After Transmigrating Into A Love-Brained Scumbag Villain - Chapter 1

Under the scorching sun, beneath the towering city walls, the atmosphere was filled with killing intent.

Zhao Shangrong opened her eyes in confusion and looked down at the hemp ropes looped around her neck and limbs. The thumb-thick ropes dug tightly into her wrists and ankles, the rough fibers rubbing against her skin and leaving bruised, injured marks behind.

The other ends of the ropes were tied to five strong, fine horses. On horseback sat five stern-faced elite soldiers dressed in black armor. Their left hands gripped the reins, while their right hands held horsewhips. They were only waiting for the order before driving the horses beneath them forward.

Amid the tense and murderous atmosphere, someone raised a signal flag and waved it.

“Carry out the execution!”

At the command, all five horses moved at once, charging forward with the force of an assault.

Her joints were instantly wrenched out of place, making cracking sounds. Yet before the pain could even reach her brain, her neck felt as though it had been cut by a blade. Zhao Shangrong heard “herself” let out one final piercing scream.

“Yuan Si—”

Immediately after, she lost all sensation.

Zhao Shangrong’s eyes flew open. After a long while, still shaken, she finally cursed under her breath.

Just what did she have to do to escape this nightmare?

To be honest, as someone who had “transmigrated into a book,” the thing she should have been focusing on was the transmigration itself. Unfortunately, the nightmare of being torn apart by five horses had been far too real. And so, the “nightmare” had become the thing troubling her the most. Even “transmigrating into a book” could no longer make her feel terrified.

She had transmigrated. The “movie” scenes she saw all belonged to fragments of the original body’s memories—the memories of the Prince of Yingchuan.

Unlike the two nightmares that followed, after she had the nightmare for the first time, she had not woken up immediately. Instead, within that “dream within a dream,” she watched a first-person “movie.”

There was no other reason for it. The nightmare did not only torment and disturb her mind in an incredibly realistic way; every time she woke up after having it, she felt uncomfortable all over, as though while she was dreaming, there really had been five horses tearing her body apart in reality too. For example, this headache was one of the aftereffects of the nightmare.

The place Zhao Shangrong was currently in was the main hall of the Prince of Yingchuan’s manor.

Zhao Shangrong gave a faint hum and replied coldly, “Mm. I want to bathe. Prepare hot water.”

She had transmigrated into this book world three days ago, and for three days, she had suffered nightmares. It could truly be called being “plagued by nightmares.”

Zhao Shangrong felt that her body no longer felt as awful as it had just now, so she moved again and slowly propped up her upper body to sit.

The protagonist of that “movie” was none other than “her,” the person who had been torn apart by five horses—a woman with the exact same name as her, but whose identity was the “Prince of Yingchuan” of some dynasty.

That had been the first time the nightmare appeared in her dreams.

After waking up and being forcefully stuffed with a set of memories that did not belong to her, Zhao Shangrong finally realized why she had seen that “movie.”

When she was ten years old, she was granted the title “Prince of Yingchuan” and left the palace to establish her own manor.

Two days ago, she was supposed to be working overtime on typesetting. She did not know if she had been too exhausted, but she could no longer hold on and had fallen asleep face-down on her desk.

“Yes.” The person outside the door left.

When she struggled to open her eyes, she found herself in an unfamiliar place, being subjected to the punishment of “dismemberment by chariots.”

Strictly speaking, she had transmigrated into a book, because based on the Prince of Yingchuan’s memories, she discovered that certain things highly overlapped with the plot of a book she had once typeset.

While she rubbed her temples to ease her headache, a trembling female voice came from outside the door. “Your Highness… it is time to rise.”

That “movie” titled “The Life of the Prince of Yingchuan” continued all the way until the night before the Prince of Yingchuan’s wedding at seventeen, then abruptly came to an end.

The Prince of Yingchuan, Zhao Shangrong, was unquestionably a woman. Yet ever since she had memories, she had always appeared before others as the seventh son of Emperor Wu, the founding emperor of the Luo Kingdom.

In her sleep, she had felt physically uncomfortable, but it had been like sleep paralysis; no matter what, she could not wake up.

Her clothes were already soaked with sweat, clinging damply to her back. Pressing a hand to her aching head, she struggled to calm herself down.

