“Come on, cheers!”
Inside a high-end club in Jingcheng, melodious music accompanied the crisp sound of colliding wine glasses. Song Wan felt his neck being hooked by someone, and amidst his dizziness, he felt someone breathing against his ear.
“Once tonight passes, Jiang Shen and Eldest Miss Gu will never stand a chance again. I can already imagine Jiang Shen’s expression after you upload the video online, hahaha!”
Song Wan only caught a few scattered keywords.
The name Jiang Shen sounded very familiar, as if he had seen it somewhere before.
Song Wan’s brows furrowed tightly as he dazedly opened his eyes.
Where was this… It looked like a club? Wasn’t he sent to the ICU for emergency resuscitation due to worsening illness?
“What’s with that expression? I was the one who came up with the idea of drugging him, and we agreed you would buy me a sports car after it succeeds, so don’t think about reneging.”
The hand hooked around Song Wan’s neck gave his shoulder a sharp pat, and only then did Song Wan clearly see the person next to him.
The boy was around his age, in his early twenties, with an exaggerated head of dyed red hair, freckles on his face, and two prominent little canine teeth visible when he smiled.
Song Wan’s eyelashes trembled, and he abruptly widened his eyes.
Damn it, he remembered.
Because he was bedridden for a long time and extremely bored, he had borrowed a few novels to pass the time from his cousin, who was a ten-year veteran bookworm. Not long ago, he had just finished reading a dog-blooded angst novel titled Deep Affection, and the male lead in it was named Jiang Shen, along with a malicious villain who shared his exact same name.
As for this little red-haired fellow right before his eyes, he was Du Bingqiao, the sworn brother of the villain in the book, looking identical to how he was described.
This had to be a dream.
Song Wan ran through the core socialist values in his heart three times, then resolutely pinched his thigh.
[Ding! Congratulations, dear, for unlocking the transmigration system through pain. I am your little assistant Siri, feel free to ask me anything~]
Time was pressed onto the pause button, and a mechanical female voice filled with a faint sense of ingratiation resounded in Song Wan’s mind.
Song Wan clutched his leg, stubbornly holding back tears from shooting out.
What on earth? Transmigration? And they even hooked him up with a system?!
[Yes, dear, you passed away in real life after emergency resuscitation failed. The system detected your strong desire to survive, and specifically dropped you into this novel to become the villain Song Wan and continue extending your life.]
Hearing this, Song Wan’s heart grew half cold.
His desire to survive was indeed very strong; although the doctor originally said he wouldn’t live past a year, he had stubbornly lasted five years in his hospital bed.
Now that he had finally kicked the bucket, changing identities to keep living sounded like it might not be bad…
But did he really think the villain’s ending in the original book was good?!
The Song Wan in the book was a second-generation heir of the Song family, pampered and spoiled since childhood.
Simply because he found the male lead Jiang Shen unpleasing to the eye, he used every possible means to obstruct the male lead and the female lead from dating, crazily creating misunderstandings between them. To put it simply, he was a troublemaker.
Not only that, but he was also jealous that the male lead was the “child of other parents” praised by their elders, and he racked his brains to humiliate the male lead and ruin his reputation.
In the end, the troublemaker drugged the male lead inside a hotel room, luring him over with the intention of using hidden cameras to record indecent little videos of the male lead with someone else.
This behavior completely enraged the male lead.
After the Song family went bankrupt, the male lead settled old scores and new grievances all at once, throwing him to the Song family’s former enemies, where he was ultimately played to death alive in bed.
Siri hurriedly consoled him: [Don’t lose heart. The original host met a tragic retribution because he committed too many bad deeds. As long as you make a little amends and turn over a new leaf, you can change the original ending in the book.]
“Is that so? Then where has the plot progressed to right now?” Song Wan finally ignited a sliver of hope and asked with a trembling voice.
[Uh, the drugging has already been completed.]
“Pfft…”
The hope that had just ignited was instantly extinguished.
Song Wan turned to stone on the spot, then cracked apart with a pop.
The original host had already done everything he should and shouldn’t have done, and the Song family was going to go bankrupt in two months. What on earth was left to make amends for here?!
Other people transmigrated right to the beginning, or at the very worst, somewhere in the middle of the plot. When it came to his turn, he crashed straight into the grand finale, wasn’t this purely delivering his head on a platter?
Detecting the host’s agitated emotions, a timid Siri dropped offline and played dead.
As soon as Siri went offline, the time standstill ended, and the people around them started moving again.
Du Bingqiao also came from a wealthy family and didn’t lack this single sports car; when Song Wan ignored him, he didn’t care either, turning instead to hug a hostess while wanting to continue boasting, only to be suddenly called out by Song Wan.
