Okay. Deep breaths.
Yan Ye sat on the floor of an apartment that wasn't his, in a body that wasn't his, on a planet that definitely wasn't his, and tried to figure out what to do next.
The pale blue interface still floated in front of him. The tabs across the top pulsed faintly, patient, like they'd been waiting seventeen years for someone to finally look.
Main Panel / Quests / ??? / ??? / ??? / ...
His fingers were shaking. Not from cold. From the fact that this was actually happening and he couldn't wake up from it.
Just open the first one. Start there.
He focused on Main Panel.
The screen expanded.
Name: Yán Yè (严烨)
Age: 17
Status: Memory Recovery — 38.4%... 38.5%...
Class: Unawakened
Talent: (Sealed)
Bloodline: Human
Attributes
Strength: 11 — Average: 10Attack damage, load capability
Physique: 4 — Average: 10HP, Stamina, Abnormal Condition Resistance
Defense: 7 — Average: 10Reduces damage taken
Intelligence: 23 — Average: 10Spell Damage, Mana capacity
Agility: 3 — Average: 10Running Speed, Attack Speed, Chanting Speed
Special
Luck: 3 — Average: 5Do I need to explain this?
Charm: 14 — Average: 10So handsome and trustworthy
Comprehension: 17 — Average: 10Ability to understand and create things
Stamina: 3 — Average: 10Endurance, recovery rate
"...Am I really that weak?"
He stared at the numbers like they might change out of pity.
Physique: 4. Agility: 3. Stamina: 3.
That wasn't low. That was a tragedy with decimal points.
He didn't understand half of what these meant in this world yet. The memories were still dripping in at thirty-eight percent. But some things didn't need context.
Four physique. In a body this heavy. No wonder sitting up had felt like summiting Everest. Three agility meant he moved like a tranquilized bear. And three stamina on top of that? So he was slow AND he'd run out of gas before he got anywhere.
Great. I'm a car with no engine and no fuel.
Intelligence twenty-three, though. More than double average.
That one tracked with what the fragmented memories were showing him. The original Yan Ye had topped every written exam in his school for four years straight. Record scores. The kind of student who made teachers feel conflicted, because the numbers were perfect and everything else was a disaster.
Brain on fire. Body left in the dust.
With these stats, I'd better awaken as something magic-based. If I get Warrior, I might actually just lie down and stop.
The descriptions next to each stat helped a little. Attack damage. HP. Running speed. It felt like reading a character sheet from one of those RPGs he used to play during lectures instead of paying attention.
Except this was his actual body. And the numbers were real. And they were bad.
Strength slightly above average. Eleven. Which made sense in the worst way possible. Carrying a hundred and eighty kilos up stairs every day was training whether you wanted it to be or not. Accidental gains. The saddest possible origin story for a stat point.
Defense at seven. Probably body fat counting as natural cushioning.
He was, to summarize, a slow, fragile, low-endurance genius who could take a hit slightly better than average because he was padded.
Fantastic.
Then the Special section.
Luck: 3. Average was 5.
Below average lucky. Given that he'd just died of a panic attack and woken up in a morbidly obese teenager on an alien planet, the number felt generous.
Charm: 14.
He looked down at the mountain of flesh hanging over the grey sweatpants.
"You're telling me I'm above-average charming even like this?"
He let that sit for a second.
"Thank God."
At least I can lose weight and maybe end up looking decent. Fourteen charm underneath all this... that's almost exciting.
Lose weight. Get strong. Marry rich.
Actually, wait.
The memory sync was still running. Fragments slotted into place while he sat there. The apartment. His name on the deed. The bank accounts.
I don't need to marry rich.
I'm already rich.
No siblings. No relatives fighting over assets. Everything from the grandparents, straight to him. The original Yan Ye was an orphan, and the money had nowhere else to go.
Orphan.
That word sat heavier than the rest.
The memories around it were still thin. Only thirty-eight percent. Just shapes and outlines. Parents. A dungeon break when the boy was twelve. They didn't come back. A grandmother who took him in. A move to a new city. Years of studying. Years of eating. Grades that went up while everything else went down.
The details were fuzzy. Faces half-formed. Names incomplete. He could see the events play out like a film on fast-forward, but none of them carried any weight. Just facts. Cold, clean, stripped of everything that should've made them hurt.
That bothered him more than the facts themselves.
A dead grandmother should make you feel something. Even someone else's dead grandmother.
But there was nothing. Just the footage.
Later. I'll sort through all of this once the memory sync finishes. Right now...
His stomach growled. Not a polite suggestion. An ultimatum.
Right.
"Okay. I'm fucking starving."
