Chapter 1: The Debugging Script and the Sudden Dynasty
Lin Xue, a woman whose life motto was "Never give up on coffee or an impossible deadline," was a veteran of the digital age.
She had stared down existential dread during caffeine shortages, conquered twenty-hour-long, pizza-fueled coding sprints, and even navigated one truly catastrophic office team-building retreat involving mandatory interpretive dance.
Yet, absolutely nothing in her meticulously organized, modern existence—not even a server crash—had prepared her for the moment her simple debugging script opened a doorway to another world.
It had started, ironically, like any other utterly mundane Tuesday night.
Outside, the late-autumn rain was lashing against the windows of her tiny, high-rise apartment, painting the glass with streaks of gray.
Inside, the only sounds were the soft, loyal hum of her powerful laptop and the frantic clatter of her fingers on the keyboard.
Her glasses were fogged, and her expression was a mix of intense focus and sheer, sleep-deprived desperation.
"Okay, my dear old code, AzureCloud.exe," she muttered, leaning closer to the screen that was filled with cascading lines of beautiful, infuriating text.
Her voice was a low, conspiratorial whisper. "Just compile this one time, and I swear on my mechanical keyboard, I will stop threatening the ancestors of your binary code."
The code, naturally, chose that precise moment to ignore her.
Instead of the comforting ding of a successful compile, her monitor flickered violently.
Then, the unexpected happened: the ancient, cloudy jade pendant hanging from her desk lamp—a charming but purely aesthetic family heirloom—began to glow with a gentle, warm light.
Xue blinked once, then again, slowly removing her glasses.
"Uh… Mom?" she called out to her empty apartment.
"Did you finally manage to buy a Bluetooth-enabled jade? Because that's a new level of smart-home integration."
A moment later, a powerful, brilliant pulse of light surged from the pendant.
Her entire apartment was consumed, and her monitor—her poor, faithful monitor—erupted in a violent, dazzling storm of blue-white lightning.
She had just enough time to clutch her chest and shout, "I did not consent to firmware updates! Cancel! Escape! CTRL-ALT-DELETE!" before the familiar, stable world of her life inverted, folding in on itself like a cheap pop-up tent.
When she finally managed to pry her eyes open, she was no longer smelling the faint scent of instant ramen and electrical burn.
She was lying on a ridiculously polished, cold slab of pale marble beneath an elaborate, ornate ceiling that seemed to be completely painted with golden, majestic dragons.
A soft, sweet, unfamiliar scent—a rich incense, perhaps sandalwood—wafted faintly in the still, warm air.
It was gorgeous, silent, and incredibly alien.
The moment she tried to sit up, groaning, she realized two facts that made her heart drop straight into her stomach:
Her comfortable, worn-out gray hoodie and yoga pants had been replaced by layers of ridiculously soft, complicated silk robes in a delicate shade of sky blue.
She looked like she was drowning in fabric.
A full dozen palace maids, dressed in matching uniforms, were staring at her with wide, terrified eyes, as if she were the reincarnation of pure, unadulterated chaos itself.
One of the maids, who looked about as terrified as a kitten facing a bath, whispered urgently, "Oh! Oh, the Lady Lin has finally awakened!"
"The… who now?" Xue asked weakly, her throat dry.
She tried to rub the sleep out of her eyes, but the heavy sleeves made it impossible.
Before she could even manage to stand up and ask for the nearest Wi-Fi password, the massive, imposing doors to the chamber were dramatically slammed open.
Standing silhouetted in the doorway was a ridiculously tall man clad in glimmering silver-white armor.
His dark hair was meticulously tied high with a jade pin, and his gaze—sharp, intense, and utterly unnerving—looked like it could slice straight through a person's thoughts.
"Report," he stated, his voice a low, resonant rumble that seemed to physically vibrate the room.
The maids instantly dropped to the floor, executing perfect, terrified bows.
"Your Highness Prince Han Jinhai!" the maid from before managed to squeak out.
"The… the Lady Lin lives!"
Prince? Your Highness?
Xue squinted at the magnificent, stone-faced man.
"Hi there," she said, trying to sound friendly and casual.
"Quick question for the room—did I die, or is this just the world's single most immersive, high-budget VR demonstration?"
