Tuan Anyu couldn’t fall asleep in the middle of the night, so he inadvertently clicked on a male-oriented xianxia web novel titled Bai Chen.
As he read on, the angrier he became. It had a high starting point but plummeted toward the end; the synopsis was deceptive. No matter how passionate the early chapters were, the later ones were equally sickening. The ending was forcibly rewritten, the author threw caution to the wind and gave up, leaving plot holes unfilled, and the conclusion felt utterly inexplicable.
The Immortal Venerable within who looked as peerless as an immortal descending from the heavens, stood as the number one figure in the cultivation world, and was a favored child of heaven was actually framed by his disciple, falling into corruption and having his ruthless path shattered. Although the ending turned out good for Shizun, the process itself was utterly vicious.
Reading further made his eyes ache.
Insults in the comment section were countless, enough to pile up several hundred buildings.
He suspected that this entire ending had been written on the fly because of the negative reviews. The vicious disciple humiliated Shizun for a full thirty chapters, while Shizun punished the vicious disciple in a mere three.
Just as he was about to post a comment to follow the trend:
“Which mentally handicapped academy is this author from? Judging by your literary foundation, you haven’t graduated to this day, have you?!”
“A lousy author and a lousy novel! Don’t call yourself Nanke Yimeng (A Dream of Nanke); you should call yourself Huangke Zuomeng (Huangke’s Daydream) you need to sweep everyone else clean before you even think about sweeping the floor yourself!”
As soon as he finished typing, his hand grew sore, and his tablet plummeted downward at high speed. Before he even had time to feel the burning pain, his vision went black and he instantly lost consciousness…
From ancient times to the present, he couldn’t possibly be the first person to be smashed to death by a tablet computer, could he?!
He was an office worker now, not a student; why was he still so fragile?
Tuan Anyu stared in jaw-dropping astonishment at the cold corpse lying on the bed. Its forehead was bruised a deep purple and bore an ugly-looking, massive lump.
The tablet’s screen was shattered too, and a replacement screen would cost several hundred yuan. His internship salary was less than 2,000 yuan, and he still had to save it to replace his computer monitor.
He might as well go over to the neighbors’ place tomorrow morning to scrounge a free breakfast, and by the way, ask his good dad and good mom for some money. Thinking of his parents made him feel a bit bitter. Apart from giving him money, they provided absolutely nothing else. Perhaps because it was their first time being parents, being unqualified was only natural.
But wasn’t everyone a parent for the first time?!
When he was little and abused by the nanny, the two of them were away enjoying their honeymoon. Fortunately, the nanny was later reported by other parents, otherwise he wouldn’t even have been able to open his mouth to voice out how many pinpricks he might have been subjected to.
Ever since then, there were no more nannies, and at a tender age, he had to mix his own formula milk to drink.
Aside from this incident, there was also his first time caught in the rain, his first time going to school, his first time falling ill, and so on they were never by his side when it mattered most. Fortunately, he was someone with a tough life who hadn’t grown warped, and his psychological state remained relatively normal.
As long as they gave money, it hadn’t been easy for him to grow up, and he couldn’t just die like this.
There was no time to reminisce any further about the past; his body was still passed out dead on the bed!
He tried every possible method to wriggle, jump, plunge, tumble, and sprint his way back into the shell of his body, but every single attempt resulted in him being bounced back several meters away.
SOS!!…
Just as he was preparing to make a second charging attempt, a dazzling flash of white light blinded his eyes, and he fell into a black-and-white space an endless expanse of white dotted with countless glowing fireflies.
Welcome, Host, to the System’s space
A youthful, adolescent voice drifted in from afar, resembling an AI, echoing near and far.
Tuan Anyu found it inexplicable; Tuan Anyu neither understood nor respected it. Could it be that staying up late could actually make someone hear ghosts talking?! Who was setting a trap to harm him? Whose cheese had he moved?!
Congratulations to the Host for becoming the very first transmigrator. As long as you complete the missions under this System’s prompts, you will receive 100 million yuan.
“L-Let’s forget it. I don’t seek great wealth and nobility; a peaceful and ordinary life is the real truth…” Tuan Anyu said while simultaneously attempting to track down the source of the voice.
Really not considering it? Don’t you want to understand it a bit more?
“No thanks, I still have to go to work at nine o’clock tomorrow morning.”
A dead silence followed. Tuan Anyu felt somewhat nervous, unable to imagine what kind of expression his mother would wear opening the door the next day to find his face swollen and lying motionless on the bed she’d be terrified out of her wits.
Hmph, better yet if she was scared to tears.
Host, you’re dead; you don’t need to go to work.
Aren’t you resigned to being smashed to death by a tablet at such a young age? Don’t you want to be reborn?
What could he do if he wasn’t resigned to it? There was no time-reversal; let him take a melatonin pill instead. The more he thought about it, the angrier he got shouldn’t he have gone to bed earlier? Wouldn’t all these damn troubles have been avoided?
