Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Because they had run into the Eldest Young Master, and the Eldest Young Master had called a doctor for Xie Licheng, Xie Licheng was not locked in the woodshed.

It was while his wounds were being treated that Xie Licheng gradually absorbed all the memories of the original owner of this body.

It was only at that moment that he realized he hadn't traveled through time—he had transmigrated into a novel.

It wasn't that Xie Licheng was slow to catch on; it was mainly that the original owner was a nameless extra in the novel. If he hadn't later received the original owner's memories and recalled the Eldest Young Master's name, he probably still wouldn't have figured out that he was inside a book.

The original owner was a horse groom, a convicted slave from the slave camp.

Because the original owner was tall and sturdy, with a fairly handsome face, he had caught the eye of someone from the Gu family.

That Gu family member who took a liking to him was an illegitimate son from the second branch of the family, who was inclined toward men.

The man had originally wanted to bring the original owner into his courtyard for his own amusement, but unexpectedly, the moment he brought him home, his father found out.

The second branch's master was a reasonable man. He didn't take out his anger on the original owner because of his son's foolishness, but instead placed the original owner in the outer courtyard of the Gu estate as an ordinary servant.

For the original owner, this should have been a good thing, but unexpectedly, he later ran into the youngest young master of the first branch of the Gu family.

The old master of the Gu family had three sons in total. The youngest had died of illness early on, leaving only the eldest and second sons' families. Because he had few children, he didn't divide the household between his two sons, so the family remained together.

Though they appeared to live together, the family was actually divided into several courtyards.

The old master had one large courtyard, the first branch had one large courtyard, and the second branch had one large courtyard.

Then the children of the first and second branches, after getting married, would each have their own smaller courtyard.

And so, large courtyards contained smaller ones, and the entire Gu mansion was so vast and labyrinthine that it truly deserved the name "deep mansion."

The young master the original owner encountered was the youngest son of the first branch, and a pampered ge'er.

Ge'er was a gender, the third gender in the book that Xie Licheng had transmigrated into.

In this book's world, besides men and women, there was another gender called ge'er.

Ge'er resembled men in appearance but, like women, could bear children.

Because ge'er lacked men's physical strength and couldn't impregnate women, like women, they were generally expected to marry men.

Gu Tinghe was a ge'er, and his family had raised him to be arrogant and domineering.

The original owner was somewhat slow-witted. Once, he accidentally crossed Gu Tinghe, and from then on, Gu Tinghe bore a grudge against him.

Gu Tinghe began to pick on the original owner regularly. He would even publicly abuse and beat the original owner to show off his authority as a young master of the Gu family.

In the original novel, the original owner was beaten to death by Gu Tinghe, and he never even got a proper name before he died.

Also, I should mention—this novel was an old-school danmei power-struggle story, also known as a single-male-lead harem novel.

The whole story centered on the male lead, Song Qiyue.

Song Qiyue was a transmigrator who had entered an ancient chaotic era.

Using his advantages as a transmigrator, when the chaos broke out, he amassed grain and fortified his walls, becoming a regional warlord.

Because he was the protagonist of a harem novel, he collected many beauties.

Among these beauties were not only men but also ge'er—he accepted everyone.

Like many male leads in harem novels, he seemed passionate but was cold-hearted, seemed righteous but was ungrateful.

As for the beauties he collected, when he liked them, he treated them well; when he didn't, he would casually hand them off to his subordinates.

The lucky ones could find someone to marry.

The unlucky ones might end up as military prostitutes in the camps.

Among the many beauties he gathered was one great beauty named Gu Zhangyuan—the Eldest Young Master who had saved Xie Licheng today.

Gu Zhangyuan stood out from the other beauties. He didn't want to compete for affection with a crowd, nor did he want to be confined to Song Qiyue's harem.

He didn't like Song Qiyue. He had followed Song Qiyue because, when Song Qiyue attacked Lingzhou, he had intercepted the Gu family's convoy on the road.

The Gu family was wealthy and had several stunningly beautiful ge'er, so Song Qiyue seized both the people and the wealth.

Gu Zhangyuan refused to follow Song Qiyue and had no desire to compete with others for one man, so he tried every means to escape.

Unfortunately, Song Qiyue was a ruthless man. He wouldn't let anyone around him escape, viewing any attempt to flee as betrayal.

When he learned Gu Zhangyuan didn't want him, he decided to hand him over to his subordinates.

Yes, he'd rather hand his people over to his subordinates as playthings than see them happily regain their freedom.

