The first thing Chen Yu felt was cold.
Not the sharp, biting cold of winter wind against bare skin, nor the dull chill of an air-conditioned room left on too long—but something subtler. A quiet, creeping cold that seeped into his bones, as if the world itself had been left untouched for a long time.
His eyelids fluttered.
Heavy.
Too heavy.
For a brief, hazy moment, he thought he was still dreaming. His thoughts were sluggish, tangled, drifting in and out of coherence. He remembered falling asleep—he was sure of that. The familiar weight of exhaustion after another long night, the glow of a screen fading as his consciousness slipped away.
But this didn't feel like sleep.
The air was wrong.
Slowly, with effort, Chen Yu opened his eyes.
The ceiling above him was unfamiliar.
Rough wooden beams crossed overhead, darkened with age, faint cracks running through them like veins. The wood wasn't polished or smooth like modern decor—it was uneven, worn, carrying the quiet scent of old resin and dust. There were no fluorescent lights. No hum of electricity. Just silence, deep and complete, broken only by the faint creak of timber somewhere beyond his vision.
He blinked once.
Then again.
His heart skipped.
"This… isn't my room."
The realization came gently at first, like a whisper. Chen Yu pushed himself upright, the thin mattress beneath him rustling softly. It was little more than layered cloth stuffed with straw, barely padded at all. His back ached as he sat up, a dull soreness settling into his muscles.
He looked around.
The room was small—smaller than any hotel room he'd ever stayed in. Bare wooden walls enclosed the space, their surface scarred by time and neglect. There was no decoration, no posters, no screens. Just a single square table near the wall, a low stool, and a narrow window partially covered by a faded cloth curtain.
That was it.
No phone.
No charger.
No backpack tossed carelessly onto a chair.
Nothing.
A flicker of unease stirred in his chest.
"Did I… end up somewhere else?"
He swung his legs off the bed. The floor beneath his feet was cool, uneven planks pressing against his soles. He stood slowly, half-expecting dizziness to overwhelm him, but his body felt… strange. Not weak. Not strong either. Just different. Lighter, perhaps. More responsive in ways he couldn't immediately explain.
Chen Yu took a step forward.
Then another.
Each movement felt real. Solid. Too real.
His gaze drifted to the table.
On its surface lay a small pile of coins.
Bronze coins.
They were dull, their edges worn smooth, faint symbols stamped into their faces—symbols he didn't recognize at first glance. There were no banknotes. No credit cards. Just those few pieces of metal catching the dim light that filtered through the window.
He stared at them.
A hollow feeling spread through his chest.
"This is… everything?"
The room felt suddenly smaller.
He swallowed and turned toward the window, drawn by an unexplainable pull. With hesitant fingers, he pushed aside the thin curtain.
Light flooded in.
Chen Yu froze.
Outside, the world unfolded in a way that made his breath catch in his throat.
The street below was narrow, paved with stone rather than asphalt. Buildings lined both sides, their roofs curved and layered, tiles overlapping like scales. Cloth banners fluttered gently in the breeze, painted with characters and sigils that shimmered faintly as sunlight brushed against them.
But it was the sky that stole his breath.
It wasn't just blue.
It was vast—deeper, clearer, stretching endlessly above. Floating high in the distance were shapes that made no sense in any modern framework: fragments of land suspended in midair, their undersides shrouded in mist. From one of them, a thin waterfall poured downward into nothingness, vanishing before it ever touched the ground.
Figures moved through the air.
Not birds.
People.
They stood atop swords, discs of light, or streams of swirling energy, gliding across the sky with casual ease. Trails of faint luminescence followed their paths, fading slowly as they passed.
A pulse of something—pressure, awe, fear—pressed against Chen Yu's chest.
"This…"
His lips parted, but no words came out.
It was impossible.
And yet it was right there.
A distant boom echoed, like thunder, followed by a flash of light far beyond the city walls. The air trembled for a brief moment, then settled again, as if such phenomena were nothing out of the ordinary.
Chen Yu stumbled back a step, his hand gripping the window frame for support.
"No," he whispered.
His mind raced.
This wasn't a movie set. The smells were too real—the faint scent of cooked food drifting from somewhere below, the earthy tang of stone and wood, the crisp freshness of the air. The sounds were layered and alive: distant chatter, the clink of metal, footsteps, the hum of a living city.
His heart began to pound.
"I've seen this before…"
The words escaped him unconsciously.
A memory stirred.
Late nights. A glowing screen. Countless hours spent staring into a world like this one—not identical, but unmistakably similar. The architecture, the sky, the flying figures, the strange blend of beauty and danger woven into every detail.
