I Became the Male Lead’s Cruel Master - Chapter 1

Fine jade.

That was my first thought when sensation returned.

The thing in my hand was warm to the touch, smooth and exquisite. I couldn’t resist rubbing my fingertips over it. A few muffled grunts came from below.

Instinctively, I looked down.

Whip marks crisscrossed a young man’s body. Spirit-binding rings encircled his wrists and ankles, and the reek of blood rose from him.

His head was bowed. Beneath his disheveled fringe, golden eyes burned with hatred.

The “beautiful jade” I’d been admiring was actually a pair of lovely dragon horns on his head, lustrous and pale.

“Cut them off,” the system said abruptly.

I’d been appreciating how the hatred blazing in his eyes sharpened his beauty. At those words, I paused.

A rustling sounded in my mind, as though someone were turning pages.

“Yun Qi was about to cut off his horns to make medicine,” the system said coldly. “You’re Yun Qi now. Whatever she left undone is your responsibility.”

“That was our agreement.”

I nodded, gathering spiritual power in my hand.

It was a shame to cut off such beautiful horns, but I had made a deal with the system.

The original Yun Qi had unexpectedly become aware of her own story. Upon learning that the male lead would one day turn her into a pill, she’d decided to strike first and kill him.

The Heavenly Dao had erased her.

I was here to take her place as the villain.

The Heavenly Dao had promised to fashion me a new body once I completed the task, with supreme cultivation thrown in.

I’d been trapped in darkness for too long. When it tossed me a straw to cling to, I seized it as though it were a priceless treasure.

Only afterward did I realize I’d been conned.

Not only did the Heavenly Dao expect me to be the blade that tempered the male lead, it also forbade him from becoming a demonic dragon as he had in the original plot. I had to help him perfect his Dao heart.

I should have asked for more.

With a long sigh, I compressed my spiritual power into a thin, tough blade and sent it slashing at his horns.

The horns remained perfectly intact.

The system and I fell silent.

The Heavenly Dao had molded this body in Yun Qi’s likeness, but its cultivation was only at Spirit Transformation. That wasn’t enough to break through a dragon’s natural defenses.

Ying Xun hadn’t even felt it. He was still glaring at me like a little beast that refused to yield, his voice hoarse.

“I’ll kill you. I swear I’ll…”

I caught his chin and turned his face toward me. To my surprise, his body was trembling even as he spat those threats.

Then I realized he was putting it on.

As my finger brushed his lips, I caught the flicker of anticipation in his eyes.

Like a tiny flame, it vanished in an instant.

The first time Yun Qi had tried to slice a piece of flesh off him, he’d nearly bitten through her finger.

But she’d put spirit-binding rings on him and laid a curse on him at birth. Ever since, he’d been unable to cultivate, no different from a mortal.

How could a mortal stand against an immortal?

She’d beaten him down and whipped him until not a patch of skin remained intact. Even then, Ying Xun had clenched his teeth and refused to make a sound.

His stubbornness had driven Yun Qi into a frenzy.

She’d locked him in a dark room and strung him up so that he knelt on all fours as though begging for mercy. She’d stuffed his mouth with bran, leaving him unable to close his mouth or his eyes.

Drool and tears had run down his face. He’d looked like livestock.

That filthy, humiliating posture had finally satisfied her. His resilient dragon body became her excuse to torture him however she pleased.

Ying Xun had spent nearly a century like that. By now, his heart was probably a solid lump of coal.

And I was supposed to redeem him?

I wasn’t a bodhisattva!

“Still haven’t learned to behave?” I wiped all the blood on my hand onto those lovely horns. “A dragon’s body really is indestructible.”

“That never stopped you, did it, Master?” he sneered, glancing at the whip on the floor.

I picked it up and gave it two light flicks.

The tip barely grazed him, yet two fresh red stripes appeared across his chest. Crimson on snow-white skin. An alluring sight.

I admired him at my leisure for a moment before finally releasing his restraints.

“You may go.”