Snuggling for Survival: A Quick Transmigration Tale - Chapter 14

Those Taoist priests were originally frauds who only tricked people out of their money. Usually, they just swindled a few coins and had not done much that was truly heaven-defying or wicked.

Initially, they wanted to brush things off as they always did, but Old Madame Li was not the kind of person who was easily fooled. She was acerbic, mean, and only trusted her own judgment. Even when she sought help with a specific goal in mind, she remained incredibly suspicious and calculating.

The priests put on a grand show. They performed rituals for months, yet they could never satisfy Old Madame Li. Of the money she held tightly in her grasp, she only handed out a pittance. Since they were only after her wealth to begin with, the priests grew resentful after being toyed with for so long without receiving the full payment.

Old Madame Li passed away amidst the sounds of their arguments. Even at the moment of her death, she was surrounded by an aura of resentment. Her wishes had not been fulfilled, and the Taoists were equally filled with spite.

They failed to find Old Madame Li’s hidden fortune. Meanwhile, Li Yuan, who had been locked away in the side courtyard, felt no affection for her deceased grandmother. The Li Family Mansion, now a hollow shell, held no meaning for her. She had originally wanted to take over her father’s affairs to keep his memory alive, but by now, she was truly exhausted in both body and mind.

She wrote a letter to her maternal uncle, planning to stay with him for a few days. Li Yuan packed her few belongings and called the servants who had cared for her during those months. She distributed some money to each of them; she was fully prepared to disband the household.

However, they were never able to step foot outside the gate of the Li side courtyard.

The Taoists, flying into a rage of humiliation, felt they had been played by Old Madame Li. Although they were charlatans who lived by deception, they had actually studied some genuine occult arts—they had even secretly learned forbidden techniques. People could tolerate Old Madame Li’s harshness for the sake of money, but in the end, they were left with nothing but a stomach full of anger and very little pay. Their fury was turned entirely upon Old Madame Li’s only granddaughter.

Using themselves as mediums, the priests performed a forbidden technique for the first time. The entire mansion was instantly shrouded, so tightly that not even a bird could fly in.

But no one expected Old Madame Li’s resentment and obsession to be so deep. Her will to see the Li family legacy continue was beyond the control of those priests. What started as a petty attempt at revenge transformed into an uncontrollable cage. The Li Family Mansion became a place where one could enter, but never leave.

…

Yu Yu’s eyes burned as she watched these madmen perform all sorts of frantic experiments. She saw Li Yuan, who had finally gained her own will and planned to start a new life, only to have her light completely extinguished by this tragedy.

As a string of incomplete data, Yu Yu had never felt anything like this. She had never experienced such a painful emotion. Watching Li Yuan huddled in a corner, Yu Yu tried to pass through that thin, frail body again and again. Even though she knew she could not embrace her, she still wanted to try.

The feeling of being stifled in her chest made it difficult to express her current state. She did not know if this was an emotional flaw caused by her data structure. It was painful and heartbreaking; her eyes turned red involuntarily, and tears flowed uncontrollably.

The images shifted faster.

In their madness to find a way out, the priests began to communicate with the deceased Old Madame Li. But that paranoid woman had only one thought: “I want the Li estate to fall into Li Yuan’s hands. I must find a capable man to marry into the family.”

A man…

The panicked priests began to try every possible way to bring men in from the outside. They could not leave, and their hearts were filled with anxiety. Eventually, friction turned into conflict; they blamed each other and trusted no one. Everyone wanted to sneak out alone, but they were no match for Old Madame Li’s powerful resentment.

Li Yuan endured these household upheavals in a daze. At first, she was only flustered, but as one strange man after another was sent to her, she became terrified.

There were some scenes Yu Yu did not even dare to watch. She could only close her eyes and cover her ears, refusing to receive the information. But even with her eyes closed, the sounds still pierced her eardrums: the arguments of the priests, Li Yuan’s struggles, and Old Madame Li’s screeching resentment.

Countless forbidden arts and arrays were laid down across the Li Family Mansion. They were so dense they were impossible to count. Even the priests no longer knew exactly what they were using; they simply tried everything they knew in a desperate attempt to escape the cage of the mansion.

Few of the men captured met Old Madame Li’s standards. The number of people who entered and then vanished was beyond counting. This high-tension existence lasted for months, until the priests’ ghosts captured another Taoist midway.

This was the one man Old Madame Li was satisfied with. She was so pleased that the entire courtyard’s decorations changed into wedding arrangements. The few remaining servants began to organize the wedding as if they were possessed.

Li Yuan’s scalp tingled. The eeriness of her home made her heart tremble. The captured Taoist, dressed in the red robes of a groom, sat there with his head bowed, picking at his hands in frustration. Li Yuan locked eyes with him.

