Yan Ye stood in the middle of the living room and stared at the trash bags like they'd personally insulted him.
They lined the walls. Stacked in corners. Leaning against furniture in silent, bulging piles that looked ready to split at any provocation. At least a hundred of them, fifty-liter bags, everywhere. The third bedroom was the worst: stacked nearly to the ceiling, furniture buried under layers of whatever Big Ye had been neglecting for the last year of his life.
Ugh. At this rate it'll take a week just to haul everything out.
Maybe I should call a cleaning company.
The thought lasted half a second before he physically recoiled.
No. Absolutely not. Imagine it, thirty years from now, I'm standing at the top of the world. Powerful. Influential. Untouchable. And then some retired cleaning-service employee starts telling a funny little story about the disgusting apartment of a socially isolated student named Yan Ye.
Screenshots. Leaked records. "The powerhouse who once lived in a trash nest."
His face heated up just thinking about it.
This world is more advanced than Earth, though. There has to be something better than hauling a hundred trash bags down the elevator by hand.
He opened PortalHaul and typed Spatial.
"...Found it."
A 1m³ pouch: 200,000¥. A 3m³: 1,000,000¥. A 5m³: 10,000,000¥. And from there, the prices skyrocketed so violently it felt like the store was mocking its own customers.
A hundred 50-liter bags. Roughly five cubic meters total. In theory, one 5m³ pouch should be enough.
In theory. Bags aren't clean cubes. They expand, shift, have air pockets. I should probably get at least two.
Thirty minutes later, the cart was full. Two 5m³ pouches. Thick cleaning gloves. A box of N95 masks. Industrial disinfectant strong enough to strip paint. An ultra-power water vacuum. Three 1000L IBC containers. And a pile of smaller items he didn't bother reading twice.
Seventy-six items. Total: 20,223,997¥. Portal delivery fee: 45,000¥.
Pay.
I expected the twenty million. I was ready for that punch. But the extra two hundred thousand on "the other stuff" still stings. These better live up to the promise.
The portal arrived three minutes later. Black box this time. Denser. Colder. Everything packed neatly inside the two pouches.
Alright. Cleaning time.
Eight minutes later, he was drenched.
He'd needed three pouches, not two. The third bedroom had been the real nightmare, bags stacked to the ceiling, furniture buried underneath. Easier to just throw everything in: desk, chair, shelves, all of it swallowed by the pouch. He'd buy new furniture later.
He moved like a man running out of time. Dragging, lifting, stuffing. His arms burned. His back screamed. Sweat soaked through his shirt before he noticed he was sweating at all.
When he finally dropped the third full pouch in the guest room, he braced both hands on his knees and just breathed.
I'm seventeen years old and I can barely lift a trash bag. Cool. Cool cool cool.
Then came the floor. Water. Disinfectant. Scrubbing. Vacuum. Repeat. The IBC containers filled with dirty water that looked like it belonged in a sewer.
By the time he straightened up, the apartment smelled neutral for the first time. Not clean. Just — absent of whatever had been there before.
He checked his phone. 3:14 PM. He'd started a little after nine.
Six hours. And I feel like someone beat me with a pipe.
He collapsed onto the sofa, the one clean surface left in the apartment besides the balcony and pulled out his phone.
Just a quick break.
There were so many novels on this world's internet. Genres he'd never seen before. Subgenres of subgenres. Dungeon-farming romance. Interstellar slice-of-life. Post-apocalyptic cooking competitions. Five hundred years of creative evolution, and the entertainment industry had gone absolutely feral.
He found one about a transmigrator who becomes a chef and cooks monsters.
Just one chapter.
He read twelve.
"...Shit."
5:07 PM. He'd lost almost two hours without noticing.
Okay. Food first, then bath, then quest. In that order. No more distractions.
He ate the remaining forty percent of the riverfin from that morning and turned on the TV to catch the news something about a dungeon eruption near the Ashen Corridor, international assistance requested, monsters heading toward borders.
Even in another world, that region hasn't changed. Some things never do.
After eating, he stood in front of the bathroom door.
"Finally."
Back on Earth, he'd only ever had showers. Tiny ones. Dorm bathrooms the size of a closet. He'd always wanted to take a proper bath in a proper tub.
