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Water filled his lungs.

Breath had already been spent, leaving only poisonous gas in his veins. He was no fish so his lungs could only attempt to pull the oxygen out of the water, something they weren’t designed for. The iron in his blood could not filter the air out of the liquid, and so he drowned.

The surface was so close to him that it was almost painful how far it felt. As much as he struggled, it looked as though he was no longer making any gains. Probably because he wasn’t; his muscles were still struggling but Jun? He was no longer moving.

He’d been killed by a truck the first time around, and died on his sleep on the second. One was over in a flash and the other he didn’t really experience. But this? This was lingering.

Slow.

Desperate.

Drowning, in his strangely extensive yet limited experience, had to be one of the worst ways to die.

And if his last thought in this life was wondering how much the end sucked? Well, he supposed that’s just how life was. Or death, given what was happening.

And things were going so well…

After the “ambush” just outside Peerless Pearl City, if one were inclined to call such a poorly throughout and rushed-out attempt at robbery, they hadn’t even waited to report it to the city, though Jun was sure the news would get to them regardless. But if they headed straight for home, Jun had guards with injuries in his hands.

And a body to bury.

Traditionally, when a servant died in the line of duty, a Noble family was supposed to be a role model and give them a proper Confucian burial. They had to check with an oracle for the proper time and palace for burying, and they had to bury them in a coffin so as to keep the body as immaculate as they could. A funeral was supposed to be held and yadda, yadda, yadda.

In practice, when a servant died doing servant things, their bodies were simply given over to their families to do as they would. And, if they didn’t have any family, they were buried somewhere it wouldn’t bother anybody. But at least they were provided with a coffin.

Now Lou Tang DID have family who would have gladly accepted his body back…but it was almost a week out to just Jun’s mansion. They gave him the nicest roadside unmarked grave that they could manage.

And he supposed anyone that wanted to could go and lay gifts on his shrine once Lou’s family got around to making one for him.

Anyway, that burden over, they met no other problems on the road back.

“This Young Master acknowledges your performance,” Jun airly said as he waved at his men along the way, “Yet he requires that you select a Captain among yourselves.”

“We can do that Young Lord,” one of the guards admits as he surreptitiously looked at his fellow Guards, considerations and arguments being aired just in the looks they were giving each other.

“However,” Jun warned them, “Know that I would be awfully upset to see a new Guard Captain, so soon after Lou Tang died, waiting for me in this Young Master’s mansion.”

That soured a few faces, but Jun’d had enough of his men’s internal politicking for a while.

Fu had been wary and afraid following the event, but Xia seemed to think it was exciting. Jun had to spend some time assuring the former, while he found the necessity to spend the latter’s… excitement.

“Young Master?” one of his guards called from outside his carriage about week into the trip back, “Your exalted compound is in view.”

“Is that so?” Jun asked as his hand stopped it’s blow.

He had Xia laid across his lap, with her tunic drawn up above her ass. Fu was across from them, patching up some of the men’s tunics, humming to herself as if she didn’t notice Jun’s hand coming down to strike Xia’s ass.

Or the meaty slaps they made.

He’d been with them for almost a month now, and that had gotten them used to their living arrangements. In their own ways of course, but while Xia enjoyed seeing Jun fuck, Fu responded to the constant sex the young woman demanded by mostly ignoring it.

As for Jun? Yeah, he could fuck her. And he did, But since Xia responded well to a little bit of pain, well, spanking her was one of the quickest ways to get her to orgasm.

And Jun needed to be able to do things besides having sex all day.

“Alright, I am going to speed things up a bit here,” he warned his young concubine.

“Oooh, take me all the way, Daddy!” Xia cooed and Jun slammed the palm of his hand on her ass. Given the practice he’d gotten in the last few days, he aimed this one such that his fingers would whip into her taint.

And lash her pussy lips.

“Hmmm, yes!” Xia cried as Jun picked up the pace and didn’t wait for her ass to stop jiggling before he did the same thing.

Again and again.

Every blow made her body shake, and every blow made her moan in pleasure as Jun basically raced his carriage to satisfy this oversexed woman.

Xia gripped the cushions of the carriage bench as Jun started feeling moisture in his palm and, yep, it was leaving her ass and pussy with her liquids as his strength and speed kept increasing.

Fortunately, scant few minutes before the carriage arrived, Jun managed to give Xia a particularly good slap that had her arching her back and opening her mouth.

“Ooooh, heeeeaven!” she moaned as her pussy convulsed as Jun finally stopped and rested. Hand against her vagina, he both felt and watched her go through her whole orgasm.

“Now, let that be a lesson to you,” Jun chuckled as he covered her utterly red ass with her skirt, helping her to her feet and letting her take a seat beside him.

