What to Do if You Transmigrate Into the Body of the Number One Scumbag? - Chapter 1

“Young Master Gu~”

A soft, coy voice suddenly drifted into his ears, pulling Gu Shiyan from his stupor. He slowly opened his eyes, only to be momentarily dazed by the decadent scene before him. Neon lights flashed rhythmically while the private booth remained choked with a thick, irritating cloud of cigarette smoke. He knit his brows in a deep, sharp frown.

Where was he? He remembered working overtime at the office, so how could he possibly be here?

The person beside him noticed his long silence and leaned in even closer, attempting to press against him. However, Gu Shiyan shifted instinctively to avoid the contact and stood up abruptly. His sudden movement startled everyone else in the room.

A young man with bleached yellow hair quickly broke the silence with a snicker. “Shiyan must be drunk,” he teased, gesturing to the boy beside Gu Shiyan. “Why don’t you help the Young Master to a room?”

Under the man’s direction, the boy looked up at Gu Shiyan timidly. His eyes held a mixture of shyness and eager expectation, yet before he could even extend a hand, Gu Shiyan brushed him aside.

Gu Shiyan surveyed the scene with growing irritation. Everything was foreign to him, from the people to the setting. Fortunately, having managed a market-leading listed company from a young age, he was no stranger to pressure. Though his heart was filled with astonishment, his expression remained perfectly composed. He simply found the atmosphere repulsive. Without uttering a single word, he turned on his heel and walked out, ignoring the shouts of the people behind him.

As he made his way to the exit, it became clear that he was in a high-end club where wealthy heirs gathered for entertainment. He pinched the bridge of his nose to soothe a budding headache. Once he was a fair distance from the noise and the nauseating smell of smoke, the cool night air began to clear his mind. Only then did he have the energy to truly think.

He noticed he was wearing a dress shirt and trousers, which led him to assume he must have left his suit jacket back in the booth. He had no desire to go back for it, yet leaving presented its own problem because he had neither his phone nor his wallet. He stood there momentarily lost, trying to formulate a plan.

To his surprise, a young man in a formal suit came running toward him from a distance, gasping for breath. For reasons he couldn’t quite explain, Gu Shiyan intuitively felt that this person might be his assistant, so he waited quietly for the man to reach him.

“Young Master Gu!” the young man said, trying to steady his breathing as he bowed respectfully. “Where are you headed now?”

Gu Shiyan studied his face for a moment before asking, “Where did you come from?”

The assistant paused, likely assuming Gu Shiyan was questioning his disheveled appearance. “Young Master, I came to pick you up as soon as I received your message. I couldn’t find you in the booth, but then I spotted you out here.”

Gu Shiyan nodded as the situation became clearer. “My jacket and phone…”

“Oh, right here. I brought them out for you. Here you go.”

Gu Shiyan took his jacket, his phone, and a slim wallet containing only a few cards. The young man then asked, “Young Master Gu, shall we head back now?”

Gu Shiyan attempted to figure out the passcode to the phone while nodding in agreement, and he followed the assistant into a waiting car.

It was nearly midnight, an hour at which Gu Shiyan had rarely ever been out before. He was not a proponent of overtime, and even on the rare occasions work ran late, he always made it a point to be in bed before his scheduled sleep cycle. As he watched the skyscrapers blur past the window, he felt a flicker of unease. When a certain possibility crossed his mind, his suspicion turned into genuine alarm.

This sort of bizarre experience was entirely unprecedented for him. Had he heard such a story from someone else, he would have dismissed it with disdain. It appeared he had transmigrated, and specifically, he seemed to have entered the world of a novel written by a delusional fan whom he had recently served with a lawyer’s letter for arbitration. Gu Shiyan had been written into a “dog-blood” romance novel as a scumbag CEO, and because the plot was so sensational, it had actually become a hit. He had initially ignored the trivial matter until people began showing up at his company’s doors, claiming he was the inspiration for the protagonist. The harassment had reached a point where it interfered with his daily life and operations, forcing him to tell his assistant to handle it strictly.

Darn it. Gu Shiyan, usually a man of immense composure, felt an overwhelming sense of exhaustion. The company he had built from the ground up was now out of his reach, and he had no idea if he could ever return. He hoped the world would snap back to normal at any second, but if it didn’t, he was now saddled with a massive burden. He only knew bits and pieces of the novel’s plot, but he knew enough to know that the original character’s morality was nonexistent. Everything about the man was the polar opposite of Gu Shiyan’s own values.

