Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Ningchuan City's West Street Police Station.

After cooperating with the police to complete the statement, Shen Dongqing met the middle-aged cop's complicated look and felt a bit embarrassed himself.

"Officer Zhao, what a coincidence. Sorry to bother you again."

"You've got some luck, huh..." The middle-aged officer's tone was subtle, but in the end he didn't say anything more, handing over the statement. "Alright, take a look. If it's all good, sign it."

Shen Dongqing took the statement, made sure everything was in order, and quickly signed it.

Walking out of the police station, Shen Dongqing checked the time. He'd already missed the bus, so he gritted his teeth and flagged down a cab.

But the morning rush hour traffic was way worse than Shen Dongqing expected. As the minutes dragged on, he hesitated for a moment, then made a phone call.

The call connected almost instantly, like the person on the other end had been waiting for him to call.

"Manager, I..." It was dead quiet on the other end. Shen Dongqing swallowed hard and started to speak cautiously.

But before he could finish, a flood of scolding came crashing down on him from the other end.

"Don't tell me you're late again? What is it this time—a pickpocket, a fight you got dragged into, or some scammer you had to help witness?" The voice on the other end got angrier with every word.

"..." Shen Dongqing paused for a beat, then said, "I ran into a pickpocket on the bus and ended up at the police station..."

Hearing this, the driver couldn't help shaking his head inwardly. This kid really didn't know how to talk—who'd buy such a ridiculous excuse!

"Enough, I don't want to hear your excuses. Our company can't afford to keep someone like you on the payroll. That's it, don't bother coming in anymore." The voice on the other end hung up before Shen Dongqing could explain.

The cab went quiet. The driver shot Shen Dongqing a glance in the rearview mirror and said quietly, "Hey man, still heading to JIAZE Tower?"

"Yeah." Shen Dongqing said after a long silence.

Once they made it through the jam, the rest of the ride was smooth sailing, and the cab soon pulled up to JIAZE Tower.

After paying the fare, Shen Dongqing was about to head upstairs, but when he touched the buns he'd brought, his stomach started growling. He decided to eat first, then go up to the company to get his pay.

Finding a bench to sit on, Shen Dongqing slowly munched on his bun, staring off into space.

It was during work hours, so there weren't many people around the building. Not far off, a man and a woman were going at it.

Shen Dongqing looked away and let out a soft sigh.

He'd transmigrated five days ago. After absorbing the original body's memories, Shen Dongqing realized he'd become the main character of a book.

Unfortunately, this wasn't some fun novel—it was a tragedy.

The original story spent a lot of time on the protagonist running into all kinds of criminals, barely escaping with his life over and over.

Since the protagonist had the same name as him, and the descriptions of the criminals were too realistic, and the protagonist's experiences were too brutal, Shen Dongqing couldn't keep reading. He skipped straight to the ending, hoping for a happy conclusion—only to find the author had killed the protagonist off.

After finishing the ending, even though he rarely left reviews, Shen Dongqing couldn't help but write a thousand-word rant trashing the author.

Who would've thought that right after he finished ranting, he'd wake up and become the protagonist himself.

After transmigrating, Shen Dongqing regretted not reading the book more carefully, but he was also thankful he'd arrived two years before the original timeline.

At first, Shen Dongqing was pretty optimistic, thinking he could save up some cash, move somewhere safer, and dodge the original plot points. But the past few days had made him realize things weren't that simple.

In the original story, the protagonist ran into criminals all the time. Since it was a novel, Shen Dongqing had just figured it was to move the plot along, without thinking much of it. But after transmigrating, he realized that might not be the case.

On the first day, he stayed home the whole time, absorbing the original body's memories and getting a handle on the world. Everything was calm and uneventful.

On the second day, he took the bus to work. He ran into a pickpocket, stepped in to stop him, and ended up late.

On the third day, he took the subway instead. Someone got into a fight on the train, he got mistaken for one of the guys, got dragged into it, ended up at the station again, and was late again.

On the fourth day, he got up early and took a shared e-scooter. On the way, someone tried to pull a scam, and he helped as a witness—late again.

Today was day five. He agonized over his choice before leaving and finally decided to take the bus, figuring that even if he saw a pickpocket, he'd just quietly warn the victim and leave it at that. Who'd have thought the pickpocket would target him?

Shen Dongqing wasn't usually this sharp, but the past few days had made him jumpy, alert to the slightest sign of trouble. The moment the pickpocket made his move, Shen Dongqing noticed, and then he was at the police station filing a report again.

He'd been to the police station so often that the cops on duty had started to recognize him.

This made Shen Dongqing wonder if he had some kind of debuff, and if the dangers the original protagonist faced were also because of it.

With that thought, Shen Dongqing glanced at the lower right corner and silently willed it open. A system loading progress bar appeared in front of him.

He'd seen this progress bar when he first woke up after transmigrating, and he could open or close it with his thoughts.

Shen Dongqing hadn't paid much attention to this system before. After all, if it could help him, great—but if it couldn't, he figured he could still live fine in this world on his own.

But now, Shen Dongqing didn't have that confidence anymore.

Looking at the progress bar, Shen Dongqing frowned slightly.

Compared to the past few days, the bar had moved forward a bit, but it was still a long way from full.

How could he fill this progress bar?

Shen Dongqing got lost in thought, but the argument nearby got louder, quickly snapping him out of it.

"Liang Xuan, don't project your own filth onto me. We broke up purely because you paid for sex. This is the last time I'm going to reason with you. If you dare to harass me again, I'm calling the police." Zhou Jiayi said, holding back her anger, then turned and walked away.

She didn't want to have anything more to do with this so-called ex-boyfriend. Even one more word with him felt dirty.

