Wait, this isn't supposed to happen
It was a dark and stormy night, the kind of night that feels as if the universe itself has taken up a pen and is scribbling tragic poetry in thunder and rain. Like a child scribbled drawing, lightning split the sky with jagged fingers, each flash illuminating the desolate streets in stark, unforgiving white. The power lines above groaned and snapped under the assault, showering sparks like dying stars into the sodden abyss below. Darkness, absolute and suffocating, descended upon the city. Darkness, just like my eternal soul.
Far away, in the dormitories of the college (a complete prison of a place), a sound drifted through the empty hallways, weaving itself into the storm's symphony. It was the sound of heartbreak, raw and unfiltered sobbing. The kind of sobbing that clawed at the very bones, that could shatter porcelain hearts, that could make even the angels weep in sympathy. The kind of sobbing, that only had two reasons. One, a failed test. The other? You'll find out in a moment….
In his room, Xu Jianlan sat hunched over his desk, the pale glow of his laptop screen long since extinguished. Though, it was somehow still brighter than his future. You see, The internet, his lifeline, his fragile tether to the world outside, was down. Darkness seemed to press against the walls, whispering cruelly in his ears. Why? Oh, why? The question burned hotter than the lightning that split the sky, hotter than the storm itself.
He clutched a soggy packet of instant noodles, cold and tasteless, as if the universe were mocking him with bland sustenance. He'd accidentally boughten this strange, other brand instead any of the world's greatest. Kan Shifu, Shin Ramyun, ChuQianYiDing….
Xu Jianlan knew that he was stupid, but accidentally buying the wrong brand of ramen was a new low. when he'd first brought home his SAT score, his mother tearfully asked him if he was going to go to jail for forgery.
His textbooks lay open like unheeded tombstones, pages fluttering from the gusts of wind sneaking through the cracks in the window. Every tick of the clock was an accusation. Every clap of thunder a scornful laugh from fate itself. At least… at least it wasn't sunny. He didn't think he could bear the horrid indignity of being sad and mopey while the sun tried to burn him to ashes through "happiness". When it really was sunny though, it was basically satan's asscrack.
Xu Jianlan's tears fell freely now, carving rivulets down his cheeks, as he whispered to the empty room, "Is this… is this the end of everything I know?" He could feel the existential weight of the outage pressing upon him, crushing the very core of his being. The ceiling seemed to drip with melancholy, and even the shadows in the corners of his room shivered with pity. He wailed and sobbed, sounding like a baby. In the past, perhaps fellow people who lived on his floor would have comforted him. By now, they knew to shield their face and pretend they didn't know him when passing him on the street.
Outside, the storm raged on, completely indifferent to his suffering. It was almost like his physics professor. Whenever he cried in class, she just laughed and taught on. Rain pelted the windows like tiny daggers, straight to his heart, while wind howled like the ancient ghosts of failed assignments and unrequited crushes, and the streetlamps blinked in despair. Even the moon had abandoned him, hiding behind curtains of impenetrable clouds. It was almost as if god had only just realized his existence, and was sauntering down to beat Jianlan up for his crime of lowering the global good-looking-ness meter to near zero. It wouldn't have reached zero, of course, because o the living legend Chris Pratt. It was a very near thing though.
Xu Jianlan buried his face in his hands, whispering hoarsely, "Without Wi-Fi… without connectivity… what am I even?" Each word cracked like fragile glass in the stillness. In that moment, the world had condensed into a singular point of anguish, a private apocalypse where only he existed, mourning the cruel injustice of technological failure. A bird, hiding under the eves of his windowsill looked at him, before quietly shifting away.
"God… how could you do this to me?" Xu Jianlan whispered to the storm outside, his voice trembling, cracking like the brittle ice of a forgotten lake. The rain tapped insistently against the windowpane, as if the heavens themselves were mocking his grief. "After everything… after everything I have suffered… this?" Not even the ice cream that had melted in the boxes when he volunteered to being them to the class party had been this bad of a stroke of luck.
Sighing, a sound so laden with sorrow it seemed to draw the darkness closer, Jianlan dragged his trembling body toward his old laptop. Its keys were worn, the screen scratched with the scars of a thousand late-night crises and abandoned assignments. He powered it on, the familiar whirring filling the room like a lullaby of nostalgia and regret, and navigated to his old files. The faithful machine coughed, sounding like an old man who longed for the other side. Jianlan cuffed it, which stopped the noise. Somewhat.
There it was. The lone survivor of a digital cataclysm: a half-forgotten web novel saved years ago, its file name a grim reminder of better days. He opened it, and the words spilled onto the screen like a flood of memories, clumsy, overwrought, impossibly cliche. Yet, Jianlan stayed, clinging to it, because he had invested his soul into this story once.
