Chapter 1

Ding.
The elevator doors shut. For a few seconds, the hallway’s bleach smell couldn’t get in.
Bai Xu stood in the back corner, staring at his reflection in the wall mirror—his face, familiar and not.
Pale skin, soft and almost too well-behaved. Clean brows. Lips a little washed out. Bangs fell smooth over his forehead but couldn’t hide the thick bandage on the left side. The stitches from a few days ago still pulsed underneath.
“……”
“Bai Xu. You spacing out back there?”
Someone called his name.
He didn’t turn. In the mirror he looked at the middle-aged couple beside him.
They stared back with the same sharp, mean eyes. A matched set.
The man in front sucked in a breath. Every word dripped disgust. “Listen. This marriage is done. When we walk into that room, you behave.”
“Piss anyone off and you’ll pay for it.”
The woman jumped in. “He wouldn’t dare. Where would he get the guts?”
“Bai Xu, who paid for your food and clothes all these years? Old Master Bai is gone. We’re not keeping a freeloader. If you’ve got a brain in your head, you’ll pay us back with this. Clear?”
“……”
Bai Xu said nothing. Cold light flashed in his lowered eyes, then vanished.
Clear?
Yeah. He got it. He’d only been in this book three days.
Three days ago he’d transmigrated into a novel called Abyss.
It was your standard rich-heir power struggle: car crash, family gone, disability, rock bottom—then revenge, rung by rung.
Short version: tropey, but a solid face-slapping read.
The body’s original owner had the same name—Bai Xu—and was top-tier cannon fodder. A handful of lines in the whole book.
From the memories left in his head, Bai Xu learned the original was an orphan.
At ten, Old Master Bai—then head of the family—had brought him home under “charitable adoption.” Really, a fortune-teller had said the kid’s fate was too hard: ward off disaster, keep the Bai luck alive. Even his name was picked for that. Xu. Continuation.
Bai Xu almost laughed. Superstition. Pure nonsense.
The original was timid and useless with people. He became the family punchline—Young Master on paper, nobody in practice. Even the maids pushed him around.
A month ago Old Master Bai died. Bai Rendao took over and immediately shoved the original into an arranged marriage for business leverage.
The original fought back—for once. Someone kicked him on purpose in the argument. His head hit a table corner. Out cold. That’s when the current Bai Xu woke up in this body.
—Ding.
Top floor.
Bleach hit him again. His head spun.
Bai Rendao shot Qian Shuling a look, then barked at Bai Xu in the corner. “Move. You don’t get a vote today.”
The couple stepped out first.
Bai Xu swallowed the dizziness and followed, playing along.
VIP floor meant VIP money—the best care for people who could afford it.
At the end of the hall, guards checked Bai Rendao’s ID before letting them through. “Old Madam, Mr. Shang—Mr. Bai’s here.”
Bai Xu hung back and scanned the room.
A glass wall split it in two.
In the lounge, an old woman sat on the sofa, eyes closed, rolling peach-wood prayer beads, lips moving.
A man in a suit stood beside her, bent low. “Mother, the Bais are here.”
One look. Old Madam Shang. Her eldest son, Shang Yun.
Bai Rendao and Qian Shuling dropped the elevator nastiness and went full flatter.
Bai Xu ignored the performance. Through the glass his eyes landed on the young man in the bed.
Perfect bone structure. High bridge. Sick pale, and still unfairly good-looking.
“……”
Interest flickered in Bai Xu’s calm eyes, then sank.
That was his fiancé—
Third Young Master Shang. Shang Yanxiao.
The Shang Group sat at the top of Dijing—top of Huaguo. Old Master Shang was still a legend in business.
Rumor had it Yanxiao was his favorite grandson. Most like him. Most capable.
He’d played the market in high school. Right out of college he closed a hundred-billion-yuan acquisition for the family. The industry still talked about it.
Pretty. Smart. Golden boy.
A month and a half ago Yanxiao flew to Australia with his parents for his younger brother’s F1 race. On the way home, all four of them crashed.
Parents dead on impact. Both sons critical. The Shangs flew in top teams. Days of surgery. Still grim.
The older brother—vegetative. Still out. The younger, Shang Queyan—pro driver—lost a leg.
Back in Dijing it was front-page finance news. People whispered:
“One crash wiped the whole third branch. They’re finished.”
“Bet the succession just got interesting.”
Bai Xu ran through what he’d learned since transmigrating. Then a voice behind him: “Are you Bais really okay with this? Does the boy agree?”
He turned. Old Madam Shang.
Yanxiao still hadn’t woken. The hospital said vegetative state was on the table.
Grief. Hope. Or both.
Devout Old Madam Shang had listened to a “master” and reached for a last resort—
A luck marriage to shake fortune loose. That’s how she’d landed on the Bai family.
The two middle-aged men traded a look. Bai Xu caught it and filed it away.
Marriage? Luck?
Someone had staged the master’s advice, sold it to a desperate grandmother, and cut their own deals in the dark.
Bai Rendao was trading him for Shang business.
Shang Yun—Yanxiao’s second uncle—wanted him asleep forever. Clear the road for himself and his kid.
Nobody had asked either party. That was the point. Insult dressed as ceremony. Shang Yun soothing his mother while marking territory.
