"Hey kid, do you want to understand the meaning of life? Do you want to truly live?"
"Yes" or "No"!
Early in the morning, just as Chen Xiaoyan was about to start a round of League of Legends, this line full of chuunibyou energy popped up on the login screen and stunned him.
"What the—! As if I haven't seen Infinite Terror! This cliché is so old that even web novels on Qidian wouldn't use it anymore, and yet you guys are?"
As a self-proclaimed pseudo-otaku, Chen Xiaoyan had three great loves: movies, anime, and novels. Having read tens of thousands of books from Qidian and being a veteran who knew every trope, he felt Tencent was straight-up insulting his intelligence.
"Come on, Pony Ma, at least put some effort into your ads! This infinite-flow classic line is way too overused!"
Grumbling helplessly, Chen Xiaoyan moved his mouse to close the login page.
"What the hell?"
Just as he was about to click the X, his right hand moved on its own and clicked "Yes."
"You've got to be kidding me—it's real?!"
Eyes wide in shock, Chen Xiaoyan shouted his last words before his whole body was sucked into the black vortex on his screen.
There was no convenient loss of consciousness like in novels—he could feel himself hurtling through a chaotic void of disorderly currents.
"So it's not that Tencent didn't try hard enough—this Main God is just broken!"
Drifting helplessly through the turbulent flow of time and space, Chen Xiaoyan nearly cried.
Countless shattered mirror-like fragments of worlds whirled past him—sometimes even phasing straight through his body.
He'd never known what true terror looked like—until now.
Holding his head in fear, Chen Xiaoyan felt that even dying would be preferable.
But did it have to hurt this much?
Try imagining this: countless collapsing world fragments piercing through your body—what kind of pain would that be?
"Emergency notice, emergency notice—"
"Due to unknown causes, the Main God Space is experiencing large-scale collapse. Reincarnator 000001's transmigration must perform an emergency landing..."
"Damn it! You're a fake Main God, aren't you?!"
Cursing inwardly, Chen Xiaoyan's vision went dark as he was flung out of the chaotic current.
---
"Due to the reincarnator's loss of physical body during transmigration caused by Main God malfunction, the administrators of the Main God Space Chat Group have collectively decided to compensate the reincarnator with a soul-transmigration opportunity..."
"Arriving in the new world—please fasten your seatbelt to prevent further accidents..."
"Scanning target world information..."
"Emergency notice, emergency notice..."
"Detected high-intensity world! Main God Space interference from unknown extradimensional energy! Partial system shutdown executing..."
"Kid, you're on your own now!"
All the administrators in the Main God Space Chat Group held a three-minute silence for Chen Xiaoyan.
But by then, he was already unconscious.
Had he heard those words, he would have pointed to the heavens and cursed this utterly useless, chuunibyou, trash-tier Main God.
Unfortunately, now just a transparent soul with no control over his consciousness, Chen Xiaoyan was guided by the last trace of the Main God's power into the body of a newborn abandoned beside a deserted street.
By sheer coincidence, an elderly nun passing by discovered the baby, took him in, and brought him to the orphanage under her church.
Time passed quietly. Fifteen years later, Chen Xiaoyan had grown up in this world.
Oh, but he was no longer called Chen Xiaoyan. When the old nun brought him back, she gave him a new name—Patch Mavis.
"Mavis" was the nun's surname. As for "Patch," only God Himself probably knew what she was thinking when she chose it.
Poor guy—what was supposed to be a full-body transmigration turned out to be a soul one. As a helpless infant, he could do nothing but accept her decision.
Yet every time someone called his name, Patch couldn't shake off the weird feeling.
"Patch? Doesn't that sound like 'weirdo' backwards?!"
Tears of frustration filled his eyes. Patch could only accept his fate—after all, people had been calling him that for fifteen years; there was no changing it now.
When he first arrived, life was rough.
He was now in America, surrounded by English speakers, completely lost in conversation.
"I'm Chinese! Why would I ever need English? Don't learn ABC—just be a good successor of socialism!"
Sadly, those words from his school days came back to haunt him. Not only did he fail to become the "successor," now he was a total illiterate in America.
It took him three years to finally shed the title of "illiterate."
Unfortunately, it came with a new title—"the idiot kid."
After all, most babies start speaking by one or two years old. Patch? He took three years to finally drop his resistance and say his first English word to Sister Mavis.
He still remembered that day vividly—when she was blow-drying his hair, and he finally called her "Grandma." The old nun was moved to tears.
"Father Magellan! Miss Morse! Come quickly—Patch can talk! He's not actually retarded!"
"Retarded?!"
Patch's mind and hair both went wild under the blow dryer.
"Come on! I'm a transmigrator who lived over twenty years in China! Learning a new language takes time, okay?"
At Mavis's shout, nearly everyone in the orphanage came running to watch.
"Patch can talk! He called me Grandma!" Mavis exclaimed with tears in her eyes.
"Oh my God, really?!" everyone gasped.
"Little Patch, come on—call me Grandpa," said Father Magellan, stroking his white beard with a smile.
"Cute little Patch, call me big sister and I'll give you chocolate," said forty-something Miss Morse shamelessly, holding out a bar.
"Hello, Grandpa Magellan."
"Hello, Auntie Morse."
He obediently greeted the priest, but when it came to Miss Morse, he intentionally changed "sister" to "auntie," lifting his chin proudly despite her darkened face.
One chocolate bar wasn't enough to buy his soul! Even a whole box wouldn't cut it!
Honestly, Patch thought three years to learn English was pretty good. But maybe because of that slight insult to Miss Morse, the "idiot" label spread across the orphanage like wildfire.
Morning prayers, lunchtime, bedtime—no matter where he went, whispers followed.
"Honestly, Patch is pretty handsome."
"Yeah, but it's a pity he's an idiot."
Fifteen years later, Patch had no strength left to refute them—only a deep, weary helplessness.
So what if he didn't talk until three?
So what if he spaced out sometimes?
So what if he liked sleeping a little longer?
Sure, I'll accept I'm handsome—but I'm not an idiot!
And yes, Patch really was handsome.
Compared to others, his features were far more refined—like a sculpture carved by a medieval European artist.
He stood tall at nearly 1.8 meters at age fifteen, with a lean, toned build he was rather proud of.
Short brown curls, clear ocean-blue eyes—anyone with working eyesight would take a second look when he passed by.
He still remembered that time he went to buy wine for Father Magellan, and the supermarket lady even gifted him an almost-expired bottle of vodka.
Too bad... he was "an idiot."
Truth be told, Patch had no idea what was wrong with him. Ever since arriving, his mental state had been strange.
Spacing out was one thing—but sometimes he'd just doze off randomly.
From the very beginning, he'd felt like something important was missing from his memories, yet no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't recall it.
Missing memories were fine—he could live with that.
But the biggest problem was this—where the hell was his cheat system?
Fifteen years in this world, and not a single sign of a golden finger. Aside from being handsome, he was as ordinary as they came.
When he first arrived, wrapped in nothing but a blanket, he'd hoped to awaken some powerful system or inherit some insane talent—something to follow in the footsteps of the great transmigrators before him.
But fifteen years later, nothing.
Staring at the sunset, Patch's hazy blue eyes reflected the fading light—running along with it were the dreams he could no longer reach.
He thought his life would pass quietly and ordinarily.
Until one day, a strange voice suddenly echoed in his mind.