Fairy, Please Forgive Me, I Never Meant to Impersonate Your Husband

Chapter 4: Qingqiao Town, Blood Essence, Lifespan

The sensation of falling lasted for a long time until the surrounding gray currents seeped with white light, and the weightlessness abruptly vanished.

The teleportation was complete!

Wu Yuan and his doppelganger appeared at the rear of a crowd, with noisy voices immediately assaulting them from all directions.

Their arrival drew no attention, as there were already tens of thousands of people around, all dressed in identical coarse linen garments, trudging forward in an indistinguishable mass.

Some naturally sociable or clique-forming individuals huddled together, chattering about their confusion since arrival—some marveled, some complained, and many cursed the so-called “aliens” who had delivered the Tianyuan Terminals.

The words Wu Yuan heard most frequently were “game” and “player,” which made him inwardly shake his head.

If these people truly believed they had logged into a mere game, they would soon pay a heavy, and brutal price.

The “aliens” were no philanthropists, nor were they delivering warmth in the depths of winter.

The Tianyuan Terminals were valuable. If the “aliens” had distributed so many of them without expecting anything in return simply allowing Earthlings to play games, then they would be utter fools.

Wu Yuan discreetly released his grip on his doppelganger. The current environment posed no immediate safety concerns.

In the distance, he recognized the familiar sight of Qingqiao, the soaring bridge spanning two mountains. Its elegant, rainbow-like form was the most vivid impression of the Tianyuan World from his two dream memories.

That was right.

Though he hadn’t fully followed his dream memories in handling his real life, he had still been teleported to the same starting point in the Tianyuan World—Qingqiao Town, just as the dreams had foretold.

According to his dream memories, on the first day the Tianyuan World opened, over fifty million people from across Earth had logged in, with millions from Longxia alone secretly entering.

Some were sent as scouts, but most had ventured in seeking adventure.

Initially, Longxia’s people were scattered across dozens of border towns, and Qingqiao Town was one of them.

Though Wu Yuan had altered his steps to enter the Tianyuan World, the future had its fixed trajectory or, more poetically, its stubbornness.

He had still arrived at Qingqiao Town, the place where his two dream lives had begun.

This place held too many memories for him—love, affection, and hatred alike.

But so be it. What was meant to come would come.

His eyes glinted coldly as he sneered inwardly.

The queue moved forward for two to three hours. When Wu Yuan and his trailing doppelganger finally reached the town entrance at the foot of the mountain, they saw the familiar government office, the Immigration Bureau.

The characters on the sign were not Longxia script but Tang script, a hieroglyphic writing system similar to Longxia’s Han characters. Since the bodies they inhabited were automatically imprinted with the language, no one found the script unfamiliar.

Still, most found it strange. They treated the Tianyuan World as a game, yet this “game” was absurdly complex, even taking character creation so seriously.

The “newbie village” receiving them, these so-called “Outlander Players,” had gone so far as to erect an awkwardly named “Immigration Bureau” sign—deserving nothing but scorn!

Listening to nearby chatter about “newbie villages” and “players,” Wu Yuan could only sigh inwardly.

He knew this Immigration Bureau was not to be trifled with. If these newcomers truly saw themselves as players and acted recklessly, they would soon regret it.

Long rows of desks were set up outside the Immigration Bureau, with over a hundred burly, sword-bearing guards maintaining order, directing people to receive wooden identity plaques and small bundles.

Occasionally, some clueless individuals made a fuss, asking too many questions or even arguing with the guards—only to be swiftly subdued with fists, feet, or the flat of a blade.

What kind of audacity made these people dare to cause trouble? Wu Yuan found it baffling.

Though these guards didn’t have levels floating above their heads like in Earth’s online games, their formidable bearing alone made it clear they were not to be provoked.

From what he knew, these guards all possessed Body Refinement cultivation. Those assigned to handle new immigrants were the elite among them.

At the very least, they were at the fourth major stage of Body Refinement—Tempered Bones—a full realm above Wu Yuan’s own third-stage, Skin-Shedding body, which he had paid a heavy price to attain.

A Tempered Bones cultivator on Earth would possess a baseline strength of a thousand jin, capable of lifting cars like dumbbells without effort. Handling these reckless “level-zero noobs” would be child’s play.

Eventually, the line reached Wu Yuan.

While directing his doppelganger to follow a guard to a separate desk, he stepped forward for his own registration.

The process went smoothly.

The clerk only asked for his name. Wu Yuan had prepared a false identity in advance—Li Xinyuan, and provided it without hesitation.

The clerk inscribed the name onto a crude-looking gray wooden plaque, its surface swirling with faint runic light. After collecting a drop of Wu Yuan’s blood and explaining the plaque’s basic functions, the process was complete.

A guard then directed him to collect a small bundle before allowing him into the town.

His doppelganger underwent the same process without issue, which eased Wu Yuan’s hidden tension.

He could have simply stored the doppelganger back into the Doppelganger Space of the Soul-Mimic Mask to bypass registration, but he needed the doppelganger to obtain its own identity plaque.

This wasn’t just about hiding his identity.

The identity plaque also determined whether the doppelganger could move, cultivate, and act independently in the Tianyuan World, it had numerous uses. That was why he had taken the risk.

Fortunately, Qingqiao Town was a remote backwater, insignificant in the grand scheme of the Tianyuan World. The local officials lacked high-level cultivators capable of seeing through the doppelganger’s nature, allowing him to secure a second independent identity plaque.

The doppelganger’s plaque bore the name “Zhou Zisheng,” another fabricated identity.