“C-certainly,” she gasped, once again the picture of a proper lady, “W-would you like me to help you be presentable?”

“It’s my turn, Xia,” Fu chose that moment to interject, “Remember?”

“Fine,” Xia huffed out.

His hair was finely braided and his clothes very presentable by the time he got off.

“Guard Captain!” Jun called out as his servants started coming out of his mansion and started unloading his carriage.

“Yes, my lord?” his temporary Guard Captain called out. He wasn’t the same as the last one but, hmm…had one of the traitors been his last temporary Guard Captain? Cause he didn’t spot him anywhere not that he was looking.

Anyway.

“Send your two healthiest men to the Yang compound,” Jun ordered,.

“At once,” the man replied and went to do just that. And just as two men stepped up and very grumbily started pulling their horses out of the road, Jun snapped his fingers.

“Right, I knew I forgot something.”

“Young Master?” his temporary Guard Captain asked.

“Have all the men stand in front of this patriarch,” Jun stretched, “I am done with my audit.”

It took a few days to go over records from a lifetime ago while fighting to remember what exactly he was spending his money on at this time. It helped that he had all his money with him, this time, because he could count all his assets and cross-reference against the total.

And, as it turned out? Yeah, plenty got stolen in his first trip. Which is something he expected.

But the second trip? It turned out to not be much.

All the men nervously shifted in front of him and Jun walked back and forth just to let the moment linger. Just to let it play out.

“This Young Master has been stolen from,” Jun casually commented to them and the guards started sweating, “Something I am quite sure my exalted family would be more than happy to help me with.”

Noble families had legal rights over the lives and deaths of the people that lived in their lands, never mind their servants. How far this power extended was the matter of many an epic story and opera, but his guards knew that they could all be easily replaced if it came down to it. And that “being replaced” in this case might just imply being kicked out into the streets with just the clothing on their back as easily as it could mean being kicked out without some of their hands.

Or just being killed to avoid having to deal with one of their ill-thought-out attempts at revenge later.

The point was, while Jun got the stupidest most fuck-up prone guards that his family had, even they knew how the score was settled.

Of course, if Jun was going to do that, he wouldn’t tell them while they were in the middle of nowhere with no other presence other than his decidedly non-warrior servants and concubines.

“Luckily, the culprits revealed themselves as traitors, as they are wont to do,” Jun nodded to himself.

“R-right you are, my lord,” his temporary Guard Captain agreed.

“Undoubtedly as I always am,” Jun waved him off, “The Guard Captain previous to Lou Tang was obviously the one stealing from me on the first trip, and the four traitors in that nasty ambush were the ones to do so on this trip. It all makes sense.”

The men started to sag in relief as they heard him talk. Given they had actually fought back against the bandits, Jun felt that he could afford to be a little lenient.

“However, given how wily they were, this Young Master must assume that they were capable of forcing some of you to hide Yan taels for them,” Jun gravely said, “As true vermin are wont to.”

But he was still going to have to make them sweat.

“Um, that certainly sounds like something those detestable bastards would do,” his temporary Guard Captain spoke for the rest of the men, “But do you really think that’s necessary, young lord-”

Jun raised a hand, and the man shut up.

“I am going to go inside my mansion and make sure my women are well taken care of,” Jun informed them.

“If, when I come back, the missing taels from my treasury are in the ground, right here in front of me?” Jun motioned to the spot underneath his feet, “Why, this Young Master won’t have to ask any of you to present your clothes and luggage to be inspected.”

If he left this alone after having announced that he would do it, it might encourage his men to start doing it in the future again. Annoying as it was to do this, Jun couldn’t wait too long to bring the stick down, if only because his men had the memory of fish and he really rather get it over with right now.

“I’ll be back,” Jun turned around and walked into his mansion.

“Jun-er I mean Young Master!” Xia almost forgot herself as she watched every inch of Jun’s abode, “This is all so big!”

“This…really is impressive, Young Master,” Fu, on the other hand, managed to look, if not sound, dignified. They were both oogling their surroundings, drinking the walls and passages of the house up as servants came in and out of it, carrying things from the carriage to the storage.

“Make yourself at home,” Jun told them, before briefly pausing, “Given that it's precisely what it is.”

“Where shall we sleep?” Fu asked with some hesitation.

“Why would I have you anywhere but my bedroom?” Jun quirked an eyebrow.

“Ok,” she quietly replied. Was that relief?

“You must be joking, Fu-er!” Xia clasped her hands with the older woman and all but jumped on the spot, “Jun is clearly in love with us! It’s absurd to think he would have us anywhere else!”

Jun snorted at that.