“I am sorry,” she said.

The Taoist stopped picking at his hands and sighed. “I have never seen a place with such heavy resentment. You have never seen a place with so many seals. Without a few hundred years, I doubt anyone can get out of here.”

He took a sip of water from the table and looked at the thin Li Yuan. Though it seemed unlikely, he spoke with hesitation. “Can you help me escape? I will find a way to perform a ritual for your soul later.”

“Okay,” Li Yuan nodded, hardly thinking at all.

Seeing her answer so quickly, the Taoist felt a pang of guilt. “You should know there are too many things in this place. The things those evil-doers created are sucking the life out of everything. In this courtyard, you are the only one who can restrain the source of that resentment. Using blood as a medium, you share the same lineage as the source. The way to break it is to use you as the vessel. However, this place is shackled. Even if you die, you will not be able to reincarnate; you can only wait for a ritual later.”

“It is fine.” Li Yuan shook her head. Her gaze was vacant. The prolonged state of mental tension had left her utterly exhausted. She no longer cared about these things. During these days, in places she could not see, she did not know how many lives had already been lost in this mansion.

She let her blood drain, and she let the Taoist go.

…

Watching Li Yuan being carried into a coffin by the Butler and Laifu, Yu Yu froze, and the scene shifted again.

In the blink of an eye, an unknown number of years had passed. The once magnificent Li Family Mansion was covered in dust. The once young Butler now had a head of white hair. It seemed no one had escaped the fate of death, yet no one had been able to leave this place. Every person remained in the form they held the year they died.

Li Yuan, who had lived and died in a daze, finally began to resist. She claimed the side courtyard as her own territory and stuffed the priests and Old Madame Li’s resentment into the main courtyard.

Then came the long wait.

Neither aging nor dying, neither living nor perishing, she was unable to leave. Like someone completely imprisoned, Li Yuan began her long and boring days.

The more Yu Yu watched, the more her heart ached. However, she still did not understand the meaning of the “game” or when it had truly begun. It was not until the priests in the main courtyard began their experiments again.

After a dozen years of silence, the Li Family Mansion began to stir once more. Their souls were immortal, yet they yearned to escape. After years of being tormented and blamed by Old Madame Li day after day, year after year, the priests had had enough. Even as souls, they could not escape her.

The divided priests began to work together again to fulfill Old Madame Li’s wish. They could not leave the main courtyard, nor could they make Li Yuan find a man herself. Finally, they focused their efforts on Li Yuan’s loyal servants, giving them the strength to reach the foot of the mountain without being able to go much further.

Searching for a suitable son-in-law became a curse etched into the servants’ minds by the priests. It also became a “game” to soothe Old Madame Li. It seemed they had to follow this process to keep the mansion’s disturbances calm.

For a few years, Li Yuan controlled the Butler and the others to stop this farce. The result was a surge of rage from Old Madame Li. She even devoured the souls of the priests and constantly crashed against the gates of the side courtyard, her voice sharp, raspy, and vicious.

“Even in death, you refuse to let our bloodline continue?”

“Is this how you face the ancestors of the Li family? You must find a man!”

“Our Li family must not end here!”

Even a person of pure nature could not withstand this daily torment. The massive amount of resentment affected everyone’s emotions. Only when a man was brought in did the agonizing resentment slowly subside. This became a game the Li Family Mansion performed every year.

From initial guilt to eventual numbness and even self-pity, Li Yuan had started to give up on herself during those last hundred years. She had once wondered if that Taoist would ever come to release her soul. Even though she felt her soul was riddled with holes and that she was a wicked person, she still longed for liberation.

The methods for finding men changed every year. So much time had passed that those who were desperate began to treat it entirely as a game. Occupying the role of the villain, Li Yuan allowed the Butler to bring her all sorts of men. It was like a poisonous game. They used money to lure people in, wove a dreamlike cage, and cruelly trapped them in the mansion for Old Madame Li to inspect and reject in her fits of anger.

This seemed to become Li Yuan’s only amusement. The man Old Madame Li desperately wanted—one who could support the family and inherit the estate—did not exist.

The light in her eyes was gone. Through many years of struggle, Li Yuan felt Old Madame Li’s refusal to give up, and in response, she brought her one pathetic man after another. She also loathed herself, wondering why she had become such a person.

In her dreams, she would even recall why her parents gave her that name. Her gentle mother held her in her arms while her father pointed at a character in a book, his voice tender: “Yuan. This is our little Yuan’s name. I hope you always keep your pure and beautiful wishes (Yuan), and I hope your wishes come true.”

