Surviving in the General's Mansion - Chapter 1: You've Got Guts

Chapter 1: You’ve Got Guts

“Aaaaaah!”

More than a dozen high-pitched female screams rang out at once.

“Ladies… is this… your way of looking down on me?” A man’s voice, laced with restrained anger, sounded from above.

Kneeling prostrate below, Xia Heng was currently having a complete mental breakdown.

“Transmigrated into a book?! What book?! What do you mean, transmigrated into a book?!”

“Face reality, Host! Look-aren’t they all standing right in front of you?”

Transmigration System 003 spoke up in that obnoxiously smug tone.

The autumn wind swept up the fallen leaves beneath the tree. They spun bleakly in a few circles before drifting back down not far away…

A perfect reflection of Xia Heng’s current mood…

Who could have imagined that yesterday, she had still been the HRM of a renowned international hotel, running around the property preparing for the anniversary celebration-and today, she was kneeling on a freezing floor, trying to guess whether she would live long enough to see lunch!

Yes, Xia Heng had transmigrated. Into an old-school romance novel called The Tyrant Falls in Love with Me. It told the story of the female lead, Xiao Yaqing, transmigrating to the Huaxia Kingdom and getting entangled in a series of wildly absurd incidents with the reigning emperor, Dongfang Wei.

Naturally, the plot was packed with power struggles, fights for the throne, court intrigue, and buckets of melodrama dumped everywhere…

Cold sweat poured down Xia Heng’s back, because she had not actually read this book carefully!

Back then, she had only stumbled across it by chance. Halfway through, she had gotten so annoyed by the author forcibly lowering the female lead’s IQ that she ended up skipping chapters just to skim to the end.

The moment she finished skimming it, she casually posted a long review roasting the author.

Who knew the heavens would teach her a lesson so quickly and show her exactly what karma meant?!

Still mixed in with the screaming crowd, her face pale from the shock of her transmigration, Xia Heng secretly raised her head and glanced at the man seated above.

His moon-white fitted martial attire made his jade-like features look even more striking.

If he were in modern times, he would at least be male lead material.

Or the visual center of an idol group.

But right now, this “idol” was holding a bloodstained sword, and beside him, a woman was slowly collapsing while clutching her neck…

“All right, Host. Your reward for that long review-your transmigration journey-has now been issued.

“Your randomly assigned destination is the General’s Mansion of Northern Pacification.

“Due to the random nature of transmigrated roles, the system has detected that your current role falls under the category of ‘cannon fodder.’

“To increase the Host’s survival rate, this system has provided a ‘check-in’ feature. Please review the specific details on your own.”

Xia Heng’s heart lurched up and down. The voice of Transmigration System 003 vanished from her mind in an instant.

Immediately after, a mass of information about Cang Chuli was stuffed into Xia Heng’s head:

Cang Chuli, the current General of the Northern Pacification. He was two years younger than the original novel’s male lead, the current emperor Dongfang Wei.

He was twenty this year, Dongfang Wei’s childhood friend and trusted confidant.

From the age of ten, he had followed his father, the Marquis of Northern Pacification, to guard the northwestern frontier.

At twelve, he could wield a spear. At fourteen, he went into battle and killed enemies. He was a crucial part of Dongfang Wei’s campaign to found the nation.

He was also one of the few background characters who had no romantic entanglements with the female lead, Xiao Yaqing.

Following Dongfang Wei wholeheartedly in pursuit of his career, he could be said to be the male lead’s most dedicated career stan.

In the end, during the suppression of Left Prime Minister Cheng Zhesong’s rebellion, he was unfortunately caught in a plot while protecting the male lead and died in battle right before Dongfang Wei’s eyes. This maxed out the male lead’s rage buff, and in the end, Dongfang Wei personally reduced Cheng Zhesong to dust.

But Cang Chuli’s personality also carried on the original author’s setting that all the men in the book were toxic…

The male lead was a lunatic, and the supporting male characters could not be left behind. Cang Chuli was emotionally cold by nature, yet loved fighting and killing. He had little reverence for life.

In daily life, however, he adored luxury. He was not the slightest bit like a general who spent his days marching and fighting wars.

Even in his military command tent, he had soft couches, fragrant daybeds, and thick silk quilts. He refused to wrong himself in the slightest, which had drawn no small amount of criticism.

Cang Chuli had served in the army for ten years and achieved countless merits. This time, he had even dealt a crushing defeat to the Tujue, who had been eyeing Huaxia’s borders for years.

After returning to the capital, he was rewarded by the emperor with the title of great general and inherited his father’s title of Northern Pacification. The entire civil and military court offered their congratulations.

To be fair, Cang Chuli truly was a hero. But because he had spent years campaigning outside the capital, and because of his aggressive, combative, and utterly ungentlemanly personality, his inner courtyard had remained empty all this time.

And when a man’s inner courtyard was empty, other people would naturally start eyeing it… See? The young general had only just returned to the Marquis of Northern Pacification’s estate, and Xia Heng, along with the other women beside her-“congratulatory gifts” from the emperor and various ministers-had immediately been delivered after him…

Xia Heng discreetly glanced at the corpse in front of her and confirmed that the blood would not flow over to her.

But seriously, what was this young lady trying to pull?

They had all been sent here. Who present didn’t have some kind of special mission?