Here, the tub was massive. Practically a small pool.
He lowered himself into the hot water.
"Ooh..."
Heat wrapped around him. The tension in his shoulders dissolved somewhere around his jaw. Steam curled upward, fogging the mirror.
I never thought I'd fulfill this dream in another world of all places.
He sank deeper until the water lapped at his collarbones.
And without warning, his mind drifted.
Ms. Wen Jiayi.
Big Ye's homeroom teacher for the past ten months. Twenty-two years old. Graduated top of her class at Tsinghua with a degree in history. Started a master's while teaching. Reached Tier 2 in only four years, with an Irregular Rank class.
Truth Seeker.
The memories showed fragments of the rumors. Her awakening had caused a stir. A giant ancient grimoire had supposedly manifested behind her, absorbing symbols from the air like it was inhaling the world itself. Everyone assumed it would be some kind of powerful mage-type class.
It was. Technically.
Just not the kind people wanted. Life-type. No combat abilities. Pure support. Skills that weren't especially useful in battle.
She's incredible.
Reaching Tier 2 in four years with a class no one fully understood wasn't something an ordinary person could do. Not in this world. Not in any.
Irregular Rank. Roughly 0.000043% of all awakeners. Lucky or unlucky, depending on how you looked at it.
In theory, limitless potential. The possibility of standing at the very top. But it also meant walking your own path from the very first step. No guides. No map. No mentor who could say yes, this is correct. Just a faint, almost irrational feeling that you were moving in the right direction and no way to know if that feeling was genius-level intuition or a delusion dragging you toward a dead end, until it was far too late.
With the system on my side, I probably won't have to worry even if I awaken an Irregular class myself.
...Right?
He watched the steam curl above him.
If possible... maybe one day I'll even be able to help her.
The memories showed more. Wen Jiayi had been unusually attentive to Big Ye since she arrived at the school. Talking to him about trivial things. More like a friend than a teacher. The original Yan Ye had actually become happier during those months, in a quiet way. Nothing dramatic. Just steady.
Then his grandmother got sick.
And over the last three months, that small warmth, those few casual conversations, a simple smile, a moment of genuine attention had been the only thing keeping Big Ye from collapsing entirely.
Without her, he probably wouldn't have lasted as long as he did.
Without her... I probably wouldn't be here either.
The thought lingered longer than it should have.
If he had broken down completely, lost his mind, been hospitalized, declared unstable, I might never have had the chance to transmigrate into this body.
So in a way, she's the reason I'm here.
He sank deeper into the water.
I owe her more than she knows.
He checked the time. He'd been in the tub for over thirty minutes.
"Almost turned this into a spa session."
He scrambled out, dried off, put on a dark blue oversized shirt and black shorts, and stepped back into the living room.
Okay. Daily quest. I can do this.
He pulled up the quest window. Stared at the numbers. Looked down at his body. Looked at the numbers again.
Squats first. Those seem the least impossible.
One.
His thighs screamed.
Two.
His back made a sound that backs should not make.
Three.
Already sweating. Seventeen years old. Three squats. Personal insult from gravity.
"System, is there an easy mode?"
Silence.
"Story mode? Accessibility options? Anything?"
Nothing.
"You know what, fine."
He kept going in sloppy, wheezing bursts. Ten at a time. Then five. Then three. Breaks between each set long enough to breathe and short enough to keep moving.
Push-ups were worse. His arms shook after five. His gut touched the floor before his chest did.
"System, do half push-ups count?"
Silence.
"Yeah. That's a no, then."
Six. Seven. Eight. His face was burning hot, blood pounding in his temples. Alone in his apartment, embarrassing himself in front of absolutely no one.
Sit-ups were the devil. His stomach was a mountain, and every curl upward felt like folding a mattress in half using only his spine. He got to seventeen and his phone buzzed on the coffee table.
New chapter. The chef novel.
As a reward. For seventeen sit-ups.
He read three chapters.
By 7:30 PM, the sun was low and orange through the balcony doors.
Squats: 83/100 Push-ups: 34/100 Sit-ups: 29/100 Run: 0/10,000 m
Not even close on anything. The run hadn't been attempted. It wasn't going to be attempted. Not today. Not with this body.
