I Can’t Keep Being a Scumbag Anymore—What Should I Do? [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 1

Nancheng High.

It wasn’t until the final bell rang that Ran Muqiu finally lifted his head from his desk.

Having slept through the entire period, the youth’s black hair was slightly tousled. A few faint red marks from the desk were pressed into his fair, tender cheeks, and his large eyes were half-lidded, giving him a dazed, foggy look.

On the podium, the teacher finished assigning homework and shot him a few lingering glances. After a brief pause, the teacher said nothing, picked up the lesson plans, and left.

The moment the teacher vanished, the classroom exploded into a cacophony of noise. Several boys immediately swarmed around Ran Muqiu.

“Brother Qiu,” a short, skinny boy with a buzz cut leaned over his desk, flashing a flattering grin. “Where are we partying this weekend? Take us with you!”

“What ‘partying’?” Ran Muqiu packed his schoolbag with slow, deliberate movements. “I’m going home to do my homework.”

Skinny boy: “…”

Skinny-Buzz-Cut clearly didn’t believe him. Neither did the rest of Ran Muqiu’s lackeys; they all assumed their boss was just being difficult.

Ran Muqiu was the “School Bully” of Nancheng High.

To be a school bully, one had to possess a certain character—especially in a place like Nancheng High, which was already crawling with delinquent students. Ran Muqiu was no exception. He came from a wealthy family and had an arrogant, overbearing personality. From the moment he enrolled, he had naturally attracted a crowd of like-minded “bad seeds.”

After picking a few fights, bullying a few victims, and letting his wealthy father pay off the damages a few times to show he was “untouchable,” Ran Muqiu’s status as the kingpin was successfully cemented. Now, at Nancheng High, if

Young Master Ran said “East,” nobody dared head “West.”

By nature, Ran Muqiu was lazy and pampered. Aside from gaming and bullying people, he didn’t have many hobbies; his life was actually quite bland. As for homework? He never touched it. Even if he turned in a blank exam paper, no teacher dared utter a word of criticism.

For him to suddenly say he was doing homework, had he undergone a personality transplant overnight?

The lackeys tried to persuade him for a few more minutes until Ran Muqiu grew impatient. He waved them off, telling them to stop blocking his path. The crowd grumbled and finally dispersed.

The classroom emptied quickly since it was Friday.

Ran Muqiu slowly finished packing, zipped up his pencil case, and then turned his head to glance at the furthest corner of the room.

Someone was sitting there.

It was a boy with slightly long bangs, wearing a thin, worn-out shirt that looked far too cold for the season. He was hunched over his desk, writing furiously.

Even without a clear view of the boy’s face, one could tell from the gloomy, silent aura he radiated that he was an outcast—the kind of person who was destined to be unpopular.

Ran Muqiu stared at him for barely two seconds before the boy, as if sensing something, suddenly looked up. His eyes met Ran Muqiu’s.

He had incredibly beautiful eyes.

Amber pupils, slightly elongated at the corners and tilting upward—when his eyelashes fluttered, it looked like a butterfly beating its wings. However, such vibrant, aggressive, and elegant eyes felt oddly out of place on such a gloomy, somber face. Yet, looking at him, one couldn’t help but feel that he would be breathtaking if he ever smiled.

The boy stared straight at Ran Muqiu without blinking.

Ran Muqiu hadn’t expected him to look up so suddenly. Caught off guard, he froze for a second. His instinct was to look away, but he quickly realized that he wasn’t the one who should be intimidated. Putting on a stern expression, he gave the boy a fierce glare.

The boy pursed his lips. As if frightened by Ran Muqiu, his eyes flickered, and he quickly lowered his head again.

Ran Muqiu watched him for a moment longer. Just as he was about to speak, a hand slapped his shoulder. He looked up to see his classmate, Qin Wei, standing by his desk.

“Brother Qiu, I need a life-saver!” Qin Wei had clearly run all the way back; he was drenched in sweat and panting heavily. “Lend me your phone! My old man did a surprise check and called me right in the middle of a conversation, then my phone died! He’s probably hunting me down right now!”

Qin Wei rented a cheap room off-campus to live with his girlfriend from a nearby vocational school. He lied to his parents, claiming he had a part-time job so he wouldn’t have to go home on weekends.

Qin Wei was quite famous at school—essentially the “Second-in-Command” after Ran Muqiu. If his dad couldn’t find him and asked any random classmate, they might accidentally lead the father straight to the secret rental. No wonder he was panicking.

