Chapter 1

In Laughing Proudly Under the Heavens in an Alternate World, a neither obscure nor popular harem novel, the strongest character is the protagonist, and the second strongest is the villain.

Every time the villain does anything outrageous, it's always the protagonist who stops him in time.

Having the traits of a 'perfect husband' archetype, the villain would always persevere, fighting back time and time again. Using even his life for the sake of victory, he was forever locked in a love-hate, mutually destructive relationship with the protagonist in every sense of the phrase.

Today was a very important day. As a die-hard fan of this novel, Ling Xia was prepared to pull an all-nighter sitting in front of his computer, refreshing the novel's page again and again, waiting for the latest update.

The author said that he'd release the final chapter on time tonight. Finally, after a year and three months of following this story, the battle between the villain and the protagonist has finally reached its thrilling conclusion!

Only after having reread the final chapter three whole times, eyes almost popping out in disbelief, he suddenly coughed up blood in indignation, spraying it across the computer screen—

The fuck, I've been following this story for so long, painstakingly voting every month, and it turns out it was for this kind of almost-everyone-die ending?!

That's right, when writing the final confrontation where the villainous boss gets defeated by the protagonist, the author loses all of his marbles!

In the five thousand words of the final chapter, the protagonist's immortally elegant and super-powerful master dies!

The loved-by-all, incredibly cute and adorable magical beast, also dies!

The protagonist's entire group of bros, needless to say, is completely annihilated!

And the worst part is, his favourite member of the protagonist's harem, a goddess excelling in both beauty and kindness, even the charming Murong Xue, dies when protecting the protagonist with her body!

To be more precise, aside from the protagonist and a few girls from his harem, the entire population of the world is pretty much destroyed by the villain's colossal puppet army!

Because of the villain's Ultimate Destruction Plan, the world's energy circuits are greatly disrupted, causing an imbalance among all living things. Finally, because of the Ultimate Weapon, the entire world's continental shelves collapse into pieces. It's basically a doomsday taken straight out of the apocalyptic predictions of 2012!

It is only through the protagonist's extraordinary luck and power that he is barely able to desperately overcome this crisis and save a piece of holy land and part of his harem.

Because of this, the protagonist is rendered powerless and unable to defend against the villain's next attack. This leads to the goddess of Ling Xia's heart, Murong Xue, throwing herself in front of the protagonist without a second thought to block the villain's heaven-splitting strike. Her beautiful existence is extinguished just like that.

…The fuck, this kind of rage-inducing scenario is absolute bullshit!

Facing the endless desolation of the destroyed continent and the tragic view of corpses as far as the eye can see, the kind-hearted protagonist finally hardens his heart and chooses to thoroughly eliminate the villain. This is how the novel describes it:

Darkness gradually descended and a loud boom sounded across the sky as large drops of rain began to fall, but when Song Xiaohu (protagonist) lowered his head and vacantly stared at Yu Zhijue (villain) lying in the mud at death's door, his expression held not even the slightest trace of joy.

Yu Zhijue slowly opened his dark, frozen eyes, and his lips tugged into a faint smile. "Finally… I'm free… This kind of repulsive world… should be utterly destroyed…"

Destroyed, your frickin' sister!

Ling Xia was close to flipping his table, wishing he could crawl through the monitor and spit a mouthful of blood on the author's face.

Did the author write this as a way of lashing out against the world?

Is this kind of ending supposed to imply that the protagonist will take his remaining harem members and repopulate the world, reverting to a farming society?! Since his favourite goddess-like girl is already dead, for what reason is the protagonist even still alive? Why don't they go die together?!

The normally peaceful discussion board had already erupted in flames. One after another, the female fans who liked the villain and the male fans who liked Murong Xue were all posting complaints about being unable to accept this ending.

Ling Xia, also feeling bitter and indignant, grabbed his keyboard and started typing furiously all in one go. After following this novel for so long, what he wanted to read about was not the destruction of the world at the hands of some evil and arrogant villain with loose screws in his head! What he wanted to read about was the protagonist leading his beautiful harem and group of bros, and just as the title says, laughing proudly while adventuring across the world! With everyone dead, like hell there'd be any laughter, much less pride! There's no way he'd ever accept this kind of ending!