He was truly cruel and utterly vicious.

He didn't treat others as people at all, but rather as his personal collectibles.

In the novel, Gu Zhangyuan refused to become a plaything for a group of men and was utterly disillusioned with Song Qiyue and his entourage. When he was left with no way out, he chose to set himself on fire.

It wasn't out of loyalty—he just wanted to keep some dignity.

Before the chaos, he had been the honored eldest young master of the Gu family, and in death, he deserved that same dignity.

The reason Xie Licheng had read this novel with such twisted values was mainly that the world he lived in was an apocalypse.

In his world, civilization had collapsed, and things like novels had become a luxury.

Because everyone was busy surviving, no one had the time or energy to write novels.

After the apocalypse, if they wanted to read novels, they could only read paper novels published before the apocalypse.

Xie Licheng had a portable space, but it wasn't just a simple space—more accurately, it could be called a portable otherworld.

His portable otherworld was extremely vast, an undeveloped game world.

In this game world, there were no human NPCs, only animals, plants, and many vacant buildings.

Xie Licheng was the only player inside. He could level up by hunting animals, gathering plants, or building houses.

After leveling up, he could obtain attribute points.

These attributes could be added to strength, agility, and other personal stats.

These attributes aren't just useful in the game world—they're just as useful in the real world.

It was exactly because of these attribute points that Xie Licheng was so powerful during the apocalypse.

Back during the apocalypse, Xie Licheng had only unlocked the novice village map in his portable world, so he had no idea what the other maps were like.

But even with just the novice village map unlocked, the space was huge enough to stockpile tons of supplies.

Since the space in his portable world was massive, he grabbed novels along with everything else when he was scavenging for supplies.

Just web novels alone numbered in the tens of thousands in Xie Licheng's portable world.

This old-school reverse-harem novel was probably put out by some pirated publisher.

The novel was full of over-the-top content that no legit publisher would ever dare to print.

Xie Licheng got bored easily, and since he was a lone wolf who liked his solitude, he'd kill time reading novels whenever he hung out in his portable world.

Little did he expect that while just killing time with a novel, he'd one day actually transmigrate right into it.

Xie Licheng had a ton of complaints about this novel.

But there was one thing that worked out well for him.

That was, this world had no natural disasters and no viruses.

Sure, it was a chaotic era, but it was still way safer than his apocalyptic world.

The only downside was that he'd transmigrated with just his soul, so his portable world was probably gone.

If his portable world were still around, no matter how messed up this world got, it wouldn't affect him one bit.

Thinking this, Xie Licheng subconsciously tried to summon the player panel.

If his portable world still existed, he'd be able to summon the player panel.

Deep down, he figured his golden finger was tied to his physical body.

Now that his body was gone, the golden finger naturally went with it.

But to his surprise, the moment he tried to summon the panel, it actually showed up.

Seeing the panel was still there, just with the data wiped clean, Xie Licheng let out a small, happy smile.

Seemed like... fate was still looking out for him.

He'd transmigrated into a book, and even with a soul transfer, his golden finger had come along for the ride.

Before, the player info on Xie Licheng's panel had all been his own.

The player name was Xie Licheng, and the body stats were all his too.

Now with a different body, the player name had changed to Horse Slave, and the stats belonged to the original owner.

Xie Licheng skimmed the original owner's stats.

Name: Horse Slave

This could be changed—the first name change was free, but any after that cost money.

Xie Licheng immediately changed it to his own name.

Gender: Male

Race: Human

Age: 21 years old

Height: 190 centimeters

Weight: 53 kilograms

This weight was way too skinny.

But considering the original owner was a criminal slave who'd been constantly abused, this weight really wasn't his fault.

This section of info couldn't be changed by him—height, for example, was set as is.

Weight could shift with his real weight, but the other stats were locked.

Other than that, the stats below could be adjusted.

The so-called adjustability meant he could take attribute points from stats that were high and put them into other stats.

For example, the original owner had low strength but high looks.

He could pull points from appearance and dump them straight into strength.

His looks would go down, and his strength would go up.

He could also earn attribute points from leveling up and then put them wherever he wanted.

The original owner's strength was 23.

Back then, Xie Licheng's starting strength was 47, which was pretty high for a guy.

Later, through his own hard work, he pushed his strength up to 98.

With that strength, he could easily kill an ox with one punch.

Defense: 39

The original owner's defense wasn't bad; the higher the defense stat, the better you could take a hit.

