My Master Is the Tragic Second Male Lead

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Novel Info

Author:
飞翼
Status:Ongoing

Summary

Yu Sangsang, a modern office worker, transmigrates into the body of Yu Xian'er, a seventeen-year-old princess of the small cultivation kingdom Dayu. She awakens in the desolate imperial mausoleum, a place of exile where she has been confined for fourteen years following her mother's death. Her father, King Yu Xiu, banished her to this barren location with cold indifference, leaving her to survive with meager provisions and a handful of loyal but downtrodden servants. Yu Sangsang quickly realizes she has inherited not only the princess's body but also the max-level stats of a cultivation character she had designed for an online game called *Immortals and Demons*. Although her current account is at level zero, her physique is exceptionally gifted, allowing spiritual energy to flow into her naturally. However, she lacks a cultivation method and possesses no resources, forcing her to navigate her new reality with caution and strategic patience.

The narrative tension escalates when Old Wang, a former grand steward now reduced to a humble servant in the mausoleum, tests Yu Sangsang with a Spirit-Revealing Sphere. He suspects she has been possessed by a foreign soul due to her changed demeanor. The artifact confirms she is the original occupant, yet his suspicion reveals the precariousness of her position. Shortly after, Yu Sangsang experiences a vivid dream in which she finds herself in a mystical realm beneath a blood-red moon, sitting inside a coffin. There, she comprehends the *Supreme Purity Record*, a top-tier cultivation manual from her game, which instantly begins to reshape her meridians and expand her qi sea. Upon waking, she discovers a phantom phoenix residing within her silver bracelet, a keepsake from her grandfather. The bracelet contains a vast storage space filled with heavenly treasures, spirit pills, and high-grade spirit stones—gifts from her main game account that have manifested as real artifacts in this world.

The central conflict emerges when King Yu Xiu visits the mausoleum, bringing with him Xianzhu, his beloved stepdaughter. Yu Sangsang recognizes the situation from a sweet romance novel she once read. In the story, Xianzhu, a kind and gentle girl, was destined to be recognized as the true princess and admitted to the prestigious Taixu Sect, while the original Yu Xian'er was discarded. Yu Xiu plans to execute a substitution ritual to permanently alter destiny, allowing Xianzhu to take Yu Xian'er's place as the daughter of the noble Jing clan and the heir to the Taixu Sect's favor. This scheme requires the use of the White Dragon Jade, a national treasure of Dayu that is already fractured and fading. Old Wang assists the king, arguing that fulfilling this plan is necessary to protect Xianzhu from exposure and to secure her future within the powerful sect.

Yu Sangsang witnesses the ritual from a spiritual plane as Xianzhu kneels before the ancestral tablets. The king offers his blood, and Xianzhu offers hers, invoking the name of Jing Zhonghua, the late queen. The dragon soul within the jade bi roars and collapses, shattering the artifact into dust. The ritual succeeds, weaving a new fate around Xianzhu that will deceive even the most skilled diviners. As the heavenly mandate shifts, Yu Sangsang feels a severing of karmic ties and coughs up blood, signaling the physical toll of the cosmic alteration. Despite the loss of her original destiny, Yu Sangsang remains unbroken. She possesses supreme talent, a top-tier cultivation manual, and a hoard of resources hidden within her bracelet. Rather than fighting for a place in a kingdom that rejected her or a sect that abandoned her, she resolves to leave Dayu. Her path forward is one of independent cultivation, using her hidden advantages to grow powerful enough to eventually confront her father and reclaim the justice denied to her and her mother.

The story establishes a clear trajectory for Yu Sangsang's journey. She is no longer the passive victim of familial betrayal but a cultivator with the potential to surpass the limitations of her small kingdom. The destruction of the White Dragon Jade marks the end of Dayu's protective illusions and the beginning of her escape. With the substitution ritual complete, Xianzhu will live a life of privilege under a false identity, while Yu Sangsang must forge her own path in the wider cultivation world. Her immediate goal is to consolidate her newly acquired cultivation base and utilize the treasures in her bracelet to prepare for departure. The narrative sets the stage for a rise from obscurity, driven by the protagonist's modern mindset and her overwhelming, albeit hidden, power.

