ATAVID CH1: Inner Demon

If nothing else, Jiang Qunyu had probably transmigrated into a book.
And if nothing else, he, Jiang Qunyu, a straight man, had transmigrated into an 18+ restricted novel.

Title: After Insubordination, I [Censored] My Aloof Master
Tags: Ancient BL / Forced / Younger Top / [Censored] / [Censored] / Wicked Disciple
Protagonists: Shen Peiqiu, Lan Yuanzhou

Jiang Qunyu had a vivid memory of this novel.
In his barren and boring eighteen years of life, he had impulsively clicked on a novel his friend shared with him, and the words entered his eyes at an extremely vicious speed.
Even though Jiang Qunyu closed it as fast as lightning, a few explicit, [censored] paragraphs were still branded into his brain.

Jiang Qunyu was dumbfounded on the spot.
His friend had sworn to him that this was an overpowered, satisfying male-oriented web novel, where the original book featured Shen Peiqiu leveling up and fighting monsters all the way, going from “don’t bully the young and poor” to “without me, Shen Peiqiu, the immortal realm’s eternity is like a long night,” eventually becoming the orthodox legend who trampled the three realms and ruled the nine heavens.

But the style of the novel he opened was weirdly peculiar.
Yet, Jiang Qunyu refused to believe it. He would rather believe that he had opened it the wrong way than believe his friend was pranking him.

So, Jiang Qunyu bit the bullet and opened that dizzying page again. From between the screen full of [censored] words and romantic murmurs, he barely pieced together a storyline.

In the original plot, Shen Peiqiu was the aloof Sword Venerable of the Xuantian Sect, with snowy lapels and frosty sleeves, untainted by the mundane world.
Once, while going down the mountain to eliminate demons, he saved the ten-year-old Lan Yuanzhou from a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.
Seeing that although Lan Yuanzhou was orphaned, he had a firm mind and excellent talent in cultivation, he took him under his wing and personally raised Lan Yuanzhou.

At first, Lan Yuanzhou’s heart was filled with nothing but reverence and gratitude.
However, as time surged secretly, within the youth’s growing figure, a certain rebellious delusion also quietly sprouted.
The way he looked at his master gradually became tinged with yearning.
But his master always treated him as a child.

The turning point happened on the night Lan Yuanzhou turned eighteen.
He was passing by his master’s quiet meditation room when he suddenly heard an extremely suppressed, broken panting coming from inside. As if possessed by a ghost, he stopped in his tracks, his gaze crashing into the unclosed crack of the door.

Where the candle shadows flickered red, his master, who was always like a high mountain and distant snow, was disheveled, his expression ambiguous.
Sweat-soaked black hair stuck to the side of his neck, and the knuckles that usually held a sword or a scroll were now facing a mirror [censored].

Lan Yuanzhou’s breathing stopped suddenly, and all the blood in his body rushed to his head.
He knew he should leave immediately, but his feet seemed nailed to the spot. What was even more terrifying was that his own hand uncontrollably reached slowly toward the hem of his clothes, grabbing onto that crimson object.

Since then, Lan Yuanzhou began to intentionally or unintentionally seduce his master.
Shen Peiqiu originally belonged to the Spirit Deer clan and naturally had a craving for lust that exceeded that of ordinary people. Under Lan Yuanzhou’s fierce offensive, he soon began a shameless daily life of dual cultivation with Lan Yuanzhou.

Probably because too much 18+ smut was written, readers felt a bit bored, and many comments saying they were dropping the novel appeared under the chapters.
With a wave of her pen, the author forcibly separated Shen Peiqiu and Lan Yuanzhou.

She also added a villain, Wei Xun.
This person, Wei Xun, was ruthless and born as a cold-hearted, emotionless demon.
He was originally a breathtakingly brilliant young genius of the Yunxiao Sect, but during a trial, his meridians were destroyed by demonic energy while saving his fellow disciples.
Falling from the clouds into the mud, his fiancée broke off their engagement, his fellow disciples bullied him, and his relatives betrayed him, eventually turning him into the mad Demon Venerable who terrified the cultivation world.

In order to increase his cultivation base, he took advantage of Shen Peiqiu’s injury, abducted him, and imprisoned him in the Demonic Realm’s Yunque City, entangling with him day and night.
He had no pity for Shen Peiqiu, even repeatedly forcing him to fall into the demonic path and planting a love gu in him, making him unable to leave him, both physically and mentally.

