The Unluckiest Transmigration

Happy transmigrations are all alike; every unhappy transmigration is unhappy in its own way.

--Yansong Tolstoy Bai

Gu Bei felt something was wrong.

Waking from a state of ignorant chaos, he felt a splitting headache. His brain felt as if it had been pierced by needles; he couldn't think at all. He didn't know what had happened, nor where he was. The dizzy, muddled sensation made him feel terrible.

However, he realized even without thinking—this was not the small bed he was used to sleeping in.

What was going on?

The surrounding environment was somewhat oppressive. The space was even smaller than the cubicle he rented, and the dim, yellowish light teased his eyelids. Not far behind him, the faint, blurred sound of dripping water could be heard, making one feel a sense of chest tightness...

And muffled voices.

"He seems to be really dead. Annie, you were too heavy-handed!"

This was a female voice tinged with blame.

"I didn't mean to. How was I supposed to know his body was so weak? Besides, besides, I didn't actually do anything."

The woman called Annie spoke, sounding somewhat panicked.

"Stop talking. We should think about how to explain this to Michelle."

"Michelle... No! What are we going to do? Michelle will definitely kill us!"

"Don't drag me into this. It's all your fault. You're the one who killed him. It has nothing to do with me..."

The conversation continued, somewhat noisy, wreaking havoc in Gu Bei's mind along with the headache. However, after a moment of adjustment, he gradually grew accustomed to the pain and regained his basic observational and judgmental abilities.

He forced his eyes open.

This was a cramped room, like a basement in some suspense movie. It was pitch black all around, the torches on the walls being the only source of light. Slimy moss grew in the corners and on the ceiling, carrying a heavy dampness that made one feel very uncomfortable.

Gu Bei tried to move his body.

He immediately discovered that he was tied to a chair, his hands bound behind his back, the coarse hemp rope digging into his skin and causing pain.

Not only that, he also discovered that his body was abnormally weak.

Weak in a way that felt foreign.

"What do we do... Michelle... Oh god, she, she's coming!"

The slow, steady sound of high heels interrupted their conversation and also interrupted Gu Bei's feeble struggles.

Under the dim torchlight, a blurred figure gradually emerged.

It was a woman wrapped in a wide robe, her hood covering her face, making it impossible to see her features. The deep cyan robe covered her completely, leaving no opening. Even if there were a mannequin inside, one probably wouldn't be able to tell.

The only reason Gu Bei knew she was a woman was because of the sound of the high heels and the name "Michelle."

Although he was still in a state of bewilderment, his instincts told Gu Bei that he should play dead now.

Therefore, taking advantage of the fact that no one had noticed him yet, he relaxed his entire body and slumped on the chair, motionless.

He kept his eyes tightly shut and pricked up his ears, focusing on how the situation would develop.

"Michelle, you're here..."

Annie's voice sounded terrified.

"Wake him up." A suppressed, hoarse female voice came from under the robe.

"Michelle, I..."

Annie started to speak hesitantly, seemingly weighing her words, but she was interrupted at once.

"It's all Annie's fault!" The other woman suddenly shouted, her voice shrill, making Gu Bei's brain numb. "Michelle, it's all Annie's fault. She's the one who killed him. It has nothing to do with me!"

Awkward silence.

"Michelle, I..." Annie tried to defend herself.

"He isn't dead." Michelle interrupted her again.

Gu Bei's breath caught in his throat.

"What?"

"He isn't dead." Michelle seemed somewhat impatient. "Wake him up."

"Ah, yes, yes..."

Gu Bei sat there with his eyes closed when he suddenly felt a chill all over, and he couldn't help but shiver. His clothes became soaked in an instant, clinging tightly to his skin, sticky and unbearable. Gu Bei felt like vomiting.

The woman called Annie had splashed a bucket of cold water on him.

Knowing he couldn't keep up the act, he opened his eyes.

"He isn't dead!"

