Forced to Become the Protagonist of a Restricted Novel [Transmigration & Rebirth] - Chapter 2

Su Cheng froze for two seconds before turning into a broken record: “Murong Yue? My fiancé? Nanhe Academy?”

Perhaps the author had used all their brain cells on writing steamy scenes and couldn’t be bothered to craft a proper plot, because the original story was stitched together from every cliché trope imaginable.

First, there was the old man’s soul residing in a divine artifact, and then the genius fiancée who looked down on the “trash” protagonist.

All standard elements of a xianxia novel.

On the second day after Lin Yun’s transmigration, his childhood fiancée made a special trip from the imperial capital to break off their engagement.

The fiancée and her entourage all assumed the male lead was a good-for-nothing. But when they arrived at the Lin family, they discovered the former “trash” had already condensed battle energy and passed the Warrior Attendant rank examination.

Yet even so, the fiancée didn’t change her mind.

In the end, the situation became extremely awkward. Feeling humiliated, Lin Yun made harsh threats and scheduled a duel with his fiancée one year later.

…With so many identical elements, this couldn’t possibly be just a coincidence of names, could it?

Su Cheng turned to look at the full-length mirror in the bedroom.

The reflection showed a young girl with thick, curly black hair cascading over her shoulders and fair, translucent skin.

Her features were bright and beautiful—high nose bridge, large round amber eyes like shimmering autumn waters, with slightly upturned corners that radiated youthful vitality and spirit.

Her face hadn’t changed.

It was identical to cannon fodder Su Cheng.

Or rather, it was similar to her pre-transmigration self, but with better skin complexion and more hair.

A state unattainable by a college student who stayed up all night cultivating immortality.

“Yeah,” the boys said with strange looks, “You’re not going crazy from anger, are you? Su Cheng?”

Su Cheng: “…”

Great.

The name hadn’t changed either.

Su Cheng took a deep breath and began fishing for information from them. These two kids were only fourteen or fifteen, guileless, and soon revealed everything she wanted to know.

—Now she wasn’t the Lin family head’s in-law relative, but his niece. Orphaned at a young age, she had lived with her uncle’s family.

Having failed to cultivate battle energy, she was famously known as trash throughout the neighboring villages, constantly mocked by her Lin cousins.

Moreover, the current Lin family head didn’t have a niece by marriage surnamed Su—meaning the original existence of “cannon fodder Su Cheng” had been erased.

Sitting on the bed in confusion, Su Cheng listened as the two mocked her. Seeing her dazed expression, they lost interest and left with disdainful smirks.

A few seconds later, she suddenly stood up and surveyed the tidy bedroom.

A row of massive wardrobes against the wall, a simple dressing table with a full-length mirror, and a four-poster bed covered with a down comforter.

She walked next door to a larger study filled with wooden cabinets stacked with various books, all appearing quite new.

On a long table lay a thick tome titled “Why You Can’t Condense Battle Energy: The Shocking Secret of Attribute Compatibility.”

Su Cheng: “………”

Su Cheng raised her hand, and the air around it slowly gathered, forming a cyan Wind Blade.

She flicked her wrist and sent the Wind Blade flying out the window.

Crack!

A bamboo branch in the small garden was severed, falling onto the low rockery by the pond before tumbling down the jagged stones and splashing into the water with a plop.

She sighed in relief, then frowned again.

She still had magic—how could she be considered trash?

Su Cheng now understood that her current background was identical to Lin Yun’s, only with a different gender and name.

Of course, Lin Yun had originally possessed no magical talent. After transmigrating, he’d only gradually learned magic through external assistance.

What exactly was going on?

Su Cheng’s memory stopped at killing Lin Yun and watching Lin Zhen smash the bracelet.

Though that item might not have been destroyable by a mere fifth-rank Battle Master, at least her goal had been achieved.

And then?

Had someone spoken to her?

What had they said?

Su Cheng strained to recall, but her mind remained blank, remembering only that strange sensation of sinking into nothingness.

And that gentle voice whispering in her ear—

“Replace him.”

Su Cheng: “!”

It was that thing’s doing!

Everything was its handiwork!

…Why?

If there was something like the “Heavenly Dao” in this world that ensured the existence of a “protagonist” by having someone follow the plot, wouldn’t it be easier to just revive Lin Yun?

If they could even change her identity, saving Lin Yun should be a piece of cake, right?

Su Cheng picked up the thick battle energy book on the table and smacked it against her head.

A dull pain throbbed in her forehead.

Then, to her despair, she realized this didn’t seem to be a nightmare—she might really have to become this damned protagonist.

The Legend of the Divine Throne, as an R-rated literature focused heavily on explicit content, was fundamentally different from traditional overpowered protagonist power fantasies centered on leveling up and fighting monsters.

It had a lot of steamy scenes, and with so many of them, readers easily grew desensitized.

Thus, all sorts of abstract and extreme elements were introduced.

Reading it virtually for fun was one thing, but experiencing it firsthand was another.

Just imagining some of those scenes was enough to make her scalp tingle.