“Oh, you know you are,” she smirked at him.

“You are so obviously overwhelmed with happiness that you dare to contradict this Jun Yan in his own house and in front of his own servants,” Jun aired his face, “Obviously this Noble son will give you face and allow it just the once.”

“Just the once?” even Fu was willing to overstep herself.

“I’ll find a way to punish you if you act up,” Jun shrugged, making Xia smirk and Fu flush.

“Well, um, who is your head servant?” Fu not so subtly changed the topic.

Jun snorted again and opened his mouth to answer the question.

Only to close it again.

He…did not know.

“We can ask them,” his milf gently assured him,

“No, no, I know the answer to this question,” Jun insisted as he wracked his brain. Servants came and went in his second life, so he could hardly be expected to remember every which one. The only people he actually recalled with any surety were those in charge of the others, like his Guard Captains and his…head servant.

Oh, wow, he didn’t remember ANY of his head servants. For that matter was he-was he ever aware that he even had any?

“I could ask one of them?” Xia offered.

“...please do,” Jun said quietly enough that no one else heard.

It actually took a while to get everything sorted but with new faces in his mind, and his women familiarising themselves with how everything worked, Jun figured this would be a good time to go back outside.

And once he did, there was a small pile of silver taels in the road.

“These taels materialized out of thin air, lord!” his Guard Captain assured him, “Must have been heavenly favor for your righteous bearing.”

“Truly, is it possible to expect otherwise from the Yan family?” the guards agreed.

“Indeed, indeed,” Jun made to stroke his beard before he forgot that he didn’t have one yet.

However, just by looking at the small pile, he could already tell that it wasn’t enough to account for all that went missing. But it WAS enough that he ratch it up to the traitors.

“Have your men settle, Guard Captain,” Jun ordered his temporary Captain.

“Servants? Take this inside.”

The inclusion of two additional house members did not prove beyond his resident cook’s ability to nourish, though Fu started looking nervous when she noticed that all possible household chores were already taken care of.

Something to handle later, he supposed.

“This lake is beautiful,” Xia told him as they walked on the bank of the lake that his house was nestled in. She had her arm looped around his and she was resting her head against his shoulder. They had just eaten and, well, going for a walk didn’t sound bad.

It wasn’t exactly hedonistic to enjoy the married-but-not-really life, but given that these women were his investments, Jun supposed he might as well do it.

There were still things he could do, of course, with his future knowledge, but he was quickly running out of low-hanging fruit. And most of it took money which, well, he had spent like water in the last few weeks.

He was going to have to send a letter to his father for more, it seemed. Well, that or he was going to have to ask his siblings for a loan and that carried its own amount of pitfalls.

On the plus side, they would probably not ask him for the money back if they let him borrow some. Given he was basically living off stipends? That was a good thing.

On the negative side, it would be because they would, instead, ask him to repay it with favors.

He knew the scope of the inheritance conflict currently being fought in the Yan family, but given his past choices, he didn’t know many specifics. So he had no idea if having to do any favors now was at all safe.

Sigh, he would pray that his father sent him some money.

Speaking off, something caught his eye as he stared out into the lake.

The sun was setting into the far-off mountains, below the forest and across the lake. The sky burned and the ground started to darken, but something glittered underneath the waves.

The light of the setting sun caught something on the bed of the lake not too far where Jun was, and that made him peer at it.

It was a silver tael.

“What are you looking at, deadly and dangerous master?” Xia prodded him as she tried to see what he was looking at.

“You see that tael there? A guard probably threw it,” Jun snorted as he disentangled himself from his concubine and walked to the edge of the bank.

“Why would he do that?” Xia asked.

“Because he wanted to keep it,” Jun replied as he looked at it with amusement, “Though not anymore.”

He stripped down to his underwear, and passed his clothes to Xia, who accepted them, “That looks a bit deep, Jun-er, will you be fine?”

“This Jun knows how to swim,” Jun replied as he started wading into the water, quickly sinking down to his waist.

“People can do that?” Xia gasped and he turned back to shoot her a grin.

“Well, I can.” this was probably the first bit of honest boasting that he had done in, well, a long time. But swimming was something that he had brought with him into his second life, and not an artifact of being a Yan. It was, in short, something he could have personal pride for.

And so, he turned around and filled his lungs before he dived underneath the water. It was the sort of thing that would look cool.

The water was surprisingly cold, and made him shutter for a bit before his arms and legs kicked at it and brought him down to where the glittering currency was.

It was lodged between two rocks, and getting to it proved a bit difficult as there was a current running underneath the depths. But it wasn’t anything to worry about, honestly. Jun reached out for the tael and closed his hand around it.

He retraced his hand expecting to have the tael in it but…no, it was still lodged between the two rocks.

