A Millennium After I Fell Asleep, My Childhood Friend Became the Demon Lord

[Third-person narration]

Naive, laid-back dreamer x Black-Bellied Demon Lord

I'm a player of Immortal Path, and got pulled into the game from the start.

I spent ten years keeping my head down in the beginner village, finally maxing out farming, and was ready to romance an NPC.

I'd picked the frail scholar from next door, my childhood friend.

He couldn't lift or carry anything and lived in poverty, surviving on watery rice porridge every day. The young man, with ink-black hair and scholar's robes, had features as fine as a painting.

I easily maxed out his affection rating. But right after I confessed, the System broke.

When I woke up again, I'd been asleep for a thousand years.

All my supplies were gone, every character's affection rating had been reset, and my status screen was completely blank.

Well, there went ten years of work.

On my second playthrough, I gave up trying.

I farmed a little, petted cats, and whenever I saw smoke rising from the neighbor's chimney, I brought flour and eggs over to mooch a meal.

My childhood friend and I sat together on little stools, eating egg pancakes with plain rice porridge. Every so often, he'd sneak a glance at me. When I caught him, he'd blush and turn away.

Somehow, I maxed out his affection rating again.

Gradually, I truly fell in love with him too.

This time, before I could say anything, he confessed first and held my hand tightly.

Dazed, I said yes and solemnly promised that I'd work hard at farming and take good care of our household!

He gave me a gentle smile, somewhat bashful.

On our wedding day, I covered my head with a veil and climbed into the bridal sedan chair.

It felt light and floaty, as though it had lifted into the air.

When the sedan chair landed, I secretly lifted the curtain and saw a towering heavenly palace amid eerie clouds. Rows of demon servants knelt in a sea of black.

"We welcome the Demon Queen!"

"We welcome the Demon Lord!"

...The Demon Lord?

Huh?

Wasn't he a frail scholar?

Had I been tricked into marriage?!!!

Gu Wenxiao was orphaned as a child and grew up lonely and impoverished.

That was until a little girl with smiling, crescent-shaped eyes moved in next door.

After she suddenly disappeared, Gu Wenxiao embarked on the path of cultivation, became an immortal, and then turned into a demon.

He crossed mountains and seas, searching every perilous place in this world.

He searched for a thousand years.

Waited for a thousand years.

Guarded her for a thousand years.

At last, he could wash the blood from his body, sheathe his long sword, put on the scholar's robes he'd not worn in ages, and hold a book in his hands as he became the frail, harmless scholar she remembered.

Theme: Love requires sincerity