Host Cen Wan has been bound. You will lose your vital signs in 3 minutes. Please complete the mission as soon as possible.
Mission 1: You are the crown jewel of St. Rode’s brain-dead fans, and you are immensely jealous of Jiang Xinian, who caught the eye of Loren Louis the moment he arrived. You brought Loren’s fanatical followers to corner him in the equipment room to teach him a lesson.
Please slap Jiang Xinian within 1 minute, and verbally insult and warn him that he is a lowly peasant from the slums and better not daydream about getting Young Master Loren’s affection.
Mission Success Reward: Survival time extended by 24 hours.
Countdown: 59 seconds.
58 seconds.
57 seconds.
“That’s right, acting all high and mighty… Just a poor ghost who got in on a special recommendation…”
A noisy, sharp male voice, sounding near and far all at once, exploded in his ear:
“Cen Wan… Do you think he still believes the young master took a fancy to him?”
With those words, a burst of harsh laughter erupted from a distance.
Host, hurry up and slap him! The crisp electronic sound in his mind urged anxiously.
“Slap!”
A crisp sound of a slap.
Cen Wan was still groggy, having yet to recover from the dizziness, but his physical movements were guided by the urgent command in his mind, reacting far quicker than his thoughts.
The soft flesh of his palm scraped fiercely against the supple skin of a person’s face, instantly sending a creeping sensation of dense itching across his entire palm. This itch felt like a sticky, cold venomous snake darting swiftly from his fingertips through his entire arm, stabbing fiercely upward to shatter Cen Wan’s chaotic thoughts and wake him up in an instant.
His palm was still trembling slightly as his vision finally focused to clearly see the scene before him:
A pair of unfamiliar, desolate, and cold eyes, like frozen ice.
A slim, handsome youth was forced to his knees, bearing a reddish-swollen palm print on his face. Though his head was turned slightly from the blow, his expression remained completely placid and indifferent.
Yet those eyes still stared quietly at Cen Wan.
The chaotic and complex memories flooded in along with it.
Cen Wan, who had died of overwork from working too many jobs, had been bound by a vicious cannon-fodder system and transmigrated into a novel.
Cold Beauty Becomes the F4 Group’s Palm Toy was a wildly popular web novel on a certain platform, packed with all sorts of chaotic elements like multi-person rivalry, morbid obsession, forced dynamics, reverse harem, and Mary Sue tropes.
Even though it was the cliché school setting of wealthy young masters and a poor scholarship student where the trope of pursuit played out, the author wrote it with such intoxicating tension that every single gong character and the protagonist shou were overflowing with sexual tension. Halfway through the novel, the comment section had already torn itself apart fighting over the position of the main partner.
St. Rode Academy was the top-tier aristocratic academy in the Federation, a place where money alone couldn’t buy you in. Countless tycoons and powerful elites broke their necks trying to get their children enrolled just to establish connections with the future power-holders. To showcase its humanistic care, the academy also offered five hundred special admissions every year for ordinary-background students. The screening for these spots was rigorous, and the buying and selling of positions was strictly prohibited; anyone caught doing so would permanently disqualify their family lineage from future admissions.
Within St. Rode, the absolute apex of the pyramid consisted of the heirs of the four major wealthy families:
F1: Loren Louis, a blond-and-blue-eyed mixed-race handsome man who sowed his wild oats everywhere and played the field. He was the heir to the Louis family’s commercial empire.
F2: Lu Yan, who possessed phoenix eyes, long hair, and a beauty rivaling women. He had a gloomy personality and disliked interacting with others, serving as the successor to the old-money Lu family.
F3: Fu Xingjian, a tanned, muscular athletic man with a wasp waist and ape-like torso, known for being the most serious and righteous. He was the marshal’s son from the prestigious Fu family.
F4: Shen Xingjian, an ascetic, clean-freak, and peerlessly handsome man who single-handedly propped up a collapsing empire. In just a short half-year, he transformed the declining Shen family into the head of the four major families and became the true mastermind behind the scenes of the Shen family.
The protagonist shou, Jiang Xinian, was a high-and-mighty, cold, and aloof beauty. He transferred into the school in his second year of high school as a scholarship student due to family changes, instantly soaring to the top of the grade ranking. He only wanted to study hard but got hopelessly entangled with these madmen, staging rabid dog-eat-dog scenes all over the campus.
