A Big Shot

"Young Master, we're here."

Song Xuanhe had just woken up. Still groggy, he heard those words and answered reflexively, "Where?"

"Qing City Orphanage. Here's all the information on Xiao Yuanmu and the orphanage director."

Someone set a hard plastic folder beside Song Xuanhe, brushing the fingers resting alongside his leg. The feel of the rigid cover made him frown. His head was heavy with sleep; he rubbed his temple before finally opening his eyes.

Once he saw his surroundings, Song Xuanhe instinctively rubbed his eyes. Turning to find an unfamiliar man beside him who looked every inch the polished professional only deepened his dazed sense that he was still dreaming.

Seeing Song Xuanhe frown and rub his temple, the man asked with concern, "Young Master, are you feeling unwell?"

Song Xuanhe still had no idea what was happening. He was about to ask who this man was when an exceptionally rough voice suddenly boomed inside his head: [Congratulations on the system host's successful integration with the character Song Xuanhe from The President's Seven Boyfriends! Not 998! Not even 888! Just recite the following lines as the plot requires, and you can take Courting-Death System Z48 home today!]

As soon as the voice stopped, a passage appeared in Song Xuanhe's mind—[On the way to the orphanage, his assistant, Zhang Chao, organized all the information on Xiao Yuanmu and handed it to Song Xuanhe.

Still, thinking of the young man who had already shown such remarkable business talent at his age, Zhang Chao couldn't help feeling sorry for him. He tried to offer some advice. "Young Master, Xiao Yuanmu may not know what's good for him, but someone of your standing hardly needs to take issue with him. Give him time, and he'll agree on his own."

Song Xuanhe gave a cold laugh, his tone making it clear that he would get what he wanted. "I don't have the patience to wait for him to agree. This time, he can say yes, or he can say yes. Those are his only options."

At that, Zhang Chao inwardly sighed for the young man. He could only hope the boy would be sensible. The young master liked to play around and was always trading the old for the new. If Xiao Yuanmu could endure it, he would probably be free before long.]

Song Xuanhe's eyes widened. He paid no attention to the passage in his head, stunned instead by the sudden, absolute silence. The car, which had been moving smoothly a moment ago, had stopped, yet the driver visible in the rearview mirror was still poised at the wheel. The pedestrians along the street looked as though someone had pressed pause. Even the unfamiliar man beside him remained turned toward him, concern frozen on his face.

It was as though time had stopped. Everything felt strangely uncanny, as if he had slipped into another world.

"What's going on?"

[Exactly what it looks like, buddy.] The system came with a broad northeastern Chinese accent, its speech full of the easy warmth of someone who acted as if they'd known you for years. [I'm Courting-Death System Z48. I'll be helping you complete your tasks from now on. You've transmigrated into a book called The President's Seven Boyfriends and become Song Xuanhe, a character with the exact same name as you. Once you've gone through every plot point the original character was supposed to, you can return to your own body.]

"A courting-death system..." Song Xuanhe repeated, sounding both bewildered and unimpressed. "A system called 'Go Get Yourself Killed'?"

[You can rename me to suit your tastes. My previous host actually named me Ershun, but I didn't think that sounded cool enough, so I switched to a combination of letters and numbers. Z48 not only suits what I am, it also has more of a futuristic, high-tech feel.]

There was so much wrong with that statement that Song Xuanhe didn't know where to start. He opted to get down to business instead. "Why did I transmigrate into this book? And why the hell should I complete your tasks?"

Transmigration, whether through time or into a book, was hardly a new concept to Song Xuanhe, whose usual hobby was reading. History, astronomy, literary classics from China and abroad, the flourishing variety of contemporary webnovels—he would read anything, so long as it helped pass the time.

But although he had read about people transmigrating after car crashes, jumping off buildings, or all manner of other accidents, he had never imagined that simply going to sleep could land him in trouble.

As he'd said: Why the hell should he?

