoism and Buddhism, shunned the harem, and grew to hate Ji Ruxue, the little beast who had caused his mother’s death. If not for others dissuading him, he would have torn his own son to pieces.

Consequently, Ji Ruxue grew up in the cold palace, neglected and unloved. He was bullied by eunuchs and maids, suffered from hunger and cold, and was constantly abused and beaten. He grew up frail, short, and crippled, unable to even ride a horse.

His life was truly miserable.

Because of his childhood trauma, Ji Ruxue developed an antisocial personality, becoming ruthless and devoid of human warmth. He forced three of his older brothers to their deaths, compelled the late Emperor to abdicate, and finally stepped over a mountain of bloody corpses to sit upon the throne.

He was naturally suspicious and refused to trust anyone. Although Xiao Tunan was his maternal uncle, he was a high-ranking official with command over a vast army, so he was inevitably summoned to the capital to report on his duties.

Initially, Ji Ruxue had not intended to kill his uncle; he only wanted to keep him under house arrest. But on the day Xiao Tunan returned to the capital, as luck would have it, Ji Ruxue was disguised as a commoner, drinking at the most famous restaurant in the city, the Apricot Blossom Tower.

He sat by the window on the second floor, watching Xiao Tunan lead hundreds of his soldiers into the city, riding a tall steed along the straight stone road. Xiao Tunan appeared heroic and carefree, his spirit soaring, while the people along the road cheered and shouted with excitement.

“Look, it’s the Prince of Ningyuan!” “The Xiao family army is truly majestic!” “Indeed, indeed.”

Ji Ruxue stared at Xiao Tunan from afar, focusing on the face that was ninety percent similar to his own. His fingers, gripping the wine cup, slowly tightened.

With the same face, why was Xiao Tunan able to conquer the world and be revered by the masses, while he, the Son of Heaven, was short, frail, and crippled, unable to even ride a horse?

And so, Xiao Tunan met his misfortune.

Despite his superior martial arts, Xiao Tunan bore many old wounds from years of battle. He was captured on the spot by imperial guards in the Golden Throne Hall, and that very night, Ji Ruxue personally skinned him and turned him into a human swine.

In the darkness of the jail, Xiao Tunan asked in a hoarse voice, “Why?”

Ji Ruxue slowly took an embroidered yellow handkerchief from his robes, carefully wiped his blood-stained fingers clean, and then curled his lips slightly: “Uncle, is horse riding fun? It is a pity that I am a cripple.”

[The End]

Lin Ruoxuan wanted to beat the author up. He took a deep breath, telling himself that he was a tolerant surgeon; if he could handle the most difficult patients, he would not lose his temper over a piece of cliché web fiction. With that thought, he suppressed the urge to curse and scrolled down to the comments section.

As expected, the comments were a mess.

“Author, are you dead?” “Downvoted! Get out!” “Why do this? Has the author lost his mind?” “I have so many questions.”

Lin Ruoxuan endured the headache from his all-nighter and scanned the comments. The pain in his head only worsened, as they were all vents of rage with not a single logical argument to be found.

He rubbed his temples in silence and decided to write a long, rational, and objective review himself. “First of all, I respect the author’s right to create, but as for this ending, I cannot accept it. Firstly, there was no foreshadowing. Ji Ruxue, as a prince who grew up in the cold palace…”

Lin Ruoxuan wrote thousands of words, his fingers feeling numb. His heart began to beat faster, and his vision grew blurry. Gradually, he could not hear anything around him, only the sound of his own heavy, clear heartbeat thumping.

Then, everything went black.

In the final second before losing consciousness, Lin Ruoxuan made a simple self-diagnosis: exhaustion leading to sudden cardiac death.

Ha, what a lovely end for a modern young man.

[Dear user, hello.]

“Stop talking. I just finished a night shift, I am sleepy.” Lin Ruoxuan turned over irritably.

