Chapter 1#

The Timid Office Worker 1#

[As an office worker, you are dull and weak-willed.]

[Even when you discover that your “wife” seems to have started a relationship with your superior, you choose to endure it in silence.]

[You think that as long as you bear with it, everything will return to its old track.]

[In the end—]

[In the house you bought with a loan, traces of your wife and your superior’s presence are left everywhere.]

“Is this the place?”

Late at night.

In an old residential building.

As he climbed the last step of the staircase, a pale-faced young man with gauze wrapped around his head wore an ill-fitting suit, reeking of alcohol. Only his faintly visible slender waist was firmly held by a powerful arm.

Shen Anyu, his mind groggy, was supported by his well-dressed superior beside him. His lips opened and closed, but not a single sound escaped.

In the end, he nodded silently.

As the doorbell at the entrance was pressed, the harsh “ding-dong” startled the birds resting on the wires outside.

Before long, perhaps having heard the sound—

“Creak—” the door, its paint somewhat weathered, was pushed open from within.

What came into view was an extremely beautiful face.

His wife, wearing a white slip dress, was tall and slender, yet her complexion was frighteningly pale. The coldness in her brows and eyes inexplicably brought to mind a beautiful ghost from a horror film.

“Hubby?” she called.

Shen Anyu looked up at the sound. His face bloodless, he looked at his wife behind the door. He instinctively wanted to respond, but forgot he couldn’t speak. Only his lips parted and closed, faint breathy sounds escaping.

“Sorry, he can’t speak at the moment.”

The man supporting Shen Anyu spoke. Only then did the wife behind the door notice him, her gaze pausing briefly.

“What exactly happened?”

Inside the house.

Shen Anyu sat on the sofa, blood faintly seeping through the gauze at his forehead.

Listening to the conversation between his wife and his superior at his side, he lowered his gaze, listening silently and dully.

This was the twenty-fifth year since Shen Anyu had transmigrated into this world.

The dull pain in his chest and the dizziness in his head felt as if they had happened just yesterday.

The story began on the day Shen Anyu—an aging office worker who had worked until he’d gone numb—won a five-million-yuan lottery.

Shen Anyu, who had worked diligently at his company from nine to ten for six years, had thought he would live and die with the company, walking together to the end of his life.

But who would have thought—on the second day after his thirtieth birthday, he received news that the company headquarters had decided to lay off employees.

And on the layoff list, there he was, clear as day.

Shen Anyu had thought his emotions would fluctuate greatly.

But staring at the computer screen with a dead-fish expression, he merely replied with a faint “oh” after hearing it.

After all, it was just going from being an office worker back to being unemployed.

He could force himself to get used to it.

Yet just before clocking off, he opened his phone and idly checked the lottery winning numbers—

Shen Anyu was surprised to find he’d won five million yuan.

For a moment.

The joy of sudden wealth dispelled the gloom of Shen Anyu’s imminent unemployment.

But it was also because he was too excited.

His heart rate rose, his breathing became rapid, and his brain throbbed with pain. In the end, it caused Shen Anyu to lose consciousness and die at his workstation, accidentally getting bound by a passing “background character” system, 9106.

As for why “background character” was put in quotation marks—

It was because this system was 【not quite proper】.

As the bound host, Shen Anyu needed to transmigrate into various restricted-level small worlds, playing the role of a background character with no presence beside the protagonists of *literature, including but not limited to—

The cowardly husband in N/* literature;

The roommate with “deaf” ears in ** literature;

The neighbor’s younger brother with “blind” eyes in *X/ literature;

……

All unspeakable genres.

At that time, floating in the air, watching his five-million-yuan lottery ticket go down the drain with his own eyes, Shen Anyu nearly vomited blood upon hearing these tasks.

He wasn’t even sure whether his company would give bereavement compensation for his sudden death.

And who would receive that compensation.

Perhaps feeling that he was being a bit unreasonable.