The man, Prince Han Jinhai, frowned—a deep, analytical line between his brows. "You speak… oddly," he observed, his eyes scanning her face.
"Are you experiencing any pain, Lady Lin?"
"Mostly existential," she deadpanned.
A dozen suppressed gasps echoed around the suddenly silent chamber, but Jinhai merely continued to study her, his expression unreadable.
"You struck your head severely when the lightning fell," he finally decided.
"Perhaps a degree of confusion is to be expected."
"Lightning?" Xue echoed.
Then, she looked down.
The familiar, cloudy jade pendant lay nestled against her chest, pulsing with that same soft, warm glow.
The exact one from her apartment.
"Oh," she whispered, her voice tinged with a strange mix of awe and horror.
"I see.
So, you do have Wi-Fi after all."
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That evening, Lin Xue, or rather, the person now occupying the body of Lady Lin Xue, was confined to what was apparently "her" opulent quarters.
She spent the long hours attempting to piece together the shattered fragments of her reality.
From the nervous, overly formal whispers of the maids, she had deduced that she had somehow woken up in the Celestial Yun Palace, a truly massive and ancient place. Her consciousness had body-swapped with someone named Lady Lin Xue—a known noblewoman, an intellectual, and, hilariously, a scholar rumored to dabble in mysterious, celestial alchemy.
The servants treated the new Lady Lin with a mixture of terrified respect, as though they were genuinely expecting her to spontaneously combust into a pillar of shimmering light at any moment.
Which, to be fair, wasn't entirely inaccurate, considering that the jade pendant nestled at her throat occasionally let out a brief, bright spark.
When the maids finally curtsied their way out and left her blissfully alone, she hurried to face the nearest polished bronze mirror.
The reflection staring back had her face—the familiar curve of her jaw, the shape of her eyes—but it was smoother, much paler, and framed by luxurious, midnight-black hair that cascaded all the way down to her waist.
She looked, to her absolute dismay, exactly like the impossibly beautiful, tragic, and entirely helpless heroine of every single historical drama ever made.
"Okay, new plan," she muttered, pointing a finger at her reflection.
"I've been… isekai'd," she used the Japanese term for being transported to another world.
"Fine.
Don't panic.
I've read the manga.
I've watched the anime.
I know the rules."
She ticked them off on her fingers.
"Step one: do not die in the first twenty minutes.
Step two: find the tutorial NPC and figure out the save points."
The pendant suddenly pulsed against her skin, warmer this time.
A faint whisper brushed against the edge of her mind—it sounded mechanical and ethereal all at once, like a robot speaking from a distant star.
System Boot Complete.
Host Synchronization: 87%.
Designation: Guardian Candidate — Azure Protocol.
Xue froze, her jaw dropping. "Wait… wait, are you actually talking to me? Like… with thoughts?"
Affirmative.
Divine Contract initiated.
Mission parameters: restore celestial balance.
"Celestial balance," she repeated flatly. "Couldn't I just… you know… restore my old life instead? Because my deadlines are going to be terrible."
Silence.
Just the low, steady pulse of the jade.
"Figures," she sighed, running a hand through her impossibly long, perfect hair. She hauled the whole lot into a messy knot—her signature hairstyle.
"Alright, you big pile of cosmic code.
If this whole thing is a dream, I am absolutely suing my subconscious for a catastrophic lack of user testing."
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The next morning, the grand, quiet morning peace was shattered by the arrival of a very official palace messenger, who summoned her to the tranquil outer gardens.
The note was written in an impossibly elegant, curling calligraphy that looked like an expensive piece of art:
Lady Lin Xue, by decree of His Highness, Prince Han Jinhai, you are to present yourself for evaluation on the morning of the third hour.
"'Evaluation'?" she muttered to herself, smoothing out the paper.
"Oh, that's just great.
That sounds exactly like HR, except with more silk robes."
When she arrived, Prince Han Jinhai was, predictably, already waiting for her beneath a beautifully blossoming plum tree.
His silver-white robes caught the morning light, making him look less like a prince and more like a perfectly sculpted piece of frost.
"Lady Lin," he greeted her, his tone perfectly cool, professional, and utterly devoid of warmth.
"You gave us a moment of genuine concern.
No person of this realm survives a direct lightning strike untouched."
