After Redeeming the Paranoid Villain [Transmigration] - Chapter 1

Su Yu sat blankly in the car, watching the scenery retreat past the window. Even now, he had not fully processed what had happened.

One second, he was busy posting a ten-thousand-word review, expressing his intense frustration with a novel he had just finished. How was it that the moment he opened his eyes, he was sitting in a car?

Su Yu stared silently at the steering wheel in the driver’s hands. The prominent Maybach logo was an eyesore, yet Su Yu felt an inexplicable sense of calm.

“This must be a dream,” he thought.

He began a process of self-deluded brainwashing.

While Su Yu was busy convincing himself of this, he propped his head up and watched the passing landscape in silence. The driver noticed Su Yu’s strange behavior and recalled the recent joke that had rocked the business world. Although curious, the driver knew what was and was not his business to ask. He suppressed his thoughts and asked in a professional tone, “Is something the matter, Young Master?”

Hearing that title made Su Yu’s skin crawl. He subconsciously swallowed, his voice sounding a bit dry. “No, it is nothing.”

“Wait! What did you call me? Young Master?”

Su Yu’s dazed brain finally registered the discrepancy after a several-minute delay.

“Young Master, do you have any instructions?” Despite sensing Su Yu’s oddness, the driver strictly adhered to his duties.

“What do you mean, ‘Young Master’?” Su Yu felt like he was being driven mad by the absurdity of the situation.

It was one thing to wake up in a luxury car, but it was another for someone to call him “Young Master.” What kind of magical realism was this?

“Master Su, you are the only son of the Su family, Su Yu. What is wrong with you today?” The driver finally could not help but ask.

Su Yu stared out the window in silence. The name Su Yu was correct, but what was this “Young Master of the Su Family” nonsense? When did he ever have such a role-playing vocabulary?

Wait! Role?

A flash of insight struck Su Yu’s mind. He remembered the novel he had just read and the passionate review he had left for the villain. In that novel, there was a minor character who was so insignificant he was barely a footnote, yet he shared the same name as Su Yu. That character was precisely the only son of the Su Corporation.

Su Yu’s mouth twitched. He had seen plenty of “transmigration” novels before and had even jokingly commented “I suggest you memorize the text” on posts where people shared names with characters. But this time, it was real.

Su Yu looked at the receding scenery outside the car window. “There is no way it is this coincidental,” he muttered.

It was not that he could not accept the reality, but usually, people who transmigrated became the protagonist, a powerhouse, or at least had a “golden finger” cheat code. What did he get?

Although this Su Yu shared his name, his reputation in the book’s world was abysmal. In the story, Su Yu was a son of the Su family, yet his every word and action were incredibly frivolous. After seeing the eldest son of the Gu family at a banquet, he fell in love at first sight. He publicly declared, “I will marry no one but Gu Chen,” turning the Su family into the laughingstock of the business community.

Those who did not know Su Yu assumed he was a girl. Those who knew his gender took his words as a joke. Every year, Su Yu’s antics became the favorite topic of idle gossip at business New Year galas.

Looking at the passing scenery and thinking of the original host’s various misdeeds, a long, emotionally charged “Fuck” escaped Su Yu’s lips.

“What is this? Alice in Wonderland?”

Just as Su Yu was grappling with whether he was dreaming, the car slowed down and turned into a villa that looked more like a palace. Su Yu watched mutely as the European-style gates swung open. He finally caught the key point amidst the chaos: “Mr. Driver, where are we going?”

The driver looked at Su Yu, whose behavior had been bizarre the entire trip. Though he found it strange, his professional ethics compelled him to answer, “Master Su, we have arrived at Master Gu’s home.”

“Master Gu?” Su Yu’s brain failed to connect the dots for a moment.

Seeing Su Yu completely out of it, the driver explained, “Master Gu is the eldest son of the Gu family, Gu Chen. Young Master, have you forgotten? Today is the day you marry into the family.”

This last sentence was the final straw that broke the camel’s back. The taut string in Su Yu’s heart snapped with a loud pop. He sat in the back seat for a long while before finally squeezing out the word he found hardest to accept: “What do you mean by ‘marry’?”

“A few years ago at a business banquet, you fell in love with the eldest Master Gu at first sight and claimed you would not marry anyone else. Not only that, you have followed him for years and could not be driven away.” The driver’s expression was complicated as he recounted these events, but he continued to explain, “But not long ago, because of an accident, Master Gu Chen’s legs seemed to be…”

The driver hesitated, searching for a tactful way to put it. “It seems he has difficulty walking now. The Gu family wanted someone to take care of him, but Master Gu Chen has a foul temper and never lets anyone near him. Then, last week, you volunteered yourself. You said that as long as you could marry him, you would take good care of him regardless of how he treated you.”

