I put my arm around the strong man's slender waist

Chapter 2

He sidled up to my feet, blinked his innocent-looking eyes, and looked at me with such obedience, "How about I close my eyes, okay?"

Oh my, those eyes are so mesmerizing, I just can't bring myself to harden my heart. With some difficulty, I said, "Okay..."

His eyes lit up in an instant, sending shivers down my spine... I watched him fiddle with various sharp weapons, finally picking out a dagger. My eyelids twitched, and I said, "Put it down..."

He obediently put it down and replaced it with another small knife.

I tried to be as gentle as possible, "Put it down..."

He pursed his lips, looking aggrieved, and picked up the scissors. "I think a knife is sharper..."

Chapter 3 Two

After the boy frantically and helplessly worked me up until I was half-dead and limp on the bed, he finally tied the knot with satisfaction, looked at me with his crescent-shaped eyes, and asked, "It's bandaged up. How does it feel?"

I smiled weakly at him, "Very good..."

He immediately beamed with joy, took out a long robe from the rosewood cabinet, and handed it to me, saying, "Put mine on first."

I took it in my hand, and seeing his bright eyes standing before me, I thought for a moment and then said, "Thank you."

"Don't be so polite." He smiled, his eyes crinkling. "Go ahead and change."

She still stood obediently by the tatami and smiled at me. After hesitating for a long time, I couldn't help but ask, "Could you please go out for a moment... so I can change my clothes?"

"Oh?" He was somewhat surprised. "Should I go out?"

His innocent and bewildered expression surprised me, but then I heard him mutter in confusion, "My mother never taught me this... So I should have gone out first in this situation..." He seemed to have just realized something.

I couldn't help but blurt out, "How old are you this year?"

His eyes widened in surprise. I wondered if my question had been too abrupt and startled him?

He stared at me with wide eyes and asked, "Susu, don't you remember?"

Su Su? I suddenly remembered that I no longer looked like Lu Ning, and I immediately became confused again. After thinking for a long time, I looked up at him tentatively and asked, "Do you know Su Xie?"

"How could I not know you?" he asked, looking at me suspiciously.

He looked like an innocent little rabbit no matter how I looked at him, so I continued to probe, "If I said I wasn't Su Xie... would you believe me?"

As expected, he frowned at me in surprise again, and after a moment asked, "Then who are you?"

As I was considering how to answer his question, he suddenly clapped his hands and exclaimed in surprise, "Could you be Su Su's twin sister? Separated for many years, you've come here today specifically to find your relative..."

He became more and more excited as he spoke, his thoughts racing like a runaway horse, talking about family massacres, twin sisters separated by the ends of the earth...

I couldn't listen anymore and interrupted, "I have absolutely no relation to Su Xie. I didn't know her at all before this, and to be honest, I don't know why I turned into her... I can't explain it..."

He moved a stool over and sat properly next to me, blinked and said, "You can speak slowly, start from the beginning."

I'm a bit frustrated. Starting from scratch, which one is the beginning? Meeting Lin Bicheng? Or being jilted at the altar?

All the chaos was because of Ruan Bicheng. If he hadn't been blind enough to choose me, would there have been the subsequent annulment of the engagement? Without the annulment, would I have been so depressed that I went for a walk in that desolate back mountain that night? If I hadn't gone for a walk in the back mountain that day, would I have coincidentally encountered bandits who were also out for a walk?

In my nineteen years of life, I have never encountered such a heinous event as robbery. I was completely unprepared when two thugs intercepted me. They didn't even say anything before rushing over and snatching my purse.

Without even a chance to react, I instinctively backed away, tripped on a rock, and crashed headfirst into the cliff face, dying instantly.

It was purely a mistake.

"And then?" the boy asked eagerly, waiting for me to continue.

I sighed softly, deliberately ignoring the resentment and unwillingness that had surged within me before my death because I had never touched a man's hand, and said directly: "Then I woke up in Su Xie's room, transformed into Su Xie's appearance, and was inexplicably surrounded and chased by people."

He thought about it very seriously and asked, "When you were dying, did you have any regrets, concerns, or things you were unwilling to accept?"

I hesitated for a moment and said, "How can I die before the demonic sect is eradicated?"

He nodded knowingly. "I've read in ancient books that if a person dies with deep resentment, their soul will wander in the human world, unwilling to enter the cycle of reincarnation..." He clenched his fist and slammed it down, then exclaimed in realization, "You wouldn't happen to have possessed a body and returned to life, would you?"

This explanation is truly absurd and ridiculous... But my resurrection is also an extremely absurd and ridiculous thing, and I can't find any other reason besides this one.