Novel Items

Spirit-Revealing Sphere

Arcane Treasure

A rare spiritual artifact used to test whether one's body has been possessed by another soul. It is the size of a sparrow's egg, translucent with swirling white mist inside. When possession is detected, the mist turns blood-red, symbolizing the karmic bond between possessor and possessed. It defies logic and cannot be deceived even by immortals. It is Dayu's greatest treasure, enshrined in the ancestral temple. Old Wang brought it to test Yu Sangsang, but it showed no red mist, confirming she had not been possessed.

Immortals and Demons

Game

An online game Yu Sangsang formerly played as a modern office worker. In the game, she had a max-level demon clan powerhouse main account and created a second human cultivation alt account with a gentle, pure, beautiful avatar. The game featured NPCs, possession mechanics tested by the Spirit-Revealing Sphere, and a forty-meter blade weapon. The game's mechanics and items appear to have bled into or mirrored reality after her transmigration.

Silver Mirror

Item

The only object of real value in Yu Xian'er's room in the imperial mausoleum. It is placed on the dressing table and reveals the reflection of a delicate, beautiful face that closely resembles Yu Sangsang's original game avatar.

Supreme Purity Treasure Record

Cultivation Method

A top-tier cultivation manual from the game that Yu Sangsang comprehended after touching the blood-red coffin in her dream. It is capable of molding stars with bare hands and can be cultivated all the way to the immortal stage. Her demon-lord main account had spent over a hundred million spirit stones and traded a top-tier artifact to obtain it. When cultivated to its peak, it can overturn heaven and earth.

Silver bracelet carved with a phoenix

Treasure

A delicate silver bracelet given to Yu Sangsang by her grandfather when she was three. It still fits perfectly fourteen years later, as though it grew with her. A phantom phoenix can emerge from it. It was hidden carefully to escape her father's notice and is the only keepsake left to her by her elders.

Silver mirror engraved with a phoenix

Artifact

A dust-free silver mirror found inside the coffin in Yu Sangsang's dream. When she gazed into it, her reflection was blurred and her face indistinct. It gave a clear melodious chime when she touched the blood-red coffin.

Latest Release

Date	Group	Release
2026-08-11	shanghai fantasy	c20
2026-08-11	shanghai fantasy	c19
2026-08-11	shanghai fantasy	c18
2026-08-11	shanghai fantasy	c17
2026-08-11	shanghai fantasy	c16
2026-08-11	shanghai fantasy	c15
2026-08-11	shanghai fantasy	c14
2026-08-11	shanghai fantasy	c13
2026-08-11	shanghai fantasy	c12
2026-08-11	shanghai fantasy	c11
2026-08-11	shanghai fantasy	c10
2026-08-11	shanghai fantasy	c9

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Popular reviews

Moonflower414 Review ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ October 29,2025

Okay I need to talk about Xianzhu and what she just did because my chest actually hurts. This girl spent years being treated like furniture in her own life, right? No name, no title, just some convenient placeholder while the real princess got everything. And then Yu Xiu comes to her with this whole plan to steal Yu Xian'er's destiny and instead of just being like "that's terrible" she actually CRIES and agrees to it. Not because she's evil — because she's exhausted. Because she's so tired of being nobody that being somebody else's daughter sounds like a gift. The line that wrecked me was when she said: "I'll be greedy just this once." Just this once. As if greed is something she's never allowed herself. As if she's spent fourteen years being perfectly selfless and it got her absolutely nowhere. And Yu Xiu — oh god, Yu Xiu. He strokes her hair and tells her "Father owes you much" while literally planning to destroy another girl's life. He frames it as protection, as love, as if he's doing this FOR her. But really he's doing it because he needs a real princess on paper so he can maintain his grip on power. The man is so good at weaponizing tenderness it makes my skin crawl. "Father wishes to give you the very best. As for others… my child, what harm is there in being selfish just this once?" What harm. What. Harm. Meanwhile Yu Sangsang is floating above all of this like a ghost — literally — watching the person she's been reading about in a romance novel make the most morally complicated choice of her life, and she just… sighs. She calls the whole thing vile. She's the only one in that temple who sees it clearly. I keep thinking about what those unseen voices whispered to Yu Sangsang: "Go… go now… live well…" Who were those voices? And why did they sound so sad?