This place was stocked with junk. He could see it even from the floor. Chips stacked on the kitchen counter. Processed meat packages on the table. Sugary drinks lined against the wall like a colorful army of bad decisions. If he kept eating like the original Yan Ye, he'd be the first transmigrator in history to die of a heart attack within the first hour.
Food. Real food.
This world was more advanced than Earth. The memories were clear on that much, even at thirty-eight percent. There had to be delivery.
Memory nudged him. Couch armrest.
He waddled over and dug inside.
Phone.
Sleek. Minimal. Thinner than anything from Earth but somehow sturdier. The screen woke the instant he touched it. Smooth. Responsive.
"...Why does this feel better than anything I've ever used?"
His stomach growled again and the curiosity died. Priorities.
The main screen had an app front and center. PortalHaul. Biggest shopping platform in Huaxia. Big Ye's account was already logged in.
Platinum customer.
He tapped in.
Purchase history. Food. Food. Food. More food. Deep-fried meat. Cheese-stuffed something. Chocolate. Soda. Chips. Energy drinks with names that sounded like threats.
Over five million yuan spent on food in five years.
Not a single vegetable.
"Incredible."
The recommendation algorithm had been trained on Big Ye's choices, and it showed. Every suggestion was a caloric war crime. Triple-sodium monster bowls. Fried chicken sets with portions designed for small families. Something called a "Beast Belly Bucket" that he refused to click on out of principle.
"I'll have to go in blind."
Search bar. Healthy food.
Four options popped up within delivery range. Riftside Bistro. Fresh Nest. Green Mood. Noble Leaf.
Noble Leaf. 4.96 stars.
He opened the menu.
Steamed Azure Carp with Aether Greens. White Ember Tofu with Jade Veins. Jade Current Aether Fillet.
The descriptions alone felt cleaner than the air he'd breathed on Earth.
"Jade Current Aether Fillet."
Fresh riverfin from the Jade Current Dungeon. Steamed with silver ginger, fresh aether herbs, and dew citrus. Served with jadeleaf vegetables and multigrain rice.
Jade Current Dungeon. The fragmented memories offered a flash: the original Yan Ye had visited the perimeter with his grandmother once. Not inside. Just the tourist zone near the stabilized entrance. The water had been unnaturally clear.
Resource Dungeon. Underwater. Stable. Minimum entry requirement: Tier 3.
And he was sitting here with Agility 3.
The riverfin was supposed to help with blood circulation and cellular vitality. Perfect for a body that probably hadn't seen a nutrient in years.
Price: 28,000 yuan.
He winced. Then remembered he was rich.
Delivery options appeared below.
Human delivery: 14 yuan. Awakener delivery: 300 yuan. Premium delivery: 250 to 88,888,888 yuan. Portal delivery: 23,000 yuan.
He stared at the first two lines.
Fourteen yuan versus three hundred. Same job. That wasn't a pay gap. That was a caste system with a delivery fee.
The premium options were insane. Basic drone at 250. Flying sword delivery at 500 for the "cultivator aesthetic," whatever that meant. All the way up to something called Emperor Descent for nearly a hundred million yuan.
"Someone has definitely paid that."
Rich idiots existed in every world.
He tapped Portal. Because he was on another planet and the option existed.
Pay. Instant confirmation. Estimated delivery: 5 minutes.
"Five minutes. Through a portal."
He needed a clean spot for the portal to manifest. The apartment was three hundred square meters of mess. After waddling around for three minutes, he found two usable spaces: the grandmother's bedroom and the balcony lounge.
"There's no way I'm eating in a dead grandma's bedroom."
Balcony it is.
Low woven sofas. Thick cushions. A small wooden table. Potted plants framing the edges. Calm. Quiet. The only clean corner in the entire apartment, like it had been preserved on purpose.
The phone vibrated.
He opened the app, scanned the table, anchored the portal point dead center.
Confirm.
The air cooled. Subtle at first, then noticeable. Like the temperature dropped two degrees in a heartbeat.
Golden symbols etched themselves across the table surface. Intricate. Moving. Alive.
A dark purple vortex bloomed open, one meter wide, swirling inward.
His heart jumped.
A white box shot out.
The vortex collapsed. Symbols faded. Silence.
The box sat there like it had always been.
Elegant packaging. Noble Leaf in refined gold font. Jade-green leaf logo embossed at the corner.
Yan Ye stood still for a long moment.
His hands were trembling.
"I'm really in another world."
Not VR. Not a coma dream. Not a hallucination. A portal had just opened on his table and delivered a box of fish from a dungeon. That had happened. Just now. In front of his eyes.
He pressed the logo on the box. Click. The lid released.
A fresh scent hit him. Cool. Clean. Almost mint-like. His head cleared instantly.