His breath hitched.
The game.
The realization struck him like a blade.
"No… no, that's impossible."
But his thoughts betrayed him, racing faster the more he tried to deny it. The cultivation world. The layered realms. The systems, the mechanics, the unforgiving rules hidden beneath seductive visuals.
The game he had played.
The game infamous for its cruelty.
The game that masqueraded as pleasure while quietly preparing to destroy anyone careless enough to relax.
His fingers trembled.
"I… transmigrated?"
The word felt surreal even as it formed in his mind. He had read novels like this. Watched shows. Mocked the idea as escapist fantasy.
But now—
He looked down at his hands.
They were pale. Slender. Long-fingered in a way his own hands had never been. Smooth, unmarked by the small scars he remembered from his life on Earth.
His reflection shimmered faintly in the glass of the window.
A face stared back at him.
Beautiful.
That was the first thought that surfaced, unbidden and startling. The features were refined, almost unreal—sharp yet soft, eyes dark and clear, skin unblemished. Black hair framed the face, falling loosely past his shoulders.
It wasn't his face.
A sharp ache pierced his chest.
Earth.
The thought dragged memories with it, heavy and unwanted.
A small apartment. The smell of instant noodles. Laughter that once filled cramped rooms.
His parents.
Chen Yu's throat tightened.
They had died when he was sixteen.
The memory rose unbidden, as it always did in quiet moments—too loud, too sharp. The hospital corridors. The sterile smell. The way the world had seemed to shrink afterward, colors dulling, days blending together.
He had survived.
He had lived on.
But that hole had never really closed.
Now, standing in a strange room in an impossible world, the weight of that loss pressed down on him harder than it had in years.
"They're… really gone," he murmured.
Not just dead.
But in another world entirely.
A world he could never return to.
His shoulders trembled once.
Then stilled.
Chen Yu closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
In.
Out.
Again.
He forced the emotions down—not because they didn't matter, but because letting them surface now would drown him. Panic would solve nothing. Grief would not bring answers.
He had survived worse moments than this.
"I'm alive," he said quietly.
The words anchored him.
Whatever this was—dream, hallucination, nightmare—it was happening. And if there was one thing he had learned from both life and games, it was this:
You didn't survive by freezing.
As if in response to his resolve, the air before him shimmered.
Chen Yu's eyes snapped open.
A translucent screen materialized in front of him, hovering silently in midair. It glowed faintly with soft light, characters forming across its surface in a clean, familiar layout.
He sucked in a sharp breath.
"No way…"
The interface was unmistakable.
Minimalist. Precise.
Game-like.
[Welcome, Host.]
The words appeared smoothly, as if typed by an unseen hand.
Chen Yu stared at the screen, his heart pounding in his ears.
"So it's real," he whispered.
The screen flickered, then continued.
[Reality Confirmation: Positive.]
[World Status: Stable.]
[Host Status: Conscious.]
Each line felt like a nail being driven deeper into the truth he didn't want to accept.
"This isn't a dream," he said slowly.
The screen did not deny it.
Instead, new text appeared.
[You are inside the game world.]
The bluntness of the statement sent a chill down his spine.
Not like the game.
Not based on the game.
Inside it.
Chen Yu clenched his fists.
His mind raced through everything he knew—routes, mechanics, death flags, characters that smiled sweetly before tearing everything apart. The hidden cruelty behind every system message.
This world was not kind.
It never had been.
"Then…" He hesitated, then asked the question that mattered most. "Who am I now?"
The screen paused.
Just for a fraction of a second.
Then the answer appeared.
[Current Identity: Ling Xuan.]
Chen Yu's vision swam.
Ling Xuan.
The name echoed in his head, dragging with it a flood of memories he didn't want.
A side character.
A beautiful nobody.
A pawn.
A man who died early.
Executed.
Discarded.
Used.
Fear wrapped icy fingers around his heart.
His eyes widened, pupils contracting as the implications crashed down on him.
"No…" he breathed.
Of all the characters.
Of all the possibilities.
He had become that one.
Ling Xuan—the character whose death he had once skimmed past without a second thought.
Ling Xuan—the one who never made it out of the opening acts alive.
The room felt suddenly suffocating.
The screen hovered silently, indifferent to his rising dread.
Chen Yu—no, Ling Xuan—stood frozen, staring at the glowing words that had just rewritten his fate.
And in that quiet, empty inn room, with only a few bronze coins to his name and a world of monsters beyond the window, one truth settled deep into his bones:
He had awakened in hell.
And the game had already begun.