In 2016, online novels still cared about distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate children. Scheming geniuses and adorable prodigies were all the rage, domineering CEOs always came with sweet, doting wives, and the fake-and-real heiress trope was still fairly new.
That same year, Yao Wan graduated from college and went around looking for work with her resume, only to get hit by a car and transmigrate as an orphan girl in ancient times.
It was a tragic little-fisherman start from the very beginning. Wrapped in swaddling clothes, she floated down a river for half a day before her chubby adoptive father scooped her up, and her sturdy adoptive mother raised her.
Yao Wan accepts her fate and diligently plays the part of a proper young lady from a scholarly household, hoping to make the best of this life she happened into, then find a good man, marry him as his primary wife, and have children when the time comes.
But one night, the great demon Zhang Daozhi sneaks into her courtyard and offers to take her as his disciple. He says she is a naturally perfect cauldron. If she doesn't cultivate a special technique to hide it, she'll inevitably become the heroine of an adult novel. But to obtain that technique, she'll have to join the demonic path.
Yao Wan is suddenly dragged into a whole new world, switching from the romance section to the cultivation section. She becomes a demonic cultivator's pawn planted in a righteous sect.
Zhang Daozhi gives her two missions.
First, seduce Ming Yinghai, the young sect master of the foremost righteous sect, and stop him from becoming immortal companions with Fairy Pulan.
Second, use her beauty to drive a wedge between Ming Yinghai and his master, Huangfu Jun, and make master and disciple turn against each other.
Yao Wan once believed she could do anything to achieve her goals. She clumsily tries to steal the man's heart and works hard at cultivation. But under the tutelage of her righteous master, she can't help seeing the common people suffering under the ravages of demons, and the loyal and upright people framed by the demonic path.
In the end, Yao Wan's mission seems to succeed. She really does make her master Huangfu Jun and senior brother Ming Yinghai fall for her, and they draw swords against each other over her.
But she also fails, because she forges a blade of sin and turns it around to stab her true master, Zhang Daozhi.
After dying alongside her infuriating master, Yao Wan is lucky enough to survive. She lives in seclusion in the mountains and makes a living rewriting stories.
The farming-life section really suits her better.
But once a blade is forged, its edge can hardly be hidden.
Also known as: After Transmigrating, Don't Treat Online Novels as a Guide to Life.
Inspired by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Every girl carries a hidden dragon in her heart. Better to soar among the clouds than trap the dragon in a deep pool.
A spy: the ancient term for an agent.
There's melodrama, a woman who has affairs with a master and his disciple, and the male lead is Ming Yinghai.
A growth-oriented heroine who's easy to kill but hard to keep dead x a gentle, flirtatious young man who ends up driven mad by her.
Theme: This novel draws inspiration from the Pygmalion effect: people become what their surroundings expect them to be. When the expectations around them are harmful, breaking free of that influence becomes a silent struggle.