No, this wasn't an ex-boyfriend—this was a straight-up stain on her past!

But she hadn't taken more than a few steps when she heard footsteps behind her. She turned around, annoyed, about to say something, when she saw her ex Liang Xuan, face twisted, raising a thermos and about to splash its contents on her.

Zhou Jiayi's mind went blank. She didn't know what was in the thermos, but from Liang Xuan's expression, she knew it wasn't anything good.

She tried to dodge, but her legs went weak and wouldn't move. All she could do was stare in shock at Liang Xuan.

"Holy crap!"

Not far away, Zhang Feiyu, who was doing an outdoor livestream, blurted out in shock.

He'd stayed because he'd overheard the argument between Liang Xuan and Zhou Jiayi while passing by. He wasn't really into gossip, but his livestream viewers were, telling him not to leave and to see the drama through.

Who'd have thought this drama would turn into a crime scene by the end.

Zhang Feiyu sprinted toward Zhou Jiayi, trying to stop the tragedy.

But he was too far away. Even if he'd reacted in time, it would take him a few seconds to reach her—and a few seconds was more than enough for Liang Xuan to empty that thermos.

Realizing this, Zhang Feiyu felt a pang of despair, when he spotted a nimble figure darting out ahead.

Rather than going to Zhou Jiayi's defense, the figure directly kicked Liang Xuan to the ground, sending the cup in his hand tipping over and spilling sideways.

The force wasn't enough, so the liquid in the thermos didn't completely pour out; some of it sloshed straight onto Liang Xuan as he went down.

A bloodcurdling scream, like a pig being butchered, split the air, and Zhang Feiyu's ears rang from the noise.

Zhou Jiayi jolted awake at the scream, steadied herself, and stammered out her thanks to Shen Dongqing.

Liang Xuan clutched his crotch with both hands, fighting to get his pants off, but with a belt fastened, the scalding syrup's pain had him out of his mind, his hands shaking too much to undo the buckle.

With a desperate yank, Liang Xuan ripped open the crotch of his pants, but it did nothing to ease the agony.

The syrup, which had just been coating the surface of his pants, now seeped through the fabric and hit the skin of his thighs.

At Liang Xuan's agonized screams, Zhou Jiayi felt a mix of lingering shock and sadness.

Once she realized the thermos held scalding syrup, she knew what Liang Xuan intended and where he got the idea.

After graduating, she lived alone in a rental and always worried about home security. Liang Xuan had passed along all sorts of self-defense tips, including one about boiling a pot of hot oil or sugar water and dumping it on an intruder to take them out fast.

She never imagined that tip would end up being used on her by Liang Xuan.

Liang Xuan was about to lose it from the pain, but that jolt snapped him back to his senses. Feeling the searing pain down below, he scanned around, spotted a milk tea shop up ahead, and bolted for it.

"Sir, what are you—Hey, sir, what are you doing?!"

Watching Liang Xuan dump ice cubes into his crotch and then splash cold water over it, Zhang Feiyu couldn't help but gasp. Talk about a double whammy of ice and fire—wouldn't that make things worse?

He recalled that burns should be flushed with room-temperature water.

Zhang Feiyu wanted to look it up on his phone, but then noticed the live stream's viewer count had spiked. Puzzled, he scrolled back through the comments to figure out what was going on.

He'd been holding his phone the whole time, and despite the shaky footage, he'd caught the moment Liang Xuan splashed syrup at Zhou Jiayi, along with Shen Dongqing's heroic kick that sent Liang Xuan flying and made him reap what he sowed. And of course, he'd caught Liang Xuan ripping his pants too.

At that, Zhang Feiyu suddenly remembered something and quickly checked his official messages, breathing a sigh of relief when there were no warnings.

That scene just now was kind of borderline; even if it was an accident, it could still get him a warning and docked points. His live stream score was already low, and if he lost too many points and got banned, that would be a disaster.

But seeing the viewer count and the gifts rolling in, Zhang Feiyu felt a rush of excitement—this was a huge win.

Seeing a bunch of viewers asking about Liang Xuan, Zhang Feiyu didn't hesitate and swung the camera over to him, accidentally catching Shen Dongqing too, who was just staring off into space.

A lot of netizens couldn't help but sing his praises; if not for Shen Dongqing's quick reflexes, it would've been a tragedy.

Of course, this was also helped by Shen Dongqing's good looks. If he had an average appearance, people would still praise him, but the attention wouldn't be as much.

Noticing the comments, Zhang Feiyu walked over to Shen Dongqing and tried to pat his shoulder, but Shen Dongqing dodged sharply.

"Bro, that was heroic! My live stream fans are all praising you," Zhang Feiyu said excitedly, not bothered by the miss.

Fans?

Shen Dongqing looked up, meeting the live stream camera. Even with average video quality, his superior features were fully displayed. The comments froze for a moment, then exploded.

"Handsome from afar, even more handsome up close, truly a handsome guy"

"Even with this terrible angle, he looks this good—I'll dream about this face tonight"

"Quick-witted too, with that face, even more attractive"

Seeing the comment explosion, Zhang Feiyu felt envious. He had average looks and relied on his gift of gab to attract fans. If he had Shen Dongqing's looks, he couldn't even imagine it!

Shen Dongqing saw the comments about him in the live stream, but his attention wasn't on the stream at all—it was on the progress bar that was advancing rapidly.

The progress bar, which had been far from complete moments ago, was now almost full.

Earlier, Shen Dongqing had guessed whether the progress bar was linked to encountering criminals, but now he thought that guess might be wrong.

As if to confirm his current speculation, a voice sounded in his mind.

"Fame Points System loading complete!"