The fuck! What the literal fuck!

This novel doesn't have many die-hard fans, and the author usually sticks to writing only, rarely interacting with the readers. However, this time, Ling Xia's complaint immediately received a reply from the author:

Yu Zhijue is my most beloved antagonist, and Murong Xue is my favourite heroine; therefore, it's this kind of ending. →_→ In the first place, I'm just writing for fun; there's no need to take it so seriously, he he. *petpet*

…'He he,' your frickin' sister! To hell with that *petpet*!

You might have been writing for fun, but I have been passionately and earnestly following this story up until now!

Fine, make the villain you love turn to the dark side and fall into ruin along with the world! Give me back my beautiful goddess first!

It should be noted that all the villains up until now, whether big or small, have either been defeated by the protagonist or ended up getting reformed by the protagonist, later becoming his comrade!

As expected of an author with loose screws in his head, to write this kind of bogus, shameless, shit ending!

Ling Xia's entire face was red with anger. Compared to this kind of sham ending, he'd rather have a preposterous one where the villain falls for the protagonist, and hand in hand, they go off to discover a whole new world together! Even BL is better than tragedy!

At this point, his emotions were no longer within the realm of being heartbroken; he'd already reached the point of wanting to destroy all of society!

The heart of a nerdy male isn't something to carelessly trample!

Grinding his teeth, Ling Xia stared at this reply from the author for a few minutes and quickly did a face-heel turn from a fan to a hater.

Aching in his heart and soul, for the first time in his life, he began to write a lengthy, hateful review. Moreover, at the very end, he left his heartfelt wishes and blessings:

To the author who's lost his mind, let all the instant noodles you eat come without a flavour packet!

When going to the toilet, the only thing you have to wipe with is an instant noodle flavour packet!

All the girls you pursue are sapphists! Ultimately, you also end up as a confirmed bachelor!

May your chrysanthemum1 get pierced thousands and thousands of times!

Transmigrate to another world as a mob! Become cannon fodder for the main character and die as soon as possible!

The angry click-clack sounds of keys tapping continued without break for half an hour. After clicking [Reply], Ling Xia once again looked at the screen full of angry exclamation marks, poured a cup of iced beer, and finally felt like he'd vented some of the grief and indignation in his heart. And like that, he went to bed.

Of course, if he had known the destiny that awaited him, he would definitely have chosen to chop off that pair of wretched hands instead of inviting calamity by writing that review. At the very least, he'd leave out the curses about transmigrating into a mob character and getting your chrysanthemum pierced.

The next morning, after being awoken by a cacophony of voices, Ling Xia drowsily rubbed his eyes and thought he was still dreaming. He sluggishly propped himself up, only to discover that, surprisingly, he was lying on a pile of straw in a corner while, nearby, a dusty dog was in the middle of lifting its leg and peeing.

Ling Xia looked down, only now realizing that his body was amiss. In front of his eyes were a pair of filthy but distinctly thin and weak hands—these definitely weren't his hands!

"…This dream is really too weird," Ling Xia mumbled to himself while rubbing his temples, but after he violently pinched himself and almost jumped up from the pain—the fuck, did I end up transmigrating?!

As a nerdy male who preferred staying at home year-round, Ling Xia naturally knew plenty of famous transmigration stories, even if he did always look down upon those lame MC2s who went to a different world and curb-stomped everything with their OP3 cheats. This is also the reason he liked Laughing Proudly Under the Heavens in an Alternate World, because the protagonist isn't someone who crossed over.

It's completely absurd how the act of crossing over could somehow transform a loser into a winner in life! When Ling Xia read these kinds of plots before, he laughed a few times, but now that he's also joined their ranks, he honestly couldn't bring himself to utter even a single "ha ha."

Despite drowning in feelings of turmoil, Ling Xia still quickly got to his feet. He needed to confirm what kind of place he was currently in. When he saw the tattered, rag-like state of his clothes, his expression turned distraught—clearly, the status of the person he'd become wasn't very good.

