The Male Lead Always Thinks My Script is Wrong - Chapter 2

Volume 1: The South Wind Rises

In September, the mountains were draped in a vast sea of varying greens. The summer heat lingered, but the first flecks of autumn were already scattered like spray across the waves of the forest.

A carriage rolled slowly along the mountain path. A slender, pale hand pulled back the green curtain of the window, revealing a face with soft lines and delicate features.

The southern lands were mostly flat, and for the young girl watching the emerald waves flow past, such rolling, mountainous terrain was a rare sight.

“May I ask, what is happening with the road?”

Her tone held a hint of confusion. Her voice was smooth and mellow, like the flesh of a winter pear, yet it wasn’t delicate. Instead, she sounded like a young boy of twelve or thirteen, her gender difficult to discern.

They had been traveling for half a day, one carriage and one rider, and this was the first time she had spoken to the driver she had never actually met.

The driver, Li Moyan, didn’t answer immediately. He cracked his whip, and with two sharp neighs, the black horse broke into a frantic gallop. Only then did he reply, “Don’t be afraid, Eldest Miss. Lately, a female demon has been wandering outside Chaofeng City. It seems we’ve stumbled right into her illusion.”

His voice was gruff and his pace leisurely, but he didn’t sound careless, he sounded confident.

The title “Eldest Miss,” spoken with genuine respect, was directed at the girl in the carriage—the only daughter of Li Moyan’s master, who had been raised in the countryside for over a decade. Her name, he heard, was Ji Shinian (pronounced Jee Shuh-nyen).

“An illusion?” Shinian’s voice flickered with surprise before she spoke again, more slowly. “…I’ve read in books that illusions are woven by mirage demons. We are in Wuzhou, in the southern border, do such creatures exist here?”

Li Moyan had expected her to be frightened. Hearing her words, he realized this young lady knew quite a bit.

An illusion, as the name implied, was a collection of fantasies, using falsehood to trap a person in a startlingly realistic experience. It was considered a top-tier ability in the Zhongxiao Realm, usually exclusive to mirage demons.

However, mirage demons loved the water and were notoriously elusive. For years, they had only been spotted near the Sea Pavilion in the Eastern Peaks. The distance from the Sea Pavilion to Chaofeng City was not a journey a legless mirage demon would willingly make.

“Of course not,” Li Moyan explained dutifully to his new mistress. “That demon must have stumbled upon some treasure, which boosted her power significantly. Creating an illusion is nothing to her now. She maintains this realm, wandering outside Chaofeng City all day, neither harming nor killing anyone. Heaven knows what she’s planning.”

He tapped his green pipe against the side of the seat. “But don’t worry, Miss. No matter how real it looks, it’s fake. My horse, Black Steel, can cover a thousand miles in a day. We’ll be out of here in the time it takes to burn half an incense stick.”

Black Steel was the black horse Li Moyan had just whipped. It was a rare prize Ji Yiheng had obtained from the North years ago. Rumor had it that the horse would always find its way back to its birthplace before it died, making it an indispensable companion for any traveler.

Of course, his confidence didn’t just come from a horse.

Li Moyan had been Ji Yiheng’s right-hand man for nearly thirty years. Now at the first level of the Golden Core stage, he had been sent to fetch Ji Shinian to ensure her safety—an illusion like this was nothing to a man of his stature.

“I see,” Shinian’s gentle voice came from behind the curtain. “Thank you for your trouble, Uncle Li.”

Hearing her soft, polite words, Li Moyan’s opinion of this well-bred young lady rose even higher. He tapped his pipe again. “Oh, Miss, you’re far too kind. It’s no trouble at all…”

Before he could finish, the curtain was pulled aside. The Eldest Miss, wearing a veiled bamboo hat, sat down right beside him. Her blue robes and red silk trim fluttered in the wind, along with the light gauze of her hat.

“Eldest Miss?” Li Moyan blinked in surprise.

At that exact moment, Black Steel let out a piercing, terrified shriek. The horse jerked its head violently, dragging the carriage off the path and bolting like a mad thing into a narrow thicket that wasn’t a road at all!

“Black Steel! Turn back!” Li Moyan’s face went pale. He yanked the reins with one hand while trying to push Shinian back into the carriage with the other. “Get inside, Miss! Has this beast lost its mind?!”

The reins were pulled taut, nearly snapping under the immense force. But the horse was deaf to his commands, its head low as it sprinted blindly.

Shinian didn’t go back inside. Holding the fluttering gauze of her hat, she watched the emerald greenery blur past as it grew thicker and darker. Beneath the veil, her expression was unreadable.

