The fluorescent lights of Shanghai's CBD Tower buzzed overhead as Yun Shaoyun massaged his temples, staring at the quarterly reports swimming before his eyes. At thirty, he'd mastered the art of looking busy while contemplating life's greater mysteries—like why his coffee mug was perpetually empty and how his back had started making those weird clicking sounds.

"Just another normal Tuesday," he muttered, reaching for his fourth cup of coffee.

That's when everything went wrong.

The coffee never made it to his lips. The world lurched sideways, reality cracking like a broken mirror. Colors bled into each other, sounds stretched into impossible frequencies, and Yun felt his body compress and twist as if being forced through a tube the size of a straw.

Then, darkness.

When consciousness returned, the first thing Yun noticed was that everything seemed... bigger. The trees loomed higher, the stone steps before him stretched wider, and his clothes—his perfectly pressed business casual attire—hung off him like a child playing dress-up.

Wait.

With trembling hands that were now impossibly small, Yun Shaoyun touched his face. Gone were the slight wrinkles around his eyes from years of staring at spreadsheets. Gone was the stubble he'd been too lazy to shave that morning. Instead, his fingers found smooth, young skin.

"This has to be a joke," he whispered, his voice high and clear—a child's voice. Scrambling to his feet, nearly tripping over his now-oversized clothes, he rushed to a nearby decorative pond. The face that stared back at him wasn't the tired office worker he'd been moments ago, but a boy of no more than ten years old.

"Oh, this is bad. This is very, very bad."

He was standing in what appeared to be a traditional cultivation sect, complete with practicing disciples and floating swords, but that seemed like a secondary concern compared to the fact that he'd just lost two decades of his life. Or gained them back, depending on how you looked at it.

The Unwavering Sword Sect's training grounds sprawled before him, its disciples moving through sword forms with practiced precision. Energy rippled through the air like heat waves off hot pavement, but with an otherworldly quality that made his newly-young skin tingle.

"Okay, Yun Shaoyun, think," he muttered, gathering his oversized clothes around him. "You're in a cultivation world, you're ten years old again, and you have absolutely no idea how any of this works. Perfect. Just perfect."

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A group of young disciples passed nearby, their robes marked with the sect's emblem—a straight sword wrapped in swirling energy. They moved with the confidence of those born into this world of cultivation, their backs straight, their steps light. Meanwhile, Yun was trying not to trip over his own feet, his body feeling simultaneously familiar and foreign.

His thirty years of life experience screamed at him to analyze the situation, to find some logical explanation. But logic had apparently taken a vacation along with his adult body.

"First things first," he reasoned, his business mind still working even if his body had regressed, "I need proper clothes and information. Can't blend in looking like a kid playing corporate cosplay."

He started moving toward what looked like a less populated area of the sect, his mind racing. Twenty years of corporate experience had taught him how to navigate complex social structures and politics. Surely those skills would transfer to a cultivation sect? Even if he was now shorter than most people's elbows?

A sudden commotion drew his attention. Two disciples were sparring nearby, their swords trailing streams of energy that made his eyes hurt to look at directly. One of them, a boy perhaps a few years older than his current physical age, executed a move that sent his opponent flying backward.

"The Unwavering Blade Form," someone in the watching crowd murmured. "Young Master Liu has nearly mastered it."

Yun watched carefully, his adult mind analyzing the technique while his child's body trembled slightly at the display of power. The sword movement looked deceptively simple—a straight thrust that somehow bent space itself, as if the very air was being pierced and reshaped.

"Right," he whispered to himself, "because regular sword fighting wasn't complicated enough. Had to add space manipulation to the mix."

His internal grumbling was interrupted by a sharp voice.

"You! The one in the strange clothes!"

Yun turned to find a stern-faced disciple pointing at him. Great. Just great.

"Care to explain why a child your age is wandering the Unwavering Sword Sect unescorted?" the disciple demanded, his hand resting casually on his sword hilt.

Yun's mind raced. He had two decades of experience talking his way out of tight situations, but would those skills work coming from a ten-year-old's mouth?

"I..." he started, then realized his voice was shaking. Not from fear, but from the strange disconnect between his mental age and physical form. "I was brought here by... circumstances beyond my control."

Well, that wasn't technically a lie.

The disciple's eyes narrowed. "Circumstances? What circumstances would bring an improperly dressed child to our sect's inner grounds?"

"Would you believe corporate restructuring?" Yun muttered under his breath, then louder, "I'm not entirely sure myself. One moment I was... elsewhere, and the next, I was here."

His answer seemed to catch the disciple off guard. Before the conversation could continue, Yun spotted a loose training dummy off to the side. With the quick thinking that had served him well in boardroom emergencies, he pointed dramatically. "Watch out! That's about to fall!"

The disciple turned reflexively, and Yun took his chance. He darted away, his smaller body moving with an agility he'd forgotten he once possessed. Twenty years of corporate life had taught him one valuable lesson: sometimes the best solution was a strategic retreat.

As he ducked behind a storage building, trying to catch his breath, Yun couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. Here he was, a thirty-year-old office worker trapped in a ten-year-old's body, hiding from cultivators in what appeared to be a martial arts sect straight out of a web novel.

"At least I won't have to worry about those quarterly reports anymore," he mused, then sobered quickly. "No, instead I just have to worry about cultivation, magical swords, and apparently being ten again. Much better."

Looking down at his child-sized hands, Yun took a deep breath. He had experience adapting to new situations, managing complex relationships, and thinking on his feet. Sure, those skills were developed in a corporate environment rather than a cultivation sect, but principles were principles, right?

"First step in any new situation: gather information," he reminded himself, falling back on familiar project management strategies. "Second step: acquire resources. Third step: develop a plan."

The sound of approaching footsteps made him press closer to the wall. As disciples passed by, discussing cultivation techniques and sect politics, Yun listened intently. He might be starting from scratch in terms of cultivation, but when it came to navigating complex social structures and power dynamics?