The System Forces Me to Be a Scumbag Male Lead [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 1

Shen Siyang stood at the mouth of a labyrinthine alley, facing a wall thick with sprawling ivy.

The mechanical voice in his head had faded over a minute ago, yet he was still obsessively dissecting those few sentences.

He was dead.

But because his “shamelessness index” was off the charts, he had been granted a second chance at life.

There was just one catch: he had to provide care and warmth to the protagonists of ten different worlds, only to cruelly abandon them once the timing was right to trigger their “growth and transformation.”

Every word was familiar, but put together, they sounded like total nonsense.

He clearly remembered that five minutes ago, he was sitting in his office, pulling an all-night shift to patch back-end vulnerabilities for the company’s latest product.

How could he be dead?

A sweltering breeze blew past, leaving Shen Siyang’s forehead drenched in sweat. The oppressive heat cut through his thoughts until the system’s voice suddenly chimed in again: “Target protagonist located. Initiating lock-on.”

As the words fell, Shen Siyang’s head turned uncontrollably to one side, staring deep into the shadows of the alley.

A group of seven or eight-year-old boys were gathered there.

One fat kid and two chubby ones were surrounding a scrawny, small-framed boy.

Shen Siyang’s gaze was forcibly locked onto the small figure.

【Sang Xiaoshi】

The name popped up in his mind, followed immediately by a flood of memories pouring into his brain like water from a bucket.

It seemed to be the memory of this current body—not particularly extensive.

Shen Siyang didn’t have time to process the details, because what was happening in the alley made his blood boil.

The three kids—clearly the type spoiled rotten at home—were shoving Sang Xiaoshi around like a human tetherball, their piercing laughter echoing off the walls.

“Stutterer! Stutterer! No mom, no dad, just like a beggar! Stealing food from dogs every day!”

“Cry! Why aren’t you crying today? Aren’t you usually the best at screaming?”

“Oh, I almost forgot, you’re a stutterer. H-h-help, p-p-please, d-d-do you even k-k-know what you’re s-s-saying?”

“Hahaha!”

“Should we help you call for help?”

“Help! Help! Won’t someone come help this little stutterer?”

“Hahaha, yeah, someone come help this little puppy!”

As they jeered, Sang Xiaoshi’s face turned deathly pale. He struggled to push them away, but the physical disparity was too great. Instead of moving them, he was shoved hard against the brick wall.

Shen Siyang’s blood pressure spiked.

He immediately thought of his bratty nephew, who used to step on his head for fun and had broken two of his expensive figurines.

At this moment, his confusing situation didn’t matter. Even if this was a dream, he was going to discipline these “bear kids” before he woke up.

Though Shen Siyang was usually a law-abiding citizen who never picked fights, he was still—at least in spirit—a twenty-five-year-old man.

Handling a few elementary schoolers should be a piece of cake.

He wiped the sweat from his brow and marched into the alley.

Two minutes later, after Shen Siyang had shielded Sang Xiaoshi in his arms and taken a few hits, he realized the first concrete fact of his new reality:

His current body was also a child.

No wonder the alley walls looked ten meters high.

Furthermore, this was 99% not a dream.

It actually hurt.

Shen Siyang wasn’t the type to take a beating for nothing. Realizing that he and Sang Xiaoshi together couldn’t take down even one of the three bullies, he began to scan for an opening. Suddenly, a booming voice echoed from the distance: “Ge Jiabao! Lunchtime! One minute! If you’re not back, you’re not getting a single piece of meat!”

The fattest of the three shivered. He stopped, made a mocking face at Shen Siyang and Sang Xiaoshi, and sneered.

“Hmph, consider yourselves lucky. It’s time to eat. Let’s go.”

With a wave of his hand, he led his two lackeys away.

Shen Siyang watched them disappear before letting go of Sang Xiaoshi. He took the opportunity to sort through the memories in his head.

After a moment, he began to suspect that the system had simply copy-pasted his own past into this world. His parents, his looks, and his personality were identical to his real life. If the environment weren’t different, he would have thought he’d traveled back in time.

This was a small town in the south, sparsely populated, where almost every family had their own courtyard and a three-story house.

