Runeblade - Chapter 5 : Unnatural Encounters

The Shao and Cheng families have been sworn enemies for generations, though few outsiders know the exact details of their feud.

What is known to all is the Shao family’s three cardinal rules:

The Shao family must not cooperate with the Chengs, must not intermarry with the Chengs, and must never appear with the Chengs at any public event.

One day, an adorable little girl looking like a doll, wearing a puffy pink dress, pink hair clip, and pink backpack, walked into the lobby on the first floor of the Shao Group building.

The receptionist thought she was some child who had wandered away from home. But the little girl solemnly said, “I want to see your Shao Group CEO, Shao Chengze.”

Seeing the girl’s pink outfit, the receptionist knew she must be from a wealthy and noble family to dare to address their CEO by his full name. She couldn’t be the daughter of some high-ranking Shao Group executive?

Smiling warmly, she asked, “Little one, could you tell me your parents’ names?”

The girl tilted her head. “My mommy is Cheng Jinlan.”

Cheng…Jinlan?!

Second Miss Cheng Jinlan of the Cheng family?! She never thought she’d see the day a Cheng would set foot in the Shao Group building. What a miracle!

“As for my dad, I’ve come today to get some of Shao Chengze’s hair for a DNA test. Once I have his hair, I’ll know if he’s my dad or not.”

The girl’s crisp words rippled outwards from the front desk through the bustling first floor lobby. Everyone who heard froze in shock, jaws dropping.

Everyone except Shao Chengze, who had just stepped out of the elevator surrounded by a group.

He looked at the girl in pink through narrowed, fox-like eyes.

Cheng Liqi recognized Shao Chengze and covered her mouth in an “ah-oh”.

She decided that even if Shao Chengze wasn’t her dad, she’d have to help Cheng Jinlan get this man. She liked his eyes.

They were just like hers.

So pretty.

New thrilling bookA legendary soldier returns to the city, helplessly forced into marriage by a beautiful CEO.

A thousand years have passed since the Variants first appeared from the Rifts. God answered the prayers of the human race and gave them a chance to fight back.He bestowed special marks called crests upon twelve who were worthy, granting them unfathomable power to fend off the wave of attacks.Well… that's what the church wants us to think.Man, being man, found a way. And in the present day, large numbers of the population have crests, and those that don't are treated as second-rate.This was the case with Marcus, who spent most of his life doing odd jobs—until one of those jobs led to his demise.At the hands of whom??The son of a major crest-bearing house.Marcus is reincarnated into the body of his killer and soon finds that despite being from a major house, the boy did not have a crest.At least, not one that was bestowed upon him by God.

I wrote a book once.It was an unhinged fantasy born from my high-school brain, driven by loneliness and too many hormones.It was a world of beastmen, wild freedom, and the kind of romantic attention I could never get in real life. I poured every impossible desire into it: adventure, danger, and yes… a 'lot' of handsome partners.Before I knew it, I had a thousand chapters of pure escapism and pure thrill.Then on a college camping trip, I fell off a cliff.I expected to wake up in a hospital room but nope. I woke up on a soft field of grass, with air too fresh to belong anywhere on Earth.And then something moved behind me.Sticking out of my tailbone was... A tail.My tail?Yellow and black stripes and very, very real.I touched it. Completely real.My ears? Also gone—well, moved. They were now perched on top of my head like a confused jungle cat. And the outfit? Quite revealing, made of animal hide which matched my tail.What was going on?At first, I thought it was a prank. Or a dream. Or maybe karma is finally cashing in. But the more foreign memories evaded my mind, the clearer my situation became.This wasn't cosplay and it wasn't Earth, either.And—surprise—it wasn't even the world from my own book. Welp.I had been transported into a completely different Beastman world as a beast girl called Arinya.Sounds fun, right?Well… it would be, if I weren't apparently the ugliest duckling in the entire freaking savannah! Rejected by every potential mate I stumbled across and sneered at like a freaking eyesore.This was not how I planned my fantasy to come to reality.Trust me—if this is my fantasy come true, then someone needs to fire the author.But then again, after entering this world, I'm suddenly... Attractive.I mean, there's no change to my face and the freckles are still there, but for some reason, handsome beastmen begin to flock around me, because I smell... Pleasant.What's that all about?