This book was a male-oriented online novel about court politics, nobility, and power struggles. It told the story of how the male lead went from being an insignificant, overlooked prince whom no one had high hopes for, to being supported by powerful ministers and placed on the throne. Then, he eliminated treacherous officials, centralized imperial authority, reformed the bureaucracy, strengthened the nation, and gradually grew into a wise ruler whose literary governance and military achievements were no less than those of the First Emperor of Qin or Emperor Wu of Han.

The novel was very popular. Not only had it been adapted into a comic, it had also been signed by a publishing house for print publication.

The company Zhao Shangrong worked for was responsible for handling the publication agency work. As a typesetter, she was in charge of typesetting every book.

The manuscripts that reached her hands had basically already been proofread, so she usually would not read the actual content in detail.

The reason the content of this book had left an impression on her was because the colleague in charge of proofreading had joked that there was a character inside with the exact same name as her and suggested that she memorize the whole text.

She did not have that much time to read through a massive work of over three million characters. She only skimmed the table of contents during work breaks, then flipped to chapters she was more interested in and quickly glanced through them.

Although she had not finished the entire novel, she still remembered several plot points closely related to the Prince of Yingchuan.

Speaking of the Prince of Yingchuan, under the author’s pen, she was a villain—and a love-brained villain at that.

Before the age of seventeen, her life had been relatively normal.

But at some unknown point, her personality became extremely twisted. Not only was she jealous by nature, she was also extremely cruel. In the words of the original novel, she was a lunatic who embodied all the flaws of women in the world.

Specific examples included:

Because her own face had been disfigured, she did not allow anyone more beautiful than her to appear in the prince’s manor. Anyone more beautiful than her would have their cheeks slashed by her blade and their appearance destroyed.

Even if she saw an unfamiliar woman on the road who looked more beautiful than her, she would stop at nothing to disfigure her.

Such lawless and wicked behavior went unpunished simply because she was a prince. The common people living in her fief feared her power and dared only be angry in silence.

She was also extremely vicious and brutal. Toward the generals and soldiers under her command, she would either beat them or curse at them. Whenever she became drunk, she would suddenly lash out and injure people.

As a commander, she governed the army with excessive severity. If soldiers in the army made even a small mistake, she often imposed punishments several times heavier than normal military law. Quite a few soldiers even died because their injuries were too severe.

She also had one widely criticized flaw—she was love-brained.

Her fief was in Yingchuan, and she also held the position of Inspector of Yu Province. Yu Province bordered the Yan Kingdom and was both a frontier region of Luo and an important military stronghold. As the head of a province, she was stationed there. Then, she encountered the crown prince of Yan, who had wandered into Yu Province and was using the alias “Yuan Si.”

In the process of spending time together, Yuan Si accidentally discovered that she was a woman, but he was neither afraid nor bothered by her disfigured appearance. Because of this, she fell in love with him and became willing to give up everything for him.

Under Yuan Si’s instigation, she resented her biological mother, who had ruined her face. Coincidentally, someone reported everything she had done. After being reprimanded by an envoy sent by the emperor—the male lead—she developed rebellious thoughts.

She was a cold and ruthless person who did not even care about human lives, so naturally she would care even less about Luo Kingdom’s territory. Thus, when the Yan army attacked, they entered Yu Province as if it were empty land.

The Yan army captured cities and seized territory. Luo lost more than ten cities in succession. In the end, it was only after the male lead’s trusted general took action that the lost territory was recovered and the Yan army was stopped, causing the Yan crown prince’s plan to seize Luo in one fell swoop to collapse.

As for the chief culprit, the Prince of Yingchuan could not escape death. Her ending was exactly like the nightmare Zhao Shangrong had experienced: she was torn apart by five horses.

Zhao Shangrong spent two days digesting and accepting the fact that she had transmigrated into a book and become the love-brained villain, the Prince of Yingchuan. She had thought that would be the end of it, but unexpectedly, she still had not been able to sleep peacefully last night.

“Are you afraid I don’t know you hate Yuan Si?” Zhao Shangrong muttered to herself. “Fine. I promise you, while I’m still alive, I’ll definitely find a chance to help you get revenge. Can you stop making me experience being torn apart by five horses every night?”