Tuan Anyu asked probingly, “How do I get reborn? Is it simple?”
Simple, simple.
This System’s main tenets are being laissez-faire, humane, and ensuring you play happily.
The Host simply needs to earn points by completing missions, and then exchange them for ‘Revive at Full Health’ from the store to return to your original world.
Would things really be so effortless? Why bother doing anything if there’s so much money involved? Tuan Anyu didn’t believe that pies fell from the sky, but he had no other choice.
Glancing at his nearly transparent hand, he decided to give it a try and said, “Fine… I agree!”
Re-Really?!
The voice calling itself the System paused, then immediately recovered.
That’s great! Then, Host, please sign the transmigration agreement by placing your hand right on it.
Raising his gaze, the scattered fireflies rapidly converged, merging into an agreement. The few sentences written within couldn’t help but feel rather perfunctory:
Tuan Anyu voluntarily becomes the first transmigrator of “Bai Chen”, maintaining harmony within the book, surviving well, and completing the plotline.
Wasn’t Bai Chen the exact novel he had just been reading? In the end, the protagonist killed his disciple to uphold the Dao, and while the ending was deeply gratifying, the six days and six nights in the middle involving imprisonment, chains, beast ears, submission…
The thirty middle chapters detailing Shizun being violated left readers with a lump in their throats, as if choking on a fishbone.
Someone as beautifully peerless as that ought to remain pristine forever; cursing the author hadn’t been harsh enough.
To chase after web traffic by forcibly injecting pornographic tropes, disregarding the grievances and complaints of the vast majority of readers, the author deserved to be cursed to death.
Once the signing was complete, considering how ordinary he was knowing nothing except drinking coffee, and facing a world dominated by the law of the jungle and rampant demons like cultivation wouldn’t he die a horrific death?
Worriedly, Tuan Anyu asked, “If I die and fail the mission, what happens?”
Life is precious, so cherish it as you walk.
If you truly die and fail the mission, the Host can only become a wandering lone ghost, exposed day after day to wind and sun, lightning and rain.
By that time, this System will leave, and you will have nowhere left to go you’ll have no place to call home in this world.
“Oh wow, that’s way too miserable.”
Tuan Anyu’s heart skipped a beat, unable to fathom the wretchedness of failure. This spawned the determination that failure was simply not an option; success was the only permitted outcome. He wanted to go home, and after that, he would never touch a tablet again.
“How many points do I have right now?”
Check for yourself.
The panel gradually formed from the fireflies before him. The display showed his points at 0, while “Revive at Full Health” in the store required a full 10,000 points to redeem, and the 100 million yuan required 100,000 points.
Tuan Anyu pressed his lips together, his heart unable to settle for a long time:
What the heck?! There wasn’t even a single bit of sponsored starter capital!
“Aren’t there any newbie starter points, System?” he probed inquiringly, looking upward with expectant eyes.
The only response he received was a cold “None”.
Please get ready, Host. We are now going to begin the simulation drill to adapt to traveling into the book’s world.
Host, your main quest is to raise the protagonist Bai Chen’s favorability to one hundred percent, and your side quest is to survive well.
A sensation of weightlessness and suffocation surged over him. Even a simulation drill was this agonizing! His brain felt as though it was about to explode, and his breathing grew frantically rapid.
I didn’t die a second time, did I?! Tuan Anyu thought to himself.
People don’t die twice.
That’s common sense, my dear Host.
Holy crap! I didn’t even speak out loud, yet you can still hear my inner monologue?! Are you seriously that OP?!
Being able to hear the Host’s inner thoughts allows me to serve as your better System!
Heehee.
Oh~ Can I hear your inner thoughts too?
Host, are you an idiot?
I’m a System; what kind of System has a heart? You actually want to listen to my inner thoughts too.
“Please restore your previous attitude, okay?” Tuan Anyu felt a sense of unfairness in his heart. “You aren’t allowed to eavesdrop on my inner monologue.”
“And is my newbie gift pack really nonexistent? Just cough up a little bit of something, will you~”
Er alright then, respected Host.
Let this System request an inquiry from the higher-up system, since there hasn’t been a situation like this before.
Crossing his arms, Tuan Anyu stated, “It’s nonexistent because I’m the first one; newbies deserve to be treated well. And another thing, the mission mentioned it how are points acquired?”
Applying now, please don’t be impatient.
Er, um… (Loading…)
…One minute passed…
For every one percent increase in the protagonist’s favorability, one hundred points are added. For every single day the Host survives in the book’s world, one point is added.
Additionally, random missions will offer random bonus points. The Host can choose to complete them or skip them; this System is very casual as long as the Host stays alive.
Okoko!
It sounded quite relaxed.
Transmission is about to begin. Don’t panic, just stay alive, and I wish the Host a pleasant journey in the world of “Bai Chen”~
Pleasant my foot; my head is about to explode again.
Tuan Anyu felt as though he were riding a rollercoaster at an amusement park; he felt like throwing up.