“Kill them, kill them all!”
01
As the original story’s second male lead, Tantai Tian was destined to ascend the throne, endure countless hardships, and become a tyrant, only to serve as a stepping stone for the male lead.
But after one mishap after another, the crown prince who was supposed to take the throne is still a pitiful little thing.
To save the plot, the System bound a… cat to carry out the mission.
A cat has catlike virtues. This cat will do a good job.
Human, your cat is here to save you.
But why has the refined and courteous Tantai Tian described by the System already begun to show the makings of a tyrant?
The cat is shocked: System, you tricked me!
*
Tantai Tian raised a cat.
A black cat, an ill-omened one, just like him.
He even gave it a name: Rendong.
Rendong was wild.
And its claws were sharp.
But those claws were only ever for outsiders.
With Tantai Tian, it only batted him with its soft little paws.
Rendong was also very well-behaved.
Though it wasn’t especially clingy, it would still purr and roll around beside Tantai Tian.
As time went by, Tantai Tian grew greedy.
He didn’t just want five or ten years of its companionship. He wanted more!
So what if it was an ill-omened black cat? Anyone who had a problem with his cat would be killed. Every last one of them.
*
One day, the cat asked the System: System, the human gave the cat pills. Is the cat sick?
The System said grimly: Tantai Tian has gone mad.
He thinks a cat can live to be a hundred.
*
Rendong said gloomily: But the human looks like he’s the one with a short life ahead of him.
02
Ever since Rendong found out Tantai Tian had something wrong with him, it had been trying every which way to cure him. But why were all these treatments so bizarre?
After turning human and slithering along in a crooked, snake-like way, Rendong fell silent.
The cat had to scare people, charm them, bewitch them, stir up their emotions and desires, then build up its cultivation so it could cure him… Wasn’t that exactly the kind of evil little demon from a story?
Rendong was horrified. Would cat demons be burned alive?
And so Rendong went on living a life of thrilling danger, being a cat by day and secretly turning human.
*
As time passed, it seemed someone had figured out that the cat was a demon.
Rendong: Goodbye, human. The cat’s going to run off for a while. I’ll wait for things to die down, then come back and look after you.
Just as Rendong was packing up its bundle, ready to sneak away like a frightened cat, someone grabbed its exposed tail.
Rendong turned around.
Wow, what a gloomy, terrifying expression.
Tantai Tian stared at him with a sinister look, like an evil spirit crawling out of hell.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Rendong: Wait, when did the cat’s tail show?
[Reader Advisory]
The cat turns human, and there’s quite a lot of that.
Both leads are inexperienced.
The gong has no moral compass. He’s sick, and he’s not a good person.
Old-school melodrama. Don’t read if that’s not your thing.
New upcoming novel: After Failing to Stay Away from the Original Plot. If you’re interested, please add it to your favorites!
01
The day Yang Yan learned he was the shou protagonist of a melodramatic novel, he had already set foot in the story’s opening location: Hantan Academy.
Hantan Academy was the most coveted school for scholars throughout the dynasties. Its students were all rich or noble, except for Yang Yan, who had gotten in because his legitimate elder brother had gone mad.
Now Yang Yan understood why this windfall had landed in his lap.
Fortunately, the plot had only just begun.
He still had plenty of time to avoid it.
After all, just looking at the original plot was enough to make him faint… The other protagonist, the gong, was a deranged monster who did every kind of evil.
Nalan Jin, the protagonist gong. The youngest brother of the emperor, who had sent him to Hantan Academy to temper his temperament. Instead, everyone there became his playthings.
As the shou protagonist, Yang Yan would be the toy he cherished most.
Yang Yan: I can’t afford to offend him, but I can stay out of his way.
02
Nalan Jin had known since childhood that this world was no more than the setting of a book, and that he was its protagonist.
After all, so many people had tried to kill him that even his emperor brother couldn’t take it anymore and sent him off to Hantan Academy.
Those who claimed to have transmigrated into a book were sickening and cowardly, and easy to destroy. They weren’t even much fun. Nalan Jin had grown tired of killing them, until one day, one of them couldn’t take any more of his torment and let slip a huge secret.
There were two protagonists in this book.
Besides Nalan Jin, there was another protagonist who was supposed to be entangled with him until death.
Heh, how interesting.
Nalan Jin wore a cruel, vicious smile.
So there was another little treasure like that?
But how could someone so interesting have failed to appear even once during the years when the story began?
03
Yang Yan had considered every possibility, but never imagined that, besides the terrifying fact that the world was a novel, there could also be such frightening beings as people who transmigrated into a book.
When Nalan Jin found him, Yang Yan’s mind was filled with just one thought: I’m doomed!
Nalan Jin named him as his study companion.
Although the protagonist gong in the book was terrifying, this man was only cruel-tempered around Yang Yan, not quite as monstrous as he’d expected.
Sometimes, he was even a little cute.
But it turned out that letting your guard down, even for a moment, could be fatal.
When Yang Yan saw the transmigrators die one after another right before his eyes, his face turned deathly pale.
Nalan Jin tilted his head in confusion, cupped Yang Yan’s face, and smiled. “Darling, shouldn’t you be standing on my side?”
After all, you and I are the only ones of our kind in this world.
04
It was winter when Yang Yan faked his death and ran away.
Freezing cold.
He lay quietly in his coffin, listening as that man flew into rages and made threats, yet inside, he was overjoyed.
At last, he was going to be free.
After he was buried, after he escaped by every means possible, after Yang Yan finally settled down and started a new life.
Even so, those memories still haunted him with nightmares late into the night, leaving him drenched in sweat when he woke.
With a friend’s help, he hid in a small town, bought a place to live, and acquired a few acres of farmland.
As he rested and recovered, he slowly left that fear behind.
Then one day, while pulling weeds in the fields for a change, Yang Yan grew dizzy. A hand reached out to steady him.
Suddenly, a fear he hadn’t felt in a long time took hold of Yang Yan, and his heart began to pound wildly.
No.
The dark spots in front of his eyes slowly, slowly cleared.
This was impossible!
He gradually made out the person before him, and at the same time, heard his voice.
“Yang Yan.”
Just two words.
Yang Yan felt as if every drop of blood in his body had frozen.
All his nightmares, Nalan Jin, stood right in front of him. The demon slowly smiled at him. A frenzied, excited expression spread across his pale face as he whispered like a ghost.
“I found you.”
His precious treasure.
Note: The title and blurb may change. It’s melodramatic, coercive love, and very much a trashy forced-possession story!
Theme: Face difficulties with a positive attitude and save the world from danger amid countless perils!