[Dear user, hello.]

“Stop it, let me sleep.”

Before Lin Ruoxuan could finish his sentence, he gave a sudden jolt and snapped awake. Wait, had he not died of exhaustion?

Was he alive? Had his colleagues saved him?

Thinking of this, he was overcome with joy. Thank goodness! Thank modern medicine! Thank the university hospital!

While offering his thanks, he summoned all his strength and finally managed to open his eyes.

He froze.

He was not in a sterile white hospital room; he was suspended in a void of darkness, similar to a scene from a science fiction movie.

Lin Ruoxuan looked around in a daze. “What is going on?”

No sooner had he spoken than a massive screen appeared in the darkness, resembling an IMAX theater screen.

Lin Ruoxuan murmured, “What the hell?”

A complex soundwave appeared on the screen, and at the same time, a delicate, feminine voice echoed: “Dear user, I am not a ghost. Logically speaking, you have already died, so you are the ghost.”

He really had died.

Lin Ruoxuan was stunned for a long time before he had to accept the reality that he was dead. Although he was an orphan with no family left since his grandmother passed away, a sense of sorrow still washed over him.

However, as a doctor accustomed to life and death, he quickly pulled himself together. “Thank you, I understand. Where is this place? Surely not the underworld?”

The voice replied sweetly, “Dear user, this is not the underworld. This is the maintenance hub for the Secret History of the Forbidden City world-line. Because the ending was poorly written, reader emotions have fluctuated wildly, causing the world-line to collapse and necessitating system maintenance.”

Lin Ruoxuan was puzzled. “System maintenance? What does that have to do with me?”

“The main system has monitored that among the 119,896 readers of the novel, you are the most tolerant and rational.”

“So?” Lin Ruoxuan began to understand.

“Therefore, the main system would like to hire you as a staff member to perform the task of maintaining the original world-line. The reward is a rebirth in the real world.”

Rebirth? Such a good deal.

Lin Ruoxuan perked up. “Really?”

“It is true, dear user. The mission is simple: rescue the male lead of the book, the Prince of Ningyuan, Xiao Tunan.”

Rescue Xiao Tunan?

Lin Ruoxuan found it difficult. “He has too many old wounds. After being captured by the imperial guards and skinned by Ji Ruxue, how am I supposed to save him?”

“It is simple, dear user. First, heal Xiao Tunan’s old wounds; second, kill Ji Ruxue.”

Heal old wounds? Kill Ji Ruxue?

Lin Ruoxuan could not help but frown. “Treating illnesses is my job, but killing people? And that Ji Ruxue is both perverted and clever, a total black lotus. I kill him? He is more likely to kill me.”

“Please rest assured, dear user. The system will provide you with the most suitable identity, location, and time. You will be able to kill Ji Ruxue without any effort. Transmission starting, five, four, three, two…”

“Hey, do not just decide for me! I have not agreed yet, wait…”

Lin Ruoxuan panicked, but before he could finish, an overwhelming wave of exhaustion surged over him, and he sank into thick darkness.

His head hurt.

His eyelids felt heavy.

After an unknown amount of time, Lin Ruoxuan slowly opened his eyes.

His vision gradually went from blurry to clear. He was in an antique room.

“What is going on? Where is this?” He struggled to sit up, slowly remembering what had happened.

No way, did he really transmigrate?

Lin Ruoxuan looked around the room in a daze. It was very exquisite, but the furniture was clearly aged, and incense drifted in the air.

He looked down at himself.

He was sitting in an ebony chair, wearing a bright red embroidered robe, his fingers slender and fair. He was clearly a high-ranking official.

Which character was this?

And what part of the plot was this?

Lin Ruoxuan calmed himself down, walked around the room, and finally found a bronze mirror. Summoning his courage, he took a look.

The person in the mirror had a sharp chin and amber cat-like eyes. His skin was like the finest porcelain, flawless. He looked eighty percent like his past self, but his temperament was very feminine and somewhat perverse.

