Eastern Dragon Empire, Qingyang City.
“No—stop! Let me go!”
In a run-down estate, a delicate yet stunning girl was pinned under a filthy man with a pockmarked face. Her voice cracked with despair as she struggled.
The man ran his greasy hand across her snow-pale cheek, flashing his rotten yellow teeth. “As expected from a noble family’s daughter. Even if you're useless, you're still drop-dead gorgeous—ah!”
Suddenly, the girl clamped down hard on his hand. He screamed and flung her off in pain.
“Mother… Sebastian… I’ll go first. See you in the next life…” Despair in her eyes, she threw herself headfirst into a wooden beam.
Bang!
A heavy thud echoed. Her body slid down, blood pouring down her forehead.
“Little bitch!”
Snapping out of his shock, the man stormed over, grabbed her and flung her onto the bed.
She laid there limp, motionless.
He froze, leaned in, felt her breath—nothing.
“Dead? She’s really dead?”
Panic took over. He was paid to ruin this daughter’s reputation, not kill her. If the Nightshade family found out, he was finished.
As dread settled in, he noticed her finger twitch.
Fake death? Or was she never really dead?
“You damned whore! Playing dead? You think I'm a joke?” Furious, he recalled the person who hired him had even given him a lust pill for backup.
Thinking her too weak to resist, he hadn’t used it. But now, better play it safe.
He shoved the pill into her mouth roughly.
Gulp.
Aurora Nightshade stirred. Consciousness returned just in time to feel something foreign and hard slide down her throat. It scratched painfully.
“Ugh… what the hell?”
Her lashes fluttered. Then her eyes snapped open—deep black with a sharp gleam. Her pale face suddenly radiated a breathtaking brilliance, making her beauty seem otherworldly.
The man was dumbfounded. Was this the same useless miss? How'd she suddenly look like a goddess?
Aurora spotted the grotesque man beside her—and slapped him hard without hesitation. “What kind of monster crawled into my bed? Beat it!”
She was ‘Night God’, the top mercenary of the 21st century, known across the underworld. And always, a die-hard beauty snob. Anyone ugly coming near her? Courting death.
“You hit me, you whore?!” The man roared, clutching his cheek in disbelief.
Her head throbbed, odd memories crashing in. She frowned, then kicked him flat. “Scram.”
In those few seconds, she’d absorbed the original host’s memories.
So, this was a new world—Xuanling Continent—and she was now in the body of another girl with the same name, Aurora Nightshade.
Her birth father unknown. Her mother, Astrid Nightshade, was the eldest daughter of one of Qingyang’s great families.
In this world of power and bloodlines, Astrid had stood at the top with amazing talent. No one dared to raise a word when she got pregnant out of wedlock. People even fell over themselves to curry favor.
The Frost family, equally powerful, had even offered their son for marriage to secure ties.Aurora Nightshade’s mother had once been smitten with Sebastian Frost—young, refined, and already showing rare talent in cultivation. So she agreed to the engagement.
At first, the Frost family was pleased too. That was until Aurora turned six, when her talent test revealed she was utterly incapable of cultivating. A complete void.
In contrast, Sebastian’s brilliance only grew. Among the younger generation in Qingyang City, none could match him. Just last year, he passed the imperial exam and was admitted to the Eastern Dragon Empire’s top academy.
Then came the second blow—Astrid Nightshade vanished. She’d roamed the lands for years, desperate to find some treasure to cure her daughter’s defect. It’d been seven years since she left. No word. Most assumed she was dead.
People began to forget Astrid’s grace and strength. Now, whenever they spoke of Aurora, they only scoffed at the pitiful, good-for-nothing girl who didn’t deserve the Frost family’s heir.
Today, for the first time, Isabella Frost—Sebastian’s younger sister and the one who’d always looked down on Aurora—suddenly invited her out for a day in the countryside.
The old Aurora, naive and timid to a fault, had always doted on Sebastian and tried to please the entire Frost clan. At a mere invite, she got all giddy, carefully dressed up, and rushed over, eager as could be.
She never expected it was a trap.
A vile, disfigured man, reeking of filth, had been waiting to ruin her.
“What a fine young lady from the Frost family,” Aurora muttered darkly after digesting the memories. It didn’t take long for her to realize Isabella had set her up.
While she seethed in silence for the original host, the disfigured man staggered to his feet and lunged at her with a roar, “You wretched slut! You wanna die that bad?”
He never saw it coming.
Aurora didn’t even look his way. Her movements clean and lethal, she pulled the hairpin from her bun and, like a wraith, stabbed him dead center in the chest—slick, fast, merciless.
“You…” The man’s face contorted in shock, pupils shrinking. Even in death, he couldn’t believe he was killed by someone thought to be a useless waste.
“What? You think I *want* to stain my hand with your kind of ugly?”
Aurora let go of the hairpin with a cold twist of her wrist, wiped her hand on her sleeve in disgust, and walked away.
She only made it a few steps before a searing heat pulsed through her body, making her limbs go weak.
“…Spring drug,” she realized instantly. Her years of poison training kicked in—she knew the signs. Her expression darkened, that flawless face now touched with fury.
Thankfully, she remembered from the host’s memories that there was a cold spring beneath the hill behind the villa. The icy water might suppress the drug’s effects.
Barely holding herself up, she stumbled her way there.
By the time she reached the spring, her cheeks were flushed deep crimson and her skin was soaked in sweat. Long black hair clinged to her face and neck. Heat burned through her like wildfire.
She wasted no time—undressed and dove in without hesitation.
“Ngh…” The icy water jolted her back into some clarity. That’s when she saw it—at the center of the spring stood a white jade platform, and sitting on it was a figure, still as stone.
Every sense in Aurora went on alert.
“Who are you?” Her voice was tense.
But the man didn’t move, not even a twitch.
With caution tightening every breath, she swam closer.
When she finally saw him clearly, a flicker of surprise flashed through her eyes.
He was… breathtaking.