Su Yu’s worldview was shattered once again. His mouth twitched. What kind of idiot “love-brain” is this?

If the original host encountered a zombie apocalypse, the zombies would probably spit his brain out for fear of lowering their own intelligence.

Su Yu slowly digested this bizarre information, but the more he thought, the more wrong it felt. He finally asked the driver, “If Su Yu’s brain is broken, is the Gu family’s brain broken too?”

The driver’s hands stiffened on the wheel. He looked at Su Yu as if wanting to say something, but ultimately kept quiet, offering only a vague reply: “Master Su, I am not quite sure, but the Gu family did indeed agree to your request.”

Su Yu looked at the driver, who had returned to silence. He was now certain the driver was internally calling him a “love-brain idiot.”

However, he was no longer that Su Yu. If he remembered correctly, the reason the Gu family agreed to let Su Yu marry Gu Chen was because of Gu Chen’s younger brother, Gu Yian, who wanted to seize control of the Gu family power.

Gu Chen was the eldest son, but he had been sent abroad as a child, showing he was not favored by the patriarch. A few years ago, Gu Chen suddenly returned to China. No one knew why. While everyone was watching to see if this unaccepted eldest son would fail, he flourished in the business world within just a few years. His powerful management skills made Gu Yian feel threatened. Consequently, Gu Yian sabotaged him, causing a car accident that left Gu Chen paralyzed.

From the driver’s words, Su Yu gathered that it had been a month since the accident, and Gu Chen should be bedridden and recovering. In the book, Gu Chen was described as cautious and distrustful; he naturally would not let anyone get close. Since Gu Yian’s people could not get near him, Gu Yian planned to hollow out Gu Chen’s power while he was bedridden.

But no matter how hard Gu Yian tried, he could not get close to the core secrets held by Gu Chen. Just as Gu Yian was fretting, the “love-brain” Su Yu appeared before him. With his “marry no one but Gu Chen” rhetoric and devoted act, he convinced Gu Yian. Because Su Yu was brainless and easy to control, Gu Yian took it upon himself to make the decision while Gu Chen was unconscious. By the time Gu Chen woke up, the world had changed, and he suddenly had a male “wife.”

The book’s description of Gu Chen seeing Su Yu in the hospital was:

“Gu Chen, lying on the hospital bed, looked at Su Yu before him. His usually indifferent eyes held a trace of emotion. He spoke only one word: ‘Get out.’ Immediately after saying it, Gu Chen fainted again, whether from physical weakness or pure rage.”

Su Yu subconsciously swallowed. No matter how much he sympathized with the villain while reading, or felt the villain was wronged, he could not help but want to retreat now that he was about to meet the man himself.

The car finally stopped after driving through the villa’s massive garden. Su Yu watched silently as the driver got out, retrieved his luggage from the trunk, and opened the door. Although his expression was perfectly calm, his mind was screaming “Help me! Help me!” on an infinite loop.

Led by the butler, Su Yu entered the unnervingly large villa. Despite the gravity of the situation, the phrase “a golden house for a hidden beauty” popped into his head, though he was hardly a “beauty.”

As Su Yu’s mind wandered, the sound of a door opening came from upstairs. Su Yu stopped and looked up toward the sound. A man dressed in black silk pajamas emerged from behind an expensive wooden door, sitting in a wheelchair.

The man was handsome, though long-term confinement to a bed made him look somewhat frail. He sat on the second floor, looking down at Su Yu. His hand rested on the armrest, tapping it lightly; the faint blue veins on the back of his hand suggested his health was not at its peak.

The dim sunlight from the garden reached the second floor through the windows, but the man remained at the edge of the light, shrouded in the darkness behind him. For some reason, Su Yu sensed a profound sadness beneath the man’s cold and ruthless exterior, like a wounded beast licking its wounds in the dark.

Gu Chen looked at Su Yu, who was staring up at him motionlessly. His handsome brows furrowed instantly, and the disgust in his eyes was undisguised.

“What are you doing here?”

Gu Chen’s voice was deep. The voice that should have carried emotion seemed to have lost its warmth after the accident, leaving only an endless chill.

Su Yu finally snapped out of it. He finally understood why the original Su Yu was so madly in love with Gu Chen. With that voice, those looks, and that “disdain for all living things” posture even while in a wheelchair, he was absolute “straight-man bait.” No wonder the original host, after living normally for twenty-three years, had suddenly turned gay at lightning speed.

Gu Chen looked at Su Yu, who was still staring up at him like an idiot. His cold face was full of displeasure. He opened his mouth and repeated the same word he had said in the hospital.

“Get out.”