In front of a polished mirror, Ding Nan stood stroking his chin at his reflection.
Looking from left to right, Ding Nan studied his own face, and his brow gradually furrowed.
‘Unremarkable,’ Ding Nan evaluated his own face.
To be honest, Ding Nan didn’t know if his face was actually handsome or not.
However, over the years, the ones who ridiculed Ding Nan the most weren’t men, but women.
Men mostly remained in a state of disgust, rarely saying more than a few words and treating Ding Nan’s presence as if it were white noise.
Women, on the other hand, would directly voice their sarcasm.
His face was likely the kind that was unpopular with the opposite sex.
Otherwise, in this world where women held considerable status, if he had a face that women liked, he wouldn’t be in a situation where every woman he encountered outside felt the need to diss him after just a few steps.
Thinking about this, Ding Nan instantly felt that the “unremarkable” evaluation was just the result of his own vanity.
‘No, I can’t let sadness distract me.’
Feeling miserable, Ding Nan moved away from the mirror and poured himself a cup of tea to calm his emotions.
Ding Nan couldn’t figure out why Ji Lanruo wanted to marry him.
Given Ji Lanruo’s circumstances, saying she was “throwing herself at him” didn’t even seem strong enough to describe the situation.
Even if someone were throwing themselves at him, there had to be a reason.
“Haha, maybe my past life had something to do with her, and I maxed out her favorability beforehand, which is why she sought me out herself.”
Ding Nan covered his head and asked himself, ‘How could that be!’
Ding Nan’s past life was similar to most people’s.
He was deceived by parents and teachers since childhood, then grew up and went out to work.
Even with nearly 2,500 in disposable monthly income, he was still looked down upon by female colleagues for being incompetent and lacking ambition.
His life had been decent, even better than most people’s, but his family life was far from perfect.
The “fountain” of his past life didn’t just fail to restore his health; it actively drained it.
His parents’ mindsets were much like Fernanda’s, obsessed with flashy, superficial things.
They mimicked the upper-class styles they saw, hoping to gain success through imitation.
When Ding Nan would return home with an exhausted body, he would be scolded for being unhealthy if he ate frozen food, and criticized for not knowing how to live if he ate simple, light meals.
But to say they were exactly like Fernanda wouldn’t be entirely accurate.
Fernanda’s family had actually been wealthy in the past, while his family had not.
A formerly affluent life made Fernanda ignorant, but parents who had never been wealthy would certainly know how much time and energy it took to prepare a proper meal.
Ever since Ding Nan could remember, his parents had constantly caused trouble in that regard.
It all led up to that one hot afternoon.
After working consecutive overtime shifts, he finally had a single day off.
He had wanted to get a good night’s sleep, but his parents, who couldn’t stand seeing Ding Nan being “lazy,” made such a racket that he was forced outside to sit in the sun.
He sat down on a bench and never woke up again.
From the time he left school, to starting work, to dying of heatstroke, it hadn’t even been three months.
His death in his past life had been quite abrupt.
Since he remembered his past life so clearly, how could he possibly have any connection to Ji Lanruo?
Ding Nan touched the Jade Tablet on his chest.
He suddenly remembered that there were records of the Xishan Sect within the Jade Tablet.
‘Could it be a Simulator?’
He immediately dismissed the thought.
The records were just records; the Jade Tablet could only play them back, not operate them.
Like the difference between an MP4 and an EXE file, there was a huge gap between playback and simulation.
“Why is this happening?”
A terrifying thought crossed Ding Nan’s mind — that he possessed a special Fate or constitution, or perhaps Ji Lanruo did.
Marriage might just be a front to use his life as a sacrificial substitute.
But as soon as the thought arose, Ding Nan felt it was impossible.
This Cultivation World always emphasized “Fate.”
Two completely unrelated people wouldn’t love or hate each other for no reason; nor would they be connected by a “destiny” like those described in storybooks.
When Fates begin or end, there must be a clear start and result.
Heaven and Earth are indifferent.
There isn’t much difference between one person and another.
Likewise, no matter what people do, the world doesn’t care.
It’s just like how if the Earth turned back into a barren, dead planet, it wouldn’t matter; there would be no planetary will resisting humanity.
Stories like those of the Chan Sect, where immortals used their own disciples to block tribulations — such things did not exist in this world because the very premise of a “Heavenly Tribulation” didn’t exist to begin with.
In this world, there were no physical punishments manifested from abstract concepts like “Inner Demons,” “Lightning Tribulations,” or “Destined Killing Tribulations.”
Therefore, things like “destiny” did not exist.
All of a person’s life meaning and emotions were nothing in the face of the Great Dao, the collection of all laws of Heaven and Earth.
“Why is it, then?”
Ding Nan asked again, racking his brain until he had almost no ideas left.
He looked up and once again saw the mirror on the dressing table in the room.
It was a bronze mirror commonly used by ancients, but it was different from the yellowish, blurry bronze mirrors often seen in movies and TV shows.
It had a silver-white body made of a tin-copper alloy and a mirror surface that was polished smooth enough to produce a clear image.
It was similar to using a modern mirror, but the price… well, they were worlds apart.
A bronze mirror — specifically, a high-quality bronze mirror — was much more expensive than a mirror from his past life because obtaining a clear surface required manual polishing with fine sandpaper.
Ding Nan looked at the well-crafted bronze mirror, feeling that it looked like a piece of aluminum.
‘Aluminum?!’
A flash of inspiration hit Ding Nan.
He suddenly recalled a novel he had read a long time ago.
He couldn’t remember the title or the author, but he remembered it because the protagonist’s name, Lv Nanren, was interesting.
He vaguely remembered that the character also had a nickname in the martial world: the Iron Halberd Marquis of Wen.
When Ding Nan read that novel, he was still in elementary school and understood nothing.
Later, as he grew up, he realized how miserable that Lv Nanren really was.
The book started with the male lead catching his wife cheating, followed by her betrayal.
By the middle of the story, he used a Silkworm Silk Mask to disguise himself, only to find that his new face was identical to the mortal enemy who had cuckolded him!
Even worse, while in disguise, the male lead won the heart of a girl.
However, because of the resemblance, the girl who liked Lv Nanren ended up sleeping with his enemy by mistake!
That ridiculous script involving being cuckolded twice in a row made Ding Nan’s head ache.
Even years later, he would occasionally remember the plot.
The wicked author would surely be sent boxes of razor blades.
But that kind of melodramatic plot had persisted from the past until the time Ding Nan started working, simply changing its form and medium.
‘You are nothing more than his substitute.’
This long-dormant phrase suddenly echoed in Ding Nan’s mind, making his spirit tremble.
In the story, the male lead said it, the female lead heard it, and then the emotional line of the story was the female lead dating the male lead.
Ding Nan covered his face.
He didn’t even know why such outrageous things could be adapted into movies and TV shows for audiences to watch.
And even in a Cultivation World, this stuff was still chasing him.
He had heard that those lowbrow storybooks, which used romance as the emotional hook and “wind and moon” content for plot development, were beloved by young ladies who stayed deep within their inner chambers.
The first erotic novel Ding Nan had picked up in this world was exactly that kind of thing.
‘Surely not… there’s no way…’
Ding Nan’s brain felt like it was vibrating.
But why did Ding Nan feel like this was the most likely possibility?
***
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