Quick Transmigration: Extraordinary Beauty - Chapter 1

In the oppressive darkness, the rhythmic tick-tock of dripping water echoed incessantly, grating on the nerves.

When Lin Yao opened his eyes, a crushing sense of exhaustion washed over him. He could barely breathe, and the metallic tang of blood coated his lips. This body had technically died before his arrival. While his consciousness had restarted the heart and warmed the stiffening limbs, it couldn’t magically erase the fatal conditions that killed the original host.

His abdomen wasn’t just rumbling; it was contracting in agonizing spasms. He was so starved that his body had begun to digest its own stomach lining. To survive, Lin Yao’s first priority was sustenance.

A heavy weight pressed against his lips. Blinded by the dark, he followed a primal instinct, seeking out a faint trail of moisture. He swallowed the copper-tasting liquid greedily. Only after consuming that bit of “life” did he find the strength to jumpstart his brain.

He began to sync with the body’s memories. Images flashed by: marble fountains, lush lawns, and women draped in ethereal veils, their hair adorned with jewels and fresh blooms. Their arms were softer and more radiant than moonlight.

They would sway their graceful waists across the grass, lending a dreamlike, crimson atmosphere to this city of giant stone.

Then, the laughter died. Men holding golden chalices, surrounded by beauties and wearing rings encrusted with countless gems, were cut down. Armored soldiers burst into the revelry, their blades swinging without mercy.

Golden vessels toppled, spilling fine wine like nectar. The intoxicating liquid mingled with blood so red it bordered on black, emitting a decadent, floral sweetness—even amidst the horror. There were screams of women, shouts of men, and the thin wailing of this very body.

When disaster struck, the woman seated at the highest point shielded him. Though her skirts were stained with gore, she forced herself to carry him into a hidden underground tunnel.

It wasn’t so much a tunnel as it was a treasury. In their desperate flight, they had found only a fleeting reprieve. Once the vault doors slammed shut, they were trapped in a cold, dark void without food or water. The chests of emeralds and gold coins surrounding them were utterly worthless in the face of death.

The servants who followed called the woman “Queen” and him “Prince.” One by one, they succumbed to terror, hunger, and eventually, a silent, despairing death.

These memories played like a film, forcing Lin Yao to relive the child’s trauma. He felt the boy’s bone-deep fear as he hid in his mother’s arms, watching through a crack in the door as his doting father was pinned to the throne by a blade.

When the steel was pulled out, a fountain of crimson sprayed. The boy’s last image of his father was a pair of wide, weeping eyes and the hem of a magnificent silk robe standing beside the corpse.

And here, in the dark, his gentle mother had done the unthinkable. In his moment of peak starvation, she used hands that had never held a weapon to slice a bone-deep wound into her own pale wrist. She pressed it to his lips, cradling him and singing a soft, beautiful lullaby—the same one she used to put him to sleep—until she quietly stopped breathing.

His mother wanted him to live.

But the child died anyway, leaving the shell for Lin Yao to inhabit and inherit these residual emotions.

As a member of the World Maintenance Department, Lin Yao’s mission was simple: find the true enemy of this body and exact vengeance. It was a job, and his salary paid in commissions or deductions depended on his performance rating. Furthermore, all expenses incurred during the mission had to be paid out of his own pocket.

[System 1325 Notification: Would you like to spend 1,000 Star Credits to activate ‘Temporary Minimum Life Support’?]

“Activate,” Lin Yao commanded mentally. If he didn’t, he’d drop dead before he even found the exit.

As the life support kicked in, warmth returned to his limbs. He exerted every ounce of strength to push the cooling corpse off him. Looking down at the woman still frozen in an eternal embrace, he felt a pang of sorrow. She was beautiful, and she was a great mother.

His chest tightened with inherited grief. He closed his eyes for a moment to steady himself, then used the faint glint of light to survey the vault.

Treasures piled high, corpses scattered low. To seek revenge, he had to get out. But according to his memories, the invaders were likely scouring the palace for this very room. If they found him, he was a dead man.

He slowed his breathing, his mind racing. Before he could move, the heavy grinding of stone echoed through the chamber.

Voices approached. Footsteps followed—steady, rhythmic, like drumbeats against a human heart.

[System 1325 (Anxious): Host, what do we do?!]

“Shut up.”

The owner of the footsteps appeared, bringing a light so bright it seemed to turn the vault into day, despite the blood still dripping from the sword in his hand.

“First Prince, this is the treasury of the Chade Royalty,” a fawning voice echoed from behind the leader.

“Have men move everything out. And then.” The Prince’s voice was more melodic than the finest piano, yet his words were more devilish than a demon’s: “Burn this place to the ground.”

Playing dead was no longer an option. Lin Yao shifted his breathing, carefully shielding a tiny sprout in his hand, exhausting the last of his mental energy to keep it alive.

