Chapter 1: The Emperor’s New Self: A Transmigration’s Twisted Beginning

Raindrops slid down, gently caressing the half-open window. The patter of the rain, mingling with the electronic hum from his headphones, grated on Xia Ni’s nerves.

The rain had persisted for five days straight, with no end in sight. For an unemployed individual like him, however, clear skies held little meaning; he would still be cooped up at home, immersed in games.

Xia Ni pressed the pause button on his game. He had already poised his forces to assault the enemy’s main stronghold, waiting only for his command. At his signal, his soldiers would swarm in like locusts, and under the overwhelming advantage of sheer numbers and crushing morale, the enemy would surely crumble.

He had spent nearly an entire day to break through a landscape of scattered minor kingdoms and powerful individuals, successfully forging the world’s sole empire.

Having dedicated nearly 500 hours to this game, Xia Ni’s strategies for dominating the map were naturally perfected. However, this particular playthrough had proven unexpectedly challenging. What typically took only a few hours to achieve dominion had been complicated by several disruptive AI factions, relentlessly seizing territory. Fortunately, Xia Ni later leveraged strategic marriages to bring them all to heel, metaphorically speaking.

In the virtual realm, he reigned as an emperor; in reality, however, he was merely a pitiable invalid, dismissed from his job due to illness and stripped of his income. Mercifully, he had a loving younger sister to support him.

He let out a self-deprecating chuckle, his gaze falling upon the cluttered computer desk. A cake sat conspicuously amidst the disarray.

In the dim room, only this rather unappealing cake seemed to glimmer faintly.

“Happy Birthday, big brother!” Xia Ni silently read the words inscribed on the cake.

His sister, who as a child had barely reached his thigh, had unexpectedly grown into a capable young woman in the blink of an eye. She even provided for his living expenses after he lost his job.

A pang of thirst struck him. However, the numerous ‘No Smoking!’ and ‘No Drinking!’ labels plastered on the beer and tobacco pouches throughout the room left Xia Ni with no alternative but to open a bottle of plain mineral water.

He took a sip of water, then swept the stray black strands of hair from his forehead, resolute in his decision to utterly annihilate his lingering enemies.

‘After this round, I’ll leave the room and share the cake with my sister,’ he thought. ‘Then, tomorrow, I’ll try to find a job.’

Xia Ni checked the weather forecast; it seemed tomorrow would be sunny.

As he confidently resumed his game, the in-game console unexpectedly popped up.

“?”

Xia Ni attempted to close it, only to find it relentlessly auto-typing lines of code he couldn’t comprehend. Ten lines per second, its speed was astonishing.

“Is it a bug?” Xia Ni considered shutting down the game, but he couldn’t bring himself to abandon the city that was almost within his grasp, especially since he hadn’t saved.

Consequently, he remained still, while the code continued to stream in.

Finally, as the code reached its last line, a Chinese message abruptly materialized.

“Please save us.”

Before Xia Ni could even register surprise at the inexplicable message, a blinding white light engulfed his vision, followed by the instantaneous fading of his consciousness.

A cacophony of disorganized sounds flooded his mind.

[Redefining World—]

‘Huh, what is this?’ Xia Ni’s lingering consciousness responded.

[Constructing Magic Formulae—]

‘Magic? Magic Formulae?’

[Connecting to the Senate—]

‘The Senate? Isn’t that a Roman thing?’

[Confirming Race: Vampire—]

Like plunging into an ocean, data surged in from all directions, first encompassing his eyes, mouth, nose, ears, and tongue, then his limbs, ultimately enveloping Xia Ni’s entire being. The sensation was peculiar, akin to being tightly bound by silk. When he could finally move freely again, Xia Ni noticed his body felt significantly lighter.

When his vision returned, Xia Ni’s eyes no longer met the familiar computer screen. Instead, an endless expanse of golden fields stretched before him – how endless? As vast as the ocean viewed from a bridge. The air, too, was transformed; gone was the stale, sour odor of his room, replaced by the fresh scent of newly harvested grain.

“Ugh, have I transmigrated?” As an avid reader of transmigration light novels, Xia Ni quickly grasped her situation and accepted it with surprising composure, closing her eyes.

“No way! There are so many ridiculous points that I’ve just given up trying to make sense of it!” Xia Ni exclaimed, but to her astonishment, the voice that emerged from her throat was no longer the croaky tenor his sister often teased him about – instead, it was the clear, bell-like voice of a beautiful girl.

