Chapter 1#
The going rate for an extra was a hundred yuan.
Ji Landong was obviously no extra. He’d won a Film Emperor award, after all — debuted at fifteen, claimed the title at twenty-one, and was now twenty-seven.
A wasted effort. Water drawn in a bamboo basket, every drop gone.
Now Ji Landong scraped by on third-rate productions, his reputation fed to the dogs, his dignity offered up to the heavens.
Ji Landong held the pill bottle, twisted open a cap of mineral water, draped a tattered coat over his shoulders, and sat down on the front steps.
Some people carry a fine face all the way to the grave.
Ji Landong hadn’t removed his stage makeup. Dirt and mud clung to him from head to toe, scars crisscrossed his wrists, and loose strands of hair fell in tangles across his brow. Beneath those thin eyelids, his eyes were deep and dark — filthy and wretched, yet still striking.
His long, slender fingers, each joint finely defined, flicked idly at the air.
The mushroom that had appeared out of nowhere before him — the one claiming to be a “Villain Redemption System” — had actually been skulking after him for three days.
Ji Landong had assumed his mental illness was flaring up again. He’d taken several times his usual dose of medication.
System: 「…First of all.」
First of all, it was not a mushroom. The System had no physical form — it was merely a data construct. Whatever filled the mind of its target was what it appeared as.
The System had been a handsome man. A beautiful woman. A cheque. This was its first time being a mushroom.
Second of all, Ji Landong ought to put the pill bottle down.
At this rate, he was going to die.
「I’ve come for you,」 the System said. 「Ji Landong, during your time as a villain — trading on your Film Emperor status to throw your weight around — you suppressed, targeted, and drove out newcomers by every means available. You did a great many terrible things.」
Ji Landong gave a small nod and picked up his takeaway box. “Yes.”
The System choked, then continued: 「You also purchased smear campaigns, manipulated public opinion, and in a sense, you bear inescapable responsibility for Yang Xiaofan’s death.」
Yang Xiaofan had been a throwaway character in the industry — a newly explosive top-tier idol with limitless potential ahead of him. Being targeted and hounded by Ji Landong had left him with nowhere to turn. He’d jumped from a building and died.
Ji Landong split apart a pair of disposable chopsticks. “Yes.”
System: 「You’ve also been suppressing your half-brother on your mother’s side — Ji Ran — who never did anything wrong.」
Ji Ran was the protagonist of this world. A child of fate. The true popular superstar of the moment. The set was already remote enough, but you could still see a massive billboard not far off.
Ji Ran was three years younger than Ji Landong. His entire upbringing had been lived in Ji Landong’s shadow — painful and oppressive. He’d even suffered from depression for a time.
Ji Landong bowed his head over his rice. “Yes.”
System: 「…」
System: 「You also pulled out your stepfather’s breathing tube, sent your birth mother to a psychiatric institution, and the direct reason you were blacklisted was the exposure of your killing a man by accident at age fifteen — the victim being your biological father. Ji Landong, you are a murderer.」
This time, Ji Landong’s hand — the one gripping his chopsticks — finally paused. But only for less than a second. Then he was shoveling cold, congealed rice into his mouth again.
Everything this thing said was accurate.
Ji Landong admitted it all. He knew he deserved what had come to him — he was paying for what he’d done, and most likely he’d nearly run out of road.
Whoever had given him the third-rate film job — whether out of pity, mockery, or the pleasure of kicking a man while he was down — he couldn’t say. But it turned his stomach either way. Cheap and shoddy costumes and props. A set that looked like a rubbish dump. Ji Landong had been unfortunate enough to catch a glimpse of some rough-cut footage: murky and chaotic, full of degraded insinuations. Offensive to the eyes.
Ji Landong tossed aside the empty takeaway box, gulped down a mouthful of water, and reached for the pill bottle again.
An invisible force knocked it from his hand and sent it skittering across the floor.