However, none of this had much to do with Cen Wan. He was merely an insignificant little villain in the early stages of the plot, relying on brazenly clinging to others to package himself as F1’s rumored boyfriend. Sporting heavy makeup, he joined the cannon-fodder clique to wreak havoc alongside other minor villains, framing and bullying the protagonist shou in various ways, only to be crushed by one of the gongs’ fingers at the end and dumped out of St. Rode with a miserable fate.
The good news was that just ten seconds ago, Cen Wan’s hand had just come away from the protagonist shou’s face.
Stop spacing out, Host! Hurry up and scold him. If you don’t finish the mission, you’ll die all over again in thirty seconds!
Terrified into a complete blank, Cen Wan spoke out instinctively:
“You lowly peasant!”
Having lived this long, he had never humiliated anyone like this. Stuttering as he spoke while his brain remained groggy and completely unprepared, he flushed red and spoke in a voice as tiny as a baby chick:
“No one will ever like you! Don’t even daydream about it!”
When a bright, soft youthful voice spoke such words, it sounded far more like coquettish flirting than a threatening insult.
Mission completed. Rewarded with 24 hours of survival time.
Countdown: 23 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds.
Cen Wan let out a sigh of relief, the corners of his lips curling up as he couldn’t help acting a bit smug with the system: How was that? Did I do pretty well?
The system’s eyes turned into little stars as it cheered enthusiastically: Wow, Host, you are the most talented person I’ve ever seen! Amazing!
As Cen Wan finished speaking, the surrounding clamor of noisy human voices suddenly fell silent. The next moment, someone spoke up with a weird tone:
“Cen Wan, why do you sound so weak and listless today?”
“Yeah, acting all sissified… Did you come here without eating?”
The voice came from Cen Wan’s right side, but because Cen Wan had slightly poor hearing in his right ear, the sounds reached him muffled and hazy. He had to look around before he could take in the current situation.
Inside the stuffy, dim equipment room, a total of a dozen or so boys stood scattered about, all wearing white and gold uniforms. The group formed a circle enclosing the protagonist shou. Except for the protagonist shou kneeling on the ground who wore a white name tag, everyone else wore dark purple or light purple tags, turning their heads in twos and threes to look at Cen Wan.
So many adolescent boys gathered in such a small space made the air feel thick with a sticky heat from their breathing, and Cen Wan’s face began to itch along with their words.
Cen Wan frowned uncomfortably, pressing his lips together and opening his mouth to say he needed to leave first when the system issued a new task:
Mission 2: Loren organized a welcome party for the newcomer Jiang Xinian, but was rejected by the ungrateful scholarship student when he extended the invitation. Please step on Jiang Xinian’s foot and successfully threaten him to attend tomorrow night’s welcome party.
Mission Success Reward: Survival time extended by 24 hours.
T-Tong-ge, do I really have to step on him? Cen Wan negotiated with the system timidly:
Can I step on him lightly so the protagonist doesn’t hold too much of a grudge?
Will there be a penalty if I don’t complete the mission?
0813 was also on the job for the first time. Hearing its pitiful little host’s question, its code practically ran into a smokescreen of panic as it hurriedly flipped through whichever data sector recorded answers to similar questions. Then, it happily cheered Cen Wan up:
It’s okay, Host! I checked, the freedom for our vicious cannon-fodder system is still very high, since it’s dirty work after all… As long as the general idea gets across, it’s fine!
There’s no penalty for failing to complete the task, but if you don’t get the reward to sustain the energy keeping you alive, you’ll be dead by this time tomorrow, uwu!
Cen Wan hesitated for a moment. Hearing that he would die tomorrow if he didn’t complete it, he was so startled that he stepped onto Jiang Xinian’s left shoulder, causing the protagonist shou’s body to lean back slightly and sending a wave of intimate, gorgeous fragrance close by.
Jiang Xinian lowered his head, his half-length bangs covering the upper half of his face and blocking Cen Wan’s line of sight. His expression was unreadable.
