Nie Shiyun vaguely heard someone calling out from behind the door. He struggled to lift his heavy eyelids; perhaps because he had slept for too long, the sight before him was blurry and unfamiliar.
"Senior Brother Shiyun, are you there? I’ve finished grinding the monthly spiritual medicine as the Vice Pavilion Master instructed," a soft female voice drifted in from outside.
Nie Shiyun had never brought a strange woman home. Hearing the voice, he realized something was wrong. He bolted upright, only to find himself waking up in a completely foreign environment.
"Just leave it there for now," Nie Shiyun called out in a panic. Although he didn't know who the girl outside was, it wouldn't do to keep her waiting. As soon as he spoke, he realized the voice wasn't his usual one. He subconsciously held up his hands, turning them over several times to inspect them.
"Understood. I’ll leave it in the outer chamber of the refining room then," the woman’s voice sounded somewhat helpless.
Once the sound of footsteps gradually faded, Nie Shiyun hurriedly rolled out of bed and began exploring the room. After repeatedly confirming he wasn't in a dream, he realized he had truly arrived in an ancient, otherworldly place.
"Shiyun... Nie Shiyun... Senior Brother..." Nie Shiyun muttered his own name several times.
It couldn't be what he was imagining, could it?
Before going to sleep, Nie Shiyun had felt a tightness in his chest. However, thinking about the work he had to face the next day, he was reluctant to give in to sleep and had picked up a novel to pass the time. It was difficult for an exhausted brain to process new things late at night, so he had randomly pulled up an old cultivation "level-up" novel he’d read before.
To be honest, Nie Shiyun didn't think the novel was particularly brilliant. The protagonist, Duan Mingyu, was the author’s quintessential "favorite son"—a universal *shou* whose four-man harem felt like a collection of cookie-cutter character archetypes. However, the book's greatest merit was that it allowed one to kill time without using any brainpower. Beyond that, there was one coincidence: a "second-generation cultivator" cannon fodder who appeared early in the plot shared the same name as him—Nie Shiyun. In the story, this person had mediocre talent, harbored ill intentions toward the protagonist, and eventually met a miserable end after attempting to steal a treasure. As a reader, Nie Shiyun had simply laughed it off and thought nothing of it.
Halfway through reading in the middle of the night, his vision had gone black. At the time, he thought he was just incredibly sleepy, so he stopped pushing himself and fell into a deep slumber.
Could it be that it wasn't sleepiness, but... he had died suddenly?
Nie Shiyun found it utterly absurd. Was he perhaps the first person to die of exhaustion in bed while reading a trashy cultivation novel? Moreover, upon opening his eyes, he had become the cannon fodder with the same name, destined to die once more in this character's place.
If this fantastical plot was real, then the woman calling him from outside should be his junior sister, Qi Xuan'er. Nie Shiyun calmed himself to organize his thoughts, and the original owner’s memories began to surface in his mind in faint, scattered fragments.
Nie Shiyun sighed, thinking he needed to adapt to this ridiculous situation as quickly as possible. Throwing on an outer robe, he walked to the artifact refining room directly opposite his bedroom. On a table in the outer chamber sat a bowl of liquid that looked rather dull in color. This was a concoction his father—the Vice Pavilion Master of Yunqing Pavilion—had sought out for him after the original host's cultivation hit a bottleneck due to conflicting spiritual roots.
He tilted his head back and drank the spiritual medicine. He felt the chaotic spiritual energy within his body become slightly less turbulent, but the underlying problem remained unresolved.
Outsiders knew that the wife of Nie Li, the Vice Pavilion Master of Yunqing Pavilion, had been unable to reach the Nascent Soul stage due to insufficient innate talent and had passed away during meditation a few years prior. The couple had left behind only one son, Nie Shiyun.
While Nie Shiyun wasn't a heaven-blessed genius with a single spiritual root, as a cultivator of the Yunqing Pavilion—a lineage of artifact refiners—his Gold and Fire dual spiritual roots were considered quite good.
However, that was merely a pretext for the public. In reality, Nie Shiyun possessed triple spiritual roots: Gold, Fire, and Water. While triple roots didn't make cultivation hopeless, they destined one to never achieve great heights. Worse yet, his Fire and Water roots clashed violently. Forget forming a Core or reaching the Nascent Soul stage; even reaching Foundation Establishment was a struggle.
If Nie Shiyun were a commoner, such a talent would never have been set on the path of cultivation to begin with. But Nie Li doted on his only son, always hoping for a miracle. He had hidden the truth from the Pavilion Master and poured countless pills and spiritual herbs into his son, forcibly pushing Nie Shiyun to the late stage of Qi Refining.
