Countdown to Survival

[Weibo: @Chang An Mu Xi Niang. Ongoing and completed works are listed on my author page.]

I

What would you do if you transmigrated?

Zhao Baiyu: Die while it’s still hot.

II

Zhao Baiyu’s birth mother was a pampered princess who went mad for love and committed every kind of evil. She was banished from the capital, leaving the infant Zhao Baiyu behind.

His relatives and friends in the capital hated Zhao Baiyu because of his birth mother.

Zhao Baiyu had a hard life.

His half-brother, Zhao Yuzheng, was his complete opposite. The princess’s schemes had caused him to be born prematurely, and everyone doted on him to excess.

Even Zhao Baiyu’s maternal relatives, the emperor and empress dowager, loved Zhao Yuzheng all the more out of guilt.

Zhao Baiyu, on the other hand, had been treated with coldness and cruelty since childhood. Even so, he remained optimistic and positive, convinced that if he kept working hard to clear his name, he could change people’s prejudices.

Until the men who doted on Zhao Yuzheng joined forces to send him to a prince’s manor.

The prince was vicious and had played men to death.

III

After Zhao Baiyu cracked his head, his memories suddenly returned. He abruptly recalled that what he thought was transmigration was actually a danmei novel about a beloved darling surrounded by doting men.

The adored protagonist was Zhao Yuzheng, while Zhao Baiyu was the villainous male supporting character. The princess had deliberately switched their identities at birth.

For nineteen years, their lives had been switched. Zhao Baiyu should have been the one receiving all that love.

The truth wasn’t revealed until the very end of the novel. No one could bear to blame Zhao Yuzheng. Instead, he gained a princess mother who cherished him like a precious pearl.

Zhao Baiyu: “...”

Make way. Don’t block my path to my next life.

IV

Controlling floods, eradicating disease, saving tens of thousands...

After beheading three hundred officials in a single day, Zhao Baiyu stunned the court and became famous throughout the realm, earning the title of the Great Jing Dynasty’s greatest upright official.

Summoned back to the capital, Zhao Baiyu took a blade for the emperor at a palace banquet. With his life hanging by a thread, the fate of every official in the court at heart, he stopped the imperial physician from pulling the blade out and said, “Don’t save me. I don’t want to live.”

That night, those who had once hated Zhao Baiyu or wronged him felt their hearts shatter.

Content Warnings:

1. A story about healing. This does not encourage suicide. It’s about someone trapped in a hopeless situation struggling to save himself.

2. The shou is beautiful, powerful, and tragic. Everyone hates him at first, but he later becomes their beloved. The gong has a very peculiar personality and is completely devoted to him.

3. Treasure your life. A marriage-before-love story, specifically for the shou.

4. Upcoming novel: “The Cannon Fodder Unintentionally Saves the Male Lead”

I

Xu Zhili dreams that he’s a cannon-fodder character in a male-oriented novel, with fewer than ten chapters of screen time. Raised in the mountains, he returns to his family in the city at seventeen, only to face the cold indifference of his well-educated parents, the contempt of his talented younger siblings, and terrifying school bullying.

At the male lead’s urging, since they’re both in similar predicaments, he jumps off a building, becoming the first victim and stepping stone in the male lead’s descent into darkness.

At this moment, Xu Zhili shows up uninvited at the family home: “...”

I’ll take all ten of you down with me. None of you are getting out alive.

II

The male lead, Wang Jingmin, lives in poverty and struggles to get by on a scholarship.

After being pursued passionately by the female supporting character for two years, this aloof top student finally falls for her, only to be dumped and mocked a month later and subjected to school bullying. It turns out to have all been a game played by the children of the powerful.

The female supporting character set it all up and took them all down.

After using the cannon fodder’s death to secure a recommendation for further study, the male lead is acknowledged by his wealthy family. He juggles his studies and power struggles among the rich, endures a falling-out with his brothers, betrayal by his confidante and mentor, and the agony of his biological father using him as a whetstone for his beloved son. He turns completely evil, crushes everyone in his path, and nearly loses his humanity.

The reason he only “nearly” loses it is that the female lead is there to help each time he crawls out of a blood-soaked hell.

Though she helps him casually, she becomes the only bright, beloved figure in his miserable life.

In short, this is a melodramatic wish-fulfillment novel combining familiar tropes: youthful angst, wealthy-family business warfare, and obsessive love and redemption. It became a huge hit thanks to its unconventional tormenting of the protagonist and its strategy of holding readers back before delivering cathartic payoffs.

III

Now, as transfer student Xu Zhili faces his deskmate Wang Jingmin, who’s about to have his hand broken, what will he do?

A: Take over the female lead’s role and save the male lead.

B: Change classes, stay far away, and keep his head down until the end.

Xu Zhili: (screams) (turns into a monkey) (swings around) (slaps everyone hard) (spits in the male lead’s face) (swings away, satisfied)

Thanks for asking. I’m still reliably losing it today.

Theme: Cherish life.