"System, do you grade on a curve?"
Nothing.
"Yeah. Of course not."
He dropped into another squat. Eighty-four. Eighty-five. Knees popping. Vision blurring slightly at the edges.
It's the first day. The system gave me this quest knowing what I look like. It saw the stats. It knows what this body can and can't do.
It wouldn't give me a punishment that could kill me on the first day.
...Right?
Knock. Knock. Knock.
He froze mid-squat.
Who the hell is visiting at this hour?
He didn't know anyone in this world. Big Ye hadn't had friends. The only person who'd ever come to this apartment was—
Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.
"Yan? Yan, are you home? It's Ms. Wen. You missed three days of school. I'm worried."
Oh fuck.
The teacher. He'd completely forgotten he was a student.
Big Ye hadn't gone to school for the past three days before he died. Of course someone would notice. Of course it would be her.
The apartment was clean, thank God, but he was drenched in sweat, hair plastered to his forehead, smelling like a gym floor with no ventilation.
Can't pretend I'm not here. Not to her.
"Coming! One minute!"
He grabbed a towel, wiped his face, changed into a less offensive shirt, and opened the door.
She was pretty.
That was the first thought, and he hated himself for it because it arrived before anything useful.
Silver hair tied back in a loose ponytail. Green eyes that seemed to glow under the hallway lights. Young, she didn't look a day over twenty. She was carrying two bags filled with fresh vegetables and meat, and there was a soft, worried expression on her face that made him feel about four years old.
"Ms. Wen. I—"
"You look terrible. Are you sick?"
She stepped inside without waiting for an invitation and immediately placed a hand on his forehead. Her palm was cool.
"Have you been sleeping? Eating? You haven't shown up at school for three days. You didn't tell anyone."
Her brows furrowed.
"You're hot. Do you have a fever?"
Thirty straight seconds of nonstop questioning. He finally managed to get a word in.
"I wasn't feeling well the last few days, but I'm better now. I didn't tell anyone because I didn't think it would make a difference. It's not like I had anyone I could—"
"You have me."
She said it gently. Simply. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
His chest did something he wasn't prepared for.
She's only saying that because she's my teacher. Don't read into it.
But still.
She was unbelievably beautiful. Big Ye had dedicated a hundred percent of himself to academics and never bothered looking up long enough to notice. But Yan Ye wasn't Big Ye. There was no universe in which he could stand this close to the most captivating woman he'd ever seen in either life and feel nothing.
Don't fool yourself. You're just one of her students.
An awkward silence hung between them. She seemed to notice his discomfort because she walked past him into the living room and set the bags on the kitchen counter.
She looked around.
"The apartment looks good. Last time I was here, it was..."
Her voice trailed off.
"Yeah. I cleaned today. Decided to make some changes."
He rubbed the back of his neck.
"Started with the apartment. Then some exercise as you can probably tell."
He glanced down at himself. She looked at his sweat-drenched state, and her whole face brightened. She even bounced slightly on her toes with a quick little clap.
Cute.
"That's great! I'm really glad." She nodded to herself like she'd already made a decision. "I can help you. You should cut down on junk food. I'll cook healthy meals for you whenever I can."
That brief exchange felt like ascending to heaven.
Her next words slammed him back down.
"You should go take a shower. I'll cook something in the meantime."
For some reason, it was one of the most embarrassing moments of his life. He said "okay" and retreated toward his room like he was fleeing a natural disaster.
I completely forgot that I'm technically the head of this household. Instead I'm acting like a husband obediently following his wife's orders.
He showered fast, changed and came back out three minutes later.
"Sorry about that. More tired than I realized."
"Since you're here, help me set the table. Food's almost ready."
His stomach growled. Loud. Way louder than acceptable.
She paused. He froze.
"...Traitor," he muttered, glaring at his own abdomen.
A faint warmth crept up his neck. He cleared his throat and forced out a joke.
"Well, it smells really good. Good thing you came. Otherwise I might've starved to death."
She finally let out a small laugh as she carried the food to the table.
"You're so dramatic. Sit."
