Chapter 58

[In the thirty-fourth year of Zhensheng, on the twenty-second day of July, sixteen days since you ascended to the Heavenly Human Realm, you tormented the assassin who once attempted to kill you.]

[However, you failed to uncover from their lips who exactly was behind the assassination attempt all those years ago.]

[If possible, you still would like to uproot the problem completely, but now, you have no leads on the mastermind behind that year’s plot, utterly clueless.]

[If it weren’t for Cheng Zhihai’s decision to suppress the royal bloodline’s rejection within you, boldly sacrificing himself as a substitute, it’s likely those lurking in the shadows would have been exposed long ago.]

[You couldn’t help but shake your head, filled with countless emotions, as you remembered the coachman substitute you had found many years before.]

[It’s indeed an ironic twist of fate; had you not sought to evade Cheng Zhihai back then, you might never have thought to find a substitute to deceive them.]

[You too had once wondered how a mere coachman could possess a visage identical to yours, only to later learn from Duke Zhen Guo that this coachman was the unfortunate soul from whom the royal bloodline had been forcibly extracted and implanted into you.]

[As a result of the royal bloodline being implanted in you, your appearance transformed to resemble that of the other under the influence of the royal bloodline.]

[After learning this information, you were startled, amazed that the unfortunate soul of that year had not died and was even inadvertently captured by you to serve as a substitute.]

[The reason the coachman didn’t die after his bloodline was extracted is simple: being of royal descent, the death of any member of the royal family causes celestial phenomena. Such phenomena, not even a Sky-Man can completely suppress, and the death of any royal would inevitably draw the attention of those with vested interests.]

[Therefore, back in the day, after abducting that unfortunate soul and extracting his bloodline, your father and grandfather didn’t directly eradicate the royal descendant amidst the turmoil, but instead fostered him in a servant’s home within the Duke’s Mansion.]

[This must be acknowledged as a fortunate coincidence, for without that coachman, you wouldn’t have been able to escape Duke Zhen’s Mansion and meet a nobleman. Without that coachman, the one who died in the assassination plot orchestrated by Bai Shuxuan would not have been the coachman mistaken for Duke of the State’s Heir, but you.]

[Likewise, were it not for that coachman, you might never have been able to suppress the rejection of the body.]

[After the death of the coachman, which brought about numerous celestial signs, Cheng Zhihai seemed to catch a whiff of inspiration, using his own life to refine the coachman’s body, extracting the marrow and bones, drawing forth all of the Spiritual Essence within him, and merging it into your body, allowing you to fully and completely integrate with the royal bloodline.]

[All that you are today, aside from the aid of your father’s sacrifice, might largely be attributed to that coachman.]

[Yet, after becoming a Sky-Man, you feel pained by this, deeming the coachman’s bloodline within you an embarrassment; your appearance, during the moment of bloodline integration, had completely changed to that of the coachman.]

[At the same time, you vaguely realize that this coachman seems to hail from a dynasty not inferior to Great Zhou, with no ordinary status, and if your appearance were to be noticed by those with intentions, it might lead to disaster.]

[To prevent future trouble, you still wish to revert to your original appearance.]

[Newbie Task 5: Change back to your original appearance.]

[Task Reward: A random Proving Dao Map (God Level)]

Cheng Guang absorbed the details of the system task, his expression growing inconceivably complex.

What in the world?

I’m actually that unlucky sap stripped of the royal bloodline by Duke Zhen Guo?

At first, Cheng Guang thought his resemblance to the Princely Heir was purely coincidental—after all, in this world, there were people who looked alike, like Zhou Binglun or Little Jackie Ma from his previous life who resembled well-known figures.

But they were never completely identical.

Now, after being transmigrated, Cheng Guang had rationalized it; it was a cultivation world after all, and perhaps in this world, two people could indeed be completely identical.

Only now did he suddenly realize the truth.

Turns out, it wasn’t that he resembled the Town-Nation Duke’s Heir.

It was because the Town-Nation Duke’s Heir, after integrating his bloodline, inherited his appearance.