Would it have killed you to come in and simply bow first? Wasn’t attempting an assassination right off the bat a little too reckless? Shouldn’t you at least cultivate some feelings first?

And your martial arts were way too weak. You didn’t even last ten moves against the deputy general beside him!
I may not know what’s going on, but you can’t mess with me like this!

Cang Chuli’s deputy had captured the woman in blue alive and forced her to kneel before him.

“You…” The woman in blue stubbornly lifted her head and had only managed to spit out a single word when Cang Chuli’s short sword sliced through her neck… The dagger she had been holding for the assassination hadn’t even had the chance to be fully drawn.

The delicate flowers gathered around Xia Heng seemed to have all had the pause button pressed on them.

Then, all of a sudden, a young lady in pink beside her let out a shrill scream and fainted dead away.

Only then did the remaining girls seem to snap awake. They huddled together and began screaming one after another, which led to the scene at the beginning.

Xia Heng dropped to her knees on the spot with a smack. Though she was also terrified by the brutal sight, she still did her best to control her body and quietly shuffle back a little.

She just hadn’t expected that this movement would seem to draw the attention of the man above.

Cang Chuli slowly withdrew his short sword, wiped it against the female corpse in front of him, then slid it into the sheath hidden at his waist. After that, he pried the dagger from the corpse’s hand and toyed with it in his right hand.

His gaze scraped over Xia Heng before returning to the other beauties.

Seeing someone kneel, the beauties finally seemed to come back to their senses. They hastily tugged and dragged each other down to kneel as well. Those who couldn’t kneel steadily simply sprawled flat on the ground. With a great rustle, one after another, they were like fallen leaves in an autumn wind, trembling uncontrollably.

Xia Heng faintly heard someone begin to sob… and inwardly sighed over this miserable damn fate…

In the original novel, her role was cannon fodder-the kind that died a particularly wretched death.

Left Prime Minister Cheng Zhesong had used the Vice Minister of Rites to select an exceptionally pretty girl and arrange for her to enter the General’s Mansion.

According to the original plot, she was supposed to leap up the moment Cang Chuli approached and launch a grand assassination attempt.

Of course, with her level of skill, there was no way she would succeed. The true killing move was the poison hidden beneath her fingernails.

This poison was extremely difficult to detect. Vice Minister of Rites Xia Jinguang had paid a fortune to buy it from the Western Regions. It was both poison and gu. As long as the injured person got even the tiniest bit of it into their wound, it would lie dormant inside their body, gradually weakening them until, in the end, they were utterly spent and beyond all medicine.

Cang Chuli had only just returned from putting down a rebellion. Rumor had it that he had taken an arrow to the right shoulder, but no one had actually seen it.

Everyone had calculated everything, but they had underestimated Cang Chuli’s wariness toward women.

In the original work, Xia Heng hadn’t even touched the hem of Cang Chuli’s clothes before she ended up just like the woman in blue before her-a corpse.

Add in the cannon fodder who kept rushing up afterward to court death with delusions of grandeur…

And they successfully made Boss Cang lose patience and triggered his murderous instincts, resulting in not a single little beauty present being spared…

The only reason this event appeared later in the original text was because Dongfang Wei and Cang Chuli were discussing matters afterward.

When the emperor asked about the people he had sent over, Cang Chuli casually mentioned it in passing.

“The one with that group of women? Dead.”

But a quarter of an hour ago, the original owner of this body had already been replaced by Xia Heng. Assassination, poisoning, all that stuff… she really couldn’t do it!

What had Xia Heng done wrong…? At most, she’d had a burst of inspiration while reading the novel and written a long review! Did she really have to pay for that with her life!?

After a rustle of clothing, a pair of black boots with white soles entered Xia Heng’s field of vision. There were faint dark patterns embroidered on them in indigo thread.

If Xia Heng hadn’t currently been kneeling on the ground like a crustacean, less than half a meter away from him, she probably wouldn’t have been able to see them.

“Anyone else want a turn? Miss this chance, and there won’t be another.”

If gazes could gather into knives, Xia Heng felt she would already be bald.

She had only just heard Cang Chuli’s careless voice when, in the corner of her eye, the woman in pink who had been playing dead on the ground suddenly sprang up like a carp flipping out of water. She drew a flexible sword from her waist and thrust it at Cang Chuli.

Xia Heng’s mouth opened into an “O.”

Holy crap, bro, I’m stunned! What kind of performance is this?

Cang Chuli stood where he was, turned slightly to avoid the flexible sword before him, then flicked the blade with his right hand and raised his left foot in the same motion, kicking the woman in pink hard in the lower abdomen.

Ah, so they’re cloud patterns.

Having finally made out the design on his boots, Xia Heng felt as if she were the one who had been kicked. Her phantom limb hurt!

And so she once again vanished into stealth mode. While she was at it, she dug out the medicinal powder hidden beneath her own fingernails and let it blend into the ground.

There was no way the big shot was going to be poisoned… and it would be bad if she accidentally drugged herself instead. (Smile.)

Thus, while Cang Chuli dealt with the assassins sent by the various noble households, his peripheral vision caught sight of the goose-yellow “lump” that had been the fastest to kneel just now.

While he was fighting, it was crawling backward on its knees at a turtle’s pace.

If he hadn’t been busy dealing with these women right now, he might very nearly have laughed in anger.

She did have some nerve.