Chapter 1 : It’s Just a Female Character!

The ghastly face on the screen suddenly magnified, its pallid features almost pressing against the camera.
The hairs on the back of Bai Ling’s neck stood on end, and he nearly smashed his fist into the screen.

“Damn designers! Did the whole modeling team get possessed or something! This female ghost’s model is way too ghoulish!”

People tend to have two reactions when startled.
The first is the brain shutting down, commonly known as being scared stiff.
The second is exhibiting extreme aggression.

Clearly, Bai Ling belonged to the second type.

An old fan was barely surviving in the corner, churning the sticky August heat.
The blue light from the screen outlined the youth’s slender frame as he curled up in his gaming chair, his heart pounding.

He habitually caressed the jade pendant hanging around his neck; its cool touch calmed him down a bit.

This jade pendant had been forcefully given to him six years ago by his childhood friend, a guy named Xu Zhi, when they parted ways.
He had said it could ward off disasters.

But Bai Ling always felt that kid was just bluffing him.
‘Warding off disasters and all that… feudal superstitions are the death of people.’

The coolness seeped through his fingertips and into his marrow, flowing through his veins to his heart, gradually calming Bai Ling’s emotions.

The servers would open in two hours.
‘I should create my character first.’

This was a highly anticipated MMO online game that was finally having its open beta today.
Although the servers would only open at midnight, the character creation system had been available since yesterday.

The characters on the screen flashed by one by one, finally settling on the figure of a Snake Demon Swordswoman.

‘Her it is!’

It was said that the Snake Demon Swordswoman’s skill set was very powerful, the strongest damage-dealing class during the game’s closed beta.

Although the Snake Demon race only had female characters, this didn’t deter Bai Ling from wanting to play one.
In fact, what kind of guy likes to spend all day staring at a male character’s butt while gaming?

‘Of course, I’m going to pick a good-looking female character that fits my tastes!’

“The character creation system is pretty detailed…”

Bai Ling muttered as he began creating his character.
The hairstyle had to be long, black, and straight; Bai Ling felt that girls looked best with long hair.

Before he knew it, more than an hour had passed.
Bai Ling looked at the fruits of his hour-plus labor and let out a long breath.

‘As expected of me! Artist Qing Lin! This aesthetic is to die for!’

The Snake Demon Swordswoman on the screen had an ethereal, flowing robe and an alluring figure.
Her long black hair cascaded down like a waterfall.
Her eyes held a unique temperament, a mix of a mature woman’s charm and a young girl’s coyness.
Bai Ling had added a tear mole to the corner of her right eye, identical to his own.
Although he was a boy, he had a tear mole at the corner of his right eye, giving him a very Xiao Nan-esque vibe. (TL Note : Xiao Nan: A reference to the character Komatsu Nana from the manga series Nana, known for her distinctive tear mole and a certain innocent yet alluring demeanor.)

‘Hmm, about half an hour until the servers open.’
‘Should I go take a shower first?’

The scorching summer heat made Bai Ling feel sticky and uncomfortable all over.
If he took a shower now, he’d be back just in time for the server launch.

The bathroom mirror was clouded with a layer of steam, vaguely reflecting the youth’s blurry, thin figure.
Bai Ling lifted the hem of his shirt.
His ribs were clearly visible under his pale skin.

“When will I ever bulk up a bit?”

Bai Ling sighed and turned on the showerhead.
As the hot water washed over his neck, a firefly-like glow suddenly seeped out from the carvings on the jade pendant.

The patter of the shower masked the ticking of the old-fashioned wall clock outside the door.
The mirror was fogged up, yet it vaguely reflected a corner of a scarlet robe that didn’t belong in the bathroom…

The lights suddenly began to flicker, blinking on and off with the crackling sound of electricity.

“Is the voltage unstable again? When is the power company going to come and do some maintenance?”

Bai Ling rinsed the shampoo foam from his hair, grumbling to himself.

He lived in an old residential complex where the wiring had long since deteriorated with time.
Summer nights were peak hours for electricity consumption.
Unstable voltage was a common occurrence.

The constantly falling water droplets made it hard for Bai Ling to open his eyes.
In his daze, he seemed to see a red figure flash in the mirror.

‘What was that?!’

He wiped his face.
Water dripped from his eyelashes.

“Crack!”

When he looked up again, the mirror had shattered.
Cracks exploded outwards like a spiderweb.
The fingernails of a woman in red pierced through the glass, and a foul, cold aura rushed towards him!

