After Binding Myself to a Black-Hearted Protagonist [Book Transmigration]

[Don't read if you're extremely possessive. There are split personalities, but this isn't a harem. No self-insert, no substitutions, no pairing changes, no reversed pairings.]

[If anything is unclear, check the last diary entry in my profile. It contains spoilers and answers. I'll also be holding a giveaway for the finished work.

I'm revising the story and have finished chapters 1-11. If you're going to subscribe to the paid chapters, I recommend starting from chapter 38, since those chapters will be revised less and the writing style is closer to how I write now.]

After transmigrating into a cultivation world and faking his death several times, Duan Tingqi finally realizes that his life has been arranged for him.

In the story written by [The Author], he is an otherworldly being, the top name on the ascension rankings, a mysterious and noble diviner of Chu, a refined and aloof senior brother, a sharp-tongued sword spirit who thinks highly of himself...

He is the unattainable moonlight in the hearts of many!

Playing at life under a series of different identities, he wins the affection of a crowd of devoted psychos, then ignores them all, with his heart set on just one person.

He gets whatever he wishes for, even if gods or Buddhas stand in his way. He's practically a little "blessed one"!

But who would have thought that such a "lucky" life could have been stolen?

When the truth comes out...

The "blessed one" who always got everything he wished for was actually his high school classmate, Pei Jingzhu. Duan Tingqi was merely a transmigrator into a book, a pretender who had usurped another's place and tried to imitate him.

"The people they like are you, Pei Jingzhu!"

"Did you transmigrate into the book too? When?"

Daylight breaks, and snow falls with a whisper.

With blood on his lips, Duan Tingqi smiles faintly as he rests against a delicate, soft neck.

Pei Jingzhu, his eyes covered by white silk, kneels on the ground, loosely holding him. Unhurriedly, he taps his fingertips, his words as intimate and flirtatious as a lover's murmur.

"I don't quite remember. I think it was a little earlier than you."

At that moment, Duan Tingqi smiles as if compelled by some unseen force, then asks again.

"[The Author] says you have someone you like. Who could it be?"

"What do you think of Pei Qiw u? He's the protagonist. He cultivates the path of ruthless cultivation, but everyone knows hardly anyone ever completes it."

Pei Jingzhu answers modestly and courteously, "He's all right."

"What do you think of Chu Qingzhou? He's the antagonist, and also the protagonist's second personality. He used to act recklessly, but he doesn't kill people at random anymore."

Pei Jingzhu lowers his eyes and answers calmly, "He's all right."

"What do you think of Jiang Quetang? You two get along well, right? He's an extreme germophobe, but he lets his guard down around you. You're the exception. Back in high school, I often saw you hanging out together."

Pei Jingzhu neither confirms nor denies it. "He's all right."

"What do you think of Ying Youning? He's your fiancé, but he's a troublemaking thrill-seeker. I don't think he's all that great. You'd be pretty unlucky to pick him, wouldn't you?"

Pei Jingzhu remains perfectly calm. "He's all right."

"What do you think of Ying Xuhe? He's your fiancé too, but he's sickly and frail. He doesn't look... very well. And he shares sensations with Ying Youning, so choosing him... would be pretty much the same as becoming a widow!"

This time, Duan Tingqi's words come out haltingly, and he seems somewhat anxious.

At that, Pei Jingzhu tilts his head, gently pinches his little finger, and smiles faintly, as if hinting at something.

His tone is calm and cool as snow. "I'm sorry."

After ascending through the ruthless path, Pei Jingzhu arrives in the modern world.

Cold and detached by nature, he has neither interest nor fate in matters of love, and should have no desire for romance.

But one day, the split personalities he had deliberately created all fall for the same person.

"I like you, but your heart belongs only to Ying Xuhe. How is that fair?"

"If you like him that much, I can act like him too."

Pei Qiwu / Chu Qingzhou: dual personalities

Ying Youning / Ying Xuhe: shared sensations, one wife between them, VS Duan Tingqi

Jiang Quetang / Pei Jingzhu: classmates and sworn enemies

The split-personality love interests are all aspects of Pei Jingzhu.

[Blind beauty top vs straight male lead who transmigrated into a book]

PS: 1. Don't read if you're extremely possessive of the top or the bottom. Also not for readers who insist on moral purity.

2. The two personalities of the split-personality top are in two parallel timelines. When they switch, they exchange perspectives on each other's timelines and can talk internally. Pei's voice uses [ ], Chu's uses " ".

3. Cultivation ranks: Qi Refining, Foundation Establishment, Golden Core, Nascent Soul, Deity Transformation, Great Ascension, Tribulation Transcendence.

