#ive had the idea of an albino character in my head for so fucking long

[offaeandcreation]

Sleep-Deprived College Student Becomes World's Strongest Cultivator By Bullshit Means

Summary:The last thing WanLi An (Ani) expected was to a) die in the most pathetic and ridiculous manner, b) wake up in the body of a villain destined to be beheaded in a war of their own making. Of course with Ani's luck, that's exactly what happened. Now Ani finds herself the ruthless, morally-questionable at best, leader of Qishan Wen, rearing two bratty children, while pretending that yes, she is absolutely Wen Ruohan. Nothing to see here! Everything is just fine. Except the universe isn't done making her life hell. "For fuck's sake, I just wanted my degree!"

Chapter 1: Holy Fucking Shit

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11+ 

Content Warnings: Death, Mourning, Dirty Jokes

AO3

On my gravestone, I want the following epithet: Murdered by heels via the eighth floor window. Gravity was a co-conspirator. 

There she flew, like an outtake of 'It's a Wonderful Life', skirt flapping in the wind harder than a can-can dancer's. Ani, known to her angry mother as WanLi An, was NOT about to become the world's next human pudding if she had any say about it. She reached for the psychology department’s brick edges, anything to stop the fall that ended in concrete. 

Supergirl, now’s your chance! Fulfill my lesbian dream!  

As she waited for the inevitable hero to come swooping in, a familiar object flew past her like from the Rabbit Hole scene in ‘Alice in Wonderland’: the softcover book she’d been reading, glossy title flashing its Chinese characters, ‘Mo Dao Zu Shi’.  

Oh ya, I could learn to fly on a sword!

She made a grab at it but missed, watching the wind sweep it away. Another possession flew into Ani’s line of sight: a pink tote bag with the words ‘Happy Birthday’ written on it – for A-Li. His meringues packed inside, made just for him to stuff his face with with the intention of proving that yes, he can fit five in his mouth now, all came flying out. The wind clearly wanted to take them for itself. 

Those are for A-Li you air-bag! 

Waving her arms around, she tried to reach for the helicoptering meringues with much gusto and much failure.The whistle in her ear might as well have been snickering.  

A photograph slipped into Ani’s line of sight taken back in China of her entire family: her parents, grandmother, A-Li, days before her father died. 

The wind stole the air out of her lungs. Ani lunged out for the photo, stretching as far as she possibly could while having no anchor. Fingertips brushed it as it flitted into the wind’s grasp, leaving her outstretched hand empty, small.  She lunged again, muscles bulging as she strained towards the closest corner. Failure. The wind howled in laughter. 

No! No don’t do this! 

Ani screamed at the wind that tore at her, at the grey sky that looked at her with no mercy. 

I’m going to die. I can’t die- Grandmother, I can’t! Not now. I have to take care of A-Li–

A single tear kissed her cheek before floating in the air, too light to fall, before she plunged into the concrete. 

Xxxxxxxxxx

Ani’s eyes shot open, a gasp escaping her lips. Her heart pounded into the pillows she was lying face-first in, breathing as if she’d just woken up from a nightmare. 

She was in bed. At home. Safe. Her muscles relaxed, sinking into the mattress beneath-

Something hard resisted against her body, as if the mattress was more akin to a wooden board then memory foam. She blinked, allowing her hands to wander the bed, pressing and feeling against silky bedding. 

This isn’t my bed- 

Wait.

She shouldn’t even be in bed.

 Ani lunged out for the photo, stretching as far as she possibly could without an anchor. Fingertips brushed it as it flitted into the wind’s grasp, leaving her outstretched hand empty, small.  She lunged again, muscles bulging as she strained towards the closest corner. Failure. The wind howled in laughter. 

She should have died.

I fell. 

I fell eight stories. 

I fell eight stories onto concrete.  

Ani sat up, finally looking where she was lying. She was in a large bed with a thick, silky, maroon blanket – something that her grandmother would have owned.  

What the fuck?

Ani looked up. Wooden beams criss-crossed above her, holding up a low ceiling made of an unknown dark wood. 

Why was there a ceiling? Wasn’t I just seconds ago falling out of a building into the concrete, outside? Where no ceilings could exist? 