And then…. the betrayal.
The ending. The wretched, abhorrent, unforgivable ending. How could it have happened? The hero, the so-called bastard son of an archangel named Aerin, had completely ignored the only logical, emotionally satisfying choice. The childhood friend, the one who had endured trials, heartbreak, and agonizing tribulations alongside him? Ignored. Thrown aside.
Instead, like a traitor in his own story, the hero hurled himself into the arms of a princess who had appeared for all of one chapter in the entire three hundred and sixty. One chapter! Three hundred and sixty chapters of struggle, and for what? This ephemeral, shallow figure, a fleeting wisp of plot convenience. The injustice burned in Jianlan's chest hotter than any thunderbolt outside. His heart felt pulverized, like someone had taken a sledgehammer to his ribcage. Even getting together with the villain would have made more sense.
The villain, being the evil demon king, had had a deeper connection with the hero. Hours of witty banter amidst combat, stalking (which isn't actually that romantic, but still) and even his death scene had been tragic! In what world is the villain a better ship for the hero than his final girlfriend? None! Because the final girlfriend is meant to be charming enough for all of the weebs to love her to death, body pillows and everything.
Jianlan pressed his palms to his face, his nails digging into his skin, his vision blurred by tears. "Trust… is meaningless," he murmured, shaking. "All this time… all this faith… and this is the reward?" His voice cracked, the syllables jagged and raw, carrying a weight that seemed to press down upon the universe itself.
Even now, years later, Jianlan still carried the scars of that narrative treachery. He had never trusted a fictional character (or anyone, really) the same way again. Betrayal, he realized, could come in many forms: from gods, from the internet, from unstable Wi-Fi… and, horrifyingly, from someone as innocuous as a badly written web novel.
He leaned back in his chair, staring blankly at the screen, as the storm outside reached a crescendo. Lightning illuminated the room, a spectral reminder of all the endings he had been denied, all the justice left unserved, all the emotional labor of thousands of pages rendered meaningless by a single, cruel plot twist.
And in that moment, Jianlan understood something terrible and eternal: some wounds are too deep to ever close, some betrayals too complete to ever forgive… especially when perpetrated by a bastard archangel named Aerin.
Hmm. Maybe… maybe there was something else. Something better. Hell, he'd even take a class textbook over this. Jianlan checked his files, then sighed in relief he hadn't downloaded any textbooks, completely ignoring the ones that were sitting outraged on his desk. Studying was bad. Bad for Mental Health, Bad for Eye Health, Bad for Posture Health. It was just bad.
Remember kids. If someone tells you to study, kick 'em in the balls and run for the hills.
Cursing his rotten luck, Xu Jianlan slumped back into his chair and began rereading the web novel, as if punishing himself were the only sensible response to fate's cruelty. He lifted his cup of tea and took a sip.
Lukewarm.
Of course it was lukewarm.
There was no electricity. No kettle. No comforting hiss of boiling water to promise renewal. Just sadness steeped too long in disappointment leaves. His tea tasted like regret and poor life choices.
His life really was terrible.
He really, really wasn't paid enough for this.
Jianlan stared into the liquid as if answers might surface. Maybe, he thought distantly, if he died and got reincarnated, things would improve. That seemed statistically plausible. Everyone knew that having a bad life and reading web novels (or webcomics, with the exception of Wattpad) meant that you had a 0.0001% chance of dying miserable and getting reincarnated.
Half of these were caused by truck-kun. The living (not-really) legend, but it wasn't like Jianlan could get hit by a truck if he was sitting in his dorm. Or… could he?
Just as he thought this, he heard a massive booming noise barreling towards him. He looked out the window, and saw two massive lights growing bigger and bigger at an astonishing rate. Unless… they weren't growing bigger. They were getting closer!
Barreling though the walls, with shards of wood, cement and glass flying through the air, a massive Toyota pick-up blasted at Jianlan, hitting him immediately.
Due to the fact it was a truck, Jianlan managed to skip all the lines in the underworld, hitting the express lane and diving headfirst into the mystical, wonderful world of harry potter, where he lived happily ever after as a rich heir who was a complete recluse.
Just kidding.
How he wished, anyways.
At least in transmigration stories, protagonists woke up with cheats, divine bloodlines, or suspiciously convenient memories of the future. Surely the universe could manage that much.
At that precise moment, lightning tore through the sky.
Thunder followed, violent and immediate, as if the heavens had been eavesdropping and taken personal offense. Jianlan jolted, his heart leaping straight into his throat. His hand spasmed.
The tea slipped.