Not to mention, the original novel hadn’t even been completed. What if the author’s intended ending was for the protagonist to end up crippled, insane, missing, or dead alongside the villain?

Male-oriented novels had far too many precedents for that.

Su Cheng wallowed in despair for a few minutes before deciding to face the grim reality.

First, she needed to quickly familiarize herself with this body’s abilities, as there would likely be many situations requiring magic soon.

Elemental Mages were Elemental Resonance Users, capable of sensing and altering the vibrational frequencies of Elemental Spirits.

By channeling their internal mana and guiding the Elemental Spirits to operate in specific patterns, they could generate spells.

Most humans lacked this talent—unable to perceive the existence of Elemental Spirits, they could only see the spells they produced.

The resonance levels of mages were typically divided into four tiers: low, medium, high, and special.

Su Cheng was a triple-elemental resonance user of wind, fire, and lightning.

Because her wind element resonance was high-tier while the other two were low-tier, her predecessor had only studied wind magic and was more attuned to Wind Spirits.

Currently, she had mastered four wind spells: the second-tier Wind Blade, and the first-tier Wind Summon, Wind Shield, and Wind Step.

Wind Summon conjured a gentle breeze, Wind Shield formed a protective barrier of wind currents, and Wind Step created swirling air currents around her legs.

These were foundational spells in wind magic and served as the basis for many mid-to-high-tier spells.

The strength of a spell’s effect varied depending on the amount of mana input.

Su Cheng silently recited the incantation for Wind Step, and her body immediately felt lighter. Increasing the mana slightly, she bounced around the room a few times, soon touching the ceiling.

She experimented repeatedly, carefully controlling the mana input and observing the differences in spell effects until a mild headache set in.

This was a sign of mana depletion.

So-called mana was the power formed when mages, through meditation and other means, allowed Elemental Spirits to enter their bodies and fuse with their flesh and blood.

This was also the main focus of elemental mages’ cultivation.

During her attempts at spellcasting, she could sense the presence of wind spirits.

They were swift, light, and elusive, carrying an intangible quality that made them impossible to grasp—this was the nature of wind elements.

The moment one tried to consciously perceive them, they would quickly disperse, vanishing completely from human perception.

Su Cheng attempted to sense them more carefully, but it felt like chasing shadows—each attempt ended in failure, leaving her with an increasingly painful headache. She dared not continue.

She got up to tidy the room, hoping to find more information while organizing money and valuables. After rummaging for a while, she suddenly froze.

Something was wrong.

Where was that cheat bracelet?

That item was an heirloom passed down from the male lead’s father’s family, an important relic, so the male lead had always worn it.

Now that she shared Lin Yun’s background, logically, she should also have the bracelet—either wearing it or stored somewhere in the room.

Su Cheng looked at her bare wrists and turned the bedroom and study upside down, gathering all the jewelry she could find, but the bracelet was nowhere to be seen.

She couldn’t help but feel a headache coming on.

That thing was troublesome. While it brought the protagonist many benefits, it also caused plenty of trouble—a double-edged sword.

So she either needed to use it as soon as possible or get rid of it early.

But now she couldn’t even find it!

Unnoticed, night had fallen outside the window, casting the courtyard into darkness. Su Cheng lit a magic crystal wall lamp and began putting the mess of drawers back into the cabinets.

Suddenly, a burning pain spread across her back.

She froze, then panicked, hastily stripping off her outer robe and pulling open her undergarments to reveal her pale, bare back. Holding the lamp, she turned to look in the mirror.

Right in the center of her back, a blood-red heart emblem was entwined with dark crimson thorny vines, coiling like snakes.

Su Cheng let out a wail. “No!”

She had also inherited the curse from the male lead!

This brain-dead curse that would kill her if she didn’t… ahem with someone when it activated!

Su Cheng stared at the mirror in disbelief.

Lin Yun was considered trash because his unique constitution made him unable to cultivate the Lin family’s secret battle energy manual.

Or rather, he couldn’t cultivate most secret manuals. Even buying a random cultivation tome from an outside shop wouldn’t work.

After the cheat old man in the bracelet awakened, he explained the reason and dictated a cultivation method to Lin Yun, who successfully condensed battle energy that very night.

But this also activated the curse, leaving a mark on his back.

Lin Yun didn’t understand it, but the cheat old man recognized it as a vicious curse that drained vitality. The only way to alleviate it when it flared up was to engage in certain R-rated activities with another person.

As for who cursed him and why, these remained unsolved mysteries.

In over a hundred chapters afterward, the curse was neither lifted nor its origins uncovered.

But—

Lin Yun had only activated the curse after condensing battle energy.

She was a mage! How could this still happen?!

Did the activation condition have nothing to do with battle energy?

Did it just appear automatically after a certain time?

The curse sigil on her back grew brighter, each line glowing with dazzling intensity.

Su Cheng’s face twisted in agony.

Lin Yun’s solution had been to visit a brothel, but that very night, a female side character—severely injured—would sneak into the Lin estate.