Ani crawled towards the edge of the bed to take a good look. 

It wasn’t a ceiling, but a wooden canopy, with ostentatious diamond and floral engravings, accompanied by transparent red and black valance.  

Where am I?

Ani finally looked up from the bed. Her eyes bulged. Three college classrooms couldn’t have fit within this single bedroom. 

 Beyond the bed, a built-in nightstand had been covered in glass bottles, some small as pennies and others like glass blown art, and torn white sheets . 

 Bandages perhaps? I’m supposed to be in a hospital…? This doesn’t look like a hospital bed.

Beyond, silky red and woolen carpets decorated the dark floors.  Across the room, a large table sat perpendicular to the wall covered in stacks of scrolls.

Some regular-old New York City hospital most definitely wouldn’t have this – a waste of space and money. 

Ani blinked. Where was the IV drip? The heart monitor? White curtains? The sink? The putrid smell of alcohol and plastic? Flowers? She definitely deserved flowers. Especially after everything. 

What sorry excuse of a hospital is this?! An alt-medicine hospital?Did they give me acid? Was the whole accidentally-falling-out-of-a-building-from-the-top-floor-because-why-not sequence a dream? 

Ani rubbed her eyes to make absolutely certain she wasn’t indeed hallucinating. Except, her hand felt strange, as if someone attached weights to them without asking her permission. Ani pulled at them with more force, until she smacked herself in the face. She hissed in pain, glaring at her stupid hand-

What. The. Fuck.

This wanna-be-Micky-mouse-glove abomination was abso-fucking-lutely not her hand. She brought it close, staring at the long pale fingers, razor sharp nails –absolutely a lesbian hazard – and delicate wrist. It was at least twice the size of her face, and felt…foreign. Flexible, catching more air. Ani was pretty sure she could make shoes out of these hands and comfortably walk in them and with room.

She brought up her other hand in comparison. To her utter horror, they matched!

Ani closed her eyes, hoping that somehow to conjure up her smaller, tanner, lesbian-friendly hands. She opened one eye, her kernel of hope popping 

Nope. 

Either Ani was tripping very hard on acid to the point that her brain forgot the importance of clipped nails, or she’d fallen eight floors and needed a transplant and the only thing available were these man-hands. 

Cold pooled in Ani’s gut. Ani tossed off the blankets, scrambling to her feet. She ran towards the golden mirror attached to a nearby vanity. Despite skidding to a stop, her torso continued its trajectory until she face-planted into the floor. 

“Fuck,” she bit out. 

The sound that came out of her mouth was not the familiar timbre of her voice. She coughed and spoke again. 

“Hello.” 

It sounded so wrong. Ani spoke a few more words– “Hewwo,” “Nya-Nya,” “Nico Nico Nii,” “Motherfucker,”– before taking a deeper breath. No matter what sounds she made, the voice remained low like a choral bass singer. As low as her father’s had been. Tears welled in Ani’s eyes as she slowly tried to get to her feet, head spinning.

What’s happening? Why are my hands weird? Why is my voice weird! 

 Even her feet were weird: pale and big like her hands. Sweat prickled at the back of her neck, trickling down her back into the collar of white robes that fell to her calves. She never could afford something like this.

 Nor did hospitals supply silk robes. 

 She brushed the robes aside as she got to her knees, her jaw throbbing, and faced the golden mirror. 

The face that stared back at her wasn’t her own. 

It was a face of man, with bright, unnatural scarlet eyes. 

The mirror broke. 

Xxxxxxxxxxx

Ani flinched at the violent crack. She looked behind her, searching for whatever had broken the mirror. Outside of the table and a sliding-door that led to who-knows-where, there was nothing that could have caused the damage. 

She closed her eyes, counting to ten. Reopened them. She closed her eyes, counting to twenty. Reopened them. The same unknown male face stared back at her: long oval face, messy bed-head black hair, and vivid crimson eyes, tinted slightly by the color of the mirror. Not the round face, short dark hair and eyes that she has seen in the mirror every day for twenty-three years. Not the face she preferred. 

Red eyes? Seriously? Red? Hardly realistic. 