Little wonder the Princely Heir doesn’t resemble Cheng Zhihai.

Cheng Zhihai is a warrior, and although the gene of gentle Yuemei of the Wu Family could make his descendants appear slightly more delicate, it would never reach the extent of beauty.

Cheng Guang’s visage, within the entire Duke Zhen’s Mansion, even throughout the Capital City, was superior even when compared with the princes and princesses.

When it came to handsomeness, there truly weren’t many who could match him.

The outsiders, unaware of the secret, thought the Princely Heir had a genetic mutation, inheriting the perfect gene of Wu Yuemei and even improving it, hence his beautiful appearance.]

Who could have expected this?

This was not his face at all.

Cheng Guang lowered his eyes and felt an indescribable complexity in his heart.

He just felt that the original predecessor in the course of history really had a tragic fate.

Not only was the royal bloodline stripped away, but even the face was inherited by someone else, to the point that later, that noble Princely Heir benefitted from everything you had.

After achieving the Heavenly Human Realm, he no longer cared about his appearance, but instead grew to despise it and wished to regain his original face.

Cheng Guang scoffed, “Regain his face?”

A flash of inspiration struck his mind.

He murmured to himself, “Right, how could I not have thought about that.”

“Now everyone knows that this appearance of mine is that of the Town-Nation Duke’s Heir. If you were to suddenly revert to your original rough and burly appearance, the scene would undoubtedly be rather amusing.”

“That was your original wish, anyway. I’m just helping you fulfill it, though a bit ahead of time…”

A smile spread across Cheng Guang’s lips, as he already had an idea of how to deal with the real Princely Heir.

The first step was to help him regain his original appearance.

As for what to do after he regained his original appearance, Cheng Guang felt that he needn’t worry about that anymore.

Just throw any dirty hat over, and even if that noble Princely Heir tried to prove his identity, he wouldn’t be able to.

Cheng Guang had no clue yet on how to restore the Princely Heir’s original appearance.

After all, his face was determined by the royal bloodline within his body. If he wanted to change that face, a better way seemed to be to strip the royal bloodline from his body again.

Cheng Guang tapped his forehead lightly with one hand, slowly pondering, thinking, “Stripping the royal bloodline is extremely difficult; it was the Duke of the State, after all, who had extracted the royal bloodline from my body. If I wanted to take out the bloodline from that noble Princely Heir, it would be quite troublesome.”

“Although I am the true vessel of the royal bloodline, reclaiming it would not be an easy task.”

“The mission prompt mentioned that there is Spiritual Essence within my body, which is the most fundamental existence of the royal bloodline. Without the Spiritual Essence, simply removing the royal bloodline wouldn’t allow one to truly wield it.”

“Could I use the little remaining bloodline Spiritual Essence within me to retrieve that royal bloodline?”

As Cheng Guang pondered, he felt that this idea was highly feasible.

He planned to visit the Book Collection Pavilion tomorrow to see if he could find some secrets about the royal bloodline.

At this moment, the moon climbed up the branches, and the chill spread, with fog forming outside the house.

Cheng Guang’s heart inadvertently felt cool and icy like the moon.

The stripping of his bloodline was entirely orchestrated by the Duke of the State and Cheng Zhihai; others were completely unaware of the insider story.

And the Duke of the State and Cheng Zhihai didn’t target him specifically, they just randomly picked an unlucky one.

It could be said that Cheng Guang had purely by chance blundered into the line of fire of the Duke of the State and was captured to serve as a stepping stone for the noble Princely Heir to reach the pinnacle of the human realm.

Even with the usurped bloodline, that noble Princely Heir was still able to reach the Heavenly Human Realm in less than a century.

One can imagine how concentrated the bloodline of the original body must have been.

If the original person had not been caught by Duke Zhen Guo, Cheng Shiyuan, his status and talents might not have been far behind that noble Princely Heir.

Looking at it this way, the advantages I’ve taken during this time are insignificant compared to what that noble Princely Heir and the family of the Duke of the State have taken from me.”

Cheng Guang inexplicably wanted to laugh.

The clown turns out to be myself.