“I am not worthy of this name,” the sinner thought.

That former name was buried deep in her heart. In its place was “Li苑” (Li Yuan), a name born of resentment, yet one that hoped she might one day break free from her cage. She felt she was a complex person—sinful and full of misdeeds. If she had the power, she would have destroyed this broken mansion with her own hands. This had always been her thought.

Until Yu Yu arrived.

…

The scenes passed by like a flickering montage. Yu Yu watched Li Yuan’s entire life and the hundreds of years that followed: her dazing, her hoping, her weeping, and finally, the version of Li Yuan who found everything boring. Every version was heartbreaking.

As the final image faded, Yu Yu felt herself fall into a cold embrace. The familiar temperature made her hold on tight. The countless times she had been unable to touch Li Yuan culminated in this moment. Clutching the ice-cold Li Yuan, Yu Yu could not say a word; she could only sob and wail for a long time.

Yu Yu’s emotional outburst was not interrupted by anyone. She did not know how long she cried before she slowly stopped. With swollen eyes, she began to speak incoherently about the images she had seen—even things Li Yuan herself could barely remember.

Though they were her own experiences, hearing them from the crying Yu Yu made them feel less painful. Stroking Yu Yu’s head and rubbing her back, Li Yuan looked at the person who was still willing to be close to her and felt a sense of relief. “It is okay. It is all in the past.”

Throughout those long years, she had experienced countless emotions. Only by clinging to the memory of her parents was she able to maintain her sanity and avoid becoming a vengeful ghost controlled by obsession like Old Madame Li. At this moment, it all felt worth it. Her scarred past was being soothed by another’s touch, and even her emotions were calmed. Li Yuan held her even tighter.

A-Yuan pushed his glasses up his nose. Although he was reluctant to disturb their warm moment, he spoke up. “You are being suppressed, and your grandmother is also being suppressed. Although hundreds of years have passed, her thoughts have not changed. She has already realized that the person in your arms is a girl.”

Li Yuan smiled and nodded. She never expected to hide it for long. Over the years, even when things were quiet, she could feel those eyes watching her every time a wedding took place. She did not care about those who had died before. But this one had become different.

Having reached her decision, Li Yuan held Yu Yu. Her cold hands seemed to possess a medicinal quality that made Yu Yu’s eyelids grow heavy. Holding that soft, warm body in her arms, Li Yuan cherished her immensely. Her eyes were full of reluctance, yet she was happy that despite all the bad things she had done, she could still be embraced. It was like redemption—an irreplaceable importance and a signal of a heart skipping a beat.

For an old ghost who had lived hundreds of years and whose heart had long since stopped, thinking of such sentimental things felt ridiculous. Yet it was happening, and she was immersed in it.

Carefully caressing Yu Yu’s cheek, Li Yuan said, “I want you to take her out of here too.”

“I thought you would make a different choice,” A-Yuan said, stunned. The montage of scenes was not just visible to Yu Yu; everyone present saw it.

Li Yuan shook her head, her expression growing gentle. “I do not want her to be like me, locked in this cage forever. I hope she can travel around. She can see the world, stop when she finds a place she likes, and never visit the places she does not.”

“I have done many wrong things, and I do not know if I can endure hundreds or even thousands of years without her.” Her gentle gaze gradually became firm. She gently handed Yu Yu to the girl standing next to A-Yuan and smiled. “I like her very much. I want to possess her and desperately want to lock her by my side, but that is wrong. My father gave my mother the greatest freedom, and I also want…”

Finally, with great restraint, Li Yuan placed a single kiss on Yu Yu’s forehead. “Forget me.”

The group felt complicated; they could not quite grasp Li Yuan’s thoughts. With so much blood on her hands, Li Yuan could not guarantee she could handle everything perfectly. Having Yu Yu by her side was what she wanted, but she did not want her to end up as a caged bird. This all started because of her; as long as she existed, Old Madame Li’s obsession would persist. This ruined Li mansion no longer needed to exist.

…

[Host! I have finished my upgrade!]

[Mission target detected to have disappeared. We can proceed to the next world!]

“Ugh.” Yu Yu’s swollen eyes hurt the moment she opened them. She looked around in confusion and realized she was in a bumpy car. This seemed to be the road down the mountain.

“You are awake?”

“I…” Yu Yu opened her mouth to ask something, but her mind was blank, and the words would not come out.

A-Yuan asked, “Where is your home?”

“I can just get off at the foot of the mountain,” Yu Yu said after thinking for a moment. Her mind was in a fog. She looked cautiously at the four protagonists in the car. Her brain was still muddled. Did these people put a spell on her? Why could she not remember anything?