The Supporting Actress Chooses to Jump Off the Cliff

The ruler of Tianyuan's queen was secretly executed for having an affair.

The exalted and exceptionally gifted Crown Prince Helian Ying was confined to the Cold Palace, both legs broken and all his cultivation destroyed.

To survive, he had no choice but to rely on and ingratiate himself with a lowly palace maid he despised.

He soothed and deceived the lowborn maid, saying every sweet thing he could think of, until she agreed to go to his sect and retrieve his pills.

The maid, however, thought they were in love and even wanted to give herself to him.

Helian Ying agreed on the surface, but inwardly he felt nothing but contempt.

He was a once-in-a-millennium sword cultivator genius in Tianyuan. At three, he had been betrothed to the daughter of the sect master of Huangtian Sect, the foremost immortal sect. One day, he would rule Tianyuan and reach the pinnacle of swordsmanship. How could he marry a lowly mortal like her?

She had seen him at his most wretched and disgraceful, and he wanted nothing more than to kill her.

Qin Shuang was a miserable little palace maid, slow-witted and dull, bullied by others and assigned to the Cold Palace, a place where not even birds would land.

Then, one day, a man on the verge of death arrived.

His breathtaking looks and gentle, kind nature soon won Qin Shuang over.

She cared for him with all her heart until he recovered, wanting nothing more than to be with him.

But once he was well, his attitude changed. He locked her inside a palace, forbidding her from leaving or letting anyone else come in.

Qin Shuang feared loneliness most of all, yet she spent three years in that enormous palace.

Then one day, a fire swept in and bandits abducted her. When Qin Shuang came to, she found herself bound on a cliff beside Helian Ying's fiancée.

The bandits sneered. "Helian Ying, you have two women. Which one will you save?"

The mountain wind howled, whipping Helian Ying's black-and-gold robes. His expression was icy, and he said nothing.

Qin Shuang knew without asking which woman he would choose, but she didn't need Helian Ying to choose her.

When the bandits struck her on the head, Qin Shuang finally remembered her past.

She had actually transmigrated here.

Helian Ying had originally been Tianyuan's noble and radiant crown prince, a sword cultivator genius betrothed to the heroine since childhood, and the two had been in love. But the demon race schemed against him, framing him and destroying his cultivation. He fell from grace, and the heroine was forced to marry someone else. Mistaking this for betrayal, Helian Ying turned his love into hatred and became a brutal Demon Lord, feared throughout the cultivation world. He forcibly claimed the heroine and sought to destroy the world.

The Space-Time Bureau had sent Qin Shuang to stop Helian Ying from destroying the world and change the fate of this realm's collapse.

No matter how carefully she'd planned, she could never have foreseen that she would hit her head when she transmigrated, forget everything, and genuinely believe she was just an unfortunate little palace maid.

Fortunately, the heroine hadn't married anyone else, and Helian Ying hadn't turned evil. All Qin Shuang had to do now was rescue the heroine from the bandits, then leap off the cliff herself. She would die, return to her original world, and complete her mission!

Qin Shuang died.

She died in the first year of Helian Ying's reign.

Back in the real world, Qin Shuang received a major commendation and a bonus of two hundred thousand. She was living a carefree life.

But three months later, she was ordered to return to Tianyuan. The reason? The heroine hadn't married anyone else, yet Helian Ying had still turned evil!

Her superiors ordered Qin Shuang to return to Helian Ying's side, persuade him to take the righteous path, and save the collapsing world.

Unable to refuse the order, Qin Shuang returned to Tianyuan. A hundred years had passed since her "death."

Word had it that Tianyuan's ruler, Helian Ying, had turned into a demon overnight, his black hair now entirely white. In the century since, he had slaughtered the great sects one after another. He had killed the sect master of Huangtian Sect with a single sword, then cut out his heart and dug out his core.

All his mad deeds were for one reason: to bring back to life a little palace maid who had been dead for a hundred years, her soul long since vanished.

Reading Guide:

1. A terrible man with a genuine heart. The male lead is a dark, unhinged villain who later becomes nearly crazed trying to resurrect his wife, risking his life to win her back. Includes coercive romance. The female lead is honest, dull-witted, and kind, but also has her own selfish desires. She is not a powerful heroine, and neither lead is morally perfect. This story is written to indulge a particular kink, so readers who aren't into this sort of thing should proceed with caution.

2. Very old-school. The heroine suffers in the first half, the hero in the second. An intense love-hate relationship, with no change of male lead.

3. My take on xianxia includes many original worldbuilding elements. The cultivation levels draw on established conventions as well as my own inventions.

4. Corrections of factual errors are welcome, but please don't give me writing advice.

Theme: Never lose yourself