The System had never encountered such a stubborn villain. It felt something close to exasperation. It projected a virtual screen into the air and displayed Ji Landong’s utterly wrecked physical condition, then pulled up a web of connections — thin lines of light linking several profile pictures.
Two stood out most clearly.
Li Xingyun. Ji Ran.
If Ji Ran was the protagonist of this world, Li Xingyun was his greatest trump card.
The youngest son of the Li family’s empire. A financial backer with a background grand enough to serve as scenery in a film. The current president of Liyang Media. And… Ji Landong’s former live-in partner.
「The two of them are looking for you,」 the System said. 「They want to redeem you. If you could just cooperate a little — would that be so difficult?」
The world had already completed the vast majority of its reckoning. The final step was for Ji Landong to be healed, to find peace, to release the past — and then a Happy Ending stamp could be pressed down over everything.
「They’ll give you a place to live, food to eat. They’ll treat you well and hold nothing against you.」
System: 「You get healed, and then it’s done.」
Ji Landong: “Done?”
「That’s right.」 The System had always worked this way. 「They’ll be free then — no more lingering ties. They can move on to new lives.」
After all, the protagonist could not carry debts.
Not even debts owed to a villain.
Ji Landong heard this framing for the first time and found it curious. He reached over and scrolled through the screen.
It was remarkably thorough. It even included footnotes on Li Xingyun — how, in his mid-teens, he’d quarreled with his family, stormed out with nothing to his name, and had been taken in by Ji Landong.
Ji Landong had wronged many people. Li Xingyun was not among them.
Ji Landong had been good to Li Xingyun — kept him fed and housed, gave him gifts on holidays, lit candles for dinner every week. Li Xingyun loved cars, so Ji Landong had bought him sports cars of every make to indulge him.
The friction between them had begun when Li Xingyun could no longer stomach Ji Landong’s ruthless methods — convinced that Ji Landong had hurt too many people.
And the spark that had finally blown everything apart was Li Xingyun’s discovery that Ji Landong had known his identity from the very beginning, and that taking him in had only ever been a means of climbing into the Li family’s orbit.
Ji Landong’s current ruin and disgrace — the just consequences raining down on him — had Li Xingyun’s hands all over them.
And yet the one endlessly searching for Ji Landong now, the one who would go so far as to make enemies for his sake, was also Li Xingyun.
「I’d advise you not to let your pride get the better of you here,」 the System urged. 「At least go with him. The material conditions will be vastly better, and you won’t have to keep filming these things…」
System: 「You’re not actually going to shoot the next scene, are you?」
Ji Landong glanced at the tattered script.
No story. No dialogue. But there were shot breakdowns.
The next scene was something designed purely to degrade. He’d be playing an addict who’d lost his mind to drugs. The audience was a secret financier lurking somewhere backstage. The dark underbelly of this industry twisted to its most extreme — there was no shortage of people who could not rightfully be called human.
Ji Landong had made countless enemies over the years, arrogant and overbearing — now that he’d fallen, this kind of retribution was only to be expected.
Ji Landong had no intention of filming it. He was only curious: “Who would I be playing opposite?”
System: 「?」
“Never mind.” Ji Landong tossed the script aside. “It doesn’t matter.”
Whoever ended up in a “production” like this was either a washed-up wreck like himself, waiting to die, or a newcomer who’d just stepped in and been deceived.
Once something like that was filmed, the master copy would be in the financier’s hands. Everything you did afterward could be used against you.
It wasn’t worth it.
Ji Landong had taken the job because he couldn’t afford his medication.
He asked the System: “If I go with Li Xingyun — will he buy me my medication?”
System: 「…You can’t keep taking medication, Ji Landong.」
Ji Landong didn’t want to either. “But I’m still hearing things.”
The auditory hallucinations were growing more elaborate. He’d even hallucinated something calling itself a “Villain Redemption System,” which clung to him without end, going on and on about his sins, and baselessly accused him of having a head full of mushrooms.
System: 「…」
Ji Landong opened the pill bottle, counted the tablets, and tilted them toward his mouth. The door slammed open.