Having grown up with a cultivation level that always led his peers, Nie Shiyun had been raised to be quite arrogant. Once he reached the late stage of Qi Refining and found himself unable to establish his foundation, he was overtaken by the relatives and friends he once looked down upon, and even by the junior sister his father had taken as a disciple as a backup plan. Consequently, his personality became twisted and irritable, and he chose to become a recluse.
The Nie Shiyun who had transmigrated into the book couldn't do much at this moment, so he didn't let anxiety take over. Instead, he unhurriedly practiced refining a few of the simplest magic tools in the refining room and carefully read through the introductory texts on artifact refining in his small study.
Since he was here, he might as well make the best of it. Nie Shiyun didn't have many grand ambitions right now. Regardless, a Qi Refining cultivator could live to be over a hundred years old; for a person from Earth, that was already a profit.
After several days passed like this, Vice Pavilion Master Nie Li came to visit Nie Shiyun with a heart full of worry, only to find his son—who used to have such a negative attitude—leisurely reading a book.
Logically, Nie Shiyun’s talent for artifact refining was excellent, but refining was closely tied to cultivation. After his cultivation hit a wall, his refining techniques had also reached a bottleneck. In this world, cultivation was everything. No matter how much of a genius one was, if they had only theoretical knowledge without the cultivation to back it up, they could never refine powerful artifacts.
"Father," Nie Shiyun looked up from his book.
"Xuan'er said that last time, you told her to just leave the medicine and go. Did you drink it later?"
"I did," Nie Shiyun said with a wry smile. "But to be honest, it didn't have much of an effect."
Seeing that his expression was normal and he didn't seem to be wallowing in self-despair, Nie Li felt much more at ease. At the same time, his sense of guilt deepened. He hadn't expected that after losing his beloved wife to an irreversible fate, he would be equally helpless regarding his son's situation.
"I will find another way for you. You must not lose heart. Staying cooped up in your room all day breeds gloom; it wouldn't be bad to go out for a stroll when you have time."
"Father is right," Nie Shiyun replied.
He was actually quite curious about the outside world, but as a newcomer, he didn't dare to act rashly.
"Right, I also came to tell you some news. Didn't you mention before that you once met Senior Chu's disciple from the Yingyue Sect—Duan Mingyu? He will be coming later today with the seniors of the Yingyue Sect to commission our Yunqing Pavilion to forge a treasure artifact for him."
Nie Li spoke tactfully, but in reality, Nie Shiyun had fallen in one-sided love with Duan Mingyu at first sight. Back then, before he hit his cultivation bottleneck, he was used to acting overbearingly in his own home and had pursued Duan Mingyu aggressively on the Yingyue Sect's territory. Unfortunately, he was destined for the fate of a cannon fodder and was rejected by Duan Mingyu on the spot.
The original Nie Shiyun hadn't accepted this. After returning, he had sent many expensive gifts to Duan Mingyu, all of which went unanswered. Later, when his cultivation ran into trouble, he had no time for romance, which was why there had been no contact for a while.
In truth, the whole affair was rather embarrassing. Duan Mingyu was peerlessly beautiful and had long been considered a perfect match for his fellow disciple, Zhai Bairong. He also had no shortage of other suitors watching him like hawks. Nie Li felt that his son had gone up to pursue him so bluntly only to be rebuffed, making him a laughingstock to many.
But at this moment, Nie Li didn't care about saving face; he thought that perhaps mentioning that junior would pique Nie Shiyun's interest.
No one knows a son better than his father, and in the original story, Nie Shiyun indeed remained obsessed with Duan Mingyu. He would have immediately perked up and stuck to him like a piece of unwanted candy. However, the current Nie Shiyun had no desire to see Duan Mingyu. He didn't respond directly and instead changed the subject: "Is he here to commission you, Father?"
Nie Li shook his head. "Although Duan Mingyu is highly valued by the Yingyue Sect, he is still only a Foundation Establishment cultivator. He can't use anything too advanced yet. The refining masters of the pavilion, along with your cousin, can handle it. It’s a good opportunity for him to gain some experience..."
Nie Li stopped mid-sentence. Nie Shiyun’s cousin, Nie Xing'an, was only ten years older than him, but his cultivation had risen steadily. He was now on the verge of reaching the Core Formation stage.
Nie Shiyun, naturally, didn't take it to heart. Having finally gained a second life, he didn't want to have any further involvement with the protagonist, the "author's favorite son." Thus, he chose the exact opposite path of the original character and decided to head out to avoid the trouble.
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Transmigrated into a Total Shou Novel as a Cannon Fodder, but Ended Up 1v1-ing the Male Lead | Chapter 1 | Awakening as Cannon Fodder | Novela.app | Novela.app