Cen Wan quickly restrained his strength, his small black leather shoes resting lightly on Jiang Xinian’s shoulder like a cat that bristled its fur but didn’t dare unsheath its claws. The dust on the soles of his shoes left a long, narrow gray smudge on Jiang Xinian’s white-and-gold uniform. Swallowing hard twice, he put on a false front of bravado and lowered his voice to speak:
“Young Master Luo throwing a welcome party is honoring you! You have to go tomorrow whether you want to or not! Otherwise…”
Cen Wan paused, utterly at a loss for how to threaten the protagonist shou. With no other choice, he raised his volume and angrily snapped in frustration:
“Anyway, I won’t let you off!”
Silence fell abruptly.
Cen Wan’s toe shifted, hooking Jiang Xinian’s chin to force him to lift his head and face him.
“Did you hear me?”
Jiang Xinian’s lips were pressed tightly shut, his eyes half-closed as he avoided looking at Cen Wan. His long, dense eyelashes cast a light shadow beneath his eyes, masking all the emotions within them.
“Speak!”
Jiang Xinian clenched his palms, still pressing his lips together in silence.
Being ignored repeatedly instead stirred up a temper in Cen Wan, the bully. Remembering that his time was running out, he couldn’t help letting a sob slip into his voice, stubbornly forcing out a hoarse murmur:
“Don’t force me to get rough with you!” The tail end of his voice trailed off dryly, making him sound much more like the one being bullied.
Everyone around could tell something was amiss and opened their mouths to advise:
“Cen…”
“Mn.” Jiang Xinian, who had remained silent all along, suddenly responded, his light-colored pupils staring straight at Cen Wan.
Cen Wan was taken aback.
Shifting his gaze away erratically, he timidly pulled back his foot.
Mission Completed: Rewarded 24 hours of survival time.
A tiny dimple pressed into Cen Wan’s cheek as he raised his brow triumphantly:
“Hmph, consider yourself smart.”
So as long as I replace the original host to complete the plot, I can get a new body and a new identity to start over here, right?
Mmhmm, yep! Our general headquarters is very humane. If the original host wakes up and doesn’t want to be a vicious cannon-fodder anymore, they get sent to another world.
So Cen Wan is physically transmigrated, using your own body. For those who accept using the original host’s body and where the original host is already dead, it switches to soul transmigration.
Though why is Cen Wan’s body so weak? My heart aches, uwu, why did you have to work so many jobs?
I owed a lot of money.
Why? 0813 continued to probe.
Cen Wan’s expression dimmed for a fleeting second, his lowered eyelids hiding his emotions as he smiled:
It’s nothing. I’ll tell you about it another time if there’s a chance, okay?
0813 realized something was up, immediately shutting its mouth and switching to a happier topic: Mmhmm! I’m 0813, please take care of me from now on!
I’m Cen Wan. 0813, I’m very glad to meet you. When Cen Wan spoke to others, his tone always softened unconsciously.
0813 felt so lucky! It had heard many seniors say that some hosts were very smart and would play poor systems in the palm of their hands!
Its own host looked so cute and lovely. Hearing him speak made 0813’s heart melt, and even though the makeup on his face looked a bit strange, after looking at it for a while it was kind of cute.
Wan Wan! There’s another mission!
Mission 3: You heard that F4’s Shen Xingjian is finally returning to school today, and you head out full of anticipation to a spot where you might stake out an encounter with him, only to witness the shameless Jiang Xinian grabbing the lead. You are filled with indignation. What makes you even angrier is that he turns out to be your new roommate. You decide to teach your new roommate a lesson.
Please order Jiang Xinian to wash your feet before 12:00 tonight, and humiliate him by calling him a lowly dog not fit for public view, telling him not to dream of seducing someone he can never hope to reach.
Mission Success Reward: Survival time extended by 48 hours.
Cen Wan blushed all the way to his ears, asking 0813 in a tiny, quiet voice: Why does this sound a bit wrong?
0813 patted its code: Rest assured, our system tasks are totally professional! There won’t be any problems at all!
Cen Wan uttered a soft “oh,” So there’s actually a hidden task within this mission where I have to witness the protagonist gong and shou meeting first?
0813 had a sudden realization: Wan Wan is so smart! I… I was just about to remind you haha.
Then where should we go to run into them?
0813 fell silent for a moment, its tone turning dejected: It didn’t say… Looks like we’ll have to find them ourselves, uwu, I’m so useless.
Cen Wan hurriedly comforted it: It’s fine, it’s fine. Then we can just go find the protagonist shou and it’ll be fine, right?
That’s right! Then let’s quickly take the elevator back to the equipment room and see if they’re still there!