The car eventually arrived at a residence, and Gu Shiyan stepped out to find a brilliantly lit villa. The fences, flowerbeds, and trees were adorned with colorful ribbons and balloons that swayed gently in the night breeze. It was a scene that clearly signaled the owner of the house was a newlywed.

Gu Shiyan realized that this villa was his new home. He was accustomed to living alone, yet now he had to face the fact that other people resided here. It wasn’t just the unfamiliar servants and the butler, but also that boy, the “young male wife” whom the original owner’s parents had forced upon him.

In the original story, the boy had come from a happy, loving family, only to wither away after marrying the original Gu Shiyan. He had been subjected to unearned malice and resentment, eventually being tormented into a shadow of his former self by the scumbag husband.

Gu Shiyan sighed at the thought. The young assistant stepped up beside him and said, “Young Master Gu, we’ve arrived home.”

Gu Shiyan nodded, but before he could walk toward the door, he stopped. “I’ve forgotten my phone passcode. Do you have a way to fix that?”

“Huh? Oh, yes, I can do that.” The assistant looked confused but didn’t press for details. He took the device and tinkered with it for a moment before it successfully unlocked. He handed it back, saying, “There you go, President Gu. It’s done.”

Gu Shiyan raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t expected the young assistant to be so tech-savvy, assuming instead that he would need to call a professional.

Perhaps noticing Gu Shiyan’s surprise, the assistant explained, “Uh… before, when you were drunk, you had me make calls for you, so I happened to know your passcode.”

“…”

Gu Shiyan hadn’t expected that to be the reason, and he felt a slight wave of embarrassment. He pocketed the phone and headed toward the villa. “Let’s go.”

The moment he entered, servants swarmed him to take his shoes and jacket. Once he had changed into slippers, he sat down on the living room sofa while a servant went to fetch some sobering tea. Although he wasn’t actually drunk, the lingering smell of alcohol on his breath was bothersome, and he wanted to rinse his mouth.

While he waited, he used the phone to look for useful information. He quickly learned that there was a company here he was expected to manage and that his assistant’s name was Tan Yu.

The spacious living room was deathly silent and empty, save for himself. Gu Shiyan didn’t find the silence odd; in fact, he preferred the quiet. Tan Yu, however, glanced around before asking the servant with the tea, “Has the Madam already retired for the evening?”

At the mention of the “Madam,” the servant hesitated. “The Madam returned to his room. He is likely asleep.”

Tan Yu glanced toward the second floor but said nothing more.

Gu Shiyan finished the sobering tea and felt the alcohol taste finally begin to fade. He loosened his tie and eventually pulled it off entirely. Noticing Tan Yu was still standing nearby, he said casually, “You should head home. You’ve worked hard tonight.”

The comment left Tan Yu stunned. Gu Shiyan saying “thank you” or acknowledging his hard work felt like a miracle. He stood frozen until Gu Shiyan gave him a questioning look. “Right, of course, President Gu. I’ll head out now.”

After Tan Yu left, Gu Shiyan sat still for a while longer. While he had a high tolerance for alcohol, his head was currently throbbing with a dull ache. Between the headache and the various smells clinging to his clothes, he decided he needed a shower immediately.

Since he knew very little about the specific layout of the house from the novel, he stopped a passing servant and asked, “Where is my bedroom?”

The servant froze in surprise but quickly recovered, assuming he was simply too drunk to remember. “Young Master Gu, your room is the one at the far right on the second floor.”

Gu Shiyan nodded and headed upstairs. A grand spiral staircase wound upward through what looked to be a five-story villa. A massive, glittering crystal chandelier hung in the center of the foyer, casting a brilliant light over everything.

When he reached the top of the stairs, he walked down the wide corridor to the right and pushed open the door, heading straight for the bathroom.

A short while later, Gu Shiyan emerged wearing only a bathrobe. He was looking around the room for the walk-in closet when he heard the light pitter-patter of footsteps approaching. Very soon, a slim young man with soft, fluffy hair and a delicate, obedient face appeared in his line of sight.

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