Starting Out With a “Perfect Wife” Trial Card (Transmigration Into a Novel) - Chapter 1

Jin Banwei’s eyelids felt stuck together with some kind of liquid. Her limbs were slightly stiff, and her palms were freezing. It was as if an icy silver needle was repeatedly piercing her body through her palms. In a daze, she heard a low, raspy sound like a snake’s hiss: “Hiss… hiss…”

A cold, wet sensation landed on her cheek. A chill ran down Jin Banwei’s spine, and she abruptly opened her eyes.

In the dim room, her gaze locked with a pair of pale, grayish eyes.

A snake! It really was a snake!

But this one was unlike any she had ever seen. Its scales were a glossy black, and dark mist swirled around its body. It was coiled up in front of her, flicking its forked tongue. Feeling the black snake’s closeness, Jin Banwei sat up abruptly and scrambled back two steps. She heard a bone pop, and with the sound, some of the coldness in her body seemed to dissipate.

She watched the large snake warily, her peripheral vision sneaking glances at her surroundings. She was lying on a large bed, and the pale pink sheets were stained with dark marks that gave off a pungent, foul smell—what looked like dried blood.

The room’s layout was strange, almost eerie. The walls were painted a pale pink, but there were no lights, only a few antique oil lamps. The oil had burned out, leaving only the moonlight from the window to illuminate the room.

The head and foot of the bed were piled high with plush toys that looked soft to the touch, but a layer of dust covered them. The furniture was also coated in a thin layer of dust, as if no one had lived there for a long time.

Jin Banwei’s last memory was of a truck hurtling toward her. Yet, she had woken up in a strange room, not a hospital or the underworld, with a bizarre snake right in front of her.

The snake’s crimson eyes stared intently at Jin Banwei, taking in her every change of expression. The inky blackness in its eyes deepened. It opened its mouth slightly and, to Jin Banwei’s shock, spoke in a human voice: “Who are you?”

The voice was low and muffled, but she could tell it was a woman’s.

A talking snake?

Everything before her was so bizarre it defied belief and surpassed everything she had known in her twenty years of life. Before Jin Banwei could answer the snake, the sky outside the window began to lighten. The moment the first rays of dawn filled the room, the snake vanished without a trace.

Jin Banwei stiffly turned her head and squeezed her wrist hard, confirming that what had just happened was not a hallucination.

After the snake left, the room fell silent, so quiet she could only hear a heartbeat.

“Thump, thump, thump…” It was a continuous, frantic beat, and there was no way it was just her own.

There was another living thing in this seemingly empty room!

Sweat beaded on Jin Banwei’s palms, soaking the fabric of her clothes as her breathing grew shallow. Her ears strained to pinpoint the other heartbeat. Her eyes darted around, and they landed on a patch of crimson.

The plush toys in the dark corner seemed to have come to life. Their eyes, a vivid red, moved stiffly. As Jin Banwei stared, they began to move faster and faster, as if they were trying to tear themselves from their bodies. Their fur also started to change color, a bright red staining every strand.

It was like a horror game!

In just one minute, Jin Banwei’s back was drenched in cold sweat.

And where did that cold, mechanical voice come from that had warned her when the snake questioned her?

As Jin Banwei was lost in thought, an unusual sound came from above her head: “Thump, thump, thump…”

She looked up abruptly. A section of the ceiling plaster had caved in. On closer inspection, it looked like a person was hidden inside, their hands pounding on the ceiling. With each impact, a bloody handprint appeared on the plaster. The frequency of the pounding increased, and the handprints multiplied. It seemed as if the person was about to break through at any moment.

Jin Banwei swallowed hard, her throat dry and bitter.

She had to get out of here!

She no longer cared where she was. The most important thing was to escape. This was not a safe place. The talking snake, the moving dolls in the corner, and the commotion in the ceiling all made her feel an unknown danger.

Jin Banwei tried to move her stiff limbs, and then she heard a distinct “crack.”

It sounded like a bone in her hand had broken.

She had noticed before that her body was strangely rigid, and now, with just a slight movement, her hand bone had broken. This was not the pliable body of a flesh-and-blood person.

It hurt! The pain was intense!

The pain was so bad Jin Banwei wanted to cry, but her dry eyes couldn’t produce any tears.

