It was already high in the sky, but the heavy curtains in the room were still drawn, with only a pitiful amount of sunlight streaming in through the small gaps, bringing a faint light to the dim room.
There was a large bed in the center of the room.
On the bed, a handsome young man slept in the soft, messy blankets. His face was fair, with red marks from the creases of the sheets. His eyes were closed, clearly not yet fully awake.
Just then, the phone on the bedside table suddenly rang its default ringtone. The sound grew louder like an alarm clock, and the melody inevitably stirred up irritability, making it hard to ignore in the quiet room in the early morning.
The young man on the large bed quickly frowned, reached out from under the covers to grab the ends of the pillow, covered his ears, and buried his face in them.
However, the ringtone of a cell phone is extremely penetrating, and the fabric of the pillow in my hand can hardly block the sound.
The young man turned over again, sitting up in bed with a bit of morning grumpiness.
Xu Juexi had faint red marks from the fabric folds on his face, his eyes were half-closed, and his eyes were brimming with tears squeezed out by yawning. He rubbed against the pillow in his arms before slowly moving toward the bedside table, and after a while, he answered the phone call that had disturbed his peaceful sleep.
“Where have you been?”
On the other end of the phone, the man’s voice was clearly displeased, quite sharp and sarcastic. Xu Juexi, already a bit grumpy from being woken up early in the morning, frowned in annoyance: “Who is it?”
”Who? Married into a wealthy family, and now you want to step on my head, your agent?”
”…What wealthy family?”
Xu Juexi paused in rubbing his eyes, becoming slightly more awake.
I was already annoyed to be woken up so early in the morning, and then this person on the phone kept chattering away, saying something I couldn’t understand.
He picked up his phone with displeasure, wanting to know who was so inconsiderate, and saw the note on the contact list:
Agent Wang.
When did he get an agent?
Xu Juexi was puzzled.
He paused, and his brain, which had just woken from a dream, slowly began to function again.
He looked up and around at the room, which was darkened by the curtains—though he couldn’t see clearly, he was certain this wasn’t his home. He looked down at his phone; the model and color were wrong.
The pajamas are wrong too.
Xu Juexi reached behind him and touched the furry ears on the hat, but didn’t find them.
He recalled the words the man had just said on the phone—”Married into a wealthy family”—and a somewhat absurd guess vaguely formed in his mind.
—No way, he time-traveled?
Xu Juexi paused again, slowly processing the situation.
He tried to find something more to support his suspicions, while the man on the phone continued to speak at length.
”You think a nobody like you could actually catch the eye of a powerful family like the Gu family? Let me tell you, if it weren’t for my connections, you’d probably be sleeping with some minor director for some small role right now…”
The man’s voice had an annoying quality, which annoyed Xu Juexi. However, since he was not clear about the current situation, he had to rack his brains to extract useful keywords from the other party’s words.
Gu Jia[1]family jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2424306_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2424306_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, a minor celebrity, an agent…
He realized he had made a connection and recalled a conversation he had with a friend some time ago.
A while ago, when I went shopping with a friend, I seemed to hear him mention a novel. In the novel, there was a cannon fodder character with the exact same name as him. He asked if I wanted to read it and memorize the whole text, just in case I time-traveled.
Xu Juexi wasn’t particularly interested in this type of book, but he still asked, “Are the names of cannon fodder characters really that appealing?”
To prove he wasn’t joking, his friend told him a little about the character.
Xu Juexi began his difficult recollection—this was a male-oriented novel, and the “Xu Juexi” in the book, who was also the original owner of the body, was a very stereotypical villain. He was an obscure 18th-tier celebrity who, in order to climb the ladder, followed a pimping agent. Unexpectedly, he had a stroke of luck and was chosen by the old lady of the Gu family because their horoscopes were compatible, to act as the male bride for the Gu family to bring good luck.
In exchange, the Gu family would provide him with money and resources within their circle.
The reason I call him cannon fodder is because, in my friend’s description, this character with the same name as me had almost no presence, and his final fate was terrible—he was apparently crippled in revenge and eventually committed suicide out of depression.
Xu Juexi hadn’t read the original novel; these were just plot summaries given to him by his friends.
He didn’t know what the original owner had gone through along the way, but he could guess that his final fate was definitely related to the protagonist—after all, he was cannon fodder, and he must have done something against the protagonist in the middle, and was eventually “slapped in the face” by the protagonist.
Xu Juexi had read many novels and was quite accepting of the idea of ”time travel,” but he was struggling with his next steps.
Without the cheat code that most transmigrators have—knowing the plot in advance—Xu Juexi could only struggle to figure out how to face everything that was to come and avoid following the same path as the original owner in the original story.
What should we do?
Xu Juexi’s first thought was to run away.
Anyway, the original owner was a minor celebrity, so making a living with his looks shouldn’t be a big problem. But the problem was that in every novel he had read where a transmigrator who became cannon fodder and tried to escape the main plot had never succeeded. Xu Juexi didn’t think he would be so lucky as to completely break free from the original world line.
Therefore, there is only one way to break the deadlock: get along well with the protagonist.
There are good cannon fodder and bad cannon fodder, right? If you get along well with the protagonist, you might not end up with such a miserable fate, and the protagonist might even take you out to live a life of luxury!
In the blink of an eye, Xu Juexi had decided on his next course of action.
