Han Lake.
Yao City is renowned because of it. Han Lake covers nearly half the size of Yao City. At first glance, it looks like a bright mirror set into the earth. On sunny days the water glimmers, on rainy days the mountains are shrouded in mist. Countless scholars and poets have left exquisite verses here in admiration, giving Han Lake its fame and ensuring Yao City is remembered.
In autumn, Han Lake sparkles with ripples. Though the cool breeze carries a slight chill against the skin, under the autumn sun the embankments around the lake remain lively. People revel in the beautiful scenery.
Yet amid this picturesque scene, a young man stands out, utterly out of place. He wears plain clothes, his face is strikingly pale, his lips are thin with faint down above them, his eyes lacklustre. Despite this sickly appearance, those dull eyes fix on the girls passing by. Whenever a woman reveals a glimpse of snow-white thigh, a rare glint appears in his gaze.
Leaning against a willow tree, the young man openly appraises each girl who walks past, giving him a somewhat debauched air.
“I never thought that after three years away, Yao City would have so many more attractive women.”
His unabashed staring draws looks of disgust from many beautiful women, who hurry to avoid him. The young man laughs bitterly. “Well, it seems impossible to find a woman to discuss life’s ideals with, or to recite ‘I park to admire the maple grove at dusk’ for her.”
A few pretty young women steer clear, glance back at him, then whisper among themselves. “Don’t you think this creep who keeps ogling women looks a bit like that scum from Yao City?”
“Yes, he does. No wonder he seems familiar.”
Seeing the girls spit and glare with utter revulsion, the young man, despite three years of tempering his mind in this world, still feels a trace of bitterness.
Having transmigrated into this boy’s body, Ye Chu retains most of the original owner’s memory fragments. From those fragments, Ye Chu knows exactly what kind of person the original owner was.
Before gaining those memories, Ye Chu had thought his previous life as a wastrel was bad enough. Compared to the original owner, however, he feels he lived his former life in vain and sullied the pure word “scum”.
In Ye Chu’s view, no word could adequately describe the original owner; his character was vile beyond human imagination. He fancied a jade carving from a humble family, so he sent men to smash their house and seize it.
When one of his followers took a liking to a girl, he encouraged the man to rape her.
Such acts of plunder, bullying, and domination were, for him, almost virtuous behaviour.
In his previous life, though physically weak, Ye Chu had been clever enough to use his minor wits and family influence to wreak havoc across Yao City.
While staying at his grandfather’s house, the original owner drugged his grandfather’s adopted daughter Lin Shixin with lewd intent. After fleeing home, he attempted the same on his distant cousin Ji Die, whose beauty was famed throughout the empire and who was visiting the family.
This finally enraged his grandfather, the Marquis of Weiyuan, who beat him severely in fury and banished him from Yao City to fend for himself.
That was the kind of scum the original owner had been. Back then, Ye Chu’s reputation in Yao City was utterly ruined; he was a rat crossing the street that everyone scorned. Coupled with his stubborn refusal to cultivate, every insulting term—scum, waste, beast—applied to him.
Ye Chu had assumed that after three years, Yao City would have forgotten him. He had not expected the citizens’ hatred to run so deep that people still recognised him.
Ye Chu used to think that in his next life he should be reborn as a woman and marry a fine man like himself. Instead, he had been reborn into the body of someone with such an infamous reputation. A rare genius like himself, elegant, gentle, and extraordinary, ought to be carefully protected by the gods and buddhas of all heavens. Yet they had let him die and stink in infamy. Ye Chu suddenly felt that excellence was a kind of suffering. There is a saying that beautiful women suffer unhappy fates, but the same applies to outstanding men.
“Being too outstanding as a man is truly difficult. It invites jealousy.” Ye Chu sighed, thinking how many women must have wept through the night over his death.
…
“Auntie! Flowers… there are flowers…” A little girl’s excited voice broke Ye Chu’s reverie. He looked over and saw a small girl skipping towards the edge of Han Lake. She was extremely pretty, about five or six years old, with a radiant smile on her delicate, pink, and tender face.
Even though Ye Chu’s memories contained the stunning beauties Lin Shixin and Ji Die, seeing this child still struck him with wonder.