Ran Muqiu nodded. “Sure.” He unzipped his bag again to dig for his phone.

While Ran Muqiu was searching, Qin Wei stood with his hands on his hips, scanning the room. His gaze landed on Li Zhu in the corner. His expression immediately soured, twisting into a look of disgust as if he’d just stepped on something filthy in the street.

He leaned in, putting an arm around Ran Muqiu’s shoulder. It looked like he was about to whisper a secret, but he didn’t bother lowering his voice at all.

“Brother Qiu, let’s go. We can look for the phone while we walk,” Qin Wei said loudly, pulling Muqiu toward the door while nodding pointedly toward the corner. “Aren’t you afraid of the bad luck, being alone in a room with that guy? I’m worried I’ll catch a disease just being near him.”

Ran Muqiu stumbled as he was dragged along. He slapped Qin Wei’s hand away. “Let go. Do you want the phone or not?”

Qin Wei just laughed and hauled him out of the classroom.

Inside the room, Li Zhu watched their retreating figures, his gaze darkening slightly. After a moment, he stood up, slung his bag over his shoulder, and left.

After using the phone to successfully fool his father, a jubilant Qin Wei offered to buy Ran Muqiu some BBQ.

Ran Muqiu had a “delicate young master’s stomach” and couldn’t handle the greasy, unhygienic food from street stalls, so he declined.

Qin Wei didn’t mind. He was in a hurry to get back to his girlfriend, so he bought two orders of rice rolls and waved goodbye. Before leaving, he warned Ran Muqiu to be careful on the way home. Nancheng High was located in an old, run-down district surrounded by shady internet cafes and pool halls. It was crawling with thugs.

“Be careful you don’t get ‘beauty-napped,'” Qin Wei teased. “You’re so pretty you look like a girl. What if some blind idiot doesn’t recognize the boss of Nancheng High and tries something?”

Ran Muqiu: “…”

He aimed a half-hearted kick at Qin Wei. Qin Wei dodged with a laugh and ran off.

Ran Muqiu stood at the school gate for a moment. Waiting, he thought about Qin Wei’s words and felt a bit depressed.

Was his reputation as a “Bully” really that weak?

“Be careful you don’t get beauty-napped”? Was that really something a lackey should say to the King of the School?

Then again, he was only mildly annoyed, not surprised. He had heard variations of that sentence many times before entering this world.

Ran Muqiu was a “Quick Transmigration Taskforce” member. He had arrived in this world, titled The Overbearing School Grass’s Gentle Pampering, two months ago.

Originally an ordinary college student, an accident had swept him into the transmigration system. Because his personality was a bit soft and his face was “easy to tease”—pretty but lacking any intimidating aura—he was never given important roles. He usually played minor, “soy sauce” background characters.

Simple tasks meant low rewards. Ran Muqiu was still a “pauper” in the Transmigration Hub. He couldn’t afford a house, lived in the slums, and could only spend his vacations at overcrowded public beaches.

About six months ago, his bound System, No. 233, approached him during a break. “Host, I have a new offer with a very generous reward. Want to see?”

At the word “reward,” Ran Muqiu’s eyes lit up. “Yes!”

The System transmitted the script: his role was the “Scumbag Gong” in The Overbearing School Grass’s Gentle Pampering. His main task was to torment the Protagonist Shou until his “Heartbreak Value” was maxed out, at which point he could exit the world.

The script was short. Ran Muqiu finished it in minutes, followed by a long, heavy silence.

The plot wasn’t the problem. It was a classic, cliché story:

The Protagonist Shou is ostracized at school due to his family background. The one who bullies him most is the School Bully (Ran Muqiu). Eventually, the Bully realizes the Shou is actually resilient and cute, and falls for him. But instead of confessing, the panicked Bully uses even crueler methods to hide his feelings. Naturally, this pushes the Shou away. When the “School Grass” (the Protagonist Gong) appears, the Shou finally feels loved, and the two fall for each other.

The Bully tries to win him back, but it’s too late; he ends up losing in a series of “face-slapping” scenes, watching the lovers get their happy ending.

A very average story. Likely written by a novice.

However, Ran Muqiu understood exactly why the Bureau loved this script—because the author’s ability to write “smut” was too. damn. strong.

Classrooms, equipment rooms, basketball courts, locker rooms, the woods behind the cafeteria, KTV rooms, bars, pens, rulers, ties, fists, electrodes, test tubes, microphones.