Time slowed to a crawl, every fraction of a second etched into his soul. The cup tilted. The liquid arced. Gravity did its grim duty.
Splash.
The god-awful tea cascaded directly onto his old PC.
Silence.
Then realization struck.
"Fuck."
Fuck-fuckity fuck fuck, with extra sour cream and hot sauce on top, pepper spray poured with the lid off straight into his eyes. Pear of anguish. At the Gallows.
That had been expensive. Not brand new, no, but expensive in the uniquely devastating way of "still paying it off." Jianlan stared at the drenched keyboard, his mind empty except for the echo of his own suffering.
He closed his eyes.
He counted to three.
He turned around and ate a piece of gummy that was on the floor, like it was an anti-hallucination pill.
He turned back around, and opened his eyes.
Nothing had changed.
He closed his eyes again, and sank to his knees, clutching his head in anguish.
How about some lightning hitting him now? Honestly, that would be convenient. At least he wouldn't have to pay back his student debt.
Oh well.
He leaned closer, squinting at the laptop like a coroner examining a body. Imagine if he got electrocuted by the tea and laptop. That would be cool. Poetic, even. A fitting end. Just like one of those transmigration stories. Heh.
At this point, let god come.
Jianlan straightened his back, chin lifted in defiance, rain and thunder roaring behind him like an audience awaiting spectacle. "I'm not scared," he muttered to the ceiling. "Laozi will show you who should feel fear."
A pause.
"…Dear god, if you're out there," he added hastily, lowering his voice, "please don't hate me more than you already do."
At this point, with his life record, he wouldn't be surprised if big G pulled up with his old middle school gang to beat him up with the metaphorical baseball bats called kindness and repentance.
The laptop remained ominously silent. No sparks. No divine intervention. Just super damp despair.
With a heavy sigh, Jianlan dumped the rest of the tea into the sink, watching it swirl away like his hopes and GPA. Then, remembering something someone once said on the internet, he trudged to the pantry.
Rice.
Putting watery phones in rice saved them, right? The internet wouldn't lie. Probably. Maybe it would work for a PC too.
He scooped a questionable amount into his arms, grains slipping between his fingers, and turned back to the room. Now all that remained was a single, monumental challenge.
Finding a bowl big enough to fit the laptop.
He surveyed his dorm like a general planning his last stand, rain hammering the windows, thunder punctuating his thoughts. Somewhere between the storm, the debt, and the soggy keyboard, Xu Jianlan wondered if this, too, was fate laughing at him.
And if so, it was doing an excellent job.
We'll see who's laughing at the end, though, he thought vindictively.
…
"F---."
Xu Jianlan stared at the sink like it had personally betrayed him. Every bowl was dirty. Every cup was an instant ramyun relic, stacked like monuments to poor nutrition and worse decisions. There was no clean container. Not one. Not even a tragic little side dish bowl to pretend would work. To be fair, it was kind of all his own fault, but Jianlan felt a lot better if he could blame anything else. Like the stupid cat from #02-01. Evil demon. It was so evil that once Jianlan had snuck in when the owner was out to scream latin exorcism words at it. It didn't work though, the blasted thing must be an archdeacon or above.
Oh well.
It was an old laptop. Old things were meant to die. Probably.
With the solemnity of someone performing last rites, Jianlan shoved all the random trash into one enormous plastic bag. Empty cups. Used chopsticks. Crumpled receipts. The detritus of a life lived poorly but with enthusiasm. He slung the bag over his shoulder and stepped outside.
The rain swallowed him immediately.
Cold droplets soaked through his clothes, plastering fabric to skin, wind tugging at his hair like it wanted a souvenir. The storm showed no mercy. It never did. Jianlan tilted his head up toward the roiling sky, blinking rain from his lashes.
Maybe, he thought distantly, if he got hit by a falling branch or something, that would be fine. Not ideal, but workable. Accidental. Clean. Fate-approved.
He sighed.
Reincarnation had never sounded so good.
Maybe he'd be rich in his next life. Born into a powerful family. With servants. And a functional kettle. Maybe he'd wake up as the treasured son of some great clan, with spiritual roots so dazzling they made elders faint. Maybe he'd never have to drink lukewarm tea again.
He took another step forward.
CRACK!
The sky split open.
Lightning boomed so close it felt like the world itself had shattered, white-hot light slamming down with apocalyptic enthusiasm. Thunder followed immediately, a deafening roar that vibrated through Jianlan's bones, through the ground beneath his feet, through every unpaid bill and poor narrative decision that had led him here.
Dammit.
He really was getting beat up by the heaven's above, wasn't he.
Stupid life.
He wasn't paid nearly enough for this bull.