After the Brooding Outcast Gives Up on Life

Everyone knew that the Crown Prince of Chu was peerlessly elegant and revered by all.

Few knew of his twin brother, Murong Ling, born under an ill omen. His face grew ever more bewitching, and his life force waned until he looked like a beautiful ghost.

At first, he tried to please everyone in hopes of receiving some familial warmth and recognition. Later, he did it simply to stay alive.

The Crown Prince was a graceful lotus, beyond reproach. Murong Ling was the mud beneath its roots. Those people loathed him, yet used him to indulge their vilest desires. They wanted him dead so he could clear away the filth around the Crown Prince and make room for their love.

Only the Regent reached out to him and gave him warmth.

In return, Murong Ling offered him his heart.

But at the Crown Prince's birthday banquet, with a hundred poisons gnawing at his heart and a great fire devouring him, Murong Ling learned the truth: he was nothing but a plaything for the Regent, who could not have the Crown Prince and used him to bear his filthy desires.

The foreign poison in his blood, forged through years of suffering, was the other thing that made him valuable.

At last, he no longer wanted to live.

*But he didn't die.

System 366, who had just rushed over to save his life: Host, you're doing great! Keep winning them over, and you'll get your crematorium. Then you just have to die once, and you can return to the main world and retire!

Murong Ling remembered that he had transmigrated into a book and focused on the important part: dying once would be easy enough.

He crushed the medicine the Crown Prince had "bestowed" on him in front of him. He drove a plum branch through the hand that had once gripped his throat. He burned down the Imperial Preceptor's Hall, mixed the poison's ashes into wine, dabbed on rouge from a brothel, and held the cup to the Imperial Preceptor's lips. He snapped the jade-handled wolf-hair brush and drew his sword to sever the Chancellor's wrist tendons...

366: Host, have you gone mad?! You're supposed to win them over, not get yourself killed!

Murong Ling held the sword to his throat. "Is that not enough? Then I'll just die right now."

But later

The supremely dignified Crown Prince blocked his door, offering him a title. "A Ling, could you look at me the way you used to, just once?"

The aloof, unpredictable Imperial Preceptor knelt before him, offering up his lifespan as a sacrifice to perform a ritual for Murong Ling's longevity and rewrite his fate. "A Ling, you were willing to help me refine the poison, so why won't you admit you love me?"

The noble and elegant Chancellor, gravely injured, led the civil officials in submitting a plea on Murong Ling's behalf. "A Ling, you are my life's greatest masterpiece. Don't leave me..."

Murong Ling: Thanks for asking. Life was hard, and I had no choice before.

Before long, people across the nation realized that the gloomy, ill-omened Young Master Ling was a brilliant talent worthy of serving the country, and that a single turn of his sword could dazzle like a startled swan.

*The Regent is a snake-hearted man in the guise of a gentleman. He won't kill Murong Ling, who is of no use to him. Murong Ling keeps his distance and ignores him.

But later, the Regent, who had always seemed as serene as a clear breeze and bright moon, came drenched in blood, clutching his seal of office. With bloodshot eyes, he held Murong Ling close and offered him the nation's charter and imperial seal. "Heaven has no right to take you. You should rule this world."

"Could you give me a place by your side, too?"

A beauty who lures others without realizing it, cold and world-weary, secretly unhinged shou x a black-hearted gong who seems like a gentleman

Content warnings:

* Over-the-top angst, a crematorium, and a love triangle from hell. Only the Regent wins him back, trading his life for it.

* The shou is beautiful and bold, but unlucky, with an equally messy backstory.

* The shou has it rough early on, surrounded by a crowd of unhinged men with one-sided crushes on him. Circumstances force him to play along, but apart from the Regent, he has no genuine feelings or physical relationships with them.

* Reborn in chapter twenty.

Theme: Reject feudal superstition