I recall the swordsman mentioning that Su Xie was poisoned to death. So, I was reborn in Su Xie's body?

I asked for a bronze mirror and carefully examined my current appearance. I was beautiful and young, like a delicate young girl... Heaven has been so kind to me, which made me a little uneasy.

The first time God treated me so kindly was when Ruan Bicheng chose me. Later, I remained chaste for him for three years before the engagement was broken off.

This was the second time they had treated me so well, and I felt uneasy, so I asked, "Who is this Su Xie? It seems like nobody really... likes her?"

The boy nodded casually, "Su Su has a bad temper, and most people in the sect are a little afraid of her."

"A sect?" I asked in surprise. "What sect?" Su Xie was also a martial arts practitioner.

The boy smiled, his eyes crinkling. "The Saluo Sect is the demonic sect you just mentioned."

I feel that even being struck by lightning wouldn't be enough to describe how I feel right now. I barely managed to keep from crushing the mirror in my hand.

Seeing that I didn't believe him, the boy smiled and pointed to my right leg, saying, "If you don't believe me, you can look at your leg to see if there are four-legged green snake tattoos on it."

I stiffly reached out and pulled up my robe. A green snake coiled around my slender, white calves, winding its way up to my thighs, where it peeked out with its emerald eyes and four claws, but no forked tongue.

I remember my father once said that in the Demonic Sect, slaves were chained, and guardians had tattoos on their bodies. Male guardians had tattoos on their arms, and female guardians on their legs, all of them four-legged green snakes. The green snakes on the bodies of candidates for the next generation of guardians did not have tongues; only after becoming a guardian would a priest tattoo a red tongue on them.

Su Xie... Su Xie, I was wondering why that sounded so familiar.

In the martial arts world, everyone knows that among this year's candidates for Protector is a vixen who loves to keep male concubines for her training. At the age of fourteen or fifteen, she has already grown into a scourge of the nation and a heinous villain.

The bored Jianghu Baixiaosheng even specially created a list of the top ten enchantresses, all of whom were shameless and wicked, deserving of death by everyone.

As expected, Miss Su Xie ranked first, even surpassing Leng Baichun, the Right Protector of the Demonic Sect.

I lost control and smashed the bronze mirror. Was fate playing a trick on me? Or was it playing a trick on me? Or was it playing a trick on me?

Seeing my pale face, the boy asked worriedly, "Aren't you happy? You should be happy to have survived such a disaster..." Seeing that I still looked like I was ready to die at any moment, he kindly comforted me, "Actually, Su Su is pretty good too."

I want to watch him, half-dead.

"At least..." He hesitated for a long time before saying, "At least Su Su is quite good-looking..."

I couldn't help but reach for the dagger at my feet.

He grabbed my wrist and said anxiously, "You...you let me think about it some more! Su Su is definitely more than just pretty!"

I looked at him with a heavy heart, not knowing how to tell him that the reason I was jilted and died was mainly because of those shameless bastards in the Demonic Sect!

He was genuinely kind and anxious, staring at me for a long time before finally saying with a wronged expression, "Su Su is so good to me... Can you please not die?"

"Why would I want to die?" I looked at him, puzzled, and used my dagger to cut away the tattered cloth covering my wound. I said with a laugh, "You think I'm so desperate that I want to die?"

He looked at me in surprise.

"How could that be! Even ants try to survive." I scratched my head. "Besides, my death was purely accidental. I didn't want to die at all. It's so much better to be alive."

Are you kidding me? If I wanted to die, why would I bother scheming to escape? It would be so much easier to just let that swordsman or girl stab me.

Admittedly, I find it a million times harder to accept the identity of Su Xie. If my father knew that I had been reborn as Su Xie, he would strangle me without hesitation. But I am only nineteen years old, never married, never had a child, and have never even held a man's hand. To die like this would be a disservice to myself and to my mother.

I don't know if my upright father would be heartbroken if I died, but my mother would definitely cry her eyes out. She was stubborn but soft-hearted and fiercely protective of her own. She often scolded me for being useless, but she would never lay a finger on me. Once, Lu Mingyu, my stepmother's daughter and my father's precious daughter, was a year younger than me. She got into a fight with me over a pearl hairpin. When my mother saw my face covered in bruises, she angrily dragged me to find my stepmother.

He cursed in front of the old lady's door for a whole day and night, from his ancestors to his children and grandchildren, until he saw that Lu Mingyu was more badly injured than him and he barely managed to calm down.

