There were worse ways to die, Lin Xiaoyu thought. Drowning. Being trampled by a group of spiritual beasts. Calling your cultivation master "Dad" in front of the whole sect. But being executed at a banquet, before everyone? That was truly rude. Unfortunately, that was exactly what was about to happen to her. She hadn't yet decided if she should scream. Think, Xiaoyu. Think. You know this scene. You have read this scene. You stayed up until three in the morning reading this very scene, then complained about it on four discussion forums. She was in a body that wasn't hers, wearing robes that cost more than her college tuition, sitting at a long banquet table inside a palace that smelled of sandalwood and old power. Tall red lanterns stood at the entrance of the hall. Around her, noble cultivators dressed in silk and jade ornaments chatted, poured wine, and laughed at unfunny jokes. Music played by handsome men filled the room and the girls dancing enticed everyone. Everything looked beautiful, historically significant, and deeply dangerous. Seated at the left head of the table, raised on a dais made from black stone and draped in midnight blue robes that bled into dark red, was him. Ye Zhiran. The Demon Prince. Crown of the Demon Realm, heir to a bloodline that made celestial cultivators weep into their spirit tea, and, as the novel she had devoured chapter by chapter claimed, the most breathtakingly beautiful man in the entire Xianxi Realm. The novel hadn't lied. Not even a little. Okay. Okay. Don't stare. You are Mu Qingyue right now. Mu Qingyue is arrogant; she doesn't stare at men like a first-year student who just stumbled into the wrong lecture hall. Compose yourself. You have a little time until the original plot kicks in and you open your mouth to ruin everything. In the novel, this was the scene. The banquet for alliance talks between the Immortal Cultivation Sects and the Demon Realm. Mu Qingyue, drunk on pride and poor judgment, would stand up, point at the Demon Prince, and loudly declare, in front of every important person in both realms, that his cultivation was borrowed and his bloodline was a curse on the heavens. He wouldn't respond. He would just look at her. And three days later, she would be dead. I am not doing that. I am absolutely not doing that. I read the whole novel. I know what his silence means. His silence means you have about seventy-two hours left to live. No thank you. Xiaoyu carefully reached for her wine cup and took a long, steadying sip. The drink tasted like plum blossoms and barely contained panic. She could feel it happening, the creeping wrongness in her chest, like the plot was pressing against her ribs, trying to push the original script out through her throat. Maybe that was because she knew the plot and her curiosity if seeing what will happen was getting the best of her.She stood up. The table went quiet. Heads turned. Even the music stuttered. Ye Zhiran's gaze turned to her, slow and unhurried, like she was unimportant and didn't need to rush. His eyes were the deep black of a sky without stars. His expression revealed nothing. Nothing at all. And somehow that was worse than anger. Say something. Anything. Literally anything except what Mu Qingyue was about to say. Lin Xiaoyu took a breath. Squared her borrowed shoulders. And spoke. "This junior wishes to offer a toast." Her voice was steady. A miracle. She raised her cup toward the dais. "To His Highness the Demon Prince, whose presence at this table honors every cultivator here. This realm has never produced a more formidable heir." She paused, searching for a word that felt genuine yet not overly dramatic. "May the alliance between our peoples be as unbreakable as his reputation." Silence. The entire banquet hall was so still she could hear a candle flame breathe. Ye Zhiran looked at her for a long moment. His expression didn't change. But something shifted just a little in the depth of those dark eyes. A flicker of something she couldn't name. Curiosity, perhaps. Or suspicion. Maybe both. Then he lifted his own cup. He didn't smile. He didn't speak. He simply drank, and the acknowledgment was so minimal it was almost imposing. Yet the entire hall exhaled, as if a held storm had passed. Xiaoyu sat back down. Her knees, she noticed, were shaking under the table. I'm alive. I'm still alive. That's, that's good. That is genuinely good. Ten points to me. Then the air in front of her face lit up. Not literally or, well, actually yes, literally. A soft glowing panel shimmered into view at eye level, visible only to her, glowing with pale gold. Characters scrolled across it like a system notification from a game.
⬡ Plot Deviation Detected.
Host has successfully deviated from the original storyline at Event: Banquet Confrontation. Survival probability: ↑ 64%
New Objective Unlocked
Increase Demon Prince Affection Level: 0 → 100%
⚠ Failure Penalty: Permanent Death. No second transmigration. Welcome, Host. The game has begun. Please try not to die in the first act. "Please try not to die in the first act." It actually said that. This system this supposedly divine plot-correction entity just told me, with what could only be described as sarcasm, not to die. Across the table, a junior cultivator leaned toward his neighbor and whispered, wide-eyed: "Did Mu Qingyue just toast him?" His neighbor whispered back, equally confused: "She must be sick." Lin Xiaoyu picked up her chopsticks and tried to eat as gracious as possible, the way the real Mu Qingyue would have. She selected a piece of braised lotus root and ate it like everything was perfectly normal. She didn't look at the Demon Prince again. But she felt it, his gaze, slow and evaluating and disturbingly still land on the side of her face and linger for just a moment. Affection Level: zero percent.
Survival probability: sixty-four. I need to win over a man who has never trusted a human in his entire life to one hundred percent adoration while pretending I'm not a modern girl from a completely different universe who once wrote a three-paragraph review on why his character arc was wasted in the third volume. Well it's not like he will know, he probably knows nothing about Modern China.She ate another piece of lotus root. Fine. I've faced worse. Probably. She had survived chapter one. There were over four hundred chapters left. Across the table, the Demon Prince set down his cup and for just a moment, his gaze found her again, scrutinizing and sharp, be was probably wondering how a girl like Mu Qingyue who everyone knew hated him suddenly made a toast to him. Maybe she was pretending because of the talks of her the head of the cultivation sect daughter marrying him.Something told Lin Xiaoyu that surviving chapter two was going to be a lot harder