Lin Ruoxuan touched his smooth chin and muttered, “Who is this? Why is he so delicate?”

“Congratulations on successfully binding to the cannon-fodder side character, Director of the Eastern Depot, Lin Ruoxuan.”

Lin Ruoxuan’s hands loosened, and the bronze mirror fell to the ground with a clatter.

Director of the Eastern Depot, Lin Ruoxuan?

Perhaps other readers had forgotten this small cannon fodder, but Lin Ruoxuan would never forget him, because they shared the same name.

Although he was a minor character who appeared for less than two pages, Lin Ruoxuan had complained in the comments section about sharing a name with a cannon fodder, to which the author replied, “Hahaha, is that not fun?”

Fun, my ass! I am not that perverse!

In short, the original Lin Ruoxuan was a perverted eunuch who enjoyed abusing and molesting young boys.

The late Emperor despised Ji Ruxue, abandoned him in the cold palace, and let the eunuchs and maids bully him. When Ji Ruxue was fourteen, the Emperor sent his trusted subordinate, the perverted eunuch Lin Ruoxuan, to the cold palace every afternoon to discipline Ji Ruxue.

The Emperor had hinted that he should be well disciplined, without regard for his status as a prince.

Lin Ruoxuan took the hint and abused Ji Ruxue to the point of near-death. If he had been an ordinary child, he would have been ruined.

But who was Ji Ruxue? He was the main villain who would go on to skin the male lead, a black lotus who could swallow anyone whole. His psychological resilience was like a diamond, and he actually endured it all.

Later, when Ji Ruxue finally ascended to that supreme position, on the second day of his reign, Lin Ruoxuan was taken to the market and executed by lingchi over three days and nights. The onlookers scrambled to grab pieces of his flesh, as if it were a festival.

That was the short, disgraceful life of the perverted eunuch Lin Ruoxuan.

And he had transmigrated into this person?

An abusive, child-molesting pervert?

A eunuch?

Lin Ruoxuan felt faint, forced to lean against the table to steady himself. No, this could not be happening. The system could not be this cruel.

He took a deep breath, summoned his courage, and reached down to check.

Huh? Was it still there?

“Phew, not a eunuch.” Lin Ruoxuan let out a long sigh, almost moved to tears, but then he remembered something.

Does this mean he was a fake eunuch? But the original book never mentioned that Lin Ruoxuan was a fake eunuch. Was there some hidden plot?

As Lin Ruoxuan was lost in thought, he suddenly heard a soft knock on the door.

“Knock, knock, knock!”

No way, was the plot starting this quickly? Give a person some prep time, at least! This was like a math teacher smiling at the start of class and announcing a pop quiz.

The person outside knocked again.

Lin Ruoxuan had no choice but to adjust his clothes, mimic the posture of the powerful eunuchs from movies, and say in a deep voice, “Enter.”

A short, chubby old eunuch pushed the door open and minced his way over to Lin Ruoxuan, his face wrinkled like a chrysanthemum. “Director, this old servant has already woken up the Fourth Prince. Shall you continue with the discipline?”

The Fourth Prince?

“What Fourth Prince?” As soon as the words left Lin Ruoxuan’s mouth, he realized the Fourth Prince in this old eunuch’s mouth was naturally the young main villain, the Fourth Prince of the Great Yuan Dynasty, Ji Ruxue.

So, the timeline was the period when Lin Ruoxuan was disciplining Ji Ruxue in the cold palace. Ji Ruxue was only fourteen. So, the easy way the system spoke of to kill Ji Ruxue was to end him while he was young.

Damn, that is truly shameless.

Seeing the temperamental Director of the Eastern Depot silent, the old eunuch Zhang Youde tried to pile on a fawning smile. “Director, the whip from before broke. This old servant has prepared a new one, with barbs; it is particularly effective.”