"Cough, cough... cough..."
A large, slender hand was clamped tightly around her delicate neck. The feeling of suffocation surged through her, and her mind was flooded with a deluge of memories that weren't her own.
Jiang Zheyu felt her mind was a tangled mess, and the sensation of death drawing ever closer grew increasingly intense.
She clawed at the powerful wrist clamped around her neck with both hands, but failed to budge it in the slightest.
'I don't want to die!'
"Congratulations on activating the spiritual power system," a voice announced in her mind. "Detecting that the host is in critical condition. You must purify the polluted spiritual body before you as soon as possible to have a chance at survival."
Jiang Zheyu could only focus on those words: 'a chance at survival.' She couldn't speak, but her mind was screaming, 'Quick, quick, quick!'
"You have to do the purifying yourself, my host." the system reminded her.
Perhaps her will to survive was simply too strong. Jiang Zheyu managed to wrench the method for purifying a polluted spiritual body from the other person's memories that had flooded her mind.
A moment later, a pure white space materialized before her eyes.
Coiled within the space was an enormous, slumbering python.
A dense, black fog shrouded the snake's black-patterned body.
A pure white Spiritual Touch Silk shot out without a second thought, ramming directly into the black fog. The impact forcefully caused the fog to lighten by several shades.
Purifying just a tiny amount of spiritual power forced Jiang Zheyu to stop as a sharp pain lanced through her head. At the same moment, however, the hand choking her neck abruptly loosened, and she could finally breathe again.
COUGH, COUGH, COUGH... COUGH... GAG... RETCH...
Her throat was raw and aching, but she couldn't cough anything up. Only bile churned in her stomach.
Jiang Zheyu's legs gave out, and she collapsed to her knees. She braced herself with her hands on the floor, breathing and coughing raggedly. Tears stung her eyes from the pain, spilling over and pattering to the ground.
The feeling of having narrowly escaped death almost made Jiang Zheyu break down and sob uncontrollably.
The new memories flooding her mind only intensified the urge.
Because she'd realized she had apparently transmigrated into a book—and into the body of a vicious female, no less.
"...Female Master." A deep, male voice sounded from above her.
Jiang Zheyu looked up in alarm and saw a man with a human torso and the lower body of a massive python before her. No, to be precise, his enormous snake tail was coiled around her, encircling her within his territory.
It was the posture of a predator about to constrict its prey.
Besides, the man had, in fact, just tried to kill her.
She remembered how he'd looked just moments before—choking her with one hand, his eyes scarlet and devoid of reason, filled only with a crazed, vicious killing intent. Now, seeing those beautiful, narrow, red phoenix eyes clear and lucid once more, she still couldn't help but shudder.
Just moments ago, the body's original owner had been mocked for her ugliness by other females. She had returned home and taken her anger out on her male, giving him a vicious whipping. The male's spiritual pollution had already reached eighty-nine percent; any higher, and he would lose his mind and undergo Beastification.
Not only did the original owner fail to soothe her Beast Mate's spiritual power, she insulted and whipped him. Consequently, her Beast Mate lost his mind, underwent Beastification, and nearly choked her to death.
No, in the novel, the original owner *was* choked to death, and this great python fled after the murder.
Now, with Jiang Zheyu in her place, she had only managed to survive by a fluke.
"I... I just soothed you..." Jiang Zheyu's voice was hoarse and feeble. "You... you can go now."
She tried to mimic the original owner's tone, but perhaps her fear from the near-death experience was too great. Facing the man who had almost killed her, her voice held no intimidating force. Instead, it came out soft, weak, and feeble.
Su Yan stared at Jiang Zheyu for a long moment, his gaze seeming to pierce through her skin and into her very soul. Just as her heart began to pound in her chest, the man finally retracted his snake tail, which slowly transformed into a pair of long, straight, fair, and powerful legs.
Although the pair of long legs before her were exceptionally handsome and powerful, Jiang Zheyu was in no mood whatsoever to appreciate them.
"Thank you for your soothing, Female Master. Su Yan will take his leave." Su Yan gave Jiang Zheyu another glance, then slowly made his way out.
Only after she saw the door close did Jiang Zheyu's taut nerves begin to relax. She then started to take stock of her situation.
It was a room decorated in an overwhelmingly delicate shade of pink. There was a large, soft pink bed, though its pillows and comforter were in disarray. The floor was covered with an exceptionally warm woolen rug. There was also a large pink sofa, an en-suite bathroom, a full-length mirror, and snow-white walls.
The room was exquisitely decorated. If one were to ignore the rows of whips and various instruments of torture hanging on one of the snow-white walls, it would actually be quite a cozy space.
Jiang Zheyu took a moment to compose herself. From the extra memories in her mind, she now knew that she had transmigrated into a novel she had once read.
The book was an interstellar wish-fulfillment novel titled *The Big Shots Fight Over Her*. The female lead was a female from the slums with no Comforting Power. Through her own self-reliance and intelligence, she disguised herself as a male and relentlessly climbed her way up the social ladder. She eventually developed a serum that could purify a male's spiritual pollution without the need for a female's Comforting Power. During this time, the female lead met various exceptional men and built a large harem.
As for how much of the plot Jiang Zheyu actually remembered, the answer was not much at all.
She only remembered the romantic drama between the female lead and her men, a story full of push-and-pull.
And the original owner's role was to die, serving as the catalyst that brought the female lead and her own Beast Mate together.
After the original owner's death, her Beast Mate became a wanted fugitive. The female lead then conveniently saved him, and they ended up together.
The original owner died just like that. 'So the original owner died. That's fine. But why did I have to be the one to transmigrate here?'
As she absorbed the original owner's memories, Jiang Zheyu discovered just how vicious a person could be.
The original owner was basically cannon fodder, the kind of character who is sacrificed the moment they appear.
However, as Jiang Zheyu processed the original owner's memories, she discovered that the original owner was, in fact, a living, breathing scumbag. A vicious female with her own entire history of growth and life experiences.
The evil deeds committed by the original owner included, but were not limited to: kicking a begging old male she passed on the street, callously kicking a young Beastman child who got in her way, being an expert with various torture implements, and subjecting her own Beast Mate to inhuman abuse...
And that wasn't even getting into her personality: obsessed with appearances, vain, short-tempered, deranged, a sadist...
Jiang Zheyu: ...
She'd been choked awake, only to find her entire world turned upside down.
Her eyes began to sting again, and fresh tears couldn't help but patter down.
'I don't want to transmigrate! I was perfectly happy being a rich man's beautiful, dependent lover back in the modern world!'