From the Start, Just One Run-Down Restaurant!

(Read the main story first, and add this to your list if you're interested!)

(Before it goes premium, updates will be kept short to help it reach the rankings. Daily updates will begin afterward. Here's a little ad for my upcoming story: Give Me a Health Bar, I Dare You! (Transmigration into a Book))

After being electrocuted by a faulty power strip, office worker Shu Huai transmigrates to an unfamiliar era.

Other transmigrators all get golden fingers: a System that makes them stronger through sign-in, an infinite storage space, or a get-rich-quick System.

But from the start, he gets a shabby restaurant with no tables or chairs, plus a restaurant-management System that only knows how to make empty promises.

The System even sets him a "little goal": if he wants to go home, he has to turn the restaurant into a nationwide chain.

Shu Huai: Thanks a lot...

No matter. Marketing genius, reporting for duty!

No customers? Hire students from the academy as a promotional team and have them shout out his restaurant whenever they're free.

A rival tries to frame him? Any publicity is good publicity. He'll use the chance to stir up a buzz.

Not famous enough? Go straight to the imperial palace and win a cooking contest, then slap a "Serves the Imperial Court" sign on the restaurant.

Before he knows it, his restaurant has become the top-tier star of the capital.

Not only is it packed with customers every day, it also attracts a few "troublesome bosses":

A kindhearted top scholar picks up his brush and gets him sponsorships.

A cold prince takes over his entire pantry with a stern expression.

A brash general hangs around the restaurant, insisting he's just there to help out.

Even the decisive and ruthless tyrant becomes one of his most devoted fans.

Looking at his harem, no, his ever-growing staff, Shu Huai falls into deep thought:

So did I come here to open a restaurant, or a fish pond?

1. All the gongs are inexperienced. I'll update the supporting-character list as they appear.

2. This is a fictional historical setting, so readers who want rigorous historical accuracy should proceed with caution. The story is meant to be light and fun, and logic takes a back seat to satisfaction.

Upcoming story:

( lovesick sword cultivator gong x chuuni gaming otaku shou)

Fu Wenyue is struck by lightning during an offline VR game tournament and transmigrates into the tragic novel he read the night before, becoming its tragic male lead.

A noble family's son, he loses his cultivation while protecting the sect's pampered little junior brother, ends up in the countryside, and is treated like a servant.

When he's brought back to the sect, everyone there falsely accuses him. His master punishes him, his senior brothers torment him in body and spirit, and at the end of the story, they even dig out his spiritual root for the junior brother, who's hit a bottleneck in his cultivation!

On his third day of suffering in the book, he finally can't take it anymore and his urge to fight back reaches its peak, but the System says, "Please be patient, Host, and follow the plot until they dig out your spiritual root!"

Fu Wenyue: The hell I will!

He throws a punch at the person tormenting him, only to see a health bar appear out of nowhere above their head.

Fu Wenyue: "What is that?"

System: "Uh-oh! You've maxed out this character's aggro!"

Fu Wenyue: "What happens now?"

System: "You can play PvP now."

Fu Wenyue: Uh-oh!

Then it's time to fight back!

From then on, people in the cultivation world notice that the poor fellow abandoned by his family has become a completely different person.

He doesn't take abuse anymore. Anyone who bullies him gets beaten up, and he even has all kinds of strange and wonderful skills.

Just like that, Fu Wenyue takes a tragic novel and beats it into a satisfying power fantasy.

Later, he decides to challenge Linghu Yan, the genius sword cultivator ranked first on the young prodigies list.

Fu Wenyue rubs his hands together and challenges Linghu Yan every day, but the other man refuses to show his health bar no matter what.

Then one day, Linghu Yan's health bar finally appears.

But why is it pink? And why does it have hearts floating above it?

Fu Wenyue: Can I fight this thing?

1. Both leads are inexperienced.

2. One-on-one romance. The gong has two names in the blurb because he has two identities. I've included both so no one mistakes which one is the main gong!

3. The story focuses on the shou and is mainly a satisfying power fantasy. The gong will disappear for stretches of time, so don't read this if you can't accept that.

4. For certain reasons, the gong is an idiot at first (a genuine idiot), but he'll return to normal and grow strong later.

Theme: True love is priceless