Whether it was just Zhao Shangrong’s imagination or not, after she said those words, her body seemed to feel less uncomfortable.

Just then, a maid outside the door came to inform her that the hot water had been prepared and asked her to move to the side hall to bathe and change clothes.

She got out of bed, draped a black cloak over herself, and pushed the door open unsteadily.

The maidservant hurriedly prostrated herself on the ground, respectfully seeing her off as she headed to the side hall.

From the Prince of Yingchuan’s memory fragments, Zhao Shangrong could glimpse that the prince’s twisted personality had not formed overnight. At least before Zhao Shangrong transmigrated, the Prince of Yingchuan’s temper had already been somewhat irritable.

One reason was probably that the Prince of Yingchuan, who should have gone to her fief at the age of thirteen, had been delayed because her father died, her eldest brother was deposed, and after her second brother ascended the throne, he was busy eliminating powerful court officials and consolidating his imperial position. As a result, he had still not granted her an official post, which made her unhappy.

Whenever she became angry, she liked to take it out on the people around her, so the maids and servants by her side were all very afraid of her.

Zhao Shangrong was grateful that, at the current stage, the Prince of Yingchuan had not yet developed to the point of enjoying destroying other people’s appearances or abusing soldiers.

Although she had not seen the Prince of Yingchuan’s memories after her marriage at seventeen, based on certain fragments of the original novel, she could infer that the reason the Prince of Yingchuan turned into a pervert was likely because she had already been sensitive, suspicious, and irritable to begin with. Then, after her appearance was ruined, the shock and fear worsened the distortion of her mind.

After she was granted an official post and sent to guard her fief, the emperor was far away and no one could restrain her, so her behavior grew increasingly unbridled and daring.

The Prince of Yingchuan’s appearance had been ruined by her own biological mother. As for the reason… Zhao Shangrong was not clear about it. But being betrayed by her biological mother was undoubtedly the direct cause of her mental imbalance.

Thinking this, Zhao Shangrong touched her own face while lowering her head to look at the reflection cast on the steaming bathwater. She discovered that this face, which looked about eighty percent similar to her own but was even more beautiful and seductive, was smooth and tender, with no sign of disfigurement.

She let out a breath of relief. Thank goodness she had transmigrated to before everything happened.

If she had transmigrated to the period after the Prince of Yingchuan had already committed monstrous crimes, then she might as well do nothing and wait to die.

Zhao Shangrong did not want to repeat the Prince of Yingchuan’s tragedy. And since she had no real ambition, she did not care whether she could go to her fief and become a local tyrant. History had proven that princes who held military power or became involved with power often did not meet good ends. Therefore, she planned to stay far away from the male and female leads, far away from court politics, and live quietly in the prince’s manor, becoming a good “imperial younger brother” who had no power and posed no threat to the imperial throne.

Now, let this beautiful day begin with a bath!

Zhao Shangrong took off her clothes. Just as she was splashing around in the warm pool that was about half a meter deep, she suddenly heard faint voices coming from outside the door.

The maids said in unison, “Greetings, Princess Consort!”

A gentle voice asked, “Has His Highness woken?”

“He has. His Highness is currently bathing in the side hall.”

“I wish to see His Highness. Go and report it.”

A short while later, the maid’s cautious voice came from outside the door. “Your Highness, the princess consort is outside requesting an audience.”

In the pool, Zhao Shangrong’s body stiffened.

Princess Consort?!

Wasn’t that the very “meritorious contributor” from the original novel who had endured humiliation and hardship while gathering evidence of the Prince of Yingchuan’s treason for the male lead, allowing him to execute the Prince of Yingchuan with full justification?

Incidentally, this “meritorious contributor” was also one of the male lead’s harem members, one of the eight female leads in the original novel.

Zhao Shangrong panicked.

Why was the female lead here?

Author’s Note:

Your Highness: Transmigrating into a book comes with a wife included?

—

The story has begun~~

To avoid controversy, I’ll explain in advance: Zhao Shangrong’s transmigration was caused by the original Prince of Yingchuan herself, so there is no issue of Zhao Shangrong occupying the original owner’s body and being unfair to her, and so on.