Li Junwei should have known his life was about to end in the most embarrassing way possible.
It was 3:47 AM on a Tuesday, and he was deeply immersed in what his roommate called his "academic death spiral" that magical time of semester when all his procrastinated assignments came due at once. His laptop screen was a graveyard of tabs with his half-finished sociology essay, six different Wikipedia articles about social theory, a YouTube video titled "Marxism Explained in 10 Minutes (GONE WRONG)," and most importantly, the browser game he'd been using to "take study breaks" for the past four hours straight.
Crimson Dynasty Chronicles had promised, in a flashy pop-up ad. "Experience Romance and Intrigue in Ancient China!"
What it actually delivered was the most excruciating stupid otome game in existence. The plot made daytime soap operas look like literary masterpieces. The love interests had personalities emptier than his bank account after tuition payments. And don't even get him started on the side characters half of them existed just to die dramatically for cheap emotional points.
"Oh, come ON!" Junwei groaned at the screen, where the character Shen Moli was having yet another dramatic breakdown. "Just talk to each other! Use your words! This is basic human communication!"
According to the game's wiki, Shen Moli was one of Prince Wei Qing's concubines, destined to die of "sudden illness" in Chapter 3 after causing minor drama for the main couple. His entire character description was literally: "Jealous concubine. Dies early. Not important."
His upstairs neighbor banged on the floor in retaliation. Junwei banged back out of spite.
"Not important." Junwei read aloud in a mocking voice. "Wow, thanks for that deep character development. Really makes me invested in his tragic fate."
He rage clicked through Shen Moli's dialogue options. Every single choice was either "cry dramatically", "scheme badly", or "die quietly." The writing was so terrible it made his freshman English papers look like Nobel Prize material.
The sandwich was a mistake. He'd bought it yesterday (or was it the day before?) and it had been sitting on his desk, slowly getting dry enough to be a choking hazard. But Junwei was too focused on the disaster happening on screen to care about minor details like food safety.
He took a massive bite just as Shen Moli delivered his most ridiculous line yet: "Your Highness, this lowly one's heart burns with the fire of a thousand suns for your eternal love!"
"Oh my GOD," Junwei tried to say around his mouthful of sandwich. "That's not how people TALK—"
The sandwich got stuck in his throat. His coughing fit was immediate and violent. He grabbed at his throat, eyes watering, vision blurring. The laptop screen blurred too, but Shen Moli's blocky tears kept streaming down, mocking him.
This is it, he thought, I'm going to die choking on a convenience store sandwich while reading the worst romance ever written. My roommate's going to find me like this, and I'll be a cautionary tale about procrastination and bad snack choices.
His lungs burned. His chest seized. Darkness rushed in, swift and merciless.
His final thought before everything went black?
At least I won't have to suffer through Chapter 3.
Turns out the universe has a seriously messed up sense of humor.