4. Four arcs: "Pool of Ten Thousand Bones" + "Forbidden Deep Palace" + "Kingfisher Feather Lock" + "City in the Clouds". The second arc is a role-playing game. Cultivation + imperial palace + marquis's estate + modern world, with a fake dual transmigration.

Here's a pre-release story: After We Can Hear Each Other's Thoughts

One day, Zhao Junyan awakens and is bound to a System. That's when he learns that he's the vicious antagonist in a palace novel, and the protagonist Tu Moyi's rival in the early chapters. He bullies people with his family's power and makes a scene wherever he goes, and at one point shoots the protagonist, leaving him half-dead.

His eventual fate is grim: he dies without a place to be buried.

The System gives its blunt verdict: Serves him right! He tormented the protagonist, so he deserves to die.

In the study of the Marquis of Changning's estate, the young marquis Zhao Junyan dozes over the Thousand Character Classic and refuses to blame himself: If no one messes with me, I won't mess with them. That idiot must have provoked me.

System: ??? This boy has a death wish.

Unable to watch someone deliberately court death, the System tells Zhao Junyan that if he wins the protagonist over and completes the plot, he can escape his fatal ending.

Zhao Junyan thinks the System is nuts. Win the protagonist over while following the plot of tormenting him? What kind of bizarre demand is that? After puzzling over it, Zhao Junyan gives up. "Then I might as well die."

The System panics. How can he just give up? It blurts out, "No! My precious, how am I supposed to live if you die? Let me explain the plot first. Please change your mind!"

Zhao Junyan, who has suddenly become a dad, is amused by the System. He doesn't interrupt its endless chatter, but leisurely listens to it recount an old-fashioned melodramatic story.

The universally adored protagonist is beautiful and exceptionally clever, attracting a crowd of devoted psychos who each try to forcibly claim him, hoping to lock him away in a gilded cage.

Zhao Junyan, as the protagonist's early rival, is assigned the "in love without knowing it" role. At first he insults and humiliates the protagonist in every way; later, unable to have him, he turns his love into hatred and vows to kill him and sever their ties.

The System cautiously looks at Zhao Junyan, who is resting his chin in his hand, and asks in a strange voice, "Do you still want to hear the rest?"

Zhao Junyan looks innocent. "Of course. Why wouldn't I?"

He never knew an idle playboy like him was capable of relentlessly pestering a man.

The System cautiously continues. "No one expected the protagonist to be a black lotus. Everything was part of his plan. He fights murder with murder, and his suitors, all convinced they were heaven's chosen, perish at his hands. You, however, are the most special."

The System speaks as if resigned to its fate. "He keeps you chained to his bed and locks you inside Yunluo Palace day and night, hiding you away like a treasured concubine where the sun never shines... Eventually, you die from exhaustion."

The System finishes speaking and grows uneasy. It glances timidly at Zhao Junyan. "Young Marquis, you don't want to die in such an undignified way, do you?"

Zhao Junyan falls silent for once. He grits his teeth, about to curse, when a strange voice suddenly sounds in his mind, crisp as melting ice and dusting snow, with a hint of chill.

[Someone is lying!]

-

Tu Moyi, the mercurial young lord of Yunluo, has an unfathomably mysterious past and is known for killing without mercy.

Under the full moon, meteors streak across the sky and corpses litter the ground. In this treacherous human hell, he hears a constant stream of idle thoughts.

[Little mute, what are you doing in the middle of the night? Don't keep everything to yourself. You're so noisy!]

[Little mute, are you doing this on purpose? You're so quiet during the day, then you keep me awake in the middle of the night!]

The voice in his mind keeps chattering. For some reason, Tu Moyi's mood eases. He looks down at the rippling water as it washes the blood from his fingertips, then slowly answers in his mind, turning the accusation back on the other person.

[You're so noisy!]

-

Tu Moyi has a secret he's never told anyone: he can hear another person's thoughts, and that person can hear his.

But the other person doesn't know that he can also hear the voice of the so-called "System."

It's been that way for years.

[Manipulative, obsessive black-lotus protagonist top VS carefree fake-playboy cannon-fodder bottom]

PS: 1. I only have a few ideas so far. This is a brief first-draft blurb.

2. The bottom is a vicious playboy cannon fodder who gets approached by a System. His task is to act as the protagonist's devoted admirer and shower him with kindness. The bottom gives up and keeps up his playboy persona.

3. The top and bottom can hear each other's thoughts anywhere and at any time, even before they meet. It's a little like being passive online friends.

4. [Chinese-style cosmic horror palace setting + mutual mind-reading (including conversations between the bottom and the System) + cannon fodder awakens and gets bound to a System + vicious cannon fodder gives up and keeps his vicious persona + sworn-enemies romance]

5. Zhao Junyan's thoughts are marked with [ ], and Tu Moyi's with "".

Theme: Never apart from dawn to dusk, and always together year after year.