“Auntie, Yao Yao wants the flower…” The girl pointed at a vivid, unnamed bloom by the lakeside, her voice full of joy, excitement written all over her pretty face.
A mature, alluring woman followed behind. Seeing the girl reach out for the flower, she cried urgently, “Yao Yao, don’t move, be careful!”
Her warning came too late. The girl’s foot slipped, her body tilted, and with a scream she plunged into Han Lake with a splash.
“Yao Yao!” The woman cried out in panic, her face drained of colour as she ran towards the water.
“Ah… save me… Auntie…” The girl flailed in the water, her head bobbing a few times on the surface, her cries laced with tears. Unable to swim, after splashing wildly for a moment, her body slowly sank, leaving only ripples where she had been.
“Yao Yao!” The woman, frantic, shouted, “Please, everyone, help save her!”
Her desperate pleas received no response; no one nearby could swim.
Seeing bubbles rising, the woman, heedless of her own inability to swim, leapt into the lake.
Han Lake was famous not only for its beauty but also for its depth and coldness.
The woman dived down on sheer willpower, but unable to swim, how could she rescue anyone? She too struggled in the water, arms slapping the surface, sending up sprays of white foam like her own pale skin. After a few desperate movements, she choked on water and began to sink.
“Save Yao Yao… save…”
Her words were cut off as the water swallowed her. The girls who had just called Ye Chu a scum turned pale at the sight and shouted, “Hurry, someone save them, two people have fallen in!”
Yet no one dared try. Han Lake was treacherous; fallen victims were easily entangled in water weeds. Only those highly skilled in swimming would risk it.
As the girls grew anxious, they noticed the young man they had called a creep running from afar. He leapt into the lake.
The girls had not expected him to be the one to help. They exchanged glances, and one muttered, “It seems he only resembles that scum after all. If it really were that scum, he would never jump in to save anyone; he would just throw stones from the shore to make things worse.”
March, early spring.
For the latest chapters, download the Aiyue Novel app. The latest content is available on the Aiyue Novel app; the website no longer updates the latest chapters. Eastern part of Nanhuang Continent, a remote corner.
The sky is overcast, a expanse of grey-black, heavy with oppression, as though someone had splashed ink across rice paper, soaking the heavens and blurring the clouds.
Layers of clouds overlap and merge, flashing crimson lightning accompanied by rolling thunder.
It is as if the gods are growling low, echoing across the mortal world.
Please download the Aiyue Novel app for ad-free reading of the latest chapters. Blood-coloured rain falls sorrowfully upon the earth.
The land is hazy. In the dim red rain stands a ruined city, silent and lifeless.
Within the city, broken walls and rubble, everything withered. Collapsed houses are everywhere, along with blackened corpses and fragments of flesh, like shattered autumn leaves silently fading.
Streets once bustling are now desolate.
Roads once filled with people are now quiet.
Only blood-soaked mud mixed with flesh, dust, and paper remains, indistinguishable, horrifying to behold.
Not far away, a wrecked carriage is mired in the sludge, steeped in sorrow. Only a discarded rabbit doll hangs from the shaft, swaying in the wind.
Its white fur is long soaked dark red, filled with eerie menace.
Its murky eyes seem to hold lingering resentment, staring alone at the mottled stones ahead.
There, a figure lies prone.
It is a boy of thirteen or fourteen, clothes tattered and filthy, a battered leather pouch tied at his waist.
The boy squints, motionless. Piercing cold seeps through his worn outer garment from all sides, gradually draining his body heat.
The website will soon close; download the Aiyue app to read the latest content for free. Even as rain falls on his face, he does not blink, staring coldly like a hawk into the distance.
Following his gaze, about seven or eight zhang away, a gaunt vulture is pecking at the rotting carcass of a wild dog, warily scanning its surroundings.
In this dangerous ruin, the slightest movement would send it soaring instantly.
Download the Aiyue Novel app to read the latest chapters ad-free. The boy waits patiently like a hunter.
After a long while, the moment arrives. The greedy vulture finally buries its head completely inside the dog’s abdominal cavity.