“Oh? It seems we have a fish that slipped through the net.”

Lin Yao was yanked up by his hair. Forced to look up, he finally saw the man’s face.

Wavy golden hair shimmered under the torchlight, more brilliant than the crates of gold being hauled out. His eyes were a piercing blue—like the sky, yet deep and dangerous like the ocean floor. He wore magnificent Eastern silks embroidered with cloud patterns, a garment that perfectly framed his physique and made Lin Yao’s pupils contract. The same silk from the memory.

“A filthy little fish at that,” the Prince smirked, his sword tip rising with cold cruelty.

But the blade stopped just short of Lin Yao’s throat. The Prince paused, eyeing the tiny seedling clutched in Lin Yao’s grimy hands. He hesitated. “This is a seedling of the Posuo Flower. Are you a Priest?”

Lin Yao looked at the gleaming steel inches from his chin and nodded, his small body trembling uncontrollably. He was in the body of a ten-year-old; facing such bloodshed, terror was the only natural response.

The bloody sword was withdrawn. Before Lin Yao could exhale, the Prince smiled again. “A Priest? Hiding in the Chade treasury with blood on his lips?”

Lin Yao’s heart hammered. He carefully tucked the seedling into a silk pouch, opened his cracked lips, and spoke in a raspy, dry voice: “I, I came to deliver the Posuo seeds.”

“And so you were brought here?” The Prince studied the dirt-caked boy.

Though his clothes were tattered, the fabric was high-quality. His exposed limbs were thin but translucent and white—this was no slave child. In this world, only Royalty and Priests were pampered to this degree.

When a kingdom falls, anyone can be slaughtered—except for one class of people who hold a permanent “get out of death free” card: the Priests.

Their duty was to preside over rituals and pray for the heavens, but their true value lay in their ability to cultivate the Posuo Flower. The Posuo was a mythical plant with stems like jade and blooms as red as sunset clouds. More importantly, it could enhance a warrior’s power. The more perfect the bloom, the greater the power boost and the fewer the side effects.

Because these flowers were incredibly rare, only a gifted Priest could coax the seeds to sprout. The more powerful the Priest, the shorter the growth cycle.

Lin Yao had caught this detail in the memory fragments and gambled his life on it. Luckily, many nobles carried these seeds as protective amulets, allowing him to find one and “force” a sprout to save his skin.

The Prince’s murderous intent lingered. He was young, barely an adult, but his gaze was unnerving. Sweat rolled down Lin Yao’s forehead and dripped onto the Prince’s hand.

Suddenly, the Prince hoisted him up and tossed him into the arms of a nearby soldier.

The Prince wiped his hand with a piece of precious silk from the vault. “Take him back. Put him in the Sanctuary.”

The soldier, who had initially caught Lin Yao like he was holding trash, suddenly gripped him tight—as if he were holding the world’s most fragile treasure. He bowed deeply. “Understood, Your Highness!”

The crisis was over. The adrenaline that had kept Lin Yao upright vanished. His vision tunneled into blackness.

The last thing he heard was a panicked shout: “Prince Cody! The Priest has fainted!”

“He’s just fainted from hunger. Give him some water and food. Just don’t let him die.”

Cody felt the boy’s neck. Though the pulse was weak, he was still breathing. His face was caked in filth, but those eyes and the fleeting, terrified light within them were strikingly beautiful.

When Lin Yao finally regained consciousness, he was on horseback. He was being held steady by a pair of armored arms; they were as cold and unyielding as stone, leaving his neck stiff and aching at the slightest movement.

He didn’t know how long he had been held in this position, but the insides of his thighs stung with a fiery friction burn whenever he shifted.

“The Lord Priest is awake?” A gruff voice sounded from above him, carrying a rare note of respect.

Lin Yao looked up, recognizing the soldier’s face from earlier. “Where are we going?”

“To the city of Onassis. That is our home, and from now on, it will be yours as well,” the soldier replied.

Though a scar marred the man’s face, he didn’t radiate the same murderous bloodlust as the invaders in Lin Yao’s borrowed memories. Instead, he spoke with the tone one might use for a guest more precious than a friend.

Executioners carry an aura of slaughter when facing their victims, yet they still retain ordinary human emotions for their kith and kin.

Lin Yao could feel that while his body was sore, the deathly weakness from before had vanished. He must have been fed and hydrated while unconscious to pull him back from the brink. For now, he was safe.

Following the soldier’s gaze, he realized they were part of a massive caravan.

The line stretched as far as the eye could see. Countless horses pulled wagons laden with heavy chests, each guarded by rows of soldiers. Yellow dust kicked up from the road, but judging by the deep ruts left by the wheels and the visible strain on the horses, those wagons were filled with the contents of the treasury—the inheritance of his brutally murdered father.

“Sir,” Lin Yao asked, looking up, “could you tell me who in Onassis wears robes embroidered with cloud patterns?”