“Old Madam, we’re fine with it. Little Xu accepts.”
Qian Shuling jumped in fast.
She walked over, smile plastic. “Our Xu’s always been lucky. Before he passed, my father-in-law had the whole family read—”
“The old man said Xu’s fate is strong. No disaster. Good marriage luck within two years.”
“Really?”
Old Madam Shang’s eyes brightened.
She’d hesitated. She’d try anyway.
She’d picked Bai Xu because the master pointed at him—and because a boy felt safer than a girl if the trick failed.
“Old Madam, would I lie about something this big?”
She patted Bai Xu’s back—reminder on the surface, threat underneath. “Why so quiet? At home you wouldn’t shut up about how much you liked Third Young Master.”
“……”
Bai Xu smiled something unreadable at words he’d never said. “Sure. No objection.”
Bai Rendao and Qian Shuling exchanged a glance. Shoulders eased. Surrender.
Then Bai Xu added, “One condition.”
To Old Madam Shang. Steady. Like he’d planned it.
Bai Rendao frowned, about to cut in. Old Madam Shang beat him to it. “Go on, child.”
Bai Xu asked, “I never met Third Young Master—but this is still a marriage between us, right?”
She nodded.
“Good. My fiancé can’t speak for himself, so some things can’t be negotiated with him—”
Bai Xu glanced at the scheming Bai couple, then at Yanxiao in the bed. “Dowry, bride price, whatever you agree on—wire it to my account.”
“……”
The room went dead.
Bai Rendao’s face changed. “What the hell are you saying?”
Did this charity case crack his head open?
Who asks the Shangs for money out loud? If this leaks, where does the Bai family put its face?
Qian Shuling hated spending. “Little Xu, this isn’t the same, you can’t—”
“How isn’t it?”
Bai Xu had expected this. Innocent face.
“I said yes. I’m treating Third Young Master like a normal person. Normal process. What’s the problem?”
“……”
Qian Shuling had nothing. She peeked at Old Madam Shang. She wasn’t about to say her grandson wasn’t “normal.”
Mockery touched Bai Xu’s eyes. “You can sell me behind my back for business cash. I can’t say it once to your face?”
Bai Rendao went green. The pushover had just slapped him in public.
Qian Shuling forced a smile. “Where do you hear this garbage? We want what’s best. People would kill to marry into the Shangs.”
“Oh? Free lunch?”
Bai Xu nodded like he was thinking. The next line hit like a hammer. “Then why not send your own son?”
—Crack.
The question was an invisible slap. Neither could answer.
Old Madam Shang heard “business” and read the Bais’ faces. She understood. Silent, she looked at her eldest son.
Shang Yun’s throat moved. “Mother, it’s not what you think. I had nothing to do with this.”
Her beads tightened. Eyes back on Bai Xu.
“Word will get out. You’ll be tied to us in name. We won’t cheat you.”
“Child, if you go through with this, you get every yuan you’re owed.”
The Shangs weren’t counting pennies.
Whatever Bai Xu’s life in the Bai house—she didn’t care to dig.
Desperate as she was, she still read people. Straight talk from Bai Xu beat the Bai couple’s act.
Probably rough years there. Probably wanted out.
She turned the beads, looked at Bai Rendao. “Mr. Bai, Mrs. Qian—customs matter. We owe the kids some security, don’t we?”
Qian Shuling hadn’t expected a free win to cost money. Jaw clenched. Couldn’t fake a “fine.”
Shang Yun cleared his throat. “Mr. Bai—your call?”
Bai Rendao thought of the Shang connection he’d fought for. No room to push back. Bai Xu had played him—and he swallowed it.
“Yes. The dow—”
Pause. Harder word. “The money. We’ll prepare it.”
Old Madam Shang nodded at Bai Xu. “Six months.”
She wasn’t chaining him forever. “If Yanxiao hasn’t improved by then, stay or go. Your call.”
“Mm.”
Shang Yun smoothed the air. “Mother, I booked a private room at a hotel nearby. Both families can eat and nail down details?”
Old Madam Shang didn’t refuse. The Bais didn’t object. Only Bai Xu wanted out.
He looked at the bed again. That clean face read obedient at a glance. “Old Madam, I’m not hungry. Can I stay with Third Young Master?”
Old Madam Shang looked at her unconscious grandson. The fortune-teller had said let the two be alone more. She agreed.
“All right.”
Bai Xu didn’t look like trouble.
Cameras in the room. Guards at the door. Her grandson was safe.
…
The door shut. Footsteps faded.
Bai Xu closed his eyes and exhaled. So far, plan holding.
The original had zero footing in Dijing. Fresh transmigrator needed a roof and cash, fast.
Compared to the Bais who already hated him, the Shangs were the better bet.
He didn’t buy luck-marriage superstition—but a fake tie built on mutual interest? Fine.
He was in a novel. What couldn’t happen? Besides—
Bai Xu walked to the bed and studied Yanxiao’s face. Muttered, amused: “Hot but asleep. Rich family but they can’t control me…”
“Where do you get a marriage this useless and this profitable? Free money.”
He liked his opening. With a private streak of mischief nobody saw, he leaned over the unconscious man:
“First time meeting. Hey there, fi~ancé~”
Shang Yanxiao, who’d been faking the whole time: “……”