“Uncle Li,” she spoke suddenly, her voice carrying a trace of resigned calm. “There is no going back.”

As the words left her lips, the carriage frame groaned under the strain, followed by a violent crash as it splintered into pieces!

Amidst the flying wood, Li Moyan reacted instantly. He shielded Shinian, leaping from the driver’s seat and landing safely to the side.

Black Steel, still trailing fragments of the carriage, dived into the deep forest without a backward glance and vanished.

Shinian adjusted her hat, which had nearly been blown off, and looked in the direction the horse had fled. “Uncle Li, Black Steel… it looked like it was afraid?”

Li Moyan, who had just boasted that the illusion was harmless, looked grim. “Indeed… what exactly is that demon trying to do?”

His gaze instinctively flickered to the young lady beside him. A seed of doubt sprouted but was quickly suppressed—the girl had no spiritual fluctuations. It was impossible for her to have tampered with anything right under his nose.

Shinian, of course, noticed that split second of suspicion and felt a bit sheepish.

Uncle, you guessed right. It really was me.

In fact, he wasn’t even a “she.”

The reason Ji Shinian was here was complicated. He had crawled out from underground barely three years ago when a Mountain Lord tracked him down. The Mountain Lord had fallen for a girl while on duty, but the girl was already engaged. To appease her parents, she told the Mountain Lord he either had to find a “good girl” to take her place in the marriage, or she’d have to go back and marry the guy herself.

The Mountain Lord, desperate, found Shinian, whose original body was still paralyzed in bed. Conveniently, Shinian had a living puppet and needed a new identity to hide his movements while he recovered.

The two struck a deal, and Shinian was sent to the South to become that “good girl.” As for the fiancé, Shinian figured he could just fake his death once his real body could move again.

Regarding the request of the Mountain Lord’s beloved, both agreed: if the “good girl” died, she’d still technically be a good girl in memory.

The sudden fright of the horse and the disintegration of the carriage were both caused by Shinian secretly activating miniature talisman arrays he had hidden on the harness and axle.

His goal was simple: he wanted to test the depth of this illusion. After all, an illusion that could make even his living puppet feel uneasy was not as simple as Li Moyan claimed.

“Don’t worry, Uncle Li,” the “Eldest Miss” suggested, her conscience briefly surfacing. “Since Black Steel bolted in fear, perhaps finding it will lead us to some clues.”

Clues left by the demon, of course. Shinian was far too careful to leave any traces of his own handiwork.

Li Moyan looked back at the path they had come from, which was now completely swallowed by new-growth forest. He had no choice. Sighing, he picked up his pipe, which was actually a magical artifact—from the wreckage. “Then please stay close to me, Miss. I fear that demon truly has her eyes on us.”

The two moved forward, following the tracks left by the horse along the steep mountain trail. When they were in the carriage, the forest didn’t seem so dense, but on foot, the paths multiplied, and the silence was broken only by the wind and their own footsteps.

Strangely, their progress was entirely unimpeded. It was so smooth it made one’s skin crawl.

At yet another fork in the road, Li Moyan stopped abruptly, his face solemn. “This is far too easy…”

Shinian, who was a bit directionally challenged, also sensed something was off. But for now, he had to play the part of the “pure and ignorant” girl. “Is there something wrong with the path being clear?”

“Black Steel has never been here. In an illusion with so many forks, it’s impossible for us to have encountered nothing strange…”

Li Moyan stopped mid-sentence and looked up, shouting, “Who’s there?!”

Shinian looked toward a branch of an ancient tree where something was perched.

The creature was stark white, its limbs pitifully thin, yet it supported a bloated, round body the size of a winter melon. Its eye sockets were hollow, with two eyeballs hanging by bloody threads against its cheeks like rotting raisins. Sensing their gaze, it tore open a cavernous black mouth, thick saliva dripping down as it made a sound like a broken bellow.

“Heh… heh… hey… heh…”

Nauseated by the hideous thing, Li Moyan stepped back, immediately pulling Shinian behind him. “A Corpse Lou?! Why is this foul thing here?”

A Corpse Lou was a soulless, mindless creature soaked in corpse oil, the lowest tier of servant for those on the Heretical Path. Aside from being durable and lunging at anyone they saw, they were useless.

However, this Corpse Lou simply clung to the trunk. Its hollow sockets or rather, the two eyeballs dangling on its face, precisely “locked” onto Shinian behind Li Moyan.

“Hey… dan… gerous…” it hissed in broken rasps.

Li Moyan was skeptical. “Dangerous? It can actually speak?”