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NitrogenousBeing Review ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ February 21,2026

The imperial mausoleum. That's where our story begins, and honestly, what a setting. A daughter locked away in a tomb complex by her own father, who visits her only to deliver threats and warnings. The imagery is so stark and cinematic—I can literally see the towering stone structures, the cold silence, the way Yu Xiu flicks his sleeve and walks away without looking back. But what really makes this world feel alive isn't just the mausoleum. It's the cultivation hierarchy that underpins everything. Taisu Sect—four Immortal-rank cultivators, the most prestigious in the realm. Danxia Sect, with its kindly elder Immortal Shangyong. The Su Xin Manual, a family technique that made an entire clan great. These aren't just background details; they're the gears that turn this entire plot. The most vivid scene for me, though, is Yu Xiu storming out of the courtyard and slamming his fist against a stone stele. "That little beast!" he curses, and the image of this powerful king, this cultivated nobleman, reduced to raging at a tombstone because his biological daughter won't cooperate with his scheme—it's so human. So petty. So perfect. And Old Wang trailing behind him like a shadow, watching, waiting, calculating. The mausoleum wasn't just Yu Xian'er's prison; it was Old Wang's too. Fourteen years of being stifled to death in that cold place, and now he's emerging like something that was buried and refused to stay buried. The worldbuilding here is doing double duty: it's establishing the cultivation system and sect politics, yes, but it's also creating a physical environment that mirrors the emotional landscape. The mausoleum is where the truth is buried. The sect gates are where the real daughter is turned away. The palace is where the fake lives in luxury. Everything about this world is built on substitution and erasure, and the settings reflect that beautifully.

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IamUNKNOWN01 Review ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ May 30,2025

I literally had to pause and just stare at my screen after the ritual scene. The imagery in this passage is INSANE. Three enormous incense candles, smoke curling thickly through the hall. The dragon-shaped white jade bi with a deep crack running through it — "as though it might split in two. Yet even on the verge of ruin, it still shone brilliantly, spiritual light shimmering around it." This object is basically a character at this point. It's been Dayu's guardian treasure since the dynasty's founding, and now it's dying. The crack is a metaphor so on the nose it still works because the writing is good enough to carry it. Then the dragon soul emerges. "It was thin, fragile, on the verge of dispersal—yet its eyes, deep and vertical, still gleamed." I could SEE this. I could see the light shimmering across the jade, the fragile dragon form materializing from spiritual energy, those ancient eyes looking out at a world that no longer has room for it. And Yu Sangsang watching from among the ancestral tablets — fourteen years of cleaning and polishing these very tablets, and now she's floating above them as a wandering spirit. The visual of her hovering there, looking down at her own memorial space, is haunting in a way I can't even articulate. The moment the dragon roars and swallows the jade, turning it to dust — "A sharp crack rang out. The treasure enshrined since Dayu's founding dulled, turned to dead stone, and swiftly crumbled into dust." Fourteen hundred years of a dynasty's protection, gone in one breath. And nobody in the room mourns it. Not even Old Wang. They're all too busy staring at Jing Zhonghua's memorial tablet, waiting for a sign that the heavens approved. The silence of the tablet is the loudest sound in the whole scene.

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WhOaMIGym Review ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ January 31,2025

Okay so let me just say — the opening of this book is a masterclass in tension-building. Three days into transmigrating, and our girl is already in a life-or-death situation with a Spirit-Revealing Sphere. THREE DAYS. I was already sweating and I hadn't even finished Chapter 2. The plot moves like a damn freight train here. What I love most is how the author sets up the central mystery immediately: why does the princess's face look exactly like Sangsang's game avatar? That's the hook that's gonna keep me turning pages for sure. And then on top of that, we've got the political intrigue — exiled princess, neglectful father, a kingdom that's basically a backwater with a Foundation Establishment-level ruler. The worldbuilding is efficient as hell; we get so much context through Yu Sangsang's internal monologue without it feeling like an info-dump. The plot structure is interesting because it's basically a double-layered puzzle. On the surface, Sangsang needs to survive in a hostile environment with no cultivation method. But underneath, there's this bigger question: what is the connection between her game character and this body? The author is playing 4D chess while I'm over here just trying to figure out if Old Wang is gonna expose her. And that ending where he asks for the sphere back? Chef's kiss. Immediate cliffhanger energy. My only tiny complaint — and this is really nitpicking — is that I wish we'd gotten a bit more of the actual mausoleum atmosphere before the Old Wang scene kicked in. The opening description of the floating stone tablets was gorgeous, but I wanted to linger in that world a bit longer. Still, the pacing is so tight that I can't even be mad about it.

