Being a hitman was boring sometimes. Especially when Shen Ran had to wait hours for a target to show up.
At some point, he'd traded cat videos for webnovels to pass the time. That was how he discovered BL. And as a bisexual, he wasn't complaining.
Transmigration, reincarnation, possession, he knew the manual. Which was why he understood one thing immediately.
He was completely screwed.
It didn't even take him long to fully realize whose body he had ended up in.
Lin Wenzhi.
A damned cannon fodder B-rank Guide who appeared exactly three times in the novel and died the third time without even making it into the main plot.
So not only did he transmigrate. He'd landed squarely on a death flag.
"Wenzhi! What are you doing?! Get over here!" A voice shouted from behind.
Shen Ran—no, Lin Wenzhi—turned sharply.
A group of survivors stood at a distance, waving him over frantically, their faces pale, strained, desperate to not be the next ones torn apart.
He moved immediately.
Even as pain flared through his left leg with every step, he pushed forward, carrying the woman carefully as he closed the distance between them.
Reaching them, he leaned back against a broken slab of concrete, adjusting the unconscious woman in his arms as his gaze dragged itself back toward the battlefield.
A figure walked forward through the smoke and ruin, dressed entirely in black. His movements were unhurried like none of this chaos mattered.
His coat shifted with the wind, heavy and dark, brushing against his legs with each step. His long black hair was tied back neatly, a low knot resting at the nape of his neck and he just walked straight toward the horde of monsters charging at full speed.
Lin Wenzhi held his breath.
Yeah. That was definitely Shao Xinyuan.
He had that "I could end this entire scene and still be bored" energy.
Main lead. No doubt.
Lin Wenzhi didn't even need to see his face. The pressure alone was enough. It felt like something heavy and unseen had quietly settled over the battlefield.
Suddenly, black devouring mist coiled around Shao Xinyuan's hand. It twisted violently, crushing space inward before condensing into a solid scythe.
The edges warped, unstable, like reality itself had been sharpened into a blade. Then Shao Xinyuan moved.
One step and he was already inside the horde.
The scythe swept out in a clean, merciless arc.
The monsters didn't just fall, they were harvested. One moment they were lunging; the next, their bodies were being crushed mid-air, split open with a sickening crack
There was no chaos in his movements. No wasted effort. And not a single creature slipped past him. Not one.
Lin Wenzhi tightened his hold on the unconscious woman and swallowed hard. "…Yeah... I really should have just stayed dead."
At that moment, a loud mechanical whir cut through the chaos, slicing past the growls and screams still echoing across the battlefield.
Everyone looked up.
Two massive sky ships descended from above, their shadows swallowing the ruined ground beneath them.
People immediately started moving faster towards the ships. Because even with rescue here… no one wanted to stay too close to that battlefield for long.
Not with Shao Xinyuan still there.
Shao Xinyuan was a Disaster-Class Esper. A category that wasn't even supposed to exist.
The kind of being that if left unchecked could destroy an entire universe.
And the worst part? It wasn't even exaggerated.
In the original novel, Shao Xinyuan had killed just as many people as he had saved before he was finally stabilized. Before he met Gu Luhan, the protagonist. His official guide. Before everything went to shit anyway.
Because in the end they still separated and Shao Xinyuan still destroyed everything.
Lin Wenzhi closed his eyes briefly.
Of all the novels he could have transmigrated into, it just had to be the one with a bad ending.
Perfect.
Just his luck.
The ships landed with a heavy metallic hum. Doors opened. Rescue personnel rushed out immediately, prioritizing the injured.
Lin Wenzhi hesitated slightly when they reached him.
"…Hey, careful," he muttered, a little reluctant as they took the unconscious woman from his arms.
Then a flicker of memory surfaced.
Ru Yi.
His head throbbed sharply.
Right. She was one of Lin Wenzhi's close friends.
"…Great. Now I have emotional attachments too," he muttered under his breath.
Just what he needed. More problems.
He rubbed his temple, his expression tightening as unfamiliar memories continued to settle into place, pieces of a life that wasn't his slotting themselves into his mind whether he liked it or not.
Without another word, he stepped onto the sky ship along with the others.
He didn't look back at the battlefield. He just found a seat and dropped into it, leaning back as he pressed a hand against his forehead.
The engines roared. The ship lifted. And the ruined city slowly disappeared beneath them.
People who knew each other checked frantically for injuries, calling names, gripping shoulders like they might disappear if they let go.
Others just sat there, silent or sobbing, their faces pale and hollow.
There were children too. Two that he could see.
Both clung tightly to the adults holding them, small hands gripping clothes like lifelines. The people carrying them looked exhausted, covered in sweat, dirt and blood but they didn't let go.
Lin Wenzhi looked away. He didn't like this.
This world was brutal. Far worse than his own.
At least in his old life, people killed for reasons like money, revenge, survival… Here? People died because something crawled out of a hole in the sky. They died because they were weak. Unlucky. Because the strong didn't get to them in time.
The pain in his leg pulsed again.
He shifted, jaw tightening. "…Yeah. I've definitely broken something."
"…How did Jing'an City become a red zone so suddenly?" someone asked, voice shaking. "It's been a green zone for years. How does that even happen?"
Murmurs rose immediately.
People started talking over each other, trying to make sense of something that didn't make sense.
Lin Wenzhi said nothing. Because he already knew.
But he wasn't about to say it.
Why would he?
Warning them wouldn't change the ending in the novel.
So instead, he leaned back and closed his eyes.
He'd just live. That was enough. Live until Shao Xinyuan destroyed the universe.
A quiet life in the middle of a disaster.
It was way better than his last one. No debt, no asshole boss, no gun to his head. Just… a world on the verge of collapse.
"…Yeah," he muttered under his breath. "Could be worse."