It's still early right now, with very few pedestrians walking in the wide, empty streets. Ling Xia pushed the twisted lump of hair in front of his face to the back of his head, turned, and coincidentally saw a store not far away with a large sign bearing the words, "Longfei Roasted Pancakes."

Ling Xia's heart seized, now completely certain of his hypothesis. The novel begins with the protagonist leaving the desert mountains before wandering to a mundane, small town with a very concise and bold-sounding name—Longfei4, the place where the protagonist and the villain meet.

Now, should he choose to deviate from the plot or stick with it? It should be noted that staying beside the protagonist means being constantly exposed to danger. He's basically a second Conan5, with incidents occurring anywhere and everywhere he goes, so unless one has the divine protection of an MC, it's better to stay far away. But if he ignores the protagonist and disregards the storyline, without a doubt, the end result would be getting destroyed by the villain along with this entire continent…

Moreover, the most important and crucial point is: how far has the plot advanced as of now?

Shit! He's just a techie who prefers staying at home, reading novels in his free time, and browsing for certain things online, the same as any other guy. It's not like he's ever committed any crimes or acts to offend the Heavens! Isn't it just a bit of criticism towards an untrustworthy and heartless author? Oh, great God of Transmigration, why go so far as to throw someone into this kind of dangerous and treacherous, high-strung tragic harem story?

By now, his stomach was growling non-stop, starved for who knows how long, and twisting into knots. Ling Xia listlessly rubbed his empty belly, briefly not knowing what he should do.

"Erdan, you're hungry, right? Here's a roasted pancake." A dirty hand suddenly reached towards him, gripping a sallow-roasted pancake dusted with a few clear, black fingerprints.

Ling Xia raised his head, stunned, abruptly catching sight of a brat that was around ten years old. Even though his face was black and dirty, obscuring his features, his inky black eyes shone exceptionally bright, and on his chubby cheeks, two dimples faintly revealed themselves. When Ling Xia saw the lightning-shaped pendant hanging from a red string around the boy's neck, he was immediately struck dumb—holy fuck, the protagonist!

It should be noted that while the protagonist starts off as a beggar at the beginning of the story, later on in the novel, his status will have reached astonishing and awe-inspiring levels of fame comparable to that of Luffy6's! This pendant is the crucial proof in establishing his identity, and back when Ling Xia was following the novel, this revelation excited him to the point of chaos, driving him to slap the table and shout in exhilaration.

The protagonist's appearance may fall a bit short compared to the villain's, but he has a pair of deep, profound eyes capable of moving both holy maidens and demonic enchantresses with their heart-piercing gaze. When faced with these endlessly dark and jewel-like eyes, Ling Xia was rendered speechless.

"He's a retard; he doesn't even know to eat when hungry. Giving him that is just a waste." A very pompous and crisp young boy's voice sounded from behind, carrying traces of impatience.

Ling Xia stiffly turned around, and as expected, there was another young boy currently side-eying him. Unlike the dirty and ragged appearance of the protagonist, although his clothes were also very old, they were exceptionally neat and tidy, and even his extremely fair and delicate face had been washed clean. When he saw the crimson mole under the corner of the boy's right eye, Ling Xia momentarily blanked out—holy fuck, the villain!

The female fans who followed this sham story pretty much all agreed that even if the villain was evil in all sorts of ways, he's delightfully cute in many other aspects—a clean freak, fanatical, vigorously passionate, gorgeous, and even well-versed in both literature and art. Add to that his exceptionally enchanting mole; he simply possesses all kinds of deadly charm points! (Ling Xia: How I deeply wish to comment on the ridiculousness of the name 'Yu Zhijue7'!)

Looking at the cute, steamed bun–shaped protagonist-and-villain pair before his eyes, Ling Xia moodily brooded in silence—to be involved in the plot so quickly, why this!

Looks like the God of Destiny already made the choice for him, and as expected, the purpose of being transported into this novel was probably to personally witness the protagonist and villain love and kill each other…