One of the women exclaimed, and Gu Bei was finally able to see everything clearly.

There were three people in the room. The two women and Michelle were dressed exactly the same, deep cyan hooded robes covering their entire bodies, faces obscured, possessing quite a bit of the atmosphere of a horror movie.

Three robed monsters surrounded Gu Bei, like some kind of evil sacrificial ritual.

Gu Bei felt a chill run down his spine.

"You two can go and rest." Michelle spoke.

The two women nodded and left, perhaps to go and squabble for a while over the earlier finger-pointing.

Gu Bei felt Michelle's gaze return to him, like a viper staring at its prey. He felt very uncomfortable. But there was no help for it; in his current situation, he could only lower his eyes and pretend he hadn't seen anything.

Michelle didn't speak either, and the two of them stood in a standoff for a while.

The brief moment felt exceptionally long.

Finally, Michelle spoke.

"What is the method to open the vault?"

Gu Bei looked up: "I don't know."

"Lord Riser." Michelle sounded completely unsurprised. "Resistance is meaningless. You can return to the Royal Capital to be your noble genius, or you can rot in the bellies of rats. The choice is in your own hands, and I hope you can make the correct decision."

"I am not any Lord Riser. You've grabbed the wrong person."

"Lord Riser, my patience is limited." Michelle spoke slowly and methodically, yet with a strong sense of oppression. "Or, are you unsatisfied with the previous service, and need me to bring Annie back?"

"..."

Gu Bei felt like crying: Big sister, I really don't know anything!

Having been awake for so long, he had more or less figured things out.

Before this, in the middle of the night, he had been hunched over his desk, preparing the speech draft his boss needed for the next day.

He had been working overtime for half a month straight and was physically and mentally exhausted. Because he was so sleepy, he couldn't hold on and fell asleep in front of his computer. In his dream, Gu Bei saw his forty-something-year-old boss with underwear on his head, pointing at his nose and roaring: "Balala energy, transform!"

There was a buzzing sound in his head.

Then, his memory started from this basement.

He couldn't rule out the possibility that this group of women were crazy, had mistaken him for some Lord Riser, and kidnapped him here. Nor could he rule out the possibility that the dream was too terrifying, causing his body and mind to suffer great trauma, leading to hallucinations.

However...

The moment he opened his mouth, Gu Bei realized that he wasn't speaking Chinese, but some language similar to English.

How many years had it been since he last spoke English?

Gu Bei was no fool. He was an ordinary person, living an ordinary life, with extraordinary dreams—he had read quite a few webnovels. Therefore, the moment he realized something was wrong, he very quickly associated it with himself and reached a conclusion.

He had transmigrated.

For some unknown reason, he had transmigrated into someone called Lord Riser and replaced the original owner. However, it was a huge coincidence that this Lord Riser didn't have very good luck; he had been kidnapped by a few deranged women and had even suffered some non-erotic torture.

Now, it was his turn to be tortured.

Gu Bei sighed, counting it as mourning for his half-month's salary that had been delayed—the finance person had accidentally suffered an anal fissure while skiing, so they hadn't come to work.

He must be the unluckiest transmigrator.

"For the Riser Family, that vault is merely a grain of rice in a massive granary. You possess millions upon millions of treasures inside; why must you throw away your precious life for such a thing?"

Michelle perhaps thought Gu Bei's sigh was a sign of wavering and began to use a coaxing approach.

Gu Bei looked up, staring into that darkness under her hood, and said word by word:

"I, don't, know!"

He believed that his gaze must be as sincere as a fawn's.

But Michelle didn't believe it.

"I am very sorry, Lord Riser. You have made a wrong choice." Michelle's voice was as cold as it had been from the beginning, but this time Gu Bei detected a faint murderous intent. "I think, perhaps you are starting to miss Ms. Annie."

Gu Bei shuddered.

He didn't know what these crazy women had done to the original owner of this body, and he didn't really want to know. Why? Because the original owner of the body had been beaten to death by them!