Simple, but refined. Stir-fried chicken with ginger and scallions, glazed in a sauce that clung to the meat. Steamed vegetables, vibrant green. Fluffy rice, every grain separate. A clear soup with tofu and leafy greens.
He pulled out a chair for her before sitting down.
"You made all this in less than an hour?"
"It's not that complicated. Try it while it's hot."
First bite. The chicken was tender. Seasoning balanced. Clean and intentional.
"...This is really good."
She didn't respond, but he caught the faint upward curve at the corner of her lips.
He started eating faster than he meant to.
"Slow down. No one's going to steal it from you."
"...Right."
He forced himself to slow. For a moment, neither spoke. Just the soft clink of chopsticks against porcelain.
Peaceful.
He glanced at her. She ate at a calm pace. A few loose strands of silver hair had slipped from her ponytail. The light caught faintly in her eyes.
Nothing dramatic about the scene. No life-or-death stakes. No system notifications. And yet he found himself staring a few seconds longer than he should have.
"Hm? You're not eating?"
He snapped back. Her cheeks were faintly red.
He froze. And suddenly his own face felt warm too. The words slipped out before he could filter them.
"Thank you. For everything."
His voice was slightly unsteady.
"I don't think I've ever properly thanked you. But I really appreciate all the attention you've given me over the past few months. I didn't realize until today how much those little interactions meant to me."
She stopped moving.
He swallowed and continued.
"The last few years of my life were... monotonous. Gray. But in just a few months, you changed that. When my grandmother passed, you came here. At school, you kept talking to me. Making me feel like a real person. Like you were the only one who actually saw me as a human being."
His fingers tightened slightly around his chopsticks.
"Without realizing it, I started thinking of you less as a teacher... and more as a friend."
A small, awkward laugh.
"My first and only friend, actually."
The moment the words left his mouth, regret punched him in the gut.
Idiot. Overthought it. Said too much. And somehow I might have just friend-zoned my own teacher.
He looked up.
Her entire face was red now. Not just her cheeks. Her ears. The tips of her neck.
...Cute.
The moment she realized he was staring, she quickly lowered her gaze.
"I— I didn't do anything that special," she said, her usual calm wavering. "That's just... what a teacher is supposed to do."
She hesitated.
Then, more quietly:
"But... I'm glad it meant something to you."
Her fingers tightened slightly around her bowl.
"And... I don't mind being your friend."
The last word came out softer than the rest.
Something unspoken lingered in the air between them. But the silence didn't feel heavy. Didn't feel gray.
After that, nothing dramatic. Light conversation. Small jokes. A few shared stories. He ate too much and groaned about it, and she took it as a compliment. They loaded the dishwasher and wiped down the table, and it all felt so natural it scared him a little.
They moved to the living room. She sat on one end of the large sofa. He sat on the other. The distance between them was deliberate but not uncomfortable.
The conversation turned serious again.
"You know the classes you missed were important, right?"
"As the laws of the universe dictate," he sighed, "the days you skip are always the most important ones."
She gave him a look that clearly said don't joke about this.
"Tuesday, Wednesday, and today covered dungeons. Intelligent races that have settled on the planet. Dungeon classifications. Structural types. Risk levels."
So. Nothing minor.
"I couldn't get today's materials," she added, "but I'll bring them tomorrow. And you should definitely attend class. Tomorrow's topic is classes, tiers, and evolution."
That caught his full attention.
They talked about it for nearly thirty minutes. Basic theory. Historical examples. Famous breakthroughs. Catastrophic failures. He absorbed everything, cross-referencing against what the fragmented memories had already shown him, filing every detail.
Then she clapped her hands together softly.
"Alright. Serious topics covered. Now it's time for entertainment."
She picked up her phone and connected it to the TV. An anime app opened. A title appeared on screen.
Frieren: Beyond Journey's End.
"That's my favorite," she said casually. "Watching anime and reading novels are my hobbies."
Hobbies. Big Ye hadn't really had any. Study. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.
And all the anime and novels I know are from Earth. None of them exist here.
She settled into the couch and looked at him expectantly. He sat back. Not too close. Not too far.
"Have you seen it before?"
"No."
"Good." She sounded genuinely pleased. "Then you get to experience it properly."