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RighteousFilth Review ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ October 22,2025

Let's talk about Yu Xiu's voice, because this man is a masterpiece of cold, calculated dialogue. Every word he speaks to Yu Sangsang is a weapon. "Since you refuse to speak, then forget it." "Behave yourself, don't harbor wild ambitions, and don't even dream of competing with Xianzhu." "For the sake of my bloodline—so long as you stay obedient—I will at least see you fed." These aren't just lines; they're power moves. He's not talking to his daughter. He's talking to a problem that needs to be managed. And the fact that he does it so casually, so lightly, is what makes it so chilling. But then—here's the thing that really impressed me—he completely drops his guard with Old Wang. The dialogue shifts. He becomes almost confiding, almost vulnerable. "You are not wrong to worry," he says, and then he starts laying out his entire scheme like he's sharing a secret with an old friend. The contrast between how he speaks to his biological daughter versus how he speaks to a servant who has been banished to a tomb is absolutely devastating, and I think that's the author's way of showing us everything we need to know about this man without ever saying "Yu Xiu is a terrible father." Old Wang's voice is equally distinctive. His obsequiousness is almost comedic at times—"I am a loyal servant! If the princess gains her wish, yet the King suffers loss, this old servant cannot bear it!"—but it's also deeply unsettling. The man is performing loyalty so perfectly that you can't tell if he means it or if he's just good at surviving. His dialogue is full of hesitation markers, trailing off, emotional manipulation disguised as concern. Every sentence he speaks is designed to make Yu Xiu trust him more. And Yu Sangsang's internal monologue? Oh, it's gold. The way she processes everything with this detached, almost clinical humor—"A sweet romance novel. Utterly indulgent!"—gives her such a distinct narrative voice. She's not the typical transmigrator who gets angry or sad. She's the one who reads the script, understands the genre, and decides to rewrite it. Her voice is sharp, sarcastic, and deeply unsentimental, and it's exactly what this story needs.

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SinnersLaw Review ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ October 24,2025

Okay, so this entire arc is built on one of the most deliciously cruel plot devices I've ever encountered, and I am HERE for it. The whole premise—swapping two seventeen-year-old girls so the favored stepdaughter gets to infiltrate the most prestigious cultivation sect in the realm—is absolutely wicked, and the author doesn't let us forget it for a single chapter. What makes this plot so satisfyingly layered is that we, the readers, already knew the story. Yu Sangsang literally points it out: this was a sweet romance novel she once read, and she knew exactly how it ended. Xianzhu gets everything. The real Yu Xian'er gets politely turned away at the gate. The sect master weeps with his beloved disciple and vows never to speak of the "counterfeit" again. It's the kind of plot where the villain wins and everyone applauds—and now Yu Sangsang is living inside it, fully aware of the script, which means she's the only person who can see the strings being pulled. The twist that really got me, though, is Old Wang. I thought he was just some background loyal servant, right? The one who gets banished to the mausoleum and then slinks back into Yu Xiu's good graces. But no—he's already feeding Yu Xiu's paranoia, reminding him of his vows, crying about loyalty while quietly maneuvering himself back into power. The man says "I am willing to brave fire and boiling cauldrons for you" and I literally shivered. That's not loyalty. That's a man who has been suffocating in a tomb for fourteen years and is now clawing his way back. And Yu Xiu's confession about the Su Xin Manual? Oh, it gets worse. He didn't just steal a girl's identity—he stole her family's cultivation manual and gave it to the fake. The real daughter, the one who actually inherited the bloodline and the right to learn that technique, is stuck in a mausoleum while the imposter practices it in a prestigious sect. The plot isn't just well-constructed; it's designed to make you absolutely furious on Yu Sangsang's behalf, and I love it.

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