Chapter 1: Mother did not have a daughter

Zhu Zhewei's first solid sensation on waking was a towel being run over his forehead.

As a doctor, Zhu Zhewei could obviously recognize the need to tend to a patient who had collapsed. If he were wide awake and rational, he would have permitted it for the sake of the treatment.

However, he was barely conscious, feeling quite uncomfortable, and generally hated to be touched for any reason. As such, his first instinct was to swing up a hand to bat the nurse away.

Surprisingly, though, he the sensation when he made contact to be odd. His hand, rather than engulfing the wrist of the person, sat lightly on solid skin. He could not feel any curves to distinguish wrist bones or fingers.

Fearing he might have touched someone even more inappropriately than a simply bat of the hand, he opened his eyes, only to promptly let out a cry in shock.

The reason he could not feel bones was not because they were not there: no, it was simply that his hands didn't reach them!

His hand, where he stared at it, was small and rounded. It was unmistakably the hand of a baby, wresting against the wrist of a woman's large hand.

The woman in question towered over him, a sour look upon her face, as she kissed her teeth in irritation.

"Too fussy," she complained. "At least you don't cry. As long as customers can't hear you, we won't have any problems, alright?"

Zhu Zhewei tried to open his mouth to ask what was happening, only to be horrified as all the came out was the distinct sound of a baby babbling.

"Shut up!" the woman hissed. "Dumb brat, your mother and I are one misstep from being thrown out. If someone calls the landlord we're dead for sure, let alone you!"

Zhu Zhewei stared in confusion and disbelief. Had he been given some sort of sedative that was causing this odd dream? Was his brain fried when the malfunctioning heart monitor had electrocuted him?

Just as he was trying to puzzle this out, there was a beeping noise in his ear. A monotone, robotic female voice chirped, "System online."

Zhu Zhewei froze. That was the same voice that had come from his unconscious patient, saying the same phrase. What did that mean? 'System online'?

The little beep sounded again, but this time, when the voice spoke, it was a young girl's voice.

"Eh! This isn't right at all!"

Zhu Zhewei's brows scrunched together. He wanted to ask what she meant, but was only capable of incoherent baby sounds.

"You don't have to talk out loud, you know," the young girl said, voice oddly sullen. "You can just think it. I'm tied to your brain."

Zhu Zhewei blinked. How the Hell..?!

"It's because I was transmigrating, and you interrupted it," the girl said, firmly. "I was in a coma for weeks, you know, and I was wandering in this strange place, when I saw a machine. It asked me what kind of world I'd want to live in. But right when I picked it, it was helping me design a character, and everything shorted out and went white. When I woke up, I was part of the machine, and you were in my place!"

Zhu Zhewei broke out in a cold sweat, ignoring the aggressively displeased noises of his attending nursemaid.

He had transmigrated? Sure, he'd always been one to keep an open mind about belief systems, but that was with medicine! Surely things like transmigration weren't actually possible?!

"Of course it's possible," the girl complained. "Anything is possible. What makes you think our world is the one that makes the most sense? I never saw much point in our world at all."

Much point?!

What point could she have seen? She was a child!

"I was sixteen," the girl sulked. "Not a toddler. You're the one who is a baby, right now."

A baby?! Just what kind of place had he gotten caught up in?

...Wait. If he had taken the girl's place...

Surely he wasn't a baby girl?!

The girl's voice began to giggle. "Haha, you're so nervous, what for? Being a girl wouldn't be so bad. You aren't, though. Ah... I really wanted it to be a certain kind of world, so the main character had to be a boy."

...A certain kind...

The little girl's laughter got stronger. "Haha, now you're catching on! That's right. My dream world, the story I wanted to be in...it's my favorite danmei novel, Spirit of Red Lanterns!"

Zhu Zhewei wanted to choke to death in the crib. A freaking BL novel?! And with such a basic and trashy name, it was bound to be full of cliche scenarios to push the male characters together - and she had picked a male character to end up in on purpose??

Ah, little girl, did you want to be a man, or were you just taking this fetish too freaking far?!