The opening theme played. Light from the screen reflected in her silver hair. She shifted just slightly closer, not enough to make it obvious, but enough that the distance between them no longer felt so deliberate.
Three episodes. He didn't absorb much of the plot, not because it wasn't good, but because there was something far more interesting sitting beside him. He'd learned his lesson from dinner. Whenever he stole a glance at her now, he made sure it was quick. Subtle. Watching her get emotional at certain scenes. Eyes glistening one moment, laughing the next. He couldn't understand how someone could switch emotions so easily. But instead of questioning it, he decided to just enjoy it.
I'm not sure if I've ever felt this happy in my entire life. And that includes both lives.
For the first time in years, he felt light. Free. Without a single real worry pressing down on his chest.
Time flew.
Before he knew it, the third episode ended. She stood up, stretched, checked the time.
"I should go."
He walked her downstairs. They talked about anime all the way to the entrance. She called a transport, an ETT, Easy Travel Transport, the largest service in Huaxia. A sleek vehicle descended from the sky, AI-controlled, the same model he'd seen flying past the window that morning.
She stepped inside.
"Tomorrow," she said. "Don't skip."
"I won't."
The door closed. The vehicle lifted smoothly and disappeared into the night sky.
He stood there for a moment. In front of the building. Looking up. This was technically the first time he'd left the apartment since transmigrating. He barely noticed. His mind was still replaying the last few hours. Her smile. Her laugh. Her voice saying friend. The smell of cooking in a clean apartment.
When was the last time I felt like this?
He didn't have an answer. Not in either life.
The elevator ride was quiet. The apartment was quieter. Dishes in the dishwasher. TV still showing the anime app's home screen. The faint warmth of a place that had, for a few hours, felt like someone actually lived in it.
He sat on the sofa. Let out a long breath. Stared at the ceiling.
And for the first time since arriving in this world, his mind was completely still. No calculations. No survival planning. No panic. Just the lingering echo of an evening that had felt, impossibly, normal.
Then a cold mechanical voice cut through the silence.
[00:00] [Daily Quest — calculating results.]
His eyes snapped open.
Wait.
[Push-ups: 34/100 — Incomplete] [Sit-ups: 29/100 — Incomplete] [Squats: 91/100 — Incomplete] [Run: 0/10,000 — Incomplete]
[Result: Failure.]
"...Fuck."
He'd forgotten. Completely. Not a single rep since she'd knocked on the door. Three hours of dinner and anime and feeling like a person, and the quest hadn't crossed his mind once.
Ninety-one squats. Nine away from finishing just one category.
Nine.
[Punishment will now be administered.]
"Looks like I can only accept—"
[You will be teleported to the punishment area in 10... 9... 8...]
"Wait wait wait — what do you mean teleported? I need to—"
[7... 6... 5...]
The apartment blurred. His body felt light. Wrong.
[4... 3... 2...]
The last thing he saw was the balcony. The clean floor. The faint glow of the TV still on.
The world vanished.
[00:01 AM] [Ruins of Zarathen.] [Punishment duration: 2 hours 59 minutes and 58... 57... 56...] [Good luck!]
His first sensation was heat. Scorching, suffocating heat.
BOOOOM!
The ground bucked under him. A shockwave slammed into his legs and nearly threw him face-first into the sand. A wall of hot air followed, punching the breath from his lungs.
He spun around, heart hammering.
Sand in every direction. A cloudless sky baked white by the sun.
SKREEEE!
A piercing shriek tore through the air and straight into his skull. He clutched his head, but it didn't help. The sound wasn't just outside.
It was inside.
"What the hell—"
Then he saw them.
Two colossal figures, each over ten meters tall, colliding in the distance like ancient gods at war. One was a towering sand golem, its body formed of compacted stone and swirling grit. The other, a massive deathworm, segmented body writhing, jaws wide enough to swallow a vehicle whole.
BOOOOM!
They slammed into each other again. The entire desert trembled.
"They're way too close for my fucking liking."
FWOOOSH!
Sand exploded into the air as the worm burrowed and resurfaced in an instant.
"It's impossible. It's impossible."
"HOW IS THIS A PLACE AN UNAWAKENED HUMAN CAN SURVIVE?!"
"SYSTE—"
BOOOOM!