With a broken hand, Jin Banwei dared not move, but she couldn’t stay here, letting the horrifying atmosphere consume her. Just then, a mechanical voice echoed in her mind.

【Ding! System binding successful. The ‘Kindred Spirit’ System 0405 is at your service. You will have a chance to continue your life in another world.】

【Ding! Host successfully transmigrated into a book. Reward: ‘Wife Experience Card’ awarded!】

…

“You…” Jin Banwei finally managed to speak. Her voice was hoarse and grating, and the single word drained her of all her strength. Opening her mouth felt like an invisible hand was prying her throat apart, and the tearing pain made her instinctively clutch at her neck.

But the pain lasted only a moment.

Jin Banwei felt like she had triggered some kind of switch. As the pain subsided, she could speak normally again, and a new set of memories flooded her mind.

She had transmigrated into a book.

The car accident had ended her life, and her soul had been brought into this book by the Kindred Spirit System.

The original book was a supernatural novel with a strong female lead, Guan Jiyue. Her family had been ghost hunters for generations. After her parents were killed by a malevolent spirit, she became convinced that all lingering spirits were evil. The book had no romance. In the beginning, the female protagonist was ruthless toward ghosts. She would scatter their souls regardless of whether they were good or bad. It wasn’t until she met a mother and daughter who had died in childbirth, and her aunt helped her see things differently, that her attitude toward spirits slowly changed. The story ended after she finally let go of the pain from her parents’ deaths.

And the original owner of her body was an early-game cannon fodder.

Not only the original owner but also the talking snake from earlier. They were both plot devices to set up the early story and reinforce the protagonist’s hatred for spirits.

The snake wasn’t a ghost; it was a Nightmare.

Nightmares are also born from souls, but their creation requires a violent death and the absorption of the resentful energy from at least a hundred other spirits. Therefore, their birth is often accompanied by massacres, like the extermination of an entire family or village. Because of these harsh conditions, Nightmares are born with powers far beyond those of ordinary ghosts.

They are born unafraid of sunlight and can even look just like a regular person as they grow stronger.

However, the Nightmare haunting the original owner seemed to have a unique weakness. Despite its power, it was terrified of the sun and could only hide during the day, which explained why it had fled at dawn.

Powerful Nightmares also have special abilities, and this one’s was to enter dreams. It used dreams as a way to attack people, and it could also use them to escape when in danger.

The original owner of this body had died in a dream created by the Nightmare.

The book never explained why the Nightmare had targeted the original owner, but its actions were not just simple murder.

According to the plot, because the original owner was an orphan and had some personality flaws, she didn’t have many friends, so her body was never discovered.

After killing her, the Nightmare didn’t eat her like other man-eating spirits would. Instead, it trapped her soul inside her body and captured many other spirits to confine in the room, using their yin energy to nourish the original owner’s body and their soul power to sustain her soul. This was how her body remained uncorrupted and her soul intact.

However, because of this, after a month of her soul being nourished by yin energy, evil began to grow within it. Trapped inside her body for so long, the soul and body re-fused, and she eventually transformed into a zombie. Her self-awareness became weak, and she developed a thirst for blood. Finally, unable to control her hunger, she went out to hunt and was discovered by the book’s protagonist.

At that time, the protagonist despised all malevolent spirits and, without asking for any explanation, fought her to the death, using heavenly lightning to destroy both the Nightmare and the original owner.

Unlike in the book, the original owner had a system that allowed her to escape her body and reincarnate, leaving her body and identity to Jin Banwei.

From the protagonist’s perspective, the original owner was a zombie that deserved to be killed. But from the original owner’s perspective, she was just a poor girl targeted by a Nightmare, and everything that happened after her death was out of her control. Having her soul scattered was too cruel, so it was a good thing the system gave her a chance to be reincarnated.

So, the souls trapped in the ceiling and the toys were ghosts!

Jin Banwei sat rigidly on the blood-stained sheets, her heart pounding with the thumping from above. The bloody handprints made it hard for her to breathe. She looked down sharply, but her eyes couldn’t help but glance toward the corner. The plush toys looked even more ferocious and terrifying. She was just a regular person, and suddenly transmigrating into such a thrilling place was quite difficult to adjust to.

A clear, crisp sound rang out in her ears. With the sound, Jin Banwei felt her hand bones reconnecting. She could feel her body fusing, slowly becoming flexible again.

