My first conscious thought was that my mattress had developed a serious grudge against me.
It felt… lumpy. And damp. And instead of the familiar, comforting scent of laundry detergent and my own laziness, there was a thick, green smell. It was the smell of wet earth, of rotting leaves, and something else… clean, like crushed grass after a rainstorm.
I cracked my eyes open, and the world was a blur of jade and gold.
Panic, cold and sharp, stabbed through the lingering fog of sleep. This was not my bedroom. My bedroom had a water-stained ceiling, a poster of a band I used to like, and a persistent layer of chaos that I called my aesthetic. This place had a canopy of green bamboo leaves, so dense they turned the daylight into a soft, emerald haze. Shafts of actual, golden sunlight pierced through, illuminating floating dust motes that danced like tiny fairies.
"What the…" My voice came out as a dry croak. I pushed myself up onto my elbows, my muscles protesting with a strange, deep ache, as if I'd run a marathon I had no memory of. I was lying in a thick patch of ferns and moss, my cheap cotton t-shirt and jeans already soaked through with dew.
A dream. This had to be a dream. A really, really vivid one. Maybe that expired instant noodles from last night were a bad idea.
I pinched the soft skin on my forearm, hard.
"Ow!" I yelped. The pain was bright and very, very real. The green canopy above me didn't so much as flicker. This wasn't a dream. This was… I didn't have a word for what this was. Kidnapping? Some elaborate prank? Had I finally snapped from work stress and wandered into a national park?
My name is Li Wei. Or, it was. I was a perfectly ordinary twenty-something from a perfectly ordinary Chinese city. My life consisted of a mediocre office job, too much time spent on my phone, and a quiet, persistent dread about my future. I was not an outdoorsy person. The closest I got to nature was the sad little succulent on my windowsill that I was slowly, unintentionally, murdering.
I scrambled to my feet, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I spun in a slow circle, taking in my surroundings. It was a bamboo forest, vast and seemingly endless. The stalks were thick, taller than any building I'd ever been in, creaking and whispering in a gentle breeze I couldn't even feel on the forest floor. The air was so clean it felt like I was breathing for the first time. It was also terrifying.
"Hello?" I called out, my voice swallowed by the immense quiet. "Is anyone there? This isn't funny!"
Silence. Only the rustle of leaves and the distant, melodic call of a bird I couldn't identify.
Okay, Li Wei, don't panic. Think. Logical, modern, sensible thinking. That's all you have right now. Step one: assess the situation. I was in an unknown location, with no supplies, no idea how I got here, and dressed entirely inappropriately for what appeared to be a hike through a prehistoric forest.
Step two: find civilization. Or a road. Or a sign that said 'Exit to Reality This Way.'
I picked a direction at random and started walking. The soft ground sank under my worn-out sneakers. Every snap of a twig under my foot made me jump. My mind raced through possibilities. A chemical accident? A fugue state? Maybe I'd hit my head.
After what felt like an hour but was probably only ten minutes, I came across a small, crystal-clear stream cutting through the bamboo. I knelt down, my throat parched. Cupping my hands, I drank. The water was ice-cold and tasted better than any bottled water I'd ever had. It was unnerving.
As I drank, I caught my reflection in the still surface of a small pool.
It was me. Same unruly black hair that refused to be tamed, same warm brown eyes that my mom always said looked kind. But there was a… clarity to my face. A healthiness I hadn't seen since before I started spending fifty hours a week in a fluorescent-lit cubicle. I looked… refreshed. It was the most illogical thing about this whole situation so far.
"Right," I said to my reflection, trying to inject some bravado into my voice. "So, I've been magically teleported to a scenic bamboo forest and given a free spa treatment. Great. Can I go home now?"
My reflection had no answers.
I sighed and stood up, brushing the dirt from my knees. That's when I saw it. A flicker of light in the periphery of my vision. I turned my head sharply, but there was nothing there. Just bamboo and more bamboo.
I started walking again, a new kind of unease settling in my gut. The flicker came again, this time accompanied by a soft, chime-like sound, like a notification from a phone set to the most ethereal tone imaginable.
I froze. "Hello?"
No one answered. But the flicker solidified. In the air, right in front of my face, glowing with a soft blue light, were two characters. They weren't any language I recognized, and yet, I understood them perfectly.
System Initializing…
I stared. I blinked hard, several times. I even waved a hand through the characters. My fingers passed through the light without any sensation, but the characters remained, hovering serenely in the space before me.