The background character system 9106 offered a condition that Shen Anyu, aged thirty with nine years of office worker career , couldn’t refuse—

[Dear, our company offers benefits such as four days on, three days off, five insurances and two funds, and a free house after completing five small worlds~]

[If your points reach the requirement, you can also exchange for rebirth! You can be reborn at any point in time (the kind where the five-million lottery ticket is still there)~]

9106, shaped like a ball of light, leaned close to Shen Anyu’s ear and whispered, [Dear, won’t you consider it? Our company’s benefits are really good QAQ]

[Also, our labor contract is legal and proper. If there’s any behavior like exploiting the host, the system can accept labor arbitration QAQ]

Shen Anyu, who appeared to have nine years of work experience but had actually been exploited by various shady companies for nearly thirteen years: “…………”

That’s… not impossible.

Back to the present.

The conversation between his superior Jian Lixu and his “wife” beside him brought Shen Anyu back to his senses.

But he only lowered his head, remaining silent like the cowardly office worker in the original work.

This was a book… filled with chaos and forbidden desires.

The two protagonists were none other than Jian Lixu, the well-dressed superior sitting across from Shen Anyu, and Shen Xifu, the beautiful and aloof wife beside him.

In the original work.

The timid and dull background-character office worker, after graduating from university, was lucky enough to marry Xie Xifu, the goddess pursued by countless people on campus.

But three years after marriage.

The ordinary and dull Shen Anyu, and the poverty-stricken life that remained unchanged year after year, gradually made Xie Xifu want a divorce.

One time, while bringing lunch to Shen Anyu—

The young and beautiful Xie Xifu met Shen Anyu’s direct superior—Jian Lixu—in the underground parking lot.

Almost at first sight, Xie Xifu was attracted to the refined and mature Jian Lixu, but she suffered from lack of an excuse to get close.

Until not long after, when her husband Shen Anyu and his superior got into an accident during a business meeting. The person who sent him home was none other than Jian Lixu.

In the story.

It wasn’t just Xie Xifu who fell in love at first sight in that underground parking lot.

Afterwards, using excuses like visiting an injured subordinate, Jian Lixu and Xie Xifu began the original work’s sordid drama of forceful “taking” and “snatching,” of feigning resistance while actually welcoming it.

The famous line from the original work:

—“Madam, you wouldn’t want your husband to be fired, would you?”

For this reason, Xie Xifu, as his wife, had no choice but to submit to Jian Lixu multiple times. Later on, it even developed to the point of happening in the marital home she shared with Shen Anyu.

And in all of this, Shen Anyu, serving as the tool and background character for their relationship to heat up, met a miserable end.

The final passage describing Shen Anyu in the text—

[The office worker skilled at burying his head in the sand ultimately couldn’t accept that his wife had changed. So, deceiving himself, he stayed in place, attempting for everything to return to its old track. Yet on the day Xie Xifu and Jian Lixu married, he died of depression.]

Now.

Having lived in this world for twenty-five years, Shen Anyu had finally waited for the first meeting of the male and female leads in the text. With a face drained of blood, he listlessly listened to the conversation between his wife Shen Xifu and Jian Lixu across from him.

It was nothing more than why he got hurt, and the company’s subsequent compensation and such.

Only when his wife Shen Xifu beside him drew close did he tremblingly lift his gaze, weakly moving away a little.

“Hubby?” Shen Xifu reached out, wanting to interlace fingers with Shen Anyu, but because Shen Anyu dodged, her hand fell empty. She paused. When her cold fingers lifted again, she only gently brushed them against Shen Anyu’s listless eye corner, and Shen Xifu asked softly, “Sleepy?”

She pretended not to see Shen Anyu’s earlier retreat.

Shen Anyu knew that, according to the original plot, the next step was his cue to exit. Following Shen Xifu’s words, he nodded slightly, but his hoarse throat couldn’t produce a single sound.

In the original text.

The office worker, who was discussing business with his superior, said the wrong thing and was struck on the head with a liquor bottle by an intoxicated client. Blood gushed profusely. Fortunately, he was taken to the hospital in time, so no major harm was done, let alone any “speech disorder” symptom.