Back in his own world, Young Master Song had no shortage of money or influence. He might not have been able to make the world dance to his tune, but he wasn't someone people dared cross lightly, either. His life was free and easy. He'd have to be out of his mind to want a different body and a different life.

[Here's the thing, buddy.] The system seemed to be choosing its words. Half a minute passed before it continued. [If you don't want to do this, I can send you back to your original world right now. But in that case, you probably won't live another six months.]

"What do you mean?"

[That's actually why we found you. You had a medical checkup recently, right? You probably haven't received the report yet, but I can tell you the results. Your health isn't good. Your stomach cancer should already be in the middle-to-late stages, and the cancer has spread. Given the level of medical care in your world, the chances of a cure are very slim.]

Song Xuanhe fell silent. Anyone's first reaction to hearing that would have been disbelief, but he knew his own body. He had gone for that checkup because he'd noticed changes in his health. He just hadn't expected it really to be stomach cancer—and already in the middle-to-late stages.

"If I complete the tasks, I'll have a chance of being cured when I go back?"

[More precisely, once you finish every plot point, your body will recover without treatment.]

Song Xuanhe said nothing for a long while. Then, abruptly, he laughed. "All right. I agree."

The system breathed a sigh of relief. [In that case, I'll send you the information on this world first, so you can get a general idea.]

A book soon appeared in Song Xuanhe's mind. Perhaps because he was reading it inside his head, he finished it in only a few minutes. His expression afterward was difficult to describe. He held his tongue for a moment, then asked, "You want me to do everything the Song Xuanhe in this book did?"

The system sounded a little guilty. [Yes.]

"I'll take the six months. Send me back."

[Aw, don't be like that, buddy! We can work something out!]

Song Xuanhe gave a cold laugh. In the end, he said nothing more, merely reviewing the broad outlines of the book in his mind once again.

The novel, titled The President and His Seven Boyfriends, really did focus on a company president and seven men. Probably because the censors had been cracking down lately, its contents were actually squeaky-clean and quite tame, despite a title that made it sound like smut. The protagonist remained tangled up with all seven men, but right up until the author abandoned the novel, he hadn't entered an official relationship with a single one of them, let alone done anything physical.

The male lead was named Xiao Yuanmu. The name alone evoked the hero of a male wish-fulfillment harem novel. And in fact, this boys' love protagonist had a personality remarkably close to those swaggering, badass, domineering harem heroes.

Xiao Yuanmu was one of the heirs to the Xiao Group, one of the world's eight great conglomerates. His bearing was icy and ascetic, his temperament cold and brooding, his methods ruthless and decisive. His business talent was particularly outstanding. Under his leadership, the Xiao Group rose from one of the eight great conglomerates to the foremost conglomerate at the summit of the global economy. Xiao Yuanmu himself became someone even heads of state had to treat with the utmost respect.

Unlike other "black lotus" protagonists, all smiles on the outside while thinking, F*** your mother, Xiao Yuanmu was a rare specimen: a lotus that rose from the mud still covered in mud. He openly repaid every slight. He had mastered the art of "making stock prices plunge through the floor over a friendly chat" and embodied the classic tyrannical-president line, "It's getting chilly. Let the Wang family go bankrupt." Not a single person who offended him came to a good end.

Song Xuanhe strongly suspected that the author's decision to abandon the novel had a lot to do with making Xiao Yuanmu too much of a Gary Stu. After all, when the male lead was already impossibly perfect, how could anyone accept him being pinned beneath one of seven men who couldn't match his physique, looks, wealth, or status? Forget the readers—the author who'd created him probably couldn't get past that hurdle, either.

None of that, however, had much to do with him.

What did concern him was the original owner of his body—Song Xuanhe—who appeared in no more than ten chapters of this novel of more than a million Chinese characters.

Song Xuanhe was the younger son of the family behind the Song Group, which ruled Jiang City with an iron grip. Fresh out of college, he was parachuted into the company as general manager. On his very first day, he took a fancy to Xiao Yuanmu, who had joined the company less than a month earlier, and launched an all-out pursuit.