The “Protagonist,” Sang Xiaoshi, lived next door to that fat kid, Ge Jiabao. Shen Siyang lived two streets away. Since they weren’t in the same class at school, Shen Siyang only knew of them; they weren’t close.

Having processed the basics, Shen Siyang turned to look at the boy beside him.

According to his memories, Sang Xiaoshi wasn’t much younger than him, yet the child before him was more than half a head shorter. He wasn’t just short; he was painfully thin, with barely any meat on his bones.

As Shen Siyang scanned him, his gaze landed on Sang Xiaoshi’s face, and he froze.

He hadn’t seen him clearly from a distance, but up close, he could hardly look away.

The boy’s eyes were round and dark, like washed grapes glistening with water—crystalline and bright. Though his skin was sallow from malnutrition, his features were nearly perfect. Even as skin and bones, anyone with eyes could see he was a “beauty in the making.”

In a town like this, a pretty child usually received some modicum of preferential treatment—or at least wouldn’t be bullied daily.

Shen Siyang couldn’t figure out why Sang Xiaoshi was in this state. He tried to dig deeper into his childhood memories, but realized that his younger self hadn’t cared about anything other than eating and playing. Giving up on the search, he leaned down and asked softly, “Do you know who I am?”

Sang Xiaoshi stared at him with those large, round eyes and nodded slowly.

“Ge, Ge (Big Brother).” He spoke very slowly. His voice was soft and waxy, lacking confidence, and the end of each word trembled slightly.

Then, as if worried he wasn’t being clear enough, he quickly raised a hand and pointed in the direction of Shen Siyang’s house.

Shen Siyang didn’t dislike children; he just hated naughty ones. This one was clearly a precious little thing. His heart melted instantly, and he accepted the title of “Big Brother” without hesitation. He reached out to pat Sang Xiaoshi’s head.

“That’s right, good memory. Come on, I’ll go help you get even.”

He draped an arm over Sang Xiaoshi’s shoulder, about to lead him out of the alley, when he felt a tug on his sleeve.

He stopped and looked down. The boy bit his lip, struggling to let out a single word: “B-b-broken.”

His voice shook, the end of the word trailing off into silence. Shen Siyang sensed the boy wanted to say more but hesitated. Instead, Sang Xiaoshi simply raised a finger and pointed at the corner of Shen Siyang’s mouth.

He remembered how the bullies had mocked Sang Xiaoshi for his stutter.

Following the direction of Sang Xiaoshi’s finger, Shen Siyang realized the boy was pointing at the wound on the corner of his mouth where Ge Jiabao had landed a hit.

One bruise on his mouth, another on his forehead.

Sang Xiaoshi took two deep breaths before nervously squeezing out a single word: “Doc, doctor.”

Shen Siyang grinned, but the movement tugged at his cut. He immediately winced, hissing through his teeth. “It doesn’t hurt,” he told Sang Xiaoshi. “I let him hit me there on purpose. You ever heard of a certain saying?”

Sang Xiaoshi blinked his large, round eyes at him.

“Do not commit an evil deed simply because it seems small,” Shen Siyang said. “Know what that means?”

Sang Xiaoshi nodded quickly and opened his mouth to answer, but Shen Siyang beat him to the punch.

“Right. It means: don’t assume a dumbass isn’t a dumbass just because they’re young.”

This time, he kept his smile small to protect his lip and draped his arm over Sang Xiaoshi again. “Come on. Your big brother is taking you to punish evil and promote justice.”

Sang Xiaoshi looked utterly bewildered.

“I, I think, that’s not, not what it—”

Before he could finish, he was pulled along by Shen Siyang.

The sweltering summer wind rushed into his mouth. Sang Xiaoshi kept his jaw open, his voice trembling as he whispered the final word to complete his sentence: “m-m-means.”

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Author’s Note:

The timeline for the first story is set about a dozen years ago, around 2007 or 2008. Siyang is established as someone who doesn’t know how to fight, but he has the kind of silver tongue that can trick others into fighting for him. Based on the current drafts, this should be a very satisfying, “face-slapping” story!