"I'm begging you, let me go! Keep the money—just get me out of this building! Hell, take a kidney if you want!!"
"Sorry, love. You signed the contract. Survive seven days, then you walk."
"Seven days? Alice Apartments is crawling with psychopaths! I won't last a day, let alone a week!!!"
"Please... I'm begging— AAAAAAGH!"
"Someone... help... I don't... don't wanna die..."
...
"Almost out of pills... and out of cash to buy more."
On the streets of Nancheng City, Jiang Ran stared at the near-empty blister pack in his hand. His handsome features tightened into a scowl.
He blew out a tired sigh that vanished into the blue sky. The familiar dread settled in his bones again.
Severe dissociative identity disorder. Multiple personalities crammed into one skull.
The pills kept them chained. Miss a dose, and the voices would start clawing—fighting to surface, to take control.
But the DID wasn't even his biggest problem.
The real kicker? He didn't belong in this godforsaken world.
He was from Earth.
Some cosmic glitch had dumped his consciousness into this body on a planet called Blue Star. Same name: Jiang Ran. Same fractured mind. Worse drugs.
Back home, an old village healer had brewed his meds—cheap, effective, no side effects. Here? Decent medication cost a fortune. The cheap stuff barely took the edge off. His grip on reality kept slipping. Migraines. Tremors. Nightmares.
His biggest fear wasn't the personalities breaking loose.
It was what they'd do when they did.
Because every last one of them was a goddamn liability. One wrong move, and he'd end up trading this hellhole for a prison cell—three square meals a day courtesy of the state.
[WARNING! Host in designated DANGER ZONE!]
[+1 point! +1 point! +1...]
Just as despair threatened to swallow Jiang Ran whole, a mechanical voice sliced through his thoughts.
His danger-alert system—bound to him since the transmigration.
At first, it felt like fate smiling on him. A golden ticket to the top.
Reality proved less glamorous. The system's sole function? Danger detection. Linger in a hazard zone, and it spam-awarded "points" like a broken slot machine.
This was its first actual warning.
The icy tone snapped Jiang Ran from his daze. He whipped around, scanning his surroundings—and froze.
He stood outside "River of Oblivion" Multigrain Pancakes. From the shop's speakers, a velvety female voice oozed:
*"Celebrating 100 YEARS of crispy goodness! To thank our loyal customers—yes, YOU, our dearest friends!—buy ANY 10-yuan pancake, get a FREE raffle ticket!*
One ticket, one chance to WIN!
GRAND PRIZE: One Alice Apartments unit!
SECOND PRIZE: Two Jack Automobiles (worth 100,000 yuan each)!
*THIRD PRIZE: Three Jack E-bikes (valued at 3999 yuan)!*
Consolation prizes: ..."
The chain store was legendary. Their pancakes? Divine. Their marketing? Brutally effective. A century-old brand turned viral sensation, now with a line snaking down the block.
From the queue erupted ecstatic shrieks: "Holy shit! The top prizes are insane! A fucking apartment? A car?! I usually get one pancake—today I'm buying THREE! Come on, universe, just gimme one win! A tiny windfall, that's all I ask!!!"
Similar cries rippled through the crowd.
Then came the lone dissenter—a middle-aged man at the tail end of the line. He glared at the frenzy ahead and snorted:
"Never see you lot here normally. Wave some 'prizes' around, and you come crawling out like roaches."
"Morons. Actually think you'll win?"
Jiang Ran halted before the pancake stand.
The system's shrill warnings still screamed in his skull:
[WARNING! HOST IN DESIGNATED DANGER ZONE!]
[+1 point! +1 point! +1…]
He scanned the bustling street—no knives, no blood, just the greasy scent of frying batter. Unless the gas tanks explode, what's there to fear?
A hollow laugh escaped him. He silenced the glitchy relic in his mind.
His stomach growled, a raw ache beneath his ribs. Pancakes. That's what mattered now.
And if death came?
Let it.
Living felt like drowning anyway. The alters gnawing at his consciousness, the cheap pills like sand in his veins—each day was a war with no victory.
Screw it. Let the chips fall.
He joined the queue.
The line crawled. Jiang Ran pulled out his phone, killing time with match-three puzzles until his eyes lifted to the prize poster.
GRAND PRIZE: ONE ALICE APARTMENTS UNIT!
He'd only transmigrated days ago. Blue Star remained a blur—a fractured mirror of his past life.
Both versions of Jiang Ran were orphans.
Both became corporate beasts after college.
The pastures of exploitation just differed.
Back on Earth? Assembly lines.