If defense got high enough, even fatal wounds wouldn't do much damage.

Agility: 18

Agility was tied to a person's speed and reaction time.

His agility was a bit low, which would be a weak spot in future fights.

Health: 14

A healthy person usually has 100 health.

Getting sick or hurt drains health.

Health below 20 is super dangerous—the kind where you might kick the bucket at any second.

Now this body's current health points really can't handle any more setbacks.

Stamina: 9

When stamina hits 0, he'll pass out immediately.

With his health so low, if he faints, it'll be a real problem—he might not wake up at all.

This is... actually pretty tricky.

Appearance: 89

The original owner's looks are about on par with Xie Licheng's.

That score is considered exceptionally high for a man.

But since he's a man—who was in the apocalypse before and now in a chaotic world—he doesn't plan to rely on his looks to survive. Honestly, having such a high appearance score doesn't seem all that useful.

He'd be better off shaving some points off and putting them into other attributes later.

The last two stats are charm and luck.

The original owner's charm is 79, but his luck is a pitiful 3.

No wonder the original owner was so unlucky—first catching the eye of the second branch's young master, who's into men, then getting targeted by the eldest branch's bad-tempered young master.

And neither of those two are decent guys—one wants to play with him, the other wants him dead.

With looks and charm that high, the original owner was bound to stand out.

And his luck is especially bad—you could say he's pretty cursed.

Given all that, being a criminal slave with no way to defend himself, survival is a real struggle.

Xie Licheng stopped mid-step on his way back to the original owner's place. He decided to tweak his body's attribute points before heading back.

His current state is rough. If he runs into anything else, he might really kick the bucket.

No matter why he ended up here, he's determined to fight to stay alive.

With that in mind, Xie Licheng found a spot to sit and dropped his appearance from 89 to 80.

If he cut his appearance too much, his face would change drastically and cause unnecessary problems.

After shaving off 10 points from appearance, he then cut 30 from charm.

Charm is invisible and intangible, so shaving off a bit extra doesn't matter much.

But it can't go too low either—if it does, people will inexplicably start disliking him.

With 40 attribute points gained, he first put 10 into health.

Getting health above 20 means he won't be in immediate danger of dying.

Health recovers slowly with rest and faster with medical treatment, so there's no need to waste too many points on it.

For the remaining 30 points, he put 20 into defense and 10 into agility.

Defense and health are tied together—the higher the defense, the slower health drains even when hurt.

As for why he didn't invest in strength?

There's still about half a year before the chaotic era described in the book begins.

That's plenty of time—he can earn attribute points through other methods.

Entering his portable world puts him in gamer mode, where he can level up in all sorts of ways.

Like leveling up by fighting monsters, gathering, fishing...

Right now, Xie Licheng's portable world only has one map—the novice village.

The novice village is an old-fashioned village with a big mountain next to it.

On the mountain, there are wild beasts, wild veggies, wild fruit, herbs, and a stream...

Of all these, fighting monsters levels you up the fastest. The monsters you kill are all wild beasts, and you can get hides, bones, and meat from them.

These hides and meats can be sold at the novice village shops or taken into the real world to sell.

The novice village shops buy items for dirt cheap, so selling your hunted goods there isn't worth it.

Also, the shops barely sell anything—just farmland, seeds, and stuff like that.

As for other things like clothes, food, or tools, they don't have any.

As for farmland, Xie Licheng's farm already has eight plots.

He can't farm that much land by himself, so there's no point in saving up to buy more.

Farming gives very little experience, and he doesn't plan to level up that way, so he's not interested in land.

Now that he sees his health at 24 points, Xie Licheng finally feels a bit relieved.

This attribute adjustment can't be done every day—only once a year.

Now that he's used up his one shot, he'll have to be more careful from here on out and absolutely can't let his health get too low again.

Satisfied that he won't die anytime soon, he got up and headed back to the original owner's residence.

The original owner's place was in a side courtyard of the Gu family's outer compound, where the lowest-ranked servants lived.

The original owner was a horse slave who'd only recently arrived at the Gu estate.

He shared a room with five or six male slaves—a big, filthy, messy communal sleeping platform.

When Xie Licheng came back, the male slaves he shared the room with were talking about him.

They didn't even bother to shut up when he walked in, just kept chatting away.

A square-faced guy with thick eyebrows and close-set eyes looked at Xie Licheng and laughed, "Some people are just idiots—offending one person after another. Now they've gone and offended the young master too. Who knows how many lives they've got left?"