“What’s happened to me?” Xia Ni was startled by the changes to her body. She quickly touched her chest – it was flat, safe – though perhaps not entirely. Then she slid her hand further down… only to discover her ‘good brother’ was gone.

While such a plot twist often appeared in transmigration novels, experiencing it firsthand was still somewhat difficult to accept. Besides, transmigration with a gender swap felt so cliché. Wasn’t the most popular trend now about reincarnating as a monster and rising to power?

“But I’ve become a girl!” Xia Ni was ecstatic… not! While becoming a girl might offer numerous advantages – like going out for bubble tea with girlfriends, or playfully leaning on someone she liked…

‘More importantly, I could finally go to the bubble tea shop with my sister without being mistaken for her boyfriend.’

– Though, on second thought, that didn’t seem quite so important after all.

A tide of surging thoughts threatened to overwhelm Xia Ni.

“You really are a pervert, aren’t you!” A sharp, girlish voice abruptly cut through Xia Ni’s frantic thoughts. “It seems Wuxu summoned the wrong person, to bring forth such a delusional pervert.”

“Ah!” Xia Ni, now as flustered as a shy teenager caught with a secret book, frantically looked around, trying to locate the girl and explain that she was not a pervert.

“No need to search. I’m right here in your ‘thought field,'” the girl said lazily. “In short, I’m inside your brain.”

“What? You’ve already invaded my brain?” Xia Ni grew even more agitated. ‘Regardless of who this girl was, if she discovered anything embarrassing inside her mind, she would be socially dead. No, a sister complex shouldn’t count, right?’

“Wait, could this be… a system?” Transmigrators in novels often possessed systems. Suddenly realizing this, Xia Ni abruptly calmed down. ‘With a system, wouldn’t she be able to reach the pinnacle of life?’

“While I’m not sure what you’ve misunderstood, I am not a ‘system’ or anything of the sort,” another girl suddenly interjected into Xia Ni’s mind, speaking calmly. “Allow me to introduce myself first: I am Wuxu, a member of the ‘Senate.’ My comrades and I have summoned you to heal the persistent ailment of this continent.”

“An ailment… but I’m not a doctor… I’m just an office worker who plays games,” Xia Ni said, sounding distressed.

“This ailment is called war,” Wuxu stated blandly, though the effort she put into suppressing her emotions was palpable. “This affliction has poisoned this world for tens of thousands of years. We need someone to bring it to an end.”

“So… what does that have to do with me?” ‘Xia Ni just wanted to go home as soon as possible.’

“We need you to unite the world; only through unity can peace be achieved,” Wuxu explained. “You are the Chosen One we summoned from another world. According to the Supreme True God’s decree, only you can unify this fractured world. And the knowledge you gained from your ‘games’ is precisely what will allow you to do so,” Wuxu answered patiently.

“A war to end all wars… you certainly came up with quite the idea,” Xia Ni sighed.

“Huh? What is that supposed to mean?” The first girl retorted grumpily. “Wuxu, this person isn’t quite right. Why don’t we just send her back?”

“Alice, please calm down. The ‘Divine Chosen’ one must be feeling a little disoriented, having just arrived in this world,” Wuxu reassured Alice.

“What the… Shouldn’t I be the one complaining the most?” Xia Ni thought. “I was inexplicably summoned here, then inexplicably turned into a girl, and now I’ve been talking to these two inexplicable people for ages.”

Still, their voices were quite pleasant. Wuxu’s voice was melodious and serene, conjuring the image of an ‘ice beauty’ character.

“By the way, what about the me in my original world?” Xia Ni suddenly asked. “She wouldn’t have died, would she?” Uttering this question inevitably brought a sense of unease. Yet, if it was transmigration, it likely meant her original self had a high chance of ascending to heaven – or perhaps descending into hell, given the extensive ‘learning materials’ on her computer’s hard drive. “Then wouldn’t my sister find my corpse?”

‘And that cold birthday cake.’

At this thought, Xia Ni’s heart grew utterly cold.

“Transmigrators typically reincarnate after death. However, your transmigration mechanism is different from others; you’ve only undergone soul transmigration. In your original world, you’re merely sleeping,” Wuxu’s tone was chillingly calm.

“Once you complete your mission, we will send you back,” Alice added, her tone sounding less than enthusiastic.

‘That’s good,’ Xia Ni thought, feeling a slight ease in her mind.

“But speaking of which, since you possess supernatural abilities, why don’t you unify the world yourselves? Why rely on a transmigrator?” Xia Ni asked.

“Because we failed. According to divine instruction, the ailment of this world can only be cured by you, the great Divine Chosen one.”