When she came back and cleaned my wound, she cried and scolded me for being useless, saying, "Look how ruthless that girl Lu Mingyu is, she always hits people in the face!"

Although my mother was a concubine, she was never favored by my father because of her fierce personality. She was only married into the family because my stepmother had not conceived for two years. My mother gave birth to me as soon as she entered the family, and the following year, my stepmother gave birth to Lu Mingyu and Lu Mingxiu, a pair of twins.

My mother became even less favored after that, and since I was indeed useless and not liked by my father, my mother was inferior to my aunt in every way.

When I was chosen by Ruan Bicheng, my mother was so happy that she swayed as she walked. She thought she had finally beaten my aunt in one thing, but I still failed to live up to her expectations.

I wonder if she saw my body, and how she is now... A parent outliving their child, how will she live with the Lu family from now on...

The more I thought about it, the sadder I became. Even for my mother's sake, I had to live on, at least to see her one last time. The world is so big, and even the dead can be brought back to life. Maybe there's some way to get me back to my original body.

I changed my clothes and let the boy in. He still looked at me with some unease. I reassured him, "Don't worry, I don't have any other skills. My greatest skill is surviving by any means necessary. I'm extremely adaptable."

He looked sorrowful, pursed his dimples, and asked me, "Is Su Su dead?"

Seeing the sorrow in his expression, I tentatively asked, "You and Su Xie are very close? You... like her?"

The boy lowered his eyes and obediently said, "Su Su promised me that if she became a protector, she would take me to the Central Plains to play."

I see.

"You've never been to the Central Plains?"

He shook his head. "I cannot leave the church."

I sighed and asked again, "Have you been imprisoned here by the evil cult for a long time?"

He thought for a moment and nodded. "I have never left this place since I was born."

It's so pitiful. She was captured and imprisoned from birth. The Demonic Cult is utterly evil! I couldn't help but comfort her, "Don't be sad. Since I inherited Su Xie's body, I will keep my promise to her. Would you like to escape the Demonic Cult with me?"

Chapter 4, Part 3

I asked him if he would be willing to escape the evil cult with me and return to the Central Plains.

His arched eyebrows lit up instantly, and he asked with uncontrollable joy, "You really want to take me with you?"

I nodded, and he pounced on me in an instant. I wasn't prepared and he knocked me down onto the couch. I heard him happily say, "Su Su, can I go to the Central Plains to be a doctor!"

Doctor? I couldn't keep up with his train of thought. Before I could react, there was a loud thud, the door was kicked open, and light shone in. Someone said with a smirk, "You really have a lot of nerve, huh? You dare to touch anyone..."

The voice was familiar, and I was so startled that I abruptly pushed the boy away and stood up.

Two rows of glass lanterns were lifted in from outside the door, their shimmering light dazzling and so bright I could hardly open my eyes. Then I heard rustling footsteps, and two groups of girls in scarlet dresses stood on either side, holding lanterns. As the procession unfolded, the person who had spoken entered amidst the swirling light and surrounded by beauties. She was dressed in white, her hair tied up with a jade hairpin, and she held a purple-boned fan sprinkled with gold.

Two words: show-off.

Four words, extremely flamboyant.

But I must admit he was an extremely beautiful show-off. He sat down in the armchair beside the bed, his slender white fingers toying with the purple-bone fan in his hand. Without looking at me, his thin red lips curled into a mocking smile. "This bed is not for you to sit on?" He slightly raised his eyes, a few strands of hair brushing against his bare neck, a half-smile playing on his lips. "Hmm? Little Su Xie..."

The ending note was incredibly seductive, and my whole body immediately went wild. Wasn't that the voice of the man who had stabbed me in the chest with a sword earlier?

I hurriedly looked at the boy beside me. He had already stood up and was looking at the person with some nervousness. He pursed his dimples and lowered his head to whisper, "Priest... why are you here?"

A priest? A demonic cult priest?! I stared at him in shock. Legend had it that demonic cult priests were extremely ruthless, shouldn't they be burly men with scarred faces? This seemed so far removed from the legends…

The priest raised an eyebrow slightly, looking at me. "I heard someone trespassed into the forbidden area. How could I not come?"

Her eyebrows were like silkworms, and her eyes, full of tender affection, seemed to smile yet not smile, yet still radiated a spring-like charm. I was so startled that my face contorted slightly. I stared rather brazenly, and the priest tapped his purple bone fan in his palm with displeasure. I hurriedly stood up and explained, "I didn't do anything! Don't misunderstand!"

He gave a dismissive "oh" without clearly believing it.

I anxiously gave the boy a look, hoping he would at least say something.