At the same time, he dawdled to the full-length mirror in the room and looked at himself in the mirror.
He was surprised to find that his current appearance was exactly the same as in the original world. He didn’t know if it was because he was a transmigrator or because the original owner of the body really looked exactly like him.
This is a good thing. Xu Juexi has been praised for his beauty since he was a child. Excellent appearance has always been a good way to gain people’s favor. After all, humans are visual creatures, and no one dislikes a beautiful appearance.
From this perspective, the feasibility of his plan has increased.
Thinking of this, Xu Juexi returned to the bedside, just as the man on the phone finished his lecture. He glanced at the name on the contact list, and although he hadn’t heard a word, he obediently replied, “Okay, Brother Wang. Is there anything else?”
On the other end of the phone, Wang Zhe kept spitting into the phone for a long time, but Xu Juexi was so obedient and didn’t argue at all. He was speechless. He could only stick to the original purpose of making this call – to tell Xu Juexi that he was free tomorrow night to go out and attend a dinner party with him.
Recently, a big-name director in the industry is preparing a new film. Wang Zhe wanted to get another minor star under his management into the director’s crew, so he asked someone to set up this arrangement.
The renowned director was extremely strict when it came to casting, and even the minor stars under Wang Zhe’s management weren’t qualified to get a supporting role. But by sheer coincidence, Wang Zhe learned that the director preferred young and handsome boys.
He quickly thought of Xu Juexi.
Although Xu Juexi had been sent to the Gu family and wouldn’t lack resources, Wang Zhe knew he was easily fooled. He could be easily provoked and would obediently do anything. With his good looks, he was sure to win over that famous director, and then the role his little darling wanted would be secured.
Wang Zhe cleared his throat: “There’s a gathering tomorrow night at eight o’clock, at Xiangzhou International. I’ll send you the address later.”
”Okay, Brother Wang.”
Xu Juexi hummed in agreement twice more.
Wang Zhe was preparing to threaten Xu Juexi, but he didn’t expect Xu Juexi to agree so quickly—he seemed unusually well-behaved today, as if he were a completely different person.
However, Wang Zhe didn’t think much of it. Now that the problem was solved, he gave Xu Juexi a few more instructions to make sure he wasn’t late the next day, and then quickly hung up the phone.
Hearing the call end, Xu Juexi snapped out of his reverie and picked up his phone, which had been on speakerphone and placed on the table.
He started searching through the original owner’s phone, hoping to get more information about the original work.
The original owner’s phone was a model from a few years ago, not too old, and showed no signs of use. Xu Juexi unlocked the phone with his facial recognition and browsed through the apps inside; there were very few. Apart from the necessary social media apps, almost all that remained were the system’s pre-installed software.
The album is full of selfies taken for business purposes, as well as landscape photos.
To be honest, the filming wasn’t very good. Xu Juexi opened his social media again, which contained only a few work groups and a handful of contacts, mostly his agent, assistant, and some colleagues.
He casually scrolled through the chat history and discovered that the original owner didn’t have a single friend. The chat content was also like that of a bot; it was either “received” or “knows,” much like the friends he’d worked with for ten years.
Xu Juexi clicked his tongue, feeling that he had roughly figured out the original owner’s character settings.
However, he felt that he couldn’t completely follow the other party’s lead, since he didn’t want to follow the original owner’s old path in the book, and he also felt that he couldn’t keep pretending forever—his personality was probably quite different from the original owner’s.
Thinking of this, Xu Juexi opened the personal information editing page and changed his profile picture first.
It was replaced with a soft and cute rabbit.
The style was quite a departure from the original owner’s plain-colored profile picture, but there was nothing he could do; Xu Juexi couldn’t be gradual in this regard. He then changed his phone wallpaper and theme, and finally opened a shopping app to order a bunch of phone cases. However, when he tried to pay, his phone suddenly popped up with a message saying he didn’t have enough funds.
Xu Juexi glanced at the total price, which was just over three digits. His fingers paused, and he opened the backend to check his balance. He only had a little over sixty yuan left. If he ordered takeout, it wouldn’t even cover two days’ worth of meals.
What’s going on? Is it not easy to make money as a celebrity?
Xu Juexi frowned, wondering if the Gu family provided room and board while checking the original owner’s financial records—he discovered that the original owner had a large expense every month, but he didn’t know what it was for.
The transaction was conducted offline, so it’s unclear what exactly was bought, but judging from the recipient’s name, it should be a pharmacy. Selling medicine? Xu Juexi subconsciously raised his hand to touch his chest. Could the original owner have contracted some kind of illness? But he didn’t feel any obvious discomfort at the moment.
That’s really strange.
There were no other clues left on the original owner’s phone. Xu Juexi put down his phone, which was almost out of battery, leaned back on the bed, and told himself not to rush and to take things slowly.
Xu Juexi yawned and decided to take a nap first.
He had just pulled the blanket back into bed when a sound came from the doorway.
The knocking was urgent and forceful, suggesting the person making the noise was either in a hurry or in a bad mood.
Kindly buy me ko-fi {If you love the work, or if you have any message for translator, do comment there…} https[:]//ko-fi[.]com/rs0081
Xu Juexi’s breath hitched, his sixth sense, which foresaw danger, went off like crazy, and his heart jumped into his throat.
What happened?
References[+]