Facing Lan Yuanzhou, he told Lan Yuanzhou that Shen Peiqiu had long grown tired of him and told him to stay away from Shen Peiqiu.
Lan Yuanzhou naturally didn’t believe him, but when he saw with his own eyes Shen Peiqiu, driven by the gu worm, proactively kiss Wei Xun’s lips, his heart felt like it was being cut by a knife, and he left with a flick of his sleeves.

Wei Xun was happy to see this happen.
Wei Xun also had somewhat of a cuckold fetish attribute.
He knew Lan Yuanzhou couldn’t let go of Shen Peiqiu, and the two would often secretly meet when he left Yunque City. Sometimes, they would argue and suddenly roll onto the bed.
It was unknown if Lan Yuanzhou did it to exact revenge on Wei Xun or for some other reason, but what Lan Yuanzhou liked most was penetrating Shen Peiqiu even deeper right as Wei Xun was about to return to the city, even coaxing Shen Peiqiu to say shameful things.

But Wei Xun didn’t mind, or rather, he had no emotions.
In his eyes, Shen Peiqiu was nothing more than a tool to boost his cultivation. As long as the tool was still there, whatever Shen Peiqiu did, he didn’t take it to heart.
He was bloodthirsty and brutal.
Slaughtering the immortal sects and climbing to the very peak step by step was what he truly wanted to achieve.

Perhaps because the author portrayed this character too vividly, Wei Xun’s popularity actually gradually surpassed that of the main top and bottom.
There were even readers demanding that the author open a separate storyline for Wei Xun.

In a fit of pique, the author made Wei Xun fall in love with Shen Peiqiu.
Wei Xun became gradually attracted to Shen Peiqiu. He hated that Shen Peiqiu still didn’t love him even after being inflicted with the love gu, and he hated Lan Yuanzhou’s special place in Shen Peiqiu’s heart. Those intimate pasts that he once ignored now became thorns stabbed into his flesh and blood.

A crowd of readers stated that Wei Xun’s characterization was OOC (out of character).
But the author said she preferred the angsty “sea of hatred, sky of love” plotline and even went back on her previous promise that she was just changing the map to continue feeding them smut and that Wei Xun was just a tool character to push the plot forward and wouldn’t actually fall for the main bottom.

Finally, in the end, Wei Xun was jointly killed by the main top and bottom.
The main top and bottom went back to their shameless daily life.

Jiang Qunyu didn’t eat or drink, read for three days and three nights, and finally finished this novel.
Before he could share his reading impressions with his friend, his friend told him that what he read was a fanfiction serialized by his friend’s younger sister on Haitang (a specific NSFW platform).

Jiang Qunyu: “…”
Then what did he mean by “OP satisfying male-oriented web novel”?!

Friend: “I had no choice, my sister forced me to read it. Something so toxic shouldn’t just poison me alone. You’re my bro, we share our hardships.”

Jiang Qunyu smiled without his eyes, suddenly feeling like this brotherhood wasn’t absolutely necessary.
His friend curiously followed up: “Did you really finish it? No way, right? I opened the first chapter, saw two men kissing, and closed it on the spot.”

Jiang Qunyu naturally wouldn’t tell his friend that he had finished an entire one-million-word melodramatic restricted novel.
Mainly because, pushing everything else aside, the fight scenes inside were actually written exceptionally well, mixed with supernatural and fantasy settings. He could only go against his conscience, telling himself “the flaws don’t obscure the jade,” while honestly following it all the way to the ending.

But he still couldn’t swallow his anger, so he went back and downvoted all the comments he had posted before.
He also replied to a few comments in passing.
One of the comments read: [Wei Xun, who broke free from the author’s consciousness, is really so charming. Once a paper character suddenly has a soul, he will love his lover.]

Jiang Qunyu almost coughed up blood from anger.
In the original plot, one of the few things that kept him reading was the early version of Wei Xun.
Who knew that halfway through the plot, the character would suddenly collapse, revolving around Shen Peiqiu all day long, even casually throwing away the hegemony over the three realms that was about to fall into his hands.

At that time, Jiang Qunyu wanted to transmigrate into the book and shake him awake: Just one step away! You are just one step away!
Unfortunately, Wei Xun went down the OOC path with no return, completely turning into a love-brained fool.

His knuckles typed furiously as he suppressed his anger and fired back:
[Are you the author’s alt account? Later on, Wei Xun used drugs and imprisonment, and you call this having a soul? If you met this kind of person in reality, you’d run faster than anyone else.]