“Can Corpse Lous not speak?” Shinian asked, maintaining his character, though his expression darkened beneath the veil.

The thing was looking at him. Not at his puppet body, but through the shell. It had sensed something with terrifying sharp precision.

Shinian didn’t dwell on it. His constitution was unique, so it was natural for twisted creatures to fear him. But for a low-level Corpse Lou to approach him instead of running… there was something very wrong here.

Li Moyan didn’t notice the anomaly. His pipe glowed with a faint light. “Corpse Lous have been recorded as mindless chaos since time began. If it can talk, something is wrong!” With a flick of his hand, he cast a shimmering spiritual barrier around Shinian. “Stay inside, Miss! Do not leave the circle!”

The pipe in his hand suddenly grew, transforming into a heavy iron staff. Carrying the might of a Golden Core cultivator, he swung it toward the creature!

The Corpse Lou’s reaction was incredibly fast. Its spindly limbs snapped like springs, and it leaped to another tree, dodging the strike.

Seemingly provoked, its swinging eyeballs glared at Shinian. Its long, thin arms were covered in a viscous, near-transparent liquid as it lunged at Li Moyan!

Li Moyan sensed the danger and dodged. The creature’s claw missed, hitting a fallen log nearby. With a faint sizzle, a section of the wood was instantly dissolved!

Shinian’s pupils drifted narrow.

This thing… everything about it was wrong. It wasn’t any variation of a Corpse Lou he had ever seen. Yet, there was a strange sense of familiarity.

Where had he seen this?

Before he could figure it out, the tide of the battle turned. Li Moyan, wielding a weapon not meant for direct combat, was being driven into a corner by the toxic, agile creature. He was looking more disheveled by the second.

Shinian frowned.

He was regretting this. Deeply. If he had known this illusion was so twisted, he wouldn’t have been so curious.

Seeing that the loyal servant was about to get hurt, Shinian sighed. He lifted a finger under his veil, preparing to knock Li Moyan unconscious before dealing with the creature.

Suddenly!

A fierce, peerless flash of sword light, like a white rainbow piercing the sun, shot out from the woods behind him.

The sword light was pure and freezing. The sound of it cutting the air was sharp enough to pierce the ears. It grazed Shinian’s barrier with pinpoint accuracy and, thwack—it skewered the arrogant Corpse Lou right through the center!

The momentum didn’t stop. It carried the creature through several trees before pinning it firmly to a massive boulder on the opposite slope with a resounding thud.

The residual sword energy rippled outward, the shockwave making even Li Moyan stumble.

Shinian: “…”

Holy crap? Are there sword cultivators of this caliber just wandering the southern countryside now? Is the competition that fierce?

He realized a beat too late that as a “frail young lady,” he should probably look a bit scared instead of standing there like a spectator.

But it was too late.

Footsteps echoed up the stone steps, clear and steady.

A sudden wind swept through the treetops, stirring the green waves and the moss on the stones. A figure stepped out from the emerald depths.

His black hair was tied high, his features handsome but cold. He wore a narrow-sleeved robe, and his long blue hair ribbon danced in the wind alongside his hem, where a wild phoenix pattern flickered in the light.

The man carried an aura of arrogance, as if the world were divided into ten parts and he owned seven of them. His presence was so sharp it was almost painful to look at.

Shinian turned his head. The moment he saw the newcomer’s face, he felt like he’d been struck by lightning. He froze on the spot.

That face.

Are you kidding me? Isn’t that the protagonist of ‘Ascension of the Heavens,’ Xiao Shu?

A cold shiver raced down Shinian’s spine. After twenty years of living in this world, he finally realized something, albeit far too late.

The “Eldest Miss” Li Moyan kept calling him.

The marriage contract he had mocked.

The Ji family.

The daughter raised in the countryside.

All the clues snapped together in his mind, forming a one-way ticket straight to hell!

Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!!!

He had—possibly, probably, most likely, transmigrated into the female lead of Ascension of the Heavens, the one who dies right at the beginning and doesn’t even get a full name?!!

Just as his mind was screaming with ten thousand panicking thoughts, wishing he could just vanish on the spot, a cold, mechanical voice, definitely not from this world, exploded in the depths of his mind:

[Ding! Core energy detected—Xiao Shu!]

[Binding complete! Host: Ji Shinian. Welcome to the Zhongxiao Realm. I am your system, Heavenly Calculation!]

Shinian: “…”

Right now, he just wanted to go back half an hour and strangle the version of himself that decided to “test” the illusion.

If a living puppet could even die.