It's a warm day, a very warm day.
When the breeze passed by, I, Bai Fuhua, felt the force blow through my hair. At least, it felt like it was blowing through my hair and around my body. My eyes were closed, and I didn't really comprehend what was happening.
Recently, I made a purchase. A very lazy purchase. A purchase so lazy that I'm pretty sure I was possessed by the demon of Sloth the moment I clicked "buy."
However, when it came, I was so excited to set everything up and try it out, I couldn't care less how lazy I looked (or felt).
An anchored phone mount that hooked to your bedframe, a button that linked to your phone that turned the pages of your webnovel, and a body pillow to prop my feet up. Yeah, I was that kind of guy, and I didn't care. When I snapped my phone into the mount and pressed the button, my body completely deflated and relaxed, as the only strenuous activity I had to do was move my eyes to read.
Time passed. My eyes eventually fell closed, and I fell asleep on chapter 122 of a certain webnovel.
I could feel my blanket and pillows fade away as I slumbered. Perhaps I was dreaming, my subconscious placing me into the novels I had devoured over the course of hours, or days, I don't remember.
I didn't eat, I didn't drink, and this was the first time I slept in what felt like days.
So when the warm breeze flew past my hair, I couldn't help but pop my eyes open and look around. Was I still lying down? I couldn't move.
Raising my hand, I could feel the motion of my hand rising, but when I looked to my left, I didn't see anything. I'm looking out of my own eyes, right? It was then that I realized where I truly was.
Somehow, I had been taken out of my bed and propped into a tree. High up in a tree at that.
Was I tied up? Was I being crucified?
This is my penance for being super duper lazy, wasn't it? I thought back to the way I must've looked on the bed just hours ago.
Mouth slack, legs splayed out, and wearing the baggiest sweatpants and white t-shirt combo. My arms were laid limp to my sides, my right hand gripping the page-turning button loosely. Every other minute, I would click it, then go flaccid again. My eyes were more than likely glazed over and dull.
I was a slave to the novel, a patron of laziness, and a champion of unemployment.
So now, here I was, tied up high in a tree where I can't even see my hands. I quickly looked down and realized I couldn't see my feet either. Oh God, was I just a head?
Freaking out, I started to struggle. I cried out, but to my horror, my voice did not carry. The wind blew again, and what I thought was my hair was actually the petals of the cherry blossoms on the tree I felt. I struggled again, focusing my eyes on one of the branches, and to my horror, it started swaying back and forth. If I focused hard enough, I could shake the branch hard enough for some of the cherry petals to fall off, watching them slowly fall to the grass below.
"Oh God… Oh my God." I was properly freaking out. "I'm a freaking tree."
I couldn't stop freaking out. Looking left, then right, all I could see were frantically shaking branches as if the soft wind were whipping me through a typhoon. If I could see myself in a mirror, I could swear my eyes would've been bugged out of my skull.
More and more cherry petals shook from my branches, carried off by the wind, only for the flowers and petals to quickly grow back.
"Great, a magic freaking tree. I can grow flowers, but I can't get the hell out of here?!"
Thinking on my feet, I tried to rip my roots out of the ground. I remember reading in a textbook during school that some trees' roots could go up to a hundred feet into the ground, and the hold the roots had on the soil was tougher than concrete. It was futile, is what I'm trying to say, but I was so desperate to break free that I felt like I pulled a muscle in my legs trying to do so.
Minutes passed, I strained my roots, and to my surprise… nothing happened. I was rooted to the ground with nowhere to go.
It was then that I finally calmed down. I didn't shake my branches, I didn't let the petals float off in the breeze, and I didn't try to raise my roots again. I was tired, confused, and scared.
"I'm a tree… I'm a freaking tree, and I can't even move." I whispered to myself. Even though no sound came out, I could clearly hear my own voice within the tree. "I'm being punished. Yeah, that's it. I spent days reading webnovels and not looking for jobs, and now I'm a tree."
The breeze blew again, and this time, I didn't like the feeling. It wasn't my hair, it wasn't my body enjoying the force. It was the bark and petals of this goddamn tree, and it would be a long time in hell before I admit that this tree was 'me'.
I wanted to cry, but my eyes stayed dry. I was nothing more than a spirit within the bark now. Looking forward, I could see sparse houses and farms off in the distance. Quizzically, I could also see a dirt road leading up to my trunk and winding far off into the distance—more than likely connected to some far-off town.
There was nobody around for a long, long time. For days, I watched the Sun go down, the Moon rise, the Moon go down, and the Sun reappear. I was bored, trying everything I could to get out of the tree, praying to every God I knew about, trying to get in on their good favor, to no avail.
It wasn't until the third day that I saw something moving in the distance.
A blinding white figure, or something wearing all white with hints of red, was coming this way. As it grew closer, I could see it was clearly a human being, but not in the modern sense. No one dresses this way in 2026.
When the figure was a couple of yards away, I could see his get-up clearly. A princely white uniform with a red sash and cape. He wore two swords on his right hip, which looked like rapiers. His hair was blonde, long, and tied in a loose ponytail, with bangs splayed across his forehead and spilling into his eyes. His eyes… blue and lively; his lips, full and rosy.
"HEY!!"
The prince figure continued walking up to me as if he didn't hear me.
"HEY! HEY YOU! GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"
I was screaming at the top of my lungs, there was no freaking way this LARPing asshole didn't hear me clear as day!
Yet, even as I was screaming until I was blue in the face, I ended up stopping as I wanted with bewilderment as this Prince-thing-person clipped his cape off his body, throwing it to the ground, and then plopping himself at the base of my trunk.
"WHAT!? GET OFF OF ME!! CAN'T YOU HEAR ME!!?"
All the prince did was sigh.
"Another day of Galas and Politics. I'm tired of it all."
I paused, listening for a moment.
"I'm so tired of dancing and training. I just want to sleep all day. Is that so wrong?"
Yes, look what happened to me. You'll become a freaking tree.
"HEY! Hey, Prince!!" I tried calling again.
No answer.
"My name is Bai Fuhua! Can you hear me?!"
Again, no answer.
"What's your name!?"
Once again, to no surprise… No answer.
I was clearly speaking in my head, but this guy couldn't hear a word I was saying! That's when I came to the final conclusion of what this world truly was.
This was Hell!!