If you could imagine it, the author had written it. It was “juicy” and “overflowing with meat” (sexual content). And this wasn’t limited to the main couple. The reason the School Bully “discovered” the Shou was cute was largely due to their “bedroom communications.”

Ran Muqiu: “…”

System 233 tried its best to sell it: “Host, this is a major role! It’s an angst-heavy story, so the emotional entanglement between you and the Shou is deep. The main Gong doesn’t even show up until halfway through. You have so much room to work with! Just follow the guide: bully him, humiliate him, max the Heartbreak Value, and you get 1,000 points!”

Ran Muqiu: “…”

233 was being a bit too eager, and Muqiu felt something was off. But 1,000 points was too much to ignore. He asked hesitantly, “But, there’s a lot of R-rated content in the script, do I have to perform those?”

“No, no!” 233 explained immediately. “The R-rated stuff gets censored during the broadcast anyway. It’s a hassle. You just have to find a way to fake it or gloss over it. Even if you don’t actually ‘do it,’ you won’t lose points.”

Ran Muqiu felt a bit better. But then he worried, “Wait, why did they pick me for this role? The script says the Bully is 6’2″ (188cm).”

Because it was a “smutty” novel, the physical descriptions were very specific:

A wicked, domineering face. 188cm tall. An eight-pack. And even a “28cm” hardware requirement.

Ran Muqiu didn’t meet a single one.

System 233: “…”

Having collaborated with Ran Muqiu for many years, System No. 233 was painfully aware of its host’s actual “specs.”

After a momentary, suspicious pause, it offered a shifty explanation: “There’s no other way. At last year’s Great World Year-End Awards, the Quick Transmigration Bureau had the lowest performance of all the space-time departments.

Everyone is flocking to the Infinite Flow Department these days—who can blame them when the bonuses are so high? The Bureau literally couldn’t recruit anyone else suitable.”

Muqiu understood. He was essentially a “bottom-of-the-barrel” hire for this role.

“Alright then,” Muqiu whispered.

Since the System had put it that way, refusing now would be an insult to those one thousand points.

Ran Muqiu waited at the school gate for quite a while.

It wasn’t until the sky began to dim and a familiar set of footsteps echoed from a short distance away that he finally started walking in the direction Qin Wei had gone.

The low-rent apartments were located in a residential area behind Nancheng High. These were decades-old buildings, originally allocated to factory workers and later repurposed as resettlement housing; the construction quality was abysmal.

Nowadays, the residents consisted mostly of the elderly or young couples like Qin Wei who rented off-campus.

With his schoolbag slung over his shoulder, Ran Muqiu walked toward the buildings at a leisurely pace. The footsteps followed him from behind, maintaining a steady, calculated distance.

About fifteen minutes later, Ran Muqiu stopped in a dark alleyway. He turned around to face his shadow.

The youth stood there in his worn shirt and school trousers. He was tall and lean, and as the streetlight spilled over him, his features appeared clean-cut and handsome.

It was Li Zhu.

When Ran Muqiu stopped, he stopped too. Standing with his back to the streetlamp, the light was dim, and Li Zhu’s eyes seemed to darken unnervingly—pitch black and shimmering with an emotion Muqiu couldn’t quite decipher.

Muqiu assumed it must be anger and humiliation.

After all, Li Zhu was the “Protagonist Shou” of this world-line, and Muqiu, playing the “Scumbag Bully,” had been diligently tormenting him for nearly two months. Today, for instance, he was here to complete his daily “bullying check-in.”

Muqiu glanced left and right to ensure they were alone. Then, he turned back, tilted his delicate chin up slightly, and beckoned with a finger. “Come here.”

He intentionally made the gesture casual and dismissive, as if he were calling over a stray puppy.

The moment the words left his mouth, as if a command had been triggered, Li Zhu lunged at him.

Their schoolbags were tossed haphazardly to the side. Ran Muqiu was slammed against the filthy, hard brick wall, his thin shoulder blades aching from the impact.

Muqiu was completely stunned; for a moment, he couldn’t even react.

It wasn’t until his lips were violently captured that he let out a sharp cry of pain. Only then did he realize what he had actually seen in Li Zhu’s eyes earlier.

It was the glint of a predator mid-hunt.

But, could someone please tell him why the Protagonist Shou was this strong?

And more importantly, if he was the Scumbag Gong and Li Zhu was the Protagonist Shou, why was he the one pinned against the wall?