Everything happened in an instant.
Bai Ling didn’t even have time to cry out before he saw the red-clothed woman’s hand plunge into his chest.
The impact threw him against the wall, where he collapsed in a sitting position.
An intense pain shot through him, as if a sharp blade had split his spine.

‘Am I… going to die?’

The color of blood stained his vision.
The pain flowed out from his chest, spreading throughout his body and finally invading his brain, leaving him unable to speak a single word.

‘I was supposed to see Xu Zhi the day after tomorrow.’
‘Why am I dying at a time like this…’

In his fading consciousness, he seemed to see a drop of his blood splash onto the jade pendant.
A white light exploded like a waterfall, and the bathroom was instantly submerged in a bone-chilling cold.

He could no longer see anything.
His ears were filled with nothing but the shrill screams of the woman in red.

‘Did the incandescent light in the bathroom scare her soul away? What a miserable scream…’

On the verge of losing consciousness, Bai Ling was amused by his own thoughts.
He actually had the spare energy to worry about the female ghost who had attacked him.

‘Bai Ling, you’re really one of a kind…’

Before his consciousness completely faded into nothingness, Bai Ling thought he saw a white snake appear before him.
Its scales scraped against the floor with a piercing sound.
Its golden, vertical pupils met his gaze through the thin mist.

Then, a series of familiar-yet-unfamiliar scenes flashed through his mind.
A moon that filled his entire field of view.
A familiar yet strange figure pulling him along as they ran.
A quaint courtyard filled with vermilion lanterns.
A bride-to-be in a Suzhou-embroidered wedding dress, her charming red lips visible beneath her veil…

He had no idea what time it was when he woke up again.

“I’m not dead?”

Bai Ling struggled to get up, feeling dizzy and short of breath.

The pain and the splattered blood had vanished without a trace, as if everything before had been an illusion.
But the black liquid mixed with skin-flake-like substances covering the floor, reeking of a foul stench, reminded her that something truly supernatural had happened to her.

The moment her fingertips touched her chest, Bai Ling froze—
—beneath the skin that should have been flat, two unfamiliar soft mounds rose and fell with her breath.
She snatched her hand back as if electrocuted.
A half-strangled gasp escaped her throat, but it abruptly froze: This frail, trembling voice… whose was it?

She stumbled towards the shattered mirror, a strange itch on her shoulders as her black hair brushed against them.
In the countless shards of glass, a pale-faced girl stared with wide eyes.
The tear mole by her right eye trembled with her eyelashes like a drop of blood about to fall.

“You’ve got to be kidding me…”

She clutched her throat, trying to find her own deep, husky voice, but only forced out a string of broken, breathy sounds.
Her knees slammed heavily onto the tiled floor.

Moonlight filtered through the slits of the blinds, silver light flowing over her newborn skin.
Her long black hair cascaded down like a waterfall.
The shattered mirror reflected countless images of her.
Every single one of them was disgustingly unfamiliar.

“Who are you…”

Bai Ling murmured to the strange girl in the mirror.
Suddenly, countless chaotic thoughts stormed into her mind like a rampaging army.
They shattered her confusion and broke through her ignorance, forcing her to admit that every one of the unfamiliar girls in the countless shards of the broken mirror was her.

She suddenly began to subconsciously search for the jade pendant.
Only to find that it had somehow ended up in her palm, clenched tightly in her fist.
The jade pendant in her palm dug into her flesh, causing a sharp pain.

Its cool touch seeped into her bones.
But this time, it brought her no sense of security.

‘What in the world… has happened to me?’

The warm moonlight dispelled the darkness in the bathroom, caressing her skin like a mother’s hand.

She suddenly remembered the white light that had emanated from the jade pendant before she lost consciousness.
‘Could it be that this pendant turned me into a girl?’

“Xu Zhi! You…”

Bai Ling squeezed the jade pendant fiercely, her knuckles turning white, her nails digging deep into the pendant’s cracks.

But the hand clutching the pendant gradually loosened its grip.
In the end, she couldn’t bring herself to slam the pendant to the ground and shatter it into pieces.

Her limp hand brought the pendant to her chest, her hands coming together as if holding her own heart.

Her fingertips caressed the pendant’s smooth cracks—she could clearly smash it, yet her palm felt tethered by something.
‘Maybe because it’s expensive?’
But deep down, she probably knew she just couldn’t bear to part with it.

She slowly slumped to the floor.
She suddenly felt the urge to find a small corner to curl up in.

It felt as if something that had once filled her was gradually being drawn out.
Like a soul leaving the tips of one’s limbs.
It was constantly being squeezed and rejected, finally curling up in her chest, throbbing with a dull ache.