The fish gleamed pale green under the light, surface smooth like polished stone. It flaked apart at the touch of a fork. The greens were glossy emerald, coated in a thin sauce that clung without pooling. The rice steamed faintly beneath.
He took a bite.
And froze.
Warmth spread from his mouth down his throat, into his chest. Not heavy warmth. Clean warmth. Like his cells were drinking water after years of dehydration.
"Oh Lord."
Subtle citrus. Fresh herbs. The fish dissolved before he could chew. He ate slower than Big Ye ever would have. Paying attention to every bite.
By the time he stopped, about forty percent remained. His stomach was full but not bloated. Satisfied in a way he didn't know food could manage.
He leaned back. The balcony was quiet. The massive trees outside filtered the light into something golden and warm.
Food coma incoming.
His eyelids were already heavy. He set an alarm for thirty minutes. Closed his eyes.
And was asleep before he finished the thought.
Beep! Beep! Beep!
He jerked awake. Wiped his mouth. Drool.
"Even in another world."
He sat up, blinked at the interface still hovering patiently in his vision, and noticed the memory percentage.
Status: Memory Recovery — 83.2%
Jumped almost fifty percent while he slept.
New details had slotted into place. Sharper now. The picture was much more complete.
The grandmother. She'd been sick for weeks before the end. The original Yan Ye had watched her fade, visit after visit, until one day there was nothing left to visit. After the funeral, the boy stopped sleeping. Three days. The grief, the isolation, the weight of a body that had been failing for years.
His heart gave out.
Dead at seventeen.
And that was where Yan Ye stepped in.
He saw all of it in the recovered memories. The hospital. The funeral. The empty apartment afterward. He watched it play out like a film reel, clear and detailed now, and waited for something to hit him.
Nothing did. Just the footage. Clean facts in a row.
He flexed his fingers. They responded. His fingers now, whether he liked it or not.
You kept going until your body couldn't. That counts for something, Big Ye.
He looked at the Quests tab. He'd been putting this off.
"System. Quests."
The screen shifted.
Daily Quest
100 Push-ups — 0/100
100 Sit-ups — 0/100
100 Squats — 0/100
10 km Run (pace ≥ 1 km/8 min) — 0/10,000 m
Reward: 600 System Points, Body Recovery, ???
If not completed, you will be punished.
Time until reset: 14:37:22
He read it twice.
One hundred push-ups. With arms that had trembled trying to sit up this morning.
Ten kilometers. At a pace he couldn't hold for ten meters.
"...Excuse me?"
He looked at the bottom of the window.
"Why is there a penalty?"
No response.
"And what's the triple question mark? The last reward."
Silence.
Then, just when he thought the system had gone back to ignoring him, a line appeared.
[1st, because yes. 2nd, are you dumb?]
He stared at the text.
Did it just insult me?
He wanted to curse it out. But this thing was his golden finger. His cheat. The one advantage he had in a world where everyone else was stronger, faster, and had been training since birth.
He swallowed it.
"Alright. Big Bro System. What are System Points? There's a shop later, right?"
Nothing.
"...I'll take that as a yes."
He paused.
"Wait. Is there any chance the system is female?"
Silence.
Then:
[I can hear your thoughts.]
His spine went rigid.
"...You can?"
No answer. Two minutes passed. No punishment. No lightning strike.
"...Okay. We're good."
He exhaled slowly.
Those locked tabs. The question marks in the reward. The system's personality. There were a lot of things he wanted answers to, and the system clearly had no intention of providing any of them.
Maybe those tabs unlock eventually. Maybe the system opens up over time. Or maybe it stays like this forever and I'm stuck with an all-knowing entity that communicates exclusively in insults.
He didn't know. And pushing for answers it didn't want to give was clearly a waste of breath.
Fine. Work with what he had.
He looked back at the quest window.
The numbers hadn't changed. A hundred push-ups. A hundred sit-ups. A hundred squats. Ten kilometers at a pace of at least one kilometer every eight minutes.
14:31:51.. 50… 49..
If not completed, you will be punished.
I didn't even get twenty-four hours. The timer should be fixed at midnight.
He looked at his hands. Thick. Swollen.Physique 4. Agility 3. Stamina 3. And the system wanted a hundred push-ups and a ten-kilometer run out of this body before midnight.
His arms had given out trying to push himself off the floor earlier this morning. That was one push-up. Failed. A hundred was not a realistic number. It was a sentence.
He looked at the last line one more time.
Punished.
His eyes stayed on that word for a long time.
It's the first day, though. It gave me this quest knowing what I look like. It saw the stats. It knows what this body can and can't do.
It wouldn't give me a punishment that could kill me on the first day.
...Right?