Here? A customer service drone chained to his home desk.
The man had worked himself to death—literally. Collapsed over his keyboard in a spite-fueled hustle to "show up" the ex who'd dumped him.
Body gave out before ambition did. Pathetic.
"Found you."
Jiang Ran searched Alice Apartments online. Unlike the salivating crowd, he craved pancakes, not prizes. The grand award? A rigged game. Staff would "win" it. Normies? Destined for consolation prizes like expired coupons.
And the apartment itself? Probably some crumbling shoebox in the boonies.
The truth detonated like a grenade.
Alice Apartments wasn't cheap.
It was high-end.
Not prime downtown, but a damn sweet spot. Then came the jaw-dropper:
50,000 yuan per square meter.
"Fuck "
The curse seethed in Jiang Ran's mind.
His current dump of an apartment cost 2,000 yuan per square meter. This death-trap prize? 50,000.
Own a slice of this hellhole, and you've hacked life itself—decades of struggle erased in one lottery scratch.
But the real kicker came next.
Alice Apartments wasn't some sprawling complex. No noisy crowds, no dime-a-dozen tenants. Just one sleek tower—exclusive, elite, a velvet-rope purgatory. Perfect for the discerning psychopath.
Of course the grand prize was rigged.
He watched customer after customer trudge away with consolation prizes: discount coupons, keychains, expired sauce packets. Not a single car or e-bike in sight. Yet the lemmings kept coming—buying five, eight, even a dozen pancakes, hunger for wealth outpacing common sense.
Jiang Ran shook his head. His mind circled back to the pills.
This body's better-looking than my last one. Maybe become a gigolo? Hard work, but the cash could buy real meds...
Ten minutes later, cosmic irony bitch-slapped him.
"Holy shit. I won? The fucking grand prize?"
He stared at the scratched-off ticket. Three characters blazed up at him:
First Prize.
A sweet-faced clerk squealed: "Congratulations, sir! You've won an Alice Apartments unit!!!"
SMACK.
His pancake hit the pavement.
Reality detonated. He'd won. A home. No more rent bleeding him dry. An extra thousand yuan each month—closer to proper medication, closer to sanity—
[CRITICAL ALERT!]
[HOST AT EXISTENTIAL CROSSROADS!]
[EVACUATE! EVACUATE!]
The system's sirens wailed through his euphoria.
Today, it was three days after winning the first prize.
Three days ago, after winning the first prize, Jiang Ran was invited by the manager of the pancake store to redeem the prize under the envious gazes of countless people who bought pancakes.
Originally, Jiang Ran thought that the prize redemption would take a long time.
After all, this prize is a house!
And still worth 50,000 yuan a square meter house.
But to Jiang Ran's surprise, the honoring of the award is very fast.
In just three days, Jiang Ran completed the transfer and got the keys to the house.
It was as if this apartment house was a heavenly hot potato.
At this time, at seven o'clock in the morning, in front of Alice's apartment.
Jiang Ran, who was carrying a black 70-liter large-capacity backpack on his back and dragging an oversized black suitcase on his right hand, was bathed in the warmth and warmth of the early morning sun.
"Is this the Alice Apartment?"
Looking at the luxurious ten-story apartment in front of him, Jiang Ran couldn't imagine that he would be blessed to live in this kind of house in his life.
After all, in his previous life, he was just a cow horse renting an apartment.
This apartment building didn't know what the internal situation was like, but just from the outside, it gave a sense of simple luxury that was clean, neat, and high-class.
Because that store manager and himself said that this first prize prepared by their store, a set of Alice apartment room, was already decorated and the home appliances were all matched.
So, turnkey check-in will be fine.
Jiang Ran, therefore, will be the original house ahead of the rent, and will be their previous can not use all the things second-hand or throw away.
With only his own clothes and basic necessities, he came.
"Alice Apartment, I'm here!"
Jiang Ran was in a great mood and said slightly loudly.
And what he didn't expect at all from this cry was that there was a response, and that response was still very close beside him.
"Do you look happy?"
The source of the voice was on Jiang Ran's left hand side, and twisting his head over, he realized that it was a youth who was about the same height as him and of a similar age.
This youth, with his ordinary looks, his biggest feature was that his skin was super white, whiter than many girls.
It was also such that the small beauty mole at the corner of his left eye became extremely noticeable.
"Huh? Sorry."
Jiang Ran didn't know where he might have offended this youth, so he opened his mouth and apologized first, this practice was always right.
He then said, "Hello, my name is Jiang Ran, a new resident here."