The only purpose of this scene in the original text was to create an opportunity for the male and female leads to meet.

But now.

Because he thought of those sordid scenes between the male and female leads.

After being injured by the liquor bottle and sent to the hospital, Shen Anyu silently added a “speech disorder” setting for himself, commonly known as—

a mute.

9106, floating in the air, dared not speak but was furious.

After all, making a host who had been an office worker for N years act as a qualified background character, experiencing the protagonists’ “twisted” love story, was already a torment.

Not to mention, within this “twisted love story,” playing a background character who 【witnesses】 everything.

Actually, if 9106 hadn’t repeatedly stopped him back then.

Shen Anyu had even wanted to let the client smash the bottle into his eyes when he picked it up, successfully making himself blind.

Unfortunately, that person’s aim was a bit off.

And as a task-taker, aside from having to follow his character setting, he also couldn’t arbitrarily change too much of the plot.

“It’s fine.” In front of him, Shen Xifu said, “If you can’t speak, then don’t. I know what my husband wants to express.”

But Shen Anyu waited and waited, yet never heard the line from the original text—

“Since you’re sleepy, why doesn’t hubby go rest first?”

Only the deathly pale fingers at his side were slowly threaded through by Shen Xifu, fingers tightly interlocked.

Jian Lixu, sitting across from them, was still gently relaying the doctor’s instructions and the compensation the company would provide for this.

Jian Lixu: “I apologize. No one expected this accident. Regarding the harassment and malicious harm Mr. Shen suffered during the business meeting, our company will definitely pursue the responsible party to the end. As for the follow-up compensation…”

“Harassment?” Shen Xifu lifted her gaze, interrupting Jian Lixu’s words.

Even though she was conversing with Jian Lixu, Shen Xifu’s gaze landed on her husband beside her.

When she noticed Shen Anyu’s stiff body, a shade of gloom gradually crept over Shen Xifu’s exquisite, cold features.

Beside them, Jian Lixu continued to gently narrate the details of the incident.

Each word falling on Shen Anyu’s ears was no less than the prelude to a death symphony.

He kept his gaze lowered, never daring to meet Shen Xifu’s eyes. Fine beads of sweat formed on the tip of his nose, and even his breathing seemed compressed to the extreme.

In his memories.

Shen Xifu’s opposition to him going out to work, and the punishments after each time he returned, were still vivid in his mind.

Having lived in this world for twenty-five years, Shen Anyu had, for the first twenty-two years, experienced smooth sailing apart from having to maintain the “cowardly and dull” personality of the “office worker” in the original work and having no friends.

But after meeting the female lead “Xie Xifu” from the script, everything changed.

Shen Anyu couldn’t understand why, on the third day after their marriage, “Xie Xifu,” the female lead, would change her surname to the same “Shen” as his.

When he tried to ask the reason.

He only got the answer—“I love you.”

Later on.

Even Shen Anyu going out to look for a job would be stopped by Shen Xifu.

Unlike other women who hated their husbands being away from them, or those with separation anxiety who would throw tantrums, make scenes, or threaten suicide, Shen Xifu’s obstruction was a form of mental oppression, and the controlling desire revealed in every interaction.

She wouldn’t cry, nor would she make a fuss. She would only use methods to make Shen Anyu instinctively fear the things she disliked.

In those three years.

There were quite a few times when Shen Anyu, in his hazy daze, felt that he was a pet raised by Shen Xifu.

As if nothing was allowed except being with her.

Of the three years of marriage, two and a half of them.

Shen Anyu was together with Shen Xifu every moment.

Aside from eating and sleeping, it was all hugging, kissing, being close…

He couldn’t escape, nor could he avoid.

If it weren’t for the fact that 9106’s mission manual hadn’t warned of plot corruption or protagonist character collapse, Shen Anyu would even suspect that “Xie Xifu,” the female lead of the original work, had been replaced.

Replaced by an evil ghost filled with possessiveness and obsession—

Simply because.

Shen Xifu’s body temperature was very low. Every time they touched, it made Shen Anyu involuntarily tremble.