“Has Jiang Shen already gone upstairs?”
In the book, drugging and setting up cameras was done by the original host, while finding someone to lure Jiang Shen was arranged by Du Bingqiao.
Du Bingqiao thought for a moment, then drunkenly waved his hand: “Not yet, but my people said he’s already heading to the hotel, don’t worry.”
With a whoosh, Song Wan stood up.
Fortunately, heaven never cuts off all avenues; as long as he cleared out the cameras and the drugs in the room before Jiang Shen arrived, wouldn’t that solve it?
Without waiting for Du Bingqiao to react, Song Wan directly pushed aside the two hostesses clinging to him and bolted straight out of the private room.
By the time Du Bingqiao finished boasting and wanted to clink glasses with Song Wan, he turned his head back.
“Where’s the person?”
It was already November in Jingcheng. Stepping out of the club, Song Wan, wearing only a single shirt, shivered all over from the chilling wind.
Wanhao Hotel was very close to the club, separated by just a single street.
Song Wan had no time to think as coughs rose up to his throat, and he sprinted toward the hotel.
His limbs had nearly atrophied from prolonged bed rest due to illness; once he engaged in sudden strenuous exercise, a mere hundred meters left him gasping for air.
Seeing someone walk through the doors, the hotel receptionist had only uttered the first two syllables of “Welcome”
Panting heavily, Song Wan braced himself against the marble counter, beads of sweat dampening his temples: “Has, has anyone gone up to 1608?”
The receptionist froze, then clicked her mouse twice: “Yes, two people have already checked in.”
Room 1608 was a couple’s suite. A woman had come to open the room in the afternoon, a handsome man had gone upstairs a few minutes ago, and now another person had arrived.
The receptionist silently raised her gaze to look at Song Wan, unable to hide her expression of eating melons.
“Two people?” Song Wan thought to himself that this was bad.
Originally, there should only have been one Japanese teacher waiting in the room to film intimate videos with Jiang Shen. Now that there were two people, Jiang Shen must have already gone up.
Song Wan cursed inwardly.
He hurriedly took the elevator upstairs, with the receptionist shouting behind his back: “Sir, you haven’t registered yet!”
Song Wan had no time to worry about registering or not. His mind was blank, and the alcohol he had previously consumed with Du Bingqiao was churning violently in his stomach.
The hotel hallway was decorated like a labyrinth. After mustering nine bulls and two tigers of effort to find room 1608, Song Wan raised his hand and began banging loudly.
He used all his strength to knock several times, and seeing no one open the door, he anxiously pressed his ear against the door panel to listen to the movement inside.
“Jiang Shen! Can you hear me? Open the door quickly, Jiang Shen!!!”
Don’t tell him dry wood had already caught fire to the point of no return!
Song Wan stepped back slightly: “If you don’t open the door, believe me, I’ll make you wear a green hat tomorrow—”
The door opened from the inside without any warning.
“Eh?!” Song Wan kicked into empty air, his entire body plunging headfirst into the dark room.
Not a single light was on inside the suite, and Song Wan couldn’t see a thing, only able to stagger a few steps forward following his momentum.
Seeing his center of gravity fall unstable and that he was about to eat dirt, his knees hit the edge of the sofa, and he threw himself into the soft cushions.
A pungent aroma emanated through the interior, mixed with the aphrodisiac personally administered by the original host.
Song Wan subconsciously held his breath, rolling over to glare at the figure by the door.
Feeling somewhat uncertain, he asked in a low voice: “Jiang Shen?”
With a “click” sound.
The door closed, and the dim hallway light of the suite was switched on.
A mature, tall man wearing a suit and shirt had his tie half-hanging around his neck. The scorching desire of Chinese medicine flushed deep within his deep pupils, yet a layer of biting frost covered his stern face.
The man hoarsely repeated: “Jiang Shen?”
His eye color was very light, a pale brown, and his height was visually approaching 1.9 meters, carrying the scent of men’s cologne.
Song Wan, sprawled in the sofa, lifted his head in a daze.
What was going on? This person wasn’t Jiang Shen; the book clearly stated the male lead’s eyes were black.
Song Wan’s gaze moved downward along the man’s high nasal bridge.
There was a small mole on the man’s protruding Adam’s apple, and he wore a black jade thumb ring symbolizing power on his knuckle-defined index finger.
Song Wan had an impression of this thumb ring; only one person in the entire book had ever worn it the female lead’s older brother, Gu Jinzhou, who had seized control of the entire family by the tender age of twenty-seven.
Song Wan’s brain short-circuited.
No, brother…
Wasn’t the person drugged in the room supposed to be Jiang Shen?
Why was it the female lead’s brother instead???!!!