With the facts right before his eyes, he dared not doubt the methods these crazy women used to torture people.

Just as Michelle turned to leave, Gu Bei called out to her:

"I... I can't tell you yet."

Gu Bei had no choice. Even if he was dealt a hand of rotten cards, he had to bite the bullet and keep playing.

Regardless of whether he had transmigrated or not, he didn't want to die.

"Why?"

Michelle didn't turn back, but stopped in her tracks, standing with her back to him, and asked coldly.

"If you don't keep your promise, whether I tell you or not, you won't let me go anyway." Gu Bei struggled to search through his brain for various movie and novel plots, pretending to be calm as he said, "I can tell you the method to open the vault, but you must guarantee my safety."

A light chuckle came from under the hood.

The atmosphere eased up quite a bit, and Gu Bei breathed a slight sigh of relief.

"You are very smart." Michelle turned around. "I never intended to let you go. To avoid being hunted by the Riser Family, after I get what I want, I will kill you immediately, mince you into meat paste, and throw you into the sewer to feed the rats, leaving no trace behind."

Gu Bei wished he could swallow his words.

"...Then I won't say anything."

"If you don't talk, we will torture you until you can't bear it and start speaking." Michelle's voice sounded incredibly twisted. "You can choose to die without pain, which is much better than the other option."

"..."

What rotten luck.

Gu Bei currently only wanted to dig up the soul of that Lord Riser, grab him by the throat, and demand he return to his body so that he could leave this strange world as soon as possible.

Damn it, he was just a bystander passing through!

"Stupid."

Seeing that the other party had no intention of speaking, Michelle shook her head, preparing to find someone else.

In a moment of desperation, a thought suddenly flashed through Gu Bei's mind.

"Wait!"

Michelle acted as if she hadn't heard, her footsteps not slowing in the slightest.

Gu Bei could only use every ounce of his strength to shout:

"The Riser Family treasury can only be opened by the bloodline of the Riser family itself. Kill me, and you'll never get your hands on it!"

Michelle finally stopped, walking back with the rhythmic clicking of her high heels.

The breath that had been stuck in Gu Bei's lungs finally released.

The treasury can only be opened by family blood—this was the most cliché plot device in any novel, yet unexpectedly, it had become his only lifeline.

After a moment of silence, Michelle spoke abruptly:

"You are not of the Riser bloodline."

What?!

Gu Bei felt a shock in his heart, his hands tied behind his back clenching tight.

"To the Riser family, you are merely a distant relative." Michelle's tone seemed to carry a hint of disdain. "Your aunt married into the Riser family, and you just tagged along to get in, managing to snag the Riser surname. You don't have a shred of Riser blood; you couldn't even open the treasury yourself if you tried."

"..."

This "Lord Riser" was actually just a small fry in a great clan?

His headache seemed to intensify.

Gu Bei felt a sense of despair. He finally understood what it meant to lift a rock only to drop it on one's own feet, what it meant to dig a hole and jump into it himself.

He had originally had other paths to take, but he had blocked them all himself.

What now?

His journey of transmigration had only just begun half an hour ago; don't tell him his account was already suspended for non-payment.

Michelle sneered and continued, "Did you really think that before kidnapping you, I didn't investigate..."

"Your probing is meaningless!" Suddenly, Gu Bei seemed like a different person, cutting her off sharply. "I am a member of the Riser family, and I possess the most orthodox bloodline of the Riser family. By making up such stories to test me, what exactly are you doubting?"

"You..."

Gu Bei was aggressive: "If you were afraid of me stalling for time, it only shows you're just bluffing. Kidnapping a noble, you must be panicking inside, right? The people sent by the family are about to find us; if you drag this out any longer, you'll only end up losing your own life."

Michelle went silent, as if there were truly a dummy inside that robe.

Gu Bei let out a few cold laughs.

He had bet correctly!

