Anna’s head was spinning.

She had absolutely no idea what to make of that welcome. She had no idea what to make of this disembodied “System.”

Anna peeled the girl clinging to her waist off of her and tried to step out of the group of people clustered around her. She took stock of what she knew.

Anna Cheng knew she was dead. She knew that she was in a different reality. She was in the body of someone called Heng Xiaowen, which sounded familiar but she couldn’t remember where she knew the name from. There was some kind of “System” that facilitated this.

So, she had gotten isekai-ed. Or she had transmigrated? Whatever you called it when it wasn’t Japanese.

Anna Cheng didn’t really watch anime or read manga, so she wasn’t particularly familiar with the genre, but she’d seen enough memes about getting hit by trucks and exceptionally long titles like “Golly Gee! I Died and Got Reincarnated as The Demon King’s Second Cousin’s Childhood Friend!” to get the gist of it.

Anna examined her new body. She was wearing simple robes made out of rough brown and tan fabric. There was a vermillion belt tied around her waist, which when she glanced up to check, was the one matching clothing item that everyone in the room was wearing. This confirmed that these people knew her—Well, they knew Heng Xiaowen.

This was her biggest problem. She had no way of communicating with these people, or, presumably, anyone else within walking distance. Running off alone wasn’t an option, she couldn’t live off the land, Anna Cheng was from Chicago. And even if it was an option, she could tell from the way these strangers fussed over her that they would be hard to shake. They would probably be sad too.

Curiously, she mentally probed for the System.

Hello? System? I have a problem.

She heard a clear chime.

[System: Hello, Protagonist. Please state your inquiries.]

Anna felt relieved that she didn’t need to speak out loud to communicate with it.

System, I can’t speak Mandarin. I only know English.

[System: Translation request accepted.]

[System: Fan-Translation Matrix loading. Please wait.]

Anna Cheng sighed in relief. She wasn’t sure exactly what the Fan-Translation Matrix was or how it would work, but anything would be an improvement over her total inability to communicate.

Not sure what to do with herself while she waited for it to load, she folded her arms to think and noticed something interesting. Her palm was resting on her bicep. Experimentally, she gave it a squeeze.

Anna Cheng was overtaken with a thrill of sheer delight.

Anna ran her hands over her new body, trying to contain her excitement. She had muscles! Also, it appeared that she was a man now. Anna didn’t mind this development, and was frankly too excited about flexing her shiny new muscles to pay it much mind.

Anna spun around the room and discovered a bronze mirror hanging on the wall behind her and made a beeline for it, dodging around her increasingly distressed looking companions.

Arriving in front of the mirror, several things happened at once.

The first thing was that Anna suddenly remembered why the name Heng Xiaowen sounded vaguely familiar.

This guy! It’s that guy! From that thing!

A few years ago, a few people Anna followed on Tumblr had gotten very in to a Chinese… Drama? Novel? Anna wasn’t entirely sure. But Heng Xiaowen was certainly in it. She had meant to check it out but never got around to it in the end.

Anna was pretty sure this was good news. To her knowledge, the story was about very beautiful men with long hair staring longingly at each other from a variety of distances, and sometimes having very twirly sword fights.

The second thing was that Anna was staring at her reflection, now a very beautiful man with long, thick, slightly wild hair.

“Oh my god,” Anna blurted. Unable to help herself, she pushed her fingers into her new luxurious mane and threw it over her shoulder. “I’m hot!”

The third thing was that while Anna was being distracted by the revelation she had been reborn into a fictional universe she was only passively familiar with and her new abundance of shampoo commercial hair, she hadn’t heard the tell-tale chime of the system.

[System: Fan-Translation Matrix upload complete.]

[System: Fan-Translation Matrix activated.]

Anna Cheng was promptly bombarded with an ensuing clamor of voices.

“Senior brother!” the younger girl shouted, flinging herself back onto him.

“Xiaowen! Xiaowen, what do you mean you are hot?” The woman rushed over, pressing the palm of her hand against his forehead. “No fever.”

“Xiaowen, are you feeling well? Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” the man asked.

Anna started laughing nervously. She was so fucked.

“Um, no, sorry, I’m good! No fever.” Anna laughed some more. “That wasn’t actually what I meant by that, silly me!”

“Isn’t that what you meant? What do you mean, senior brother?” the younger girl asked, tilting her face up.

