Death's Edgy Very Edgy Lord.. I Apologize already for making this.
The smell of blood and decay filled the dimlyc lit chamber. Zhao Fan the main character, lay on the ornate bed, the one his wife had insisted they buy with his money, his body wracked with pain that no cultivation technique could soothe anymore. He can't do any special moves in the bed anymore.
His meridians felt like they were being eaten from the inside out.
"Wanqing..." His voice came out as a whisper, barely audible, calling his wife name. "Please... the antidote..."
Su Wanqing stood at the foot of the bed, backlit by moonlight streaming through the window. For years, Zhao Fan who is a simp had thought she looked like a celestial fairy in moments like this but now she looks worse than a ghost lady. A ghost lady is more beautiful than her actually.
Now, her smile made his blood run cold, like els*, let it go and she can't hold it back anymore.
"Antidote?" She laughed,a sound like breaking glass, more like she eaten all the glass because of her laugh, which sometimes wish she actually did. "Oh, Fan. There is no antidote. There never was."
She walked closer, each step deliberate, and sat on the edge of the bed. Her hand was the same hand he'd held on their wedding day as he reached out to brush his sweat-soaked hair from his forehead. The gesture was almost tender meat juicy hotdog.
"Do you want to know how long I've been poisoning you?" Her voice was soft, "Three years, my dear husband. Three whole years. Every meal I personally prepared for you, every tea I brewed with 'love'... all laced with Crimson Bone Erosion Powder."
I honestly don't know where i get that from.
Zhao Fan's eyes widened. That poison,it was nearly undetectable, and it prevented cultivation advancement while slowly killing the victim. Not really, he really just doesn't check anything his wife gave to him.
"Why...?" he choked out, like how he choke her in other ways.
"Why?" Wanqing stood up, pacing now, as if she'd been waiting years to have this conversation. "Because you were useful, Fan, making me breeze when it's hot. A poor little scholarship boy with a mysterious system making him stronger and richer by the day? Perfect. I just had to play the role of the sweet, innocent heiress who 'fell in love' with the underdog. Woof woof"
She turned to face him, and her mask of gentleness had completely shattered. Her face was much more worse than a blobfish out of surface.
"You want to know the funniest part? I'm not even a real heiress. My family? We're barely middle-class. I faked everything, the documents, the background, the connections. And you, with your pathetic puppy-dog eyes woof woof, believed every word i said."
Zhao Fan tried to speak, but blood bubbled from his lips. Metallic, eating to much ketchup.
"Oh, and little Zhao Ming?" She smiled cruelly. "He's not your son. He's Wang Hao's. My first love, owshi. The man I've actually loved this entire time. While you were out on missions, grinding away for cultivation resources, Hao and I..." She trailed off with a knowing smirk. "Well, let's just say Ming has his father's eyes. You were just too blind to notice, like d*ra the ex-plorer ."
Wang Hao.The name burned in Zhao Fan's dying mind. That arrogant young master who'd always looked down on him, who'd mocked him at every gathering...
"Your wealth, your techniques, your connections, all of it is going to Hao now. We've already transferred most of your assets. This estate? Already signed over. Your businesses? Under his name. You've been a perfect little money tree, husband."
She leaned down close, her breath of dead fish against his ear.
"Oh, and do you remember Gu Beichen?"
Zhao Fan's heart seized, though whether from the poison or the name, he couldn't tell he was busy tasting the ketchup in his mouth.
"The one whose legs you broke? The one you crippled because I told you he tried to force himself on me?" Wanqing's laugh was vicious now, it sound like an old machine. "He never touched me, you fool. I framed him. Do you want to know why?"
Tears of rage, of regret, of pure agony had began to stream down Zhao Fan's face.
"Because Gu Beichen was the one paying for your tuition. Not me. That 'anonymous benefactor' who covered your fees every semester? That was him. He saw potential in you, wanted to help a talented poor student. And I couldn't have that. I needed you isolated, dependent, grateful to me. So I made you destroy the one person who actually cared."
The world was fading now, not really fading. Darkness crept in at the edges of Zhao Fan's vision.
"Thank you, Zhao Fan," Wanqing said, standing straight and smoothing her dress. "Thank you for being such a perfect, gullible fool. Rest well."
As consciousness slipped away, Zhao Fan's last thought was a scream of pure rage and grief—
If I could do it all over again—
Ah yes, legendary line.
---
CRACK. Like a sound of a bone, or your old aching back.
Blinding white light.
Pain,different pain. Sharp, electric, all-consuming.
"FAN! ZHAO FAN! Can you hear me?!"
Zhao Fan's eyes snapped open. Fluorescent hospital lights. The smell of disinfectant. And two faces hovering over him, worn, worried, alive.
His parents.
His poor parents. His father, Zhao Desheng, shing shing the sound of the blade, with callused hands from construction work. His mother, Chen Yuhua, with eyes red from crying.
"Fan! Oh, thank the heavens!" His mother sobbed, clutching his hand.
But Zhao Fan wasn't looking at them.
Floating in front of his eyes, translucent and glowing with that familiar blue light:
---
[SYSTEM INITIALIZED]
[Welcome, User: Zhao Fan the simp]
[You have been struck by Heavenly Tribulation Lightning, because the author can't think of another way to give you a system]
[Fortune favors the bold, Hmm bold. Your path to immortality begins now.]
[NEW MISSION AVAILABLE] to make you more suffer because you are the main character
[STARTER PACK UNLOCKED] so you can trust the system more when it totally didn't help you with the poison for the plot
[STORE ACCESS: ENABLED]
---
Zhao Fan's breathing quickened, fast and rough.
This screen. This goddamn screen.
He knew this moment. He remembered it. This was the day everything changed,the day he got the system, the day he started his "rise," down there, the day he began his journey to becoming Su Wanqing's perfect victim, her perfect simp.
"Fan? Are you okay? You're scaring me!" His mother's voice broke through.
Slowly, Zhao Fan turned his head to look at his parent. His father's hospital scrubs from his night shift. His mother's fingers, roughened from taking in laundry to make ends meet.
They'd given everything for him.Only to let himself be put in a leash.
And in his past life, he'd abandoned them. Moved into Su Wanqing's estate. Let her convince him that his parents were "beneath" his new status.
"I'm... I'm okay, Mom," he said, his voice hoarse. Not from poison this time, but from emotion.
He was back.
He was actually back
And this time
This time, everything would be different. A different kind of simp