Gathering her strength, Jin Banwei leaped out of bed and rushed toward the window.

The sky was now bright. Warm sunlight hit her, and she finally felt a bit of comfort. The coldness in her body was slowly fading.

Her eyes scanned the room, settling on the door. It was closed. The room didn’t have good lighting. The window was small, and the amount of space it could illuminate was limited. The door was in a corner, hidden behind a wardrobe, and it was frighteningly dark over there.

Jin Banwei glanced out the window. She was on a high floor and didn’t have the courage to jump.

She felt as if she had fallen into a personal hell, and the only escape route was shrouded in a dark mist. She was hesitant to even approach it, fearing that another, even more terrifying purgatory lay behind the door.

Getting a second chance at life was, of course, a good thing. She had only lived twenty years in her past life; she hadn’t lived enough.

But this place was clearly not a good place to be reborn.

According to the plot, the Nightmare would return at night. Although she didn’t know why it had targeted the original owner, its purpose seemed to be to keep her close. If it discovered that the soul in the body had been switched, she would surely be killed. It might even eat her in a fit of rage.

Jin Banwei didn’t have the protagonist’s abilities. She couldn’t even deal with ghosts, let alone a Nightmare.

She had seen a few horror movies, and the images of ghosts devouring people flashed through her mind. Just thinking about it was horrifying.

She was still afraid of pain.

“Should I go to the protagonist for help?” A new hope sprang up in Jin Banwei’s heart. The female lead was often on supernatural forums in the book. If she could find a phone and post for help on a forum, the protagonist might come looking for her.

Just as the thought arose, the system poured cold water on her idea.

【Warning, warning! The host’s body has not fully fused yet. Fusion will take at least seven more days. The host’s heart rate is currently abnormal, and your body temperature is lower than a normal person’s. If you seek help from the protagonist now, you may be mistaken for a zombie and killed.】

Seven days!

If she couldn’t find a solution, the ghosts in the room, not to mention the Nightmare, wouldn’t let her live for seven days.

Jin Banwei pinched her palm, forcing herself to calm down. She asked the system as calmly as she could, “Do I have a newbie gift pack or something?”

【The binding of the Kindred Spirit System requires no additional conditions. There are no tasks, and the host will not be erased for special reasons. However, the Kindred Spirit System can be used for random drawings with ‘Kindred Spirit Points.’ The prizes are random and can help the host adapt to this new world more quickly.】

The mention of a drawing gave Jin Banwei a glimmer of hope. She squeezed her fists in excitement. “Let me do a draw!”

As she spoke, a screen appeared before her. It showed a large spinning wheel with a single red pointer. The rest was blank, and in the center of the wheel, it clearly read, ‘Kindred Spirit Points: 0.’

Jin Banwei had a bad feeling. She reached out and tapped the wheel. As it started to spin, a line of text popped up on the screen.

【I’m sorry. The minimum for a basic draw on the Kindred Spirit System is two Kindred Spirit points. Your points are insufficient, so you cannot draw.】

Why did it have to be two points to draw?

But her points were zero, so even if the amount was lower, she couldn’t draw unless she could get a free one. But it was clear the system wouldn’t let her. A small feeling of disappointment rose in her chest.

Despite her disappointment, Jin Banwei still asked the system earnestly, “How can I get Kindred Spirit points?”

【By doing good deeds, of course. However, since this is a supernatural novel, the host must form a good relationship with a ghost or a spirit creature and earn their gratitude. The higher the level of gratitude, the more Kindred Spirit points you will receive.】

Jin Banwei understood, but she had no abilities. What could she do to help a ghost?

The best thing she could do was probably let them eat her.

Jin Banwei tapped the wheel again, refusing to give up, and got the same message that she couldn’t draw.

Her gaze moved up, falling on the item box above the wheel. Her finger grazed the box, and inside was a single black and gold card.

She finally remembered the ‘ Perfect Wife Experience Card’ the system had given her at the beginning. She tapped the item, and the black and gold card appeared in her palm. Upon closer inspection, she saw that it was printed with a gold-edged wedding dress, and the words “Good Wife” were written in the center.

Her fingertips trembled slightly as she traced the words “Good Wife” on the card and laughed. “Wife can be given away too?”

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