Anna looked down at the girl clinging to him, suddenly very worried that this was Heng Xiaowen’s younger sister.

“You know, don’t even worry about it! I was just—uh—I was just saying words.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“You’re just saying?” The older girl interjected, stepping closer and looking at him quizzically. “Senior brother, you are talking strangely now.”

Senior brother? Again? Were all of these kids her little siblings? They didn’t even look alike!

“Okay, that’s enough. Let’s give Wen-er some space,” the man said. “Xiuying, can you take your junior to the kitchen and get us something to eat?”

The older girl, Xiuying, nodded, grabbed both kids by their collars, and steered them out of the room.

Anna Cheng let out a breath.

“Xiaowen, come and sit.” The woman put her hand on Anna’s shoulder and guided her over to a small low table. “How does your head feel?”

“A little sore,” Anna replied.

A head injury then, that’s what happened to Heng Xiaowen before Anna bodysnatched him. Anna could work with a head injury, it gave her an excuse to not remember things.

“What happened to me?” Anna asked. “I can’t really remember.”

A knit formed between the woman’s brow and she glanced at the man sitting next to her. “Well, when we lured a stone-tailed cliff snake from a village to subdue it, it knocked some rocks loose above Jingfei, and you jumped out to cover her. One of the rocks hit you in the back of the head, and you…” she trailed off.

The man sighed. “You nearly died.”

“Ah. I see.” Anna had so many questions, but she asked the one she thought Heng Xiaowen would ask. “And Jingfei is okay?”

The woman nodded. “Your junior sister is fine, just a little scratched, but nothing serious.” Suddenly, a fierce look flashed in the woman’s eyes and she bowed her head. “Wen-er, Master has failed you. I shouldn’t have let you suffer such harm.”

Anna wasn’t used to comforting people, and felt especially lost confronted with the intensity of this stranger’s remorse. “It’s really alright, really, I feel fine, great actually! Even better than—I mean—It’s not like I—“ Anna tripped on her tongue. “It’s not like I actually died,” she lied.

Anna Cheng was dead. She glanced past the worried faces of the two people sitting across from her and into the copper mirror to get a better look at Heng Xiaowen. He was younger than she remembered him being from the posts she saw online, maybe an older teenager? Anna Cheng had always asserted that she would kill herself if she ever had to be a teenager again, but she had only just died, so she might as well let this run its course. She grinned to reveal a pair of dimples and teeth that seemed like the product of 21st century dentistry.

“Xiaowen?” the man asked.

Heng Xiaowen. That’s who these people were fretting over. That’s who was sitting across the table from them.

“Sorry,” Heng Xiaowen said. “I thought I felt something stuck in my teeth.”

This earned Heng Xiaowen a pair of charmingly identical frowns. These two must spend a lot of time together. “You have been acting strange since you woke up,” the man said.

“The way he talks is weird too,” the woman continued.

“Ah, well…” Heng Xiaowen was beginning to sweat. He really should have been trying harder to act normal. “I did hit my head pretty hard?”

This was acknowledged with a nod, but the woman turned to the man sitting next to her and asked, “Is this a side effect of—“

But before she could finish her question, the trio of youths came barging back into the room laden with platters of food.

“Master! We have food!” The younger girl, presumably Jingfei, yelled.

“Is your hearing damaged? Why are you always shouting?” The boy griped.

Considering that Heng Xiaowen was trying to avoid getting accused of demonic possession, it was becoming problematic that he didn’t know most of these people’s names.

Yo, System, can you tell me what everyone’s names are?

[System: Would the protagonist like to unlock the (Character List) for (50) points?]

Heng Xiaowen suppressed a sigh. Nothing in this world or the next was free.

How many points do I have? What else can I unlock?

[System: The protagonist currently has (100) points.]

[System: The protagonist may make the following upgrades–

Character List – (50) points

Glossary – (75) points

Fan-Translation Matrix upgrade – (100) points ]

[System: The protagonist will be able to earn points and unlock new upgrades as he progresses through the story.]

Xiuying set a bowl of noodles down in front of Heng Xiaowen with a clatter and said, “Senior brother, why are you staring into space?”

Heng Xiaowen closed his eyes and affected genteel demeanor. “I was expressing my gratitude to the universe for allowing me to live.” Heng Xiaowen cracked an eye open to gauge the group’s reaction.