"Yeah, well," she said cheerfully, walking toward him with her hands tucked into her sleeves.
"I'm built different.
I run on pure spite and energy drinks."
He blinked slowly.
"…Pardon?"
"Never mind," she waved a hand dismissively. "
Translation error.
My brain static is still buffering."
He studied her for a long moment, his gaze analytical, like a scientist looking at a new, potentially volatile specimen.
"Your speech patterns remain… peculiar."
"Brain static," she insisted, tapping her temple with a pointed finger.
"It's just lightning residue, Your Highness. Like a bad cable connection."
His brow furrowed slightly.
It wasn't disbelief, exactly—it was a deep, intelligent curiosity.
"The imperial physicians say you are completely unharmed.
Yet, your qi signature—your life energy—has undeniably changed."
"Qi signature.
Right."
She forced a bright, blindingly fake smile. "Can we call it… a mandatory software update?"
To her genuine astonishment, the corner of the prince's lips twitched upward—a tiny, fleeting ghost of a smile—before he instantly turned away, perfectly composed.
"Follow me."
He led her deeper through the garden toward a quiet, circular pavilion that was lined with polished celestial mirrors.
In their reflections, strange, intricate geometric symbols shimmered and floated, pulsing with a faint, otherworldly light.
Xue's inner coder, the voice of her past life, immediately stirred.
"Whoa," she breathed, fascinated.
"Are those… complex circuits?"
"Divine arrays," he corrected, standing near the entrance, allowing her to observe.
"They are complex formations woven from highly concentrated spirit energy."
She crouched down beside one of the floating symbols, her eyes gleaming with genuine professional interest.
"No, seriously.
Look at the flow.
It looks exactly like a digital power grid, just mapped out using qi syntax instead of silicon."
"You speak complete nonsense," Jinhai said, though his voice lacked its usual sharpness.
"And yet… something in your words feels eerily correct."
He then gestured toward a pedestal resting in the absolute center of the pavilion, upon which sat a plain, sealed jade tablet.
"This relic, the Tablet of the Azure Dragon, was struck by the lightning on the exact same night you were found unconscious. Its seal bears the undeniable mark of the Azure Dragon."
The pendant resting on Xue's chest responded, glowing suddenly and powerfully.
Jinhai's hand instantly went to the hilt of the formidable sword hanging at his side, his posture shifting into that of a predator. "Explain."
"I absolutely would," she said slowly, standing up, meeting his sharp gaze. "If I had the faintest, most basic idea of what is happening right now."
The pendant pulsed again, a loud, quiet heartbeat filling the tense air.
Synchronization Complete.
Contract binding initiated.
A crack appeared in the sealed jade tablet. Then, with a sound like tearing silk, the relic shattered entirely.
A blinding, pure-white light exploded around them, consuming the pavilion.
The wind roared suddenly, whipping the plum tree leaves upward as if the heavens themselves were taking a massive, shuddering inhale.
Xue felt a rush of raw, electric energy surge through her body—it was terrifyingly alive, powerful, and utterly beyond her control.
Jinhai's voice, a command cutting through the storm, roared, "Lady Lin!"
"I swear on my old life this isn't my fault!" she yelled back over the sound of the wind. "Okay, maybe sixty percent my fault!"
A sudden, thick arc of lightning shot from her hands and slammed directly into one of the pavilion's pillars, carving glowing, complex runes across the ancient stone floor.
The very ground hummed violently beneath her feet.
Then, just as abruptly, the light completely receded.
The wind died.
A thick, confusing silence was left behind, along with one very stunned and disoriented prince.
He stared at her, his eyes wide, his hand slowly dropping from his sword.
"What are you?"
Xue looked down at her fingers, which were still faintly sparking.
"Honestly, Your Highness?" she whispered. "A catastrophic debugging error."
As the sound of running guards and shouts of panic rushed into the courtyard, Xue shook her head and whispered under her breath, "Okay, Lin Xue 2.0… welcome to the celestial bug report.
Let's hope this ticket gets resolved quickly."
The pendant pulsed one last time, a soft, encouraging warmth in her mind:
Chapter 1 complete.
Begin testing sequence.
She sighed, a weary but determined sound. "Even the universe writes in cliffhangers."