Chapter 56: The Fool Was Myself All Along

Year 34 of the Shengzheng era, seventh month, twenty-second day. It has been sixteen days since you ascended to the Celestial-Human realm, and you have tormented the assassins who once attempted to kill you. Yet, from their mouths, you still could not learn the identity of the true mastermind behind the attempt on your life all those years ago. If it were possible, you would have preferred to eliminate the threat at the root, but now, you have no clue whatsoever as to who orchestrated your assassination; you are utterly at a loss.

Had Cheng Zhihai not sacrificed his life to suppress the rejection of the royal bloodline within you, those figures lurking in the shadows might have already been exposed by now. A sigh stirs in your heart, recalling the coachman you once found to act as your double years ago.

It was a stroke of fate; if you had not been trying to evade Cheng Zhihai at that time, you would never have thought of finding a substitute to deceive them. You had wondered back then how a mere coachman could possess a face so identical to yours, and it was only later, from the Duke Protector’s own lips, that you learned the coachman was the unfortunate soul from whom the royal bloodline had been forcibly extracted and implanted into you.

Because his blood was transplanted into your veins, your features had been transformed by the royal bloodline until you gradually came to resemble him completely. Upon learning this, you were stunned—astonished that the ill-fated man had survived the ordeal, and that you had, by sheer coincidence, brought him back as your double.

As for why the coachman did not die after his bloodline was taken, the reason was simple: even if every drop of royal blood was drained, he was still of royal descent. The death of any royal member would trigger a celestial phenomenon, a sign so momentous that not even a Celestial-Human could entirely suppress it. If a royal perished and such an omen appeared, it would inevitably attract the attention of those with ulterior motives.

Thus, after extracting the bloodline from the unfortunate youth, your father and grandfather, rather than kill him outright in those turbulent times, instead placed him in the home of a household servant. It was, indeed, a convergence of fate. Without the coachman, you would never have escaped the Duke Protector’s residence or met your benefactor. If not for him, in the assassination plotted by Bai Shuxuan years ago, it would not have been the coachman mistaken for the Duke’s heir who died, but you.

Moreover, without the coachman, the rejection of the royal blood in your body might never have been quelled. When he died, myriad omens filled the heavens; Cheng Zhihai seemed to grasp a moment of inspiration, and with his life, refined the coachman’s corpse, extracting its essence and merging it into your body, finally enabling you to fully assimilate the royal bloodline.

Everything you possess now, apart from your father’s ultimate sacrifice, is owed most to that coachman. Yet now, having attained the Celestial-Human realm, you feel pained—bearing his blood in your body is a humiliation, and with the instant of bloodline fusion, your appearance changed irreversibly to his.

You have also begun to suspect that this coachman came from a dynasty no less powerful than the Grand Zhou, his identity far from ordinary. Should someone recognize your face, disaster might ensue. To prevent future calamity, you still wish to recover your original appearance.

Newcomer Task 5: Restore your original appearance.
Task Reward: A random Divine Image (Investiture-grade).

Cheng Guang listened to the system’s mission description word by word, his expression growing ever more complex.

What madness is this? I am actually the pitiable soul from whom the Duke Protector ripped the royal bloodline?

At first, Cheng Guang had assumed any resemblance between himself and the Duke’s heir was mere coincidence; after all, there are always doppelgängers in the world—take Zhou Binglun or little Jack Ma in his previous life, both uncannily similar to famous people, though never identical.

After traversing to this world, Cheng Guang had managed to rationalize it to himself. In a realm of cultivation, perhaps there really could be two people who looked exactly alike. Only now did he suddenly realize the truth.

Of course! It wasn’t that he resembled the Duke’s heir. Rather, the Duke’s heir, upon fusing with his blood, had taken on his face.

No wonder the heir’s features bore no resemblance to Cheng Zhihai. Cheng Zhihai was a man of martial stock; even with the delicate beauty of the Wu clan tempering his lineage, at best his children would appear refined, never truly handsome. Cheng Guang’s appearance, even in the entire Duke Protector’s household or the capital, surpassed that of the princes and princesses.

In terms of handsomeness, few could compare to him.

Outsiders, unaware of the truth, thought the heir’s looks were the result of a genetic windfall, a perfect inheritance of Wu Yuemei’s beauty, and perhaps even more. Who could have guessed it did not belong to him at all?

Cheng Guang looked down, his heart churning with complicated emotions. The fate of his past self was truly tragic—not only stripped of royal blood, but even of his appearance, all of it usurped by the noble heir who then reaped every benefit.

After achieving the Celestial-Human realm, the heir no longer cared about his appearance, but rather found it distasteful, wishing to restore his own face.

Cheng Guang gave a short laugh. “Restore my appearance?”

A sudden spark flashed through his mind.

He murmured, “Yes, how did I not think of this?”

“Now, everyone knows my face is that of the Duke’s heir. If you were suddenly to revert to your original, rough-hewn looks, the result would be quite amusing.”

“This was your original wish. I’m only helping you fulfill it, though perhaps a few million years ahead of schedule…”

A trace of a smile curled Cheng Guang’s lips; he already had an idea of how to deal with the true heir.

The first step would be to help him regain his original appearance.

As for what came after, Cheng Guang felt it was no longer his concern. With a single well-placed accusation, even that noble heir would be unable to prove his true identity.

He still had no clue how to actually restore the heir’s original features. After all, his appearance was determined by the royal bloodline within him. To change it, the only effective way seemed to be to extract that royal bloodline once more.

Cheng Guang tapped his forehead lightly, pondering slowly. “Extracting the royal bloodline is extremely difficult. Back then, the Duke Protector was the one who drew the blood from me. If I want to take it back from the heir, it will be a huge challenge.”

“Although I am the true source of the royal bloodline, reclaiming it will not be easy.”

“The system hint says that my body still contains some spiritual essence—this is the true origin of the royal bloodline. Without the essence, merely extracting the blood would not allow me to truly reclaim it.”

“Perhaps I can use what little essence remains in my body to draw the royal bloodline back?”

As he considered this, Cheng Guang felt the plan was quite feasible. He resolved to visit the archives the next day and research any secrets concerning the royal bloodline.

By now, the moon had climbed high, cold mist drifting outside, shrouding the courtyard in fog. Cheng Guang’s heart felt as cool and clear as the night.

His bloodline had been stripped from him entirely at the hands of the Duke Protector and Cheng Zhihai; no others knew the truth. The Duke and Cheng Zhihai had not targeted him specifically—he was simply an unlucky soul chosen at random.

In truth, Cheng Guang had stumbled headlong into the Duke’s trap, snatched up to serve as the stepping stone for the noble heir’s rise to the pinnacle of mortal existence.

Even with stolen blood, the noble heir was able to ascend to the Celestial-Human realm in less than a century—a testament to the original bloodline’s potency.

Had his past self not been seized by Duke Cheng Shiyuan, his status, talents, and prospects would have been little inferior to those of the noble heir.

In light of all this, the benefits he had enjoyed lately paled in comparison to what the noble heir and the Duke’s household had gained at his expense.

A strange urge to laugh welled up in Cheng Guang’s heart.

The joke, it turned out, was on him.