"Lu Chen deserved a slower death."
Lucian Walter muttered the words as he scrolled through the final chapter of The Empire's Fall. His eyes burned from eight hours of staring at the monitor, and the empty caffeine pills on his desk offered no comfort. On the screen, the villain of the story a man with his same first name was currently being beheaded by the Holy Hero.
"He had the wealth of a kingdom and the magic of a progenitor, yet he used it all to harass a girl? What a waste," Lucian hissed, leaning back until his cheap office chair groaned.
His own reflection in the darkened window was pathetic. He was a failed writer with messy hair, living in a room that smelled like rotten ramen and stew. He looked back at the novel's comment section.
User449: Lu Chen was such a coward. Glad he's gone.
"If I had his power," Lucien whispered, his eyelids growing heavy, "I would have turned that empire into a playground. I wouldn't have died like a dog."
he grumbled, pushing himself up from his desk.
He walked over to the small, humming fridge to take water only to see that it was empty. In the center of the room, a plastic bucket sat beneath a steady drip, drip, drip from the ceiling. He looked at the water collecting in the bottom and let out a dry, mirthless laugh.
"At least I get free water without paying."
He aimed a half-hearted kick at a stray beer can that had been rolling around the floor since his neighbor's birthday party three weeks ago. It clattered into the corner. He collapsed onto his bed, staring up at the water-stained ceiling while the rain outside intensified, turning the sky into a bruised purple. Lightning flashed, casting sharp, jagged white light across his peeling wallpaper.
"When will all this be over?"
He turned to face the wall, clutching his stomach. The loud, hollow growl of hunger was the only sound that could compete with the storm. His eyelids felt like lead. He blinked once, then twice, and as the thunder shook the glass in the window frames, he finally drifted off.
KRA-AAAAA.
A violent crack of thunder jolted him upright. His heart hammered against his ribs.
"Oh, it's just the weather," he whispered, his voice thick with sleep. "I thought it was my stomach."
He moved to lay back down, but the surface beneath him felt different. It wasn't the thin, lumpy mattress he'd grown used to. It was soft impossibly soft.
"Young master Lu, young master Lu."
A hand was on his shoulder, shaking him with persistent urgency. He groaned, swatting the hand away without opening his eyes.
"Lu? Since when did my name change from Lucien to Lu? What type of dream is this?"
"Young master Lu, have you forgotten to attend to the guest who has been waiting for you since rooster hour?" The voice grew louder, more insistent. "The lady from the Yan family has been waiting while on her knees."
"What's all this noise about?"
Lucien snapped his eyes open and sat up. Instead of his water-damaged ceiling, he saw high, vaulted beams of dark wood. Standing over him was a bald man with a strange tuft of hair right in the middle of his scalp. He looked like a Shifu character straight out of a martial arts film.
"Who the fuck are you and what are you doing in my room?"
Lucien scrambled back, pulling his legs to his chest and cocking a fist, ready to swing.
The old man blinked, looking entirely baffled. "Fuck? What does that mean? I only came here to remind you, young master Lu Chen."
The man immediately bowed his head low.
Lucien froze. "Lu Chen? That's the character from my book. Why am I being addressed as that? And why is this man here? Why is"
He stopped mid-sentence as he felt the air hit his skin. He looked down. His chest was bare, defined by a set of rock-hard six-pack abs he'd never possessed in his life. He touched his legs; they were clad in sleek, heavy black silk trousers, the kind worn by nobility in historical dramas.
"What the fuck is happening?" he whispered, staring at his hands. They were larger, calloused, and powerful.
"So sorry, young master. I will return it if you don't like it," a soft voice whispered.
A young maiden was kneeling nearby, bowing so low that her cleavage was visible through her uniform, round like a freshly plucked water melon Lucien remembered reading that detail the character Lu Chen had hated seeing his servants look like "old ladies" and had mandated more revealing, modern-style uniforms.
"Damn... how is this real?"
He scrambled out of the bed and rushed toward a tall, ornate bronze mirror in the corner of the room. He stood before his reflection and gasped.
"What the fuck is this, Look at me... fuck, I look good."
He tightened his muscles, watching the definition ripple across his torso. He ran a hand through his hair—thick, ink-black, and long. He had deep brown eyes, a straight nose, and a jawline that could cut glass. He stood at a towering 6'5". It was exactly as he had read in his book: a character whose looks were "fire" even if his ending was "trash."
"I am Lu Chen, not Lucien. And I transmigrated into the story book I was reading just like those books . Damn!" He actually jumped, a surge of adrenaline masking his confusion, he wasnt afraid instead he was excited.
"Young master, if you need your medications, I can bring them," the old man offered.
Lucien remembered now. The Emperor in the book thought his son was mentally unstable, so he forced him to drink bitter herbal sedatives every morning to keep him "docile."
"No need for that," Lucien said, finally turning around to face the servant. "I will use this right. At least I am not in a cramped and leaking apartment. I am Lu Chen and I don't have a grumbling stomach maybe God really do exist ."
He repeated the name to himself, a habit of vocalizing his thoughts that had carried over from his lonely life as a writer. But then, a sharp fragment of memory from the final chapter flashed through his mind.
The hero's blade piercing Lu Chen's heart.
"He was killed at the ending," Lucien whispered. The excitement drained away, replaced by a cold chill. He wasn't just here to live in luxury; he was here to die. "As the villain."
Suddenly, a translucent blue hologram flickered into existence right in front of his eyes.
[Congratulations! You have unlocked the Sin System.]
[Host: Lu Chen]
[Role: Villain]
[Age: 26]
[Objective: Survival]
[Sin Points: 10]
[Your mission is to acquire the Seven Deadly Sins and level up your scores. You are not allowed to take pity on someone for long. For every mission fulfilled, you will be rewarded with various items which can be found in the Inventory.]
Lucien stared at the floating text. He knew this trope inside and out. It was a system—a mechanical cheat code that could rewrite the laws of the world.
"I have a system now. That changes the storyline," he muttered, a slow, predatory grin spreading across his new, handsome face. "But I am a writer. This is the opportunity for me to give Lu Chen a backstory. Isn't 'sin' easy peasy?"
He straightened his posture, feeling the weight of his new status. He looked at the old man, his eyes cold and commanding.
"Old man, bring the girl in."
He tucked his hands behind his waist, leaning into the role he was born to write.