The look on everyone’s faces firmly informed him that Heng Xiaowen did not normally say things like that.

Alright, wrong personality. Heng Xiaowen resigned himself to seeming insane until either he found a way to mimic the original good’s character via trial and error or everyone around him surrendered to the fact that getting his head smashed in by a rock altered him in some fundamental way.

He stuck his tongue out at Xiuying and bought the Character List while he tucked into the noodles, using the food as an excuse not to speak or make eye contact with anyone while he absorbed the new information.

[Character list:

Heng Xiaowen – Head disciple of Liqiu Hua Sect

Song Jiayi – Sect Leader of Liqiu Hua Sect

Qiu Jucheng – Senior cultivator of Liqiu Hua Sect

Lu Xiuying – Second disciple of Liqiu Hua Sect

Yang Jingfei – Third disciple of Liqiu Hua Sect

Ling Hong – Fourth disciple of Liqiu Hua Sect ]

Heng Xiaowen shoved some more noodles in his mouth and set about matching names to faces. The youths, disciples of Liqiu Hua Sect, whatever that was, addressed the handsome woman as Master, so he assumed that must be Song Jiayi. That would make the man sitting beside her Qiu Jucheng, who was apparently some sort of farmer? The teen girl had been called Xiuying, so Lu Xiuying was easy to place. Jingfei had been described as his junior sister, so that made the younger girl Yang Jingfei, and the boy Ling Hong.

“When that stone hit you on the head, were all three of your souls knocked away?” Ling Hong asked.

“Xiao-Hong,” Qiu Jucheng admonished.

Heng Xiaowen thought it was a good question though, he had no idea he had three souls. He did his best to mimic the way the others spoke and said, “Master, were my three souls knocked away?”

Song Jiayi seemed slightly taken aback. “Master? Don’t you normally call me Master?” She reached out a cuffed Ling Hong on the back of the head. “Anyway, your three souls and seven souls are fine. Xiao-Hong is still talking nonsense as always”

Heng Xiaowen nodded, resolving to save up points to upgrade the Fan-Translation Matrix as quickly as possible.

“Xiaowen,” Qiu Jucheng said. “Now that you have recovered a bit, do you feel well? Can you leave tomorrow?”

“Leave?” Heng Xiaowen was caught off guard. They wanted to get rid of him already? “Where… Where would I go?”

Qiu Jucheng furrowed his brow. “Xiuying and I heard that there was a problem of missing livestock in a village a few days away from here. We hope to investigate. Xiaowen, if you are still uncomfortable, we can stay and rest for as long as you want.”

Heng Xiaowen relaxed quickly, Qiu Jucheng only wanted to know if he felt well enough to travel. “Oh, yes, traveling tomorrow is good.”

Qiu Jucheng gave him a puzzled look and was about to respond when Song Jiayi cut in. “Xiaowen, what is the third precept of the Liqiu Hua Sect?”

Goddamnit.

Heng Xiaowen pretended not to hear her and put as many noodles into his mouth as he could without choking.

Song Jiayi sighed. “Elm head.” She raised an eyebrow at Ling Hong. “How about you Xiao-Hong? Can you recite our third precept?”

“Don’t be tough for no reason,” Ling Hong grumbled.

“What a good disciple,” Song Jiayi said and tossed him a tangerine that she produced from her sleeve. She turned her attention back to Heng Xiaowen. “If you need more rest, you need more rest. I don’t want you to overtax yourself and hurt yourself again in the future.”

Heng Xiaowen couldn’t help but feel wistful; if only his bosses in his first life had held such a philosophy. He definitely needed to convince these people to keep him around.

“I’m really fine,” he said, trying to speak as simply and directly as possible so his words wouldn’t be twisted by the Fan-Translation Matrix. “I will tell you if I don’t feel healthy enough to travel tomorrow morning.”

This seemed to appease Song Jiayi and she leaned back, exchanged a brief glance with Qiu Jucheng, and picked up her cup of tea. “Okay, let’s leave tomorrow.”

The light outside the window dimmed as they finished their meal. The thrum of cicadas hadn’t yet faded, and when Heng Xiaowen tuned in, underneath the cicadas, he could hear crickets chirping, and cuckoos calling in the trees. He could even hear the overlapping chatter of people talking in the streets and below him in the inn. He didn’t often notice how noisy the quiet was, and smiled to himself.

How lively.