Well then.

He jerked a bit to try and dislodge it, but the tael didn’t move even an inch. Narrowing his eyes, Jun set his feet just at the sides of the currency, on the rocks littering the bed of the lake. He grabbed the hand holding on to the tael with his free hand and kneeled down before he arched his back.

And kicked off the ground.

And that’s when things sort of, kind of, went completely wrong.

The good news was that he got the tael.

The bad news was that, in doing so, he forced his feet to push and move the rocks enough for his feet to sink into them.

He tugged at his feet, one after the other and then both at the same time. No matter what he did, no matter how he moved, they would not come out, effectively trapping him in.

Causing him to start panicking.

He’d filled his lungs with air before he dived, but that one breath was, by this point, starting to run out. Breathing out allowed him to get rid of some of the carbon dioxide, but his supply of oxygen was decreasing with every action too. This was how people back in his first world died. This was how people in this world probably still died.

Without air, drowning.

But NO! He would NOT panic. He would not just start floundering like beached fish.

He had to calm himself, something that was rather hard without the ability to take breaths, but he nonetheless forced himself to consider the position he was in.

Obviously, force would not dislodge him.

But, perhaps…

The current had wedged him into the smallest and most stable part of the rocks, but by pulling his left foot back where it had come into the grouping of rocks, he was able to slowly pull it back and, YES!

It was free!

His right foot was also able to move back into a more open space, but this one wasn’t pulling out with a gentle tug.

His brain was screaming at him due to the lack of air, so Jun decided to bet everything on setting his left foot next to it. All so that he could simultaneously push and pull against it with his differing legs. It was painful, his calves scraped, but it did its job and he was, all of a sudden, free.

All he had to do now was swim back to the surface.

All he had to do now was kick his legs and push against the water with his arms. Which, he did, mind. And he even made it a good bit of the way too.

But the darkness started looming at the periphery of his vision as the urge to breathe anything, even water, became a truly horrible battle.

The darkness spread and, all of a sudden, he was moving no more.

No, he was drowning.

This was the life he was supposed to do well in. The one he would not fuck up. Yet here he was, just a few weeks into it and he was already dying like a shmuck.

The last two times he had done this, nothing had met him in-between lives. Not gods telling him he fucked up and isekaing him, or devils scrubbing his past experiences to get him ready for a new reincarnation.

One second he was alive, and the next he was not.

One second he was dead, and the next he was alive again.

This time, he opened his eyes and saw Xia crying over him.

“J-Jun!” she sobbed as she cradled his head in her legs, “You are alive!”

He almost reflexively tried to say something quippy, as was expected of a Noble son. Instead, he opened his mouth and started coughing water out.

His lungs tried to expand with clean oxygenated air and dislodged water up his trachea, the spasms briefly allowing air to go into his bloodstream.

But it was obviously not enough.

“B-breathe, Jun!” Xia started slapping his back, “Breathe!”

And he tried. Oh, he tried.

Drowning was a horrible feeling, but pushing water out of his lungs still ranked up there.

“Come on!” Xia encouraged him.

So his diaphragm lurged up and squeezed all the water in his lungs up into his mouth. Jun gagged as he vomited a huge mouthful of water, managing to purge his lungs of it.

“Breathe.”

And then he took it.

The first true breath that he had ever taken.

It filled his lungs, expanding his every cavity. It went into his blood, soothing blood low on oxygen. It went into his brain.

It made him feel as though everything that just happened had just been an idle morbid thought, a call of the void. Something not real.

Because in the wake of that single breath? Jun felt powerful. With his lungs full to bursting, he felt alive, perhaps the most he ever felt. The exhaling was one of the most sensuous things he’d ever done, as he pushed out all of the toxic gas out of his lungs, leaving only what was good inside.

His limbs felt strong. His mind felt strong. His being quivered and he felt, why, like he could do anything!

“Jun?” Xia tugged at him worriedly, looking for an answer.

“I am, hmm, fine,” Jun said as he took another breath, this one lesser than the perfect one.

“More than fine, honestly.” the breath after that was even lesser, making his body and mind stop feeling as though he were on top of the world.

“D-don’t do that again!” Xia begged cried and begged him.

“What, drown?” Jun padded her head. This breath was the worst yet. It not only felt lesser, but it just felt…mundane.

“Swim!” she almost shouted and he went to rub her back when he noticed that something was in his hand.

It was the silver tael. Somehow, amidst the terror and horror of drowning, he had forgotten to drop it.

“Worry not, Xia-er,” Jun assured her as he stared at it, “This was just but an idle whim.”

The tael in his hand had, at some point, been crushed.

“I’ll do better next time.”