Dual Transmigration: Whoever Gets Found Out First Is a Dog

My mortal enemy Shen Yanshu and I transmigrated together.

I became a courtesan at the Zuoyue House in the capital, earning my keep with my skill on the zither, never selling my body.

He, meanwhile, became Prince Xian, a powerful lord who travels incognito.

The good news: we both know who the other really is.

The bad news: we’ve both decided to pretend we don’t recognize each other. Whoever gives themselves away first is a dog.

And so began a three-year “battle of the best actors”:

I play the zither for him, deliberately turning “High Mountains and Flowing Water” into “Love Transaction.” He holds his teacup steady as a rock and praises it as “a marvelous piece”;

When I serve him tea with both hands, following modern etiquette, he accepts it casually, yet places the cup precisely in the center of the tea table, without the slightest deviation. Hah, an incurable obsessive-compulsive. A dog can’t change its nature.

We use modern signals only the two of us understand to test each other relentlessly, yet in public, we play our roles as “prince” and “musician” to perfection.

Until a note written in a printed font appears by my pillow: “Tomorrow at noon, private room at the Zuixian House. We need to talk.”

The day I show up, I push open the door to find him sitting ramrod straight. His first words are, “Drop the act. I still have the comments on version 108 of your PowerPoint.”

I sneer. “Funny, I haven’t forgotten the kick you gave me in the elevator shaft, either.”

We look at each other and smile, our teeth clenched.

Since we’ve both fallen into the same pit, let’s see who comes out on top in this ancient-world game where each of us is the only “real person.”