After commenting, Jiang Qunyu felt embarrassed and deleted his browsing history.
Unexpectedly, the next day after finishing his match, on his way back to the base, his car was rear-ended, and he died after rescue efforts failed.

Jiang Qunyu was an esports player. His mom had passed away long ago, so he didn’t have to worry about the white-haired person sending off the black-haired person.
He even felt glad that he had deleted the browsing history on his phone the night before.
Otherwise, he truly wouldn’t be able to wash himself clean even if he jumped into the Yellow River.

But he never expected that he would transmigrate into a book.
Transmigrating was one thing, but he actually transmigrated as Wei Xun’s inner demon…

In the original book, the author didn’t spend much time describing Wei Xun’s inner demon.
Jiang Qunyu only knew that the inner demon existed to be used as a sacrifice for Wei Xun’s sword.
Every time Wei Xun blackened, he would crush his inner demon to sacrifice to his sword once. The sword intent of his natal sword, the Soul-Devouring Sword, would also ascend to the next level. According to the setting, he had to kill his inner demon seven times for his sword path to reach great completion.

Unfortunately, in the book, right up until Wei Xun was executed by the main top and bottom in Tianque City, his sword path only reached the fifth level.
It was very obvious; an inner demon was an inner demon. It was born depending on Wei Xun. Even if he selfishly didn’t want to get tangled up with the main top and bottom, as a villain’s inner demon opposing the main top and bottom, he wouldn’t have a good ending.
In the end, he would naturally dissipate into thin air along with the villain.

Jiang Qunyu didn’t know what to say for a moment.
He was truly unlucky enough.

However, the silver lining in this misfortune was that he transmigrated as the inner demon, not Shen Peiqiu, and definitely not Lan Yuanzhou.
He didn’t want to be gay with a man!

Moreover, according to the voice in his ear after he died, as long as he helped Wei Xun achieve great completion in his sword path, he could be reborn and live on in this world.
That is to say, as long as he was killed by Wei Xun seven times before Wei Xun was executed by the main top and bottom, he could regain a body of his own.

Although he couldn’t return to his original world, a bad life is better than a good death, and the cultivation world was quite interesting.
Besides, there wasn’t much to be nostalgic about in his original world. In order to play matches, he always had to stay up late practicing his aim. If it kept going on like that, he was afraid he’d eventually die of sudden cardiac arrest from pulling all-nighters.

After sulking for a while, Jiang Qunyu finally got up to observe his surroundings.
…Fine, it didn’t look like a cultivator’s sea of consciousness at all.

Logically, the sea of consciousness should be as clear as a mirror, with still water and no waves, ideally planted with a tree that flourishes and withers according to one’s state of mind. But Wei Xun’s place—all he could see was scarlet demonic energy surging like a tide, blotting out the sky and sun, making it completely impossible to see the entirety of his sea of consciousness.

Fortunately, as his inner demon, Jiang Qunyu was able to navigate the demonic energy with relative ease.
It was just unknown whether he was influenced by Wei Xun, but a faint gloominess and irritability always lingered in the sea of consciousness, stirring up a layer of darkness in Jiang Qunyu’s heart as well.

He wondered what stage the plot had developed to right now.
It would be great if he could go out and take a look.

Thinking this, Jiang Qunyu actually turned into a cloud of black mist and floated out from Wei Xun’s sea of consciousness.

Jiang Qunyu: …
What a weird way to make an entrance.
Shouldn’t he be accompanied by the signature “Jie jie jie” evil laugh exclusive to villains right now?

Jokes aside, Jiang Qunyu reluctantly transformed into a human shape. But when he saw his surroundings clearly, he lost his voice again.
A faint light slanted down through the window frame, casting a few pale streaks of light on the messy straw spread across the floor.
In the dim light and shadow, a curled-up figure in the corner of the wall was vaguely outlined. The figure was thinly dressed, only loosely wrapped in a plain white robe, looking incredibly pitiful.

Occasionally, when he moved a bit, he would pull at the iron chains on his body, emitting a harsh, dragging sound that was especially piercing in the silence.
The air was filled with a lingering, damp, musty smell, mixed with the scent of rotten wood and dirt. The chill seeped into the marrow thread by thread.

This place should be a dungeon.

Jiang Qunyu’s gaze fell on the figure curled up in the corner once again.
And if he guessed correctly… this desolate and fragile-looking young boy before him was the future demon lord who would command the winds and clouds and strike terror into everyone’s hearts—
Wei Xun.

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