Qingqiao Town’s gate stood between two mountains, overshadowed by the colossal bridge spanning thousands of meters above. The towering walls, thirty zhang high and ten zhang wide, made it hard to believe this was merely a border town and not a major city.

But such was the Tianyuan World.

Compared to Earth, this world was nearly boundless, with infinite foundational depth, the very reason it could nurture power surpassing the mundane.

With enough cultivation, matching the gods and demons of Earth’s myths was not impossible.

Once inside, Wu Yuan didn’t rush around. After briefly surveying the bustling streets, lined with shops, packed with warriors, hunters, and even massive beasts, he paused by the roadside.

Following the clerk’s instructions, he pressed both identity plaques to his forehead, absorbing their information.

Level: 9

Identity: Borderland Immigrant, Low-Class Drifter

Cultivation: Skin-Shedding (Initial Stage)

Blood Essence: 0

Lifespan: 26 / 110

Level: 6

Identity: Borderland Immigrant, Low-Class Drifter

Cultivation: Sinew-Tempering (Middle Stage)

Blood Essence: 0

Lifespan: 26 / 100

The information on the plaques was simple, but the inclusion of levels gave it the superficial appearance of a crude online game, something that might align with some people’s expectations.

Yet, for those fixated on gaming mechanics, disappointment would soon follow. There were no visible stats like Strength, Constitution, Agility, Charisma, or Luck, let alone any “point allocation” system.

In truth, the level was merely a numerical representation of cultivation, with little practical meaning. Each major realm corresponded to four levels, hence the numbering.

Wu Yuan’s main body had progressed through the eight minor stages of Muscle-Training (Initial, Middle, High, Peak) and Sinew-Tempering (Initial, Middle, High, Peak), reaching Skin-Shedding (Initial Stage)—naturally placing him at Level 9.

But the most critical details on the plaque were not level or cultivation, but identity, Blood Essence, and Lifespan.

As for why the plaques displayed cultivation and lifespan, these were derived from blood analysis via embedded runic arrays, updating in real-time as the body changed.

Both Wu Yuan and his doppelganger shared the same identity: Borderland Immigrant (self-explanatory) and Low-Class Drifter—the absolute bottom tier, barely above riotous rebels. In essence, the Tianyuan World viewed them as insignificant filler.

Of course, this status could be changed, just not yet.

What Wu Yuan truly wanted to know was what role Earth played in the universe to earn labels like “Sin Planet” and “Inferior Humans.”

Blood Essence could enhance cultivation, obtained by slaying specific creatures—demons, fiendish insects, blood-corpses, remnant wraiths, and the like. It was a shortcut for rapid progress, assuming one survived the risks.

As for lifespan, he was slightly surprised.

He distinctly remembered that, in both dream memories, his starting lifespan had been only 68 years—his Earth body had always been frail.

68 minus 26 left 42—but this didn’t mean he had 42 years left in the Tianyuan World. On the contrary, it represented his remaining lifespan on Earth.

He murmured, “So it’s finally changed? That future wasn’t set in stone, some things have already shifted.”

A lifespan of 110 years for his main body made sense. Each major realm in Body Refinement added ten years—common knowledge.

As for the extra twelve years beyond the expected 98 (110 – 26 – 68), those were thanks to the Tianyuan Bracelet and Earth-Spirit Milk.

In truth, the Tianyuan Terminal was more than just a login device. Its connection to the Tianyuan World ran far deeper than Earthlings realized.

Simply put, the terminal could synchronize the lifespan gained in the Tianyuan World back to the user’s real body.

This heaven-defying function was the primary reason Earth’s governments had ultimately allowed mass migration into the Tianyuan World.

Because of the bracelet’s synchronization, when Wu Yuan used Earth-Spirit Milk for cultivation, part of its benefits were directly transferred to his Earth body.

Most crucially, it compensated for his physical deficiencies, solidifying his foundation and extending his Earth lifespan by twelve years—bringing it to a respectable eighty.

“Pity that lifespan alone, without cultivation, is of limited use,” he muttered, shaking his head.

Right now, no one understood better than him that the Tianyuan Terminal’s apparent generosity hid countless restrictions.

The path to bringing back lifespan was unobstructed, but bringing back cultivation, or other benefits was fraught with obstacles.

This was why he had sought the Tianyuan Bracelet from the start. Terminals came in different forms (helmets, bracelets) and star ratings for a reason.

The terminal’s grade determined how much of the non-lifespan benefits could be brought back.

Helmets started at 0.3%, increasing by 0.1% per star (a 12-star helmet reached 1.4%).

Bracelets started at 3%, increasing by 1% per star (a 12-star bracelet reached 14%).

His two-star bracelet allowed 4% synchronization.

For example, Wu Yuan’s Skin-Shedding cultivation in the Tianyuan World granted him a baseline strength of 500 jin. Bringing back 4% meant 20 jin. Factoring in his doppelganger’s strength, this nearly reached half of an average Earthling’s baseline (around 50 jin without exertion).

At first glance, this seemed negligible. But the math changed at higher levels.

Right now, his cultivation was still low. Once he progressed further, even a small percentage of an exponentially larger base would yield terrifying absolute values—enough to shake Earth.

Sadly, no one would realize this anytime soon.

In fact, even lifespan increases wouldn’t be easily believed.

Most Earthlings, bound by “scientific skepticism,” would dismiss the wooden plaques’ lifespan estimates without first hand proof.

For years to come, many would remain stubbornly doubtful of the Tianyuan World’s wonders.