If he were just a distant relative, how would he know about such a secret as the family treasury? If he were truly an insignificant relative, there would have been no need for Michelle to kidnap him in the first place, would there?

Thinking this, Gu Bei immediately realized that the other party was trying to bait him.

Michelle must have discovered that something was off about Gu Bei, this "Lord Riser," and had invented the distant relative identity to test him. If he had taken the bait, it would have been a dead end. She would have discovered he wasn't the real Lord Riser, and he would have been of no further use.

But fortunately, Gu Bei was calm enough, and the distant relative story Michelle had improvised was full of holes.

The body he had transmigrated into was the genuine Riser family bloodline!

He turned the tables, using her own tactic to intimidate this woman who was trying to act mysterious.

"Ms. Michelle, if you truly want to open the treasury, then I suggest you act quickly." Gu Bei pressed his advantage, mocking her relentlessly. "The people of the Riser family are not to be trifled with."

Silence, a long, drawn-out silence.

"...You win."

Gu Bei raised his eyebrows teasingly.

Michelle's words seemed to be squeezed out through her teeth: "I will take you to the location of the treasury, you will open the gates for me, and we will keep our distance while you open it. Once the door is open, we won't have time to worry about you, and you will have plenty of room to escape on your own."

Hearing this, Gu Bei finally pulled a smile:

"Deal!"

Phew...

The heavy stone weighing on his chest was finally lifted, and Gu Bei saw that glimmer of hope once more.

While relieved, he couldn't help but sigh that he was truly the unluckiest transmigrator.

Others relied on cheat codes to save their lives, but all he could rely on was himself.

However, this wasn't the time to relax.

Since he had told a lie, he had to keep it going. This crazy woman still had to take him to open the treasury, and he had to find an opportunity to escape; otherwise, once the lie was exposed, it would still be a death sentence.

The game had only just begun.

Gu Bei refocused his attention on Michelle.

Seemingly very dissatisfied with Gu Bei, Michelle walked a few steps away, stomping her high heels with extra force. She called out to her "lackeys" in the dim hallway:

"Sally, Annie, time to move!"

She was likely planning to take Gu Bei and her subordinates away from here to the location of the treasury.

However...

The empty hallway remained silent; no one responded.

Oh?

It seemed something had happened. Gu Bei hid the gloating look on his face.

"Sally? Annie?"

Michelle raised her volume, her calm voice showing a rare flicker of instability.

Finally, a voice came through:

"Michelle, something's wrong!"

Despite the words, Michelle looked a bit more relieved.

A hooded, robed figure emerged hurriedly from the shadows.

"The Riser family people are almost here! Michelle, it's a disaster!"

Hearing this, Gu Bei was instantly delighted, but soon felt a bit uneasy.

How was he supposed to deal with relatives he had never met?

On the other hand, if the Riser family caught up, Gu Bei didn't believe Michelle would let him live.

Headache.

Michelle remained unhurried, continuing to ask, "Annie, where is Sally?"

"I, I don't know..."

"Annie, tell me, where did Sally go?"

Annie's voice was stuttering; she must have been extremely nervous at that moment:

"Sally is gone... I, I'm not sure. She said she wanted to look around the area, and then she disappeared. I think... I think she must have discovered the Riser family people and run off on her own! Or... she might have been caught by the Riser family!"

Michelle fell silent.

Annie stood opposite her, the hooded robe unable to hide her panic:

"Michelle, we have to go. If we drag this out, we'll definitely be caught by them!"

But Michelle remained silent.

So silent that Annie felt a bit awkward. She was like a straight man desperately telling jokes, but her partner wasn't picking up a single cue. One minute, two minutes... the entire scene turned ice-cold, and the expression on her face was almost impossible to maintain.

It was Gu Bei who broke the awkwardness.

His voice was drawn out, carrying a feigned sense of surprise that felt incredibly punchable:

"Annie, did you kill Sally?"