The two ended up entangled, which temporarily relieved the curse but caused countless troubles afterward.

Moreover, the female antagonist appeared because she sensed some dark aura emanating from Lin Yun and followed its trail.

The so-called dark aura was actually that bracelet.

But now that it’s gone, this plotline probably won’t happen, right?

“…”

Su Cheng frowned as she surveyed her surroundings.

The room was dim, the magic crystal lamp having extinguished at some unknown time. The wind howled through the open window, lifting the drapes into the air.

“You’re quite perceptive, mage.”

A deep voice suddenly spoke behind her.

Su Cheng instinctively threw out a Wind Blade.

A dark shadow flashed before her eyes, followed by sharp pain in her wrist as someone grabbed her arm, twisted it behind her back, and pressed her against the study desk.

—Exactly the same treatment the male lead had received.

Su Cheng thought expressionlessly.

The female antagonist had claimed she needed to absorb essence to restore her strength. Originally intending to force herself on the male lead, she’d pinned him down—only for him to happily reciprocate upon seeing her beauty.

“…Could you let me go first?”

Su Cheng sighed.

Her face pressed against an open book page, her disheveled hair spilled across her snow-white back like seaweed glistening with moonlight or writhing serpents.

Then suddenly, that eerie yet beautiful cursed sigil flared to life.

The heart entwined with thorny vines burned crimson against her flawless skin, glowing like fresh blood.

“Hmm?” The person sounded surprised. “This is—”

A scorching claw traced her back, parting the tangled black curls to examine the mark, its hooked tip slowly dragging across delicate flesh.

“Yes,” Su Cheng said flatly, “a curse. Don’t ask how I got it—I don’t even know myself.”

She mused that this sister’s voice sounded unusually deep, probably intentionally lowered.

The person behind her paused. “…You know what this is?”

“More or less,” Su Cheng sighed. “We mages read constantly, accumulating useless knowledge daily.”

Whoever this was had instantly recognized her as a mage—clearly sensitive to elemental spirits, unlike those oblivious Battle Masters from the Lin family who actually believed her powerless.

Su Cheng cleared her throat. “Would you mind releasing me? I promise not to attack again.”

The person started to speak but suddenly gasped, grip slackening as they collapsed onto a nearby seat with a pained groan.

When Su Cheng turned, what she saw froze her in place.

Pale moonlight spilled into the room, illuminating the figure slumped by the window.

They—no, he—was breathing raggedly in ill-fitting clothes, the loose collar revealing a powerfully built, pale chest. Sweat-drenched hair clung to his forehead as he tilted his head back, Adam’s apple bobbing.

A deep wound crossed his abdomen, oozing blackened blood that saturated the fabric around it.

Only belatedly did Su Cheng’s gaze reach his face.

Dark curls framed strikingly handsome features—a prominent nose, deep-set eyes with icy blue irises like frozen winter ponds.

Yet beneath that glacial surface seemed to burn smoldering darkness.

“Damn it—”

He sucked in a sharp breath, face contorting before another low moan escaped him.

He gritted his teeth tightly, pulling open his collar to reveal a chain encircling his neck. The chain shimmered with golden light, occasionally revealing golden runes.

The fragmented golden glow illuminated the surrounding skin and those raised bluish-purple veins, creating an oddly alluring contrast.

Su Cheng’s gaze froze.

Apart from the difference in gender, all other details were identical.

The female supporting character in the original novel had worn this exact same chain.

“You,” the man whispered hoarsely, still panting as he spoke, “that curse of yours needs relief, or you won’t live to see sunrise.”

Su Cheng stared at him with a conflicted expression.

“Just in time…”

Every word seemed to cause him pain. Beads of sweat continuously rolled down his face, his damp eyelashes trembling like two rows of butterfly wings shattered by rain.

Even so, Su Cheng didn’t dare make any sudden moves.

He had only released her because he believed they could make a deal—this absolutely didn’t mean she had any chance to escape or harm him.

“I…”

The man kept panting as his clothes began tearing at the back, revealing a pair of folded black bat wings. Spiral-ridged black horns extended from his forehead through his hair.

Curling dark patterns wound across his face like vines, intersecting over his forehead, eyelids, and cheekbones.

From his waist emerged a long, densely scaled tail.

The smooth black scales were tightly arranged, with two curved bone blades at the tip forming a cruel sickle shape that joined together into a beautiful heart silhouette.

—An incubus.

Incubi were a type of high-ranking demon whose homeland lay in the distant west, far from human continents.

They were a long-lived species, said to be favored by the God of Darkness, possessing formidable strength and vigorous vitality. Even young demons had considerable combat power.

Though they had relatively poor resistance to holy light magic.

Of course, only mid-to-high ranking clergy would stand a chance against high-ranking demons in battle.

“I need… you too.”

The man took another sharp breath before tearing off his belt with one hand.

That flexible tail suddenly lashed through the air before coiling around Su Cheng’s waist, dragging her forward.

She fell onto the man’s muscular thighs.

“I’m tired. Do it yourself, mage.”