The person who burst in was young and lean — mid-twenties, holding a motorcycle helmet, wearing jeans and a leather jacket, a head of red hair that stood up like a hedgehog.
He wore an expression like cold iron, stared fixedly at Ji Landong, breathing hard, his eyes thick with storm clouds.
The System lit up: 「Li Xingyun! See? Ji Landong, wasn’t I right? Can’t you try cooperating? Just let yourself be redeemed?」
Ji Landong could only reason with the mushroom: “That’s not Li Xingyun.”
The System was nearly driven to breaking: 「Why not?!」
Ji Landong braced himself on his knees and stood.
He looked up. Looked at the figure before him.
Why not?
Perhaps because, in the most logical version of things, this figure before him was only a hallucination — the kind he would see when he was with Li Xingyun back then.
He caught these hallucinations sometimes. In them, he felt like he was alive — borrowing the rush of Li Xingyun’s life as he thundered down the road on his motorcycle, stealing a little of his vitality.
Li Xingyun would lean against him, pestering him to help dye his hair red, biting the sandwich out of his hand, sliding a ring made from a pull tab onto his finger.
In those few years, Ji Landong had believed himself to be alive, too.
Then the speeding car had met the iron gate of fate.
Later, Ji Landong had seen Li Xingyun once. The red hair he’d dyed for him with his own hands had since returned to a calm, composed black. The president of Liyang Media — shirt, suit jacket, the picture of a brilliant young talent — had looked at him with eyes that were blank and cold.
Just like the day they severed ties. Li Xingyun had stared at Ji Landong, his expression carrying something impossible to read — grief or disappointment — and said: Ji Landong, you’re a fucking murderer.
You’re a murderer.
…
After that, Ji Landong stopped going to see Li Xingyun.
But he still saw him anyway.
Li Xingyun had founded Liyang Media. He appeared on screen regularly, backing Ji Ran at events, accompanying Ji Ran on variety shows. Ji Ran’s fans were all hearts-in-their-eyes over them, chanting about what a perfect couple they’d make. The president would just smile and let it pass.
「He and Ji Ran aren’t that kind of thing,」 the System offered, not above spoilers to prove it wasn’t a mushroom. 「He’s making it up to Ji Ran only because he feels you wronged Ji Ran too badly. In his heart he sees himself as one with you — so he’s atoning on your behalf.」
Ji Landong looked at the mushroom in the corner. His expression was serene — only his brow was pale and wan, cold sweat seeping through, the kind of sight that made you uneasy.
Ji Landong thought for a moment. “Oh.”
The System was unraveling: 「Oh?! What do you mean, oh?!」
Ji Landong: “That’s not Li Xingyun.”
Ji Landong acknowledged that he was a person of rotten character. A villain who had brought every consequence upon himself. He acknowledged that he was profoundly self-centred — even pathologically so.
For instance: he didn’t believe Li Xingyun would behave this way. He believed Li Xingyun would first ask him for the truth. First ask him why he’d treated Ji Ran the way he had. Then hold him quietly for a while. Bring him something warm to drink.
So Ji Landong did not accept that what the System had described was Li Xingyun.
Nor was the person before him.
Perhaps this was a trap — a honeypot con — sent to ensnare him.
Perhaps it was a hallucination.
Ji Landong thought he needed to take a pill. He gripped the bottle and reached for the water, when a hand closed around his arm and held on — so hard the grip trembled.
The figure opened his mouth and spoke with Li Xingyun’s voice: “Come back with me.”
Most of the water spilled, ice-cold. Ji Landong frowned and looked up into eyes that had gone so bloodshot they were nearly red all through.
He didn’t recognize the person before him. Even if this person wore Li Xingyun’s clothes, had Li Xingyun’s hair, even had the exact same voice.
“…Gē.” Li Xingyun’s voice came out hoarse and shaking. Almost pleading. “Come back with me. Don’t you want me anymore?”