Not even albino irises were this intense. She backed away from the mirror, coming into the body’s full height. At least twice her height - which explains the sheer size of her hands and feet. 

At least I’ll be able to reach the top shelves without being laughed at. 

The thought quickly scurried away the longer she looked at herself. The mirror mimicked every move she made. The cracks distorted her figure– no, the man’s figure. 

What’s happening? What’s going on? Why am I in this body? Is this a hallucination? 

Ani mentally ran through all her psychology courses until she had an idea. 

Wait, there is still one more test. People who suffer from delusions often attempt to use other senses to figure out if they truly are seeing what is in front of them. So if this is all a delusion- 

Shutting her eyes, Ani stuck her hand between her legs-

Yup. That was most definitely not there before. I’m in a man’s body. Confirmed. 

She groaned, sinking to the floor in defeat, resting her head on the table. Leaning her head back, she noticed the scrolls wrapped in beige ribbons.  

Perhaps these documents will tell me what the hell is going on. 

She pulled at the ribbons, looking for something, anything that could give her answers. She scanned the unfurled parchment, noticing a collection of vertical lines, occasionally underlined once or twice that made no sense to her. Dates? 

She could understand the Chinese characters, except the style was clearly more archaic, with words that would never be used in any book that would be found at home. Except the older poetry books, because poets like to be pretentious know-it-alls. 

Ani looked for writing utensils, except instead of finding pencils and pens that every self-respecting person would have, she found only bamboo brushes. 

‘Want to learn?’ a memory itched at the back of her mind, floating to the surface. 

Her grandmother had returned from Beijing, eyes crinkling with a smile that her bright blue face mask hid. Ten-year old Ani cried out in happiness, rushing towards the open door in only her purple floral pajamas. Her father grabbed her before she could topple her grandmother with an unexpected bear hug. 

‘Ani, Ani, look what I brought you,’ she said with a familiar grin the moment she pulled down her mask under her aging chin.

From a plastic bag, she removed several shiny brushes, the bamboo wood birch-yellow, polished to a shine, and the bristles a variety of browns and white, pointy like a pencil.  

Her grandmother handed them to her, ‘Now Ani, these are the brushes of our ancestors, they used to work with these so long ago to make beautiful calligraphy. Want to learn?’ 

With careful fingers, Ani lifted one of the brushes, running her finger over the bristles and the smooth handle. These weren’t the brushes her grandmother gave her – the handles weren’t as dark nor as smooth as the wood lacked the sheen polish that modern brushes had, and the bristles were more frayed – not supported by synthetic material. These weren’t her grandmother’s brushes but- 

“Am I…in the past?” 

She scanned the space around her, searching for any sign of modern technology. A fireplace, a wardrobe that most probably cost at least a quarter of her tuition, mats that most definitely were made of organic material, not the synthetic fibers of the modern age. There wasn’t a single modern artifact in the room.

“I’m in the PAST?” Ani cried out, tearing at her hair, “How did THIS happen?” 

Her heart beat pounded in her ears. How? How? How? How! 

“Sect Leader Wen!” 

Ani yelped, grabbing  a bronze candle holder as the door slid open. She backed up into the mirror, glad it hadn’t shattered earlier. Assuming whatever entered the room wasn't trying to kill her, the last thing she needed was to pay for broken property just because she stared too hard at the mirror. 

A man with dull robes walked in on his knees. Their eyes met and he fell into a bow, face first into the hard wooden floors. 

“We are pleased to see you awake Sect Leader!” 

Yes, I’m sure you are. 

 “Physician Wen is being notified now,” he continued. “Is there anything that we can do for you in the meanwhile, Sect Leader Wen?” 

Luckily, the servant was too busy digging his nose into the floor and quivering like a vibrator to notice the way her mouth dropped along with the candle. 

Sect Leader…Wen? 

The name was familiar. Too familiar. She looked past the servant, above the door to the banner that decorated the walls. 

The sun symbol. 

A stone dropped into her stomach. She hadn’t just traveled into the past. She’d transmigrated into the world of Mo Dao Zu Shi. 

As Sect Leader Wen Ruohan. 

Who was destined to die.