At this point, someone might assume Song Xuanhe was one of the seven boyfriends pursuing Xiao Yuanmu. He wasn't. Most of his scenes took place before the male lead's rebirth, while the book focused on Xiao Yuanmu's life after being reborn. That story had nothing whatsoever to do with Song Xuanhe.

If one insisted on finding a connection, it would probably be this: Xiao Yuanmu hated him so much that even grinding his bones to dust and scattering the ashes wouldn't have satisfied him.

That's right. The President and His Seven Boyfriends was a rebirth novel. Before his rebirth, Xiao Yuanmu had been an orphan, with only the elderly orphanage director to depend on as they supported each other. His exceptionally fine, beautiful features had led to several adoptions, but every one had ended with him being sent back to the orphanage.

Wherever there were people, there was competition—all the more so in a place as deprived as an orphanage.

Beautiful, intelligent, and well-behaved, Xiao Yuanmu was always prospective adoptive parents' first choice. Naturally, the other children rejected and isolated him. In worse cases, they even framed him and spread lies about him.

Growing up in that environment was what made Xiao Yuanmu withdrawn and cold. From a very young age, his face had been expressionless, his attitude toward people and everything else indifferent. Still, he had the director's devoted guidance. Despite his surroundings, he retained some of the kindness unique to the young.

And Song Xuanhe utterly destroyed even that precious trace of kindness.

Song Xuanhe began pursuing Xiao Yuanmu the moment he joined the company. But Xiao Yuanmu had no interest in him and refused, so Song Xuanhe used the orphanage director to force him to give in.

Once they were together, Song Xuanhe soon tired of Xiao Yuanmu's cold face, which remained expressionless no matter what he did. Yet instead of breaking up with him, he took pleasure in tormenting him. He ordered him around like a servant, mocked and humiliated him in public, and let his friends taunt him and toy with him as they pleased.

Later, at a banquet, Song Xuanhe simply handed Xiao Yuanmu over as a gift to a wealthy businessman—a greasy-haired, big-eared man with a taste for sexual sadism. That was also the incident that led to Xiao Yuanmu's death.

—On the way to the hotel with the businessman, the car carrying Xiao Yuanmu collided with an oncoming truck. He died at the scene.

After his rebirth, Xiao Yuanmu naturally hated Song Xuanhe to the marrow of his bones. But he remained utterly calm. He lay low for a while, finished gathering the evidence of the Song Group's illegal activities that he had begun collecting before his rebirth, then threw it down in front of Song Xuanhe. After delivering a sufficient threat, he turned and left. Taking advantage of his foreknowledge before the drawing, he bought the lottery ticket that had won five million in his previous life, then left the capital for Hai City.

Later, Xiao Yuanmu went to work at the country's largest stock exchange. While working and learning, he used the five million to practice trading under another identity. His judgment was unerring. In just six months, he multiplied that five million more than twentyfold, amassing close to a hundred million in capital.

It was also around this time that Xiao Yuanmu's biological parents found him. In one leap, he went from an orphan with neither father nor mother to an heir of the Xiao conglomerate, one of the world's eight great conglomerates. Calling it a single step into the heavens would hardly have been an exaggeration.

The Song family had established businesses and connections in the capital. But next to the enormous Xiao conglomerate, those were an ant beside an elephant. There was simply no comparison.

Song Xuanhe's fate was therefore easy to imagine. After the Song Group went bankrupt, an accident left him impotent. Broken by the blow, he drowned his sorrows in alcohol, only for someone with ulterior motives to engineer his addiction to drugs. To feed his addiction, he had no choice but to pass from one man's bed to another. Eventually, when those men tired of playing with him, they dumped him in the woods and left him to be torn apart by wolves and other wild beasts. Not even his corpse remained whole.

Having read all that, Song Xuanhe no longer knew which fate was worse: playing out the original owner's story and ending up without an intact corpse, or going home to enjoy six carefree months before dying of cancer.