"Okay," I whispered, a hysterical laugh bubbling in my chest. "So, it's that kind of dream. The weird, video-game UI kind. Fantastic."
The characters shimmered and dissolved. A new set of characters took their place, arranged in a clean, minimalist interface. It looked like a weird, fantasy version of a smartphone app.
System Activation Complete. Welcome, User: Li Wei.
A cold shiver, entirely separate from the forest's chill, ran down my spine. It knew my name.
"Who are you?" I demanded, my voice trembling. "What is this? Some kind of augmented reality game? Am I on camera?"
The system didn't respond to my questions. Instead, new text scrolled into view.
User Status Updated.
Cultivation Base: Mortal Tier (Stage 0)
Vitality: 85/100
Spirit Energy: 5/10
Charm: 12
Perversion: 1
Affinity (Bai Yuxuan): 0
Affinity (Elder Shen): 0
Bond (Various): 0
I read the list, my confusion mounting with every word. Cultivation? Spirit Energy? This was sounding less like a prank and more like those webnovels I used to read to pass the time at my dead-end job. The ones about immortal heroes and magical realms.
"Perversion: 1?" I muttered, offended. "What does that mean? I'll have you know I'm a perfect gentleman." The stat seemed to pulse faintly, as if amused.
A new box popped up, this one with a more formal border.
Tutorial Quest: Acclimatization.
Objective: Successfully navigate to the 'Whispering Bamboo Sect' located 2 li to the east.
Success Reward: Basic Cultivation Technique Manual, System Favor +5.
Failure: Continued disorientation and high probability of becoming spirit-beast sustenance.
My blood ran cold. Spirit-beast sustenance? That did not sound good. Neither did the word 'failure.' But the rest of it… 'Whispering Bamboo Sect.' It sounded like something straight out of the stories. A sect. A cultivation sect.
The pieces were clicking together in my mind, forming a picture so absurd I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. The bamboo forest. The clean, potent air. The system interface. The stats.
I, Li Wei, a modern, cynical, and utterly mundane office worker, had been transmigrated. I was in a cultivation world.
The realization hit me like a physical blow. I stumbled back, leaning against a thick bamboo stalk for support. This wasn't a dream, a prank, or a kidnapping. This was my life now. The life I knew—the one with deadlines, traffic jams, and instant noodles—was gone.
A wave of pure, unadulterated homesickness washed over me. The bland taste of my morning congee. The annoying ping of my group chat. The comforting weight of my blanket. All of it, gone. I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting back a sudden, stupid urge to cry. I was alone in a world where the rules were written in terms like 'Spirit Energy' and 'spirit-beasts,' and my only guide was a snarky, floating text box that had the audacity to give me a 'Perversion' stat.
For a long moment, I just stood there, breathing in the alien, green-scented air, feeling the weight of an entire universe on my shoulders. What was I supposed to do? Sit down and wait to die? Become 'spirit-beast sustenance'?
No. A spark of my old, stubborn self ignited in my chest. However impossible this was, I was here. I was alive. And there was a system offering me a quest and a reward. A 'Basic Cultivation Technique Manual' sounded a hell of a lot more useful than my current knowledge of spreadsheet formulas and meme culture.
I pushed myself away from the bamboo, standing up straight. I looked at the quest notification again.
"Two li to the east," I said to myself. Right. Which way was east? The sun. I looked up, but the canopy was too thick to see its position clearly. I had no compass. I was, for all intents and purposes, a lost city boy.
"Hey, System," I said, feeling foolish. "A little help? A mini-map, maybe? A glowing arrow on the ground?"
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, a single, thin, glowing blue arrow materialized on the forest floor, pointing decisively through the trees. It was translucent, like a hologram.
A hysterical laugh finally escaped my lips. "Okay. Okay, then. East it is."
I took a deep breath, the clean, spirit-rich air filling my lungs. My heart was still pounding, but now it was mixed with a strange, burgeoning sense of… anticipation. This was terrifying. It was insane. But it was also, undeniably, an adventure. My old life was boring. This one… this one promised cultivation. Immortality. Magic.
It also promised a high probability of being eaten, but you had to take the good with the bad.
I took a step forward, following the holographic arrow. Then another. My cheap sneakers squelched in the mud. My jeans were uncomfortably damp. I was scared, confused, and had a perversion stat of one.
But I was walking.
My journey as the Perverted Immortal, though I didn't know the title yet, had begun.
To be continued...