Chapter One: All Because of Being Too Handsome

New book uploaded—please support, add to your collection, and recommend!

“Ah…” A long, lingering sigh, heavy with inexpressible sorrow and helplessness. Chen Ying gazed at his reflection in the water basin—a face more delicate and handsome than any ordinary woman's, with fair, fine skin that would drive countless women mad with envy. In his eyes there lingered an indistinct trace of melancholy.

“It’s been half a month since I arrived in this world,” Chen Ying sighed again. Time truly flies.

The young man, whose appearance surpassed even that of a beauty, was named Chen Ying, a native of Wannian County. To put it plainly, Chen Ying had crossed the boundaries of time and awakened in the first year of Wude in the Tang Dynasty (618 AD) under mysterious circumstances—details untraceable and inexplicable. In short, the Chen Ying of later generations now inhabited the body of a Tang Dynasty ink-attendant and scribe.

By sheer coincidence, the original owner of this body was also named Chen Ying. This Chen Ying had been the ink-attendant and scribe to Su Hu, the county magistrate of Wannian. However, in the Tang Dynasty, noble officials prided themselves on emulating the customs of Wei and Jin. The so-called “style of Wei and Jin” was not merely the refined elegance of Tao Yuanming’s “picking chrysanthemums by the eastern fence, idly gazing at the southern mountain,” but also included a certain flagrant unruliness and a penchant for debauchery. Tragically, the body Chen Ying now inhabited was precisely that of a legendary “rabbit boy.” Half a month ago, Su Hu, the county magistrate of Wannian, had intended to defile Chen Ying.

Though Chen Ying appeared frail, he possessed a steadfast heart and had no intention of becoming a catamite. In a desperate moment, he had struck Su Hu with an inkstone, injuring him, and fled the Su household. Only after calming down did Chen Ying realize the gravity of his predicament: as a scribe of low status, to injure his master was a capital offense. Fearing capture and humiliation, he escaped Wannian County. Penniless, exhausted, and starving, Chen Ying collapsed by the roadside—and when he awoke, he had become a soldier in the Tang army.

“I was conscripted!” Chen Ying thought bitterly. Before he’d even warmed the hilt of his issued saber, he and countless other Tang soldiers were sent to the battlefield. Having never seen bloodshed before, Chen Ying was petrified by the carnage.

His unit was routed by the Western Qin army. Once over three hundred strong, the Imperial Guard troop now had fewer than fifty survivors, who were reorganized into a single squad to recuperate in Jingyang.

Though Chen Ying had survived, he became the laughingstock of the squad. As one might expect, the weak are never respected in the army—every dirty, exhausting chore fell to him.

Chen Ying was nearly in tears.

He had read many transmigration novels—those who crossed over always seemed to be favored by fortune. Generally, after arriving in the past, they would either gain masterful status with their advanced knowledge and insights, ride the coattails of the powerful thanks to their familiarity with history, or, at the very least, make a tidy profit with some clever little trick in a backward world.

But Chen Ying was unfortunate. He had transmigrated, but into the wrong era. Had he been reborn in the Wei or Jin periods, with his looks, he could have lived comfortably. But the Tang was not an age that admired fragility. On the contrary, someone like him was the most despised.

It was the first year of Wude in the Tang Dynasty. Six months earlier, Li Yuan had proclaimed himself emperor in Chang’an, founding the Tang. In nine years, Li Shimin would launch the Xuanwu Gate Coup and lead the Tang to glory.

Where should he go from here?

Stomach rumbling, Chen Ying felt his hunger intensifying. Just as he began to hallucinate from starvation, someone nudged him from behind.

Turning, Chen Ying saw that it was Squad Leader Zhang Huaiwei.

Zhang Huaiwei said nothing as he handed Chen Ying two barley cakes, each about the size of a palm.

He shoved the cakes into Chen Ying’s hands.

A wave of warmth surged in Chen Ying’s heart, and he nearly wept. Without a second thought, he stuffed the food into his mouth.

To be honest, the barley cakes tasted terrible—coarse, hard to swallow. Yet for Chen Ying, famished as he was, he devoured them as if they were the finest delicacies.

He had just finished one cake and was about to start the second when a piercing war horn sounded.

Zhang Huaiwei’s face darkened; he sprang up and shouted, “Enemy attack—assemble!”

Chen Ying dared not linger. He hurriedly stuffed the remaining cake into his tunic, grabbed his saber, and followed Zhang Huaiwei. He could not afford to slack off now—he was already serving with a crime to atone for. Another offense would mean beheading.

As Chen Ying followed Zhang Huaiwei from camp into the city, Jingyang was already an inferno.

The Western Qin soldiers smashed open doors with their weapons, looting the people, violating their wives and daughters, even taking lives and setting homes ablaze.

A mere squad of Tang soldiers could do little to defend a whole county.

The sight made Chen Ying shudder with fear.

A spearman named Qiu Shengde looked to Zhang Huaiwei. “Squad leader, what do we do?”

Zhang Huaiwei roared, “Damn those bastards—fight them!”

The group of ten Tang soldiers—all but Chen Ying—charged forward under Zhang Huaiwei’s lead.

Qiu Shengde glanced back at Chen Ying, who was still frozen in place, and sneered, “That rabbit boy’s chickened out again!”

“Pah!” Zhang Huaiwei spat to the side. “If Chen Ying could be relied on, sows would climb trees!”

With a wide, brutal swing of his saber, Zhang Huaiwei decapitated a Western Qin soldier. The severed head, large as a melon, rolled straight towards Chen Ying, its gaping mouth twisted in a ghastly grin.

Chen Ying suddenly felt the urge to wet himself.

Shrill screams and blazing flames assaulted Chen Ying’s senses. When he saw a Western Qin soldier spear an infant less than a month old, a surge of hot blood flooded his head. The moral conscience of a civilized society would not allow him to tolerate the Western Qin soldiers’ brutality any longer.

Only one thought remained in Chen Ying’s mind: “If I must die, so be it.”

He knew no martial arts, nor was he particularly strong, but he did have one advantage—he’d studied human anatomy in school, knew where the heart was, and how to kill with a single blow.

Clutching his saber like a sword, he drove it into the gap beneath the first Western Qin soldier’s collarbone. His hands trembled violently, but that trembling only hastened the soldier’s death.

Blood sprayed, staining Chen Ying’s face. When he drove the saber between the ribs of a second soldier, piercing his heart, the shouts and screams around him faded to nothing.

As the third Western Qin soldier fell, clutching his severed carotid, Chen Ying’s hands no longer trembled. His eyes grew cold as he fixed his gaze on his next prey, ignoring the arrows whistling past.

With a wet, slicing sound, another head was sent rolling across the ground, blood spraying forth in a grotesque beauty under the firelight.

Zhang Huaiwei, still hacking away at the enemy, looked back, expecting to see Chen Ying’s corpse. Though a veteran of many battles since the eighth year of Daye, even he would have struggled to face six foes alone.

But Chen Ying had slain five Western Qin soldiers cleanly and decisively. Soaked in blood, a savage glint in his eyes, he strode toward Zhang Huaiwei, saber in hand.

He was no longer the timid rabbit boy, but a god of war descended to earth.

Zhang Huaiwei was stunned. What on earth had happened?

In the blink of an eye, five Western Qin soldiers had fallen. The last, trembling with dread, stared at Chen Ying.

Chen Ying’s lips curled into a grin, exuding an air of invincibility. Saber in hand, he charged the final Western Qin soldier.

“Kill!”