Chapter 1: Transmigration
“[System is binding to host, binding to host.]”
“[Does the host agree?]”
“[Yes; No]”
“[System has bound to host.]”
Gu Wanrong struggled to open her tightly closed eyes, her gaze blankly fixed on the ceiling, clearly not yet having regained consciousness.
The anxious and urgent chirping of cicadas never ceased. A damp and hot breeze gently blew in from the window, caressing Gu Wanrong’s exposed skin, which had become sticky in the rising temperature. Several strands of hair clung to her eyelashes and eyelids.
Gu Wanrong slowly blinked, her face turning pale instantly, her body trembling slightly as she lay on the bed.
She had died, killed in a car accident.
The air was stuffy and hot like a steamer, suffocating, just like the feeling she experienced after being flung by the offending truck, lying on the ground, feeling blood flowing from her body, the surrounding chaotic and noisy sounds gradually disappearing from her ears, clearly knowing that her life was rapidly fading away – the same suffocation.
“[System loading.]”
“[Loading complete.]”
The voice in her mind pulled Gu Wanrong’s spirit from the grip of death. She slowly raised her hand, looking at it in front of her, then looked around.
The dim yellow streetlights outside the window diffused into the dark room. The air conditioner, turned off, glowed with a dull red light, forming a faint glow in the night along with the occasional flash of her phone screen on the pillow.
Her eyes were no longer filled with crimson. Her sticky, sweaty hand clenched and unclenched, clenched and unclenched – clearly, the owner of this hand was alive, a living person.
“[The host is, of course, a living person.]”
Was she having a hallucination? How could she have died, then experienced hallucinations, and then come back to life, and what was this about a “host”?
“[The system sent the host here; the host has been reborn in another world.]”
This time, Gu Wanrong understood clearly. It was this thing called a “system” speaking in her mind, saying that it had brought her, after her death, back to the summer after her college entrance examination – meaning she had been reborn!
“System, how did you help me be reborn?” Gu Wanrong had read quite a few popular online novels, and she knew about systems, transmigration, and rebirth, but… “Why me? I’m so ordinary, and I’m already dead,” Gu Wanrong sat up from the bed, full of incomprehension.
“[This system is a branch of the Perfect Life System, specifically the Sudden Wealth System. It selects hosts who desire sudden wealth but cannot achieve it due to mediocrity.]”
“[The energy inadvertently leaked when I selected the host and began binding caused a crossover between different time-spaces, resulting in the truck driver not seeing the host, and the traffic light showing green; therefore… the host died.]”
Gu Wanrong heard a clear apology in the system’s calm and unemotional mechanical voice, “So you’re saying my accidental death in the car accident was your fault?”
The system, upon hearing Gu Wanrong’s question, quickly explained, “[The system discovered that its mistake led to the host’s death and immediately took measures – making a deal with you from a parallel time-space to swap souls to make up for the system’s fault.]”
“But I still died.”
“[Did the host like her previous life?]”
Gu Wanrong was slightly dazed by the system’s question…
Her previous life… she had lived like a child without parents. Her grandparents, relying on her father, could only secretly care for her.
Unloved by her father and without a mother, her introverted personality made her unpopular. Her greatest hobby was eating, and during her four years of university, she went from slightly overweight to obese.
She studied a generalist major in university and, after graduation, frequently traveled to various company job interview sites, still unable to find a suitable job.
Her pre-rebirth self was poor and ugly.
“Reborn, but those things, those people still exist.” Those memories made Gu Wanrong feel weary, muttering bitterly.
“[Beep—Host receiving memories.]”
Immediately, a wave of familiar yet strange memories flooded Gu Wanrong’s mind. Apparently, although each parallel world had similar histories and similar people, it would change in certain places, becoming another parallel world.
In this world, her name was still Gu Wanrong, her personality, habits, friends… were exactly the same as in her previous life; even her college entrance examination application was the same – the Chinese Language and Literature major at Tianjin University in T City.
Only now, Gu Wanrong was an orphan.
Her mother died in childbirth, her father died in a high-altitude fall at age twelve. Her maternal grandfather had passed away before her mother’s marriage, her maternal grandmother died of depression shortly after her daughter’s death, her paternal grandfather died of liver cancer when Gu Wanrong was thirteen, and her paternal grandmother died after a fall on the day Gu Wanrong finished her college entrance examination.
It was 1 AM on the second day of Gu Wanrong’s birthday.
It was her birthday. “Gu Wanrong” remembered the loved ones who had left her over the years. Relatives considered her a harbinger of misfortune, avoiding her, and only “Gu Wanrong” was left alone in the world. She learned to drink to numb her pain, and she died alone at home and was replaced by me.
So, the “Gu Wanrong” in the parallel world, unable to bear the loneliness of losing her loved ones, agreed to the system’s proposal to exchange souls with me, who still had her family.
This wasn’t really a rebirth, more like transmigration.
Gu Wanrong sorted through the memories of this world’s “Gu Wanrong,” picked up her phone, opened the camera, and looked at the familiar face inside, finally feeling the reality of the transmigration.
“System, let’s talk. When did I agree to bind with you? After binding to the system, you won’t be like the systems in some novels, issuing tasks that I can’t complete and punishing me, will you?”
“[The host agreed after waking up, by blinking in response to the system’s question about binding.]”
“[Rest assured, host. This system is a legitimate system recognized by the main god consciousness – the ruler of countless trillions of worlds. It will not force the issuing of tasks or punishments; regardless of whether the host uses the system, the system will automatically unbind after the host dies.]”
Despite the system’s serious and formal explanation, Gu Wanrong knew it had found a loophole, “I wasn’t conscious then; you took my blinking as an agreement to bind? Where is your system complaint channel?”
Gu Wanrong was still a little worried that the system would do something bad to her.
“[The system has a special connection with the bound host; it wandered through various worlds for a long time before finding the host. The system will be very useful to the host],” the system was somewhat obsequious, “[I implore the host not to complain about the system. The host only needs to spend money, and the system will give the host a rebate.]”
So the system was a novice system afraid of complaints. Gu Wanrong found the system’s words somewhat amusing.
“You say you’re a Sudden Wealth System, that spending money gives rebates. How does that work exactly? Are there any other functions?”
“[The system formally introduces itself. This system is a branch of the Perfect Life System, specifically the Sudden Wealth System, system number 6688. The host only needs to spend money to get rebates from the system. The system rebate has different multiplier rates on different days.]”
“[Daily: Five times rebate, unlimited times;
Weekends: Ten times rebate, ten times per day, after ten times it becomes five times rebate, for ten times;
Statutory holidays (no vacation): Thirty times rebate on the day, six times, after six times, it becomes five times rebate, ten times;
Statutory holidays: Sixty-six times rebate on the holiday, three times, after three times, no other rebates on the day;
Birthday, Spring Festival: One hundred times rebate on the day, after this rebate, no other rebates.]”
“[In case of conflicting rebates, the highest rebate will be selected; the amount of the system’s distribution is unlimited except for illegal and criminal activities. The system rebate is unlimited except for illegal and criminal activities.]”
“[The system mall will be opened when the rebate amount reaches 1 million; the system blind box draw will be opened when the rebate amount reaches 5 million.]”
“[System tutorial, open? To open, press “Confirm”]”