Unconditional Chaos: A Transmigrated Satire

The glare of the smartphone screen was the only source of light in the pitch-black, cramped hostel room. It was 2:30 AM, and an eight-thirty morning lecture on macroeconomics loomed ahead, but sleep was the absolute last thing on Lin Yan’s mind. Her eyes were bloodshot, her neck stiff, and her thumb furiously swiping across the screen, devouring the latest chapter of Unconditional Love: The CEO’s Fragile Bride.

She had spent three whole weeks reading this web novel, and with every single chapter, her blood pressure reached a new historical high.

"I can't take this anymore!" Lin Yan slammed her phone face-down onto her pillow, sitting up in bed and glaring directly at the blank white ceiling of her room. "Are you serious right now?! God, are you watching this? Is the author of this trash masterpiece even human?!"

The chapter she had just finished was pure brain-melting nonsense. The main character—a spineless heroine also named Lin Yan—was currently bedridden with a raging 103-degree fever. Her legally wedded husband, the cold, arrogant, multi-billionaire CEO Lu Chen, was standing over her bedside. Was he holding medicine? A damp towel? A hot bowl of soup?

No. He was adjusting his tailored suit cufflinks because his "White Moonlight"—his delicate, tearful first love named Bai Li—had called him five minutes ago claiming she had a mild cold and felt slightly lonely.

And what did the heroine do in the book? She didn't throw a lamp at his head. She didn't call a lawyer. No, she dragged her sick body out of bed, grabbed his trousers, and begged him to stay, crying until her eyes were swollen like red plums!

"She’s such a dummy!" Lin Yan yelled to her empty room, waving her arms around in absolute frustration. "God! If I were her, I wouldn't beg him to stay—I’d slap that main lead so hard across his handsome face that his ancestors would feel the vibration! How can an author write something this stupid? Why is the female lead written like a literal doormat?!"

As if the universe was personally responding to her late-night rant, a blinding flash of white light exploded outside her window.

BOOM!

A violent crack of thunder shook the entire building. Her phone screen flickered violently, emitting a strange, golden electric current that leaped right onto her fingers. A dizzying wave of nausea hit her like a freight train, and the world spun violently out of focus.

"Wait... what the—"

Before she could even finish her sentence, her vision went completely black, and she sank into a deep, terrifying abyss.

When she opened her eyes, the familiar, stale smell of her hostel room—a mix of damp laundry and cheap instant noodles—was completely gone. Instead, her nose was filled with the heavy, expensive scent of sandalwood incense and fresh white lilies.

She blinked against the soft, warm ambient light, feeling a strange sensation beneath her fingers. She wasn't lying on her lumpy mattress. She was propped up against crisp, eight-hundred-thread-count Egyptian silk pillows, swallowed whole by a bed easily the size of a small apartment.

Her entire body felt heavy, aching, and burning hot. Sweat slicked her forehead, and her throat felt like she had swallowed a handful of dry sand.

A fever?

Before she could process her physical agony, the heavy mahogany doors of the bedroom swung open.

A man walked in. He was ridiculously tall, broad-shouldered, and dressed in a perfectly tailored charcoal-grey suit. His dark hair was styled back flawlessly, framing a face with high cheekbones, a knife-sharp jawline, and eyes as cold as a Siberian winter. He walked with absolute, infuriating arrogance, slowly buttoning his coat jacket as he stopped at the foot of the bed.

He looked down at her with pure, unadulterated coldness, his lips curling into a slight sneer.

"I'm leaving, Lin Yan," he said, his voice dripping with icy detachment. "Bai Li isn't feeling well. She needs me."

Her jaw dropped. The words hung in the air, echoing off the high ceilings of the opulent bedroom.

Charcoal suit? Bai Li? Lin Yan?!

She slowly lifted her trembling, pale hands. Gone were her short, unpolished nails and calluses from typing assignments at midnight. In their place were long, delicate, perfectly manicured fingers. She looked up at the massive floor-to-ceiling mirror across the room and caught a glimpse of a woman with large, tear-filled, glassy eyes and pale skin.

Oh, you have got to be kidding me.

Her jaw tightened, and she slowly tilted her head back, glaring directly up at the ornate, white-moulded ceiling past Lu Chen’s head.

‘Hey. God! You listening to me?!’ she screamed in her head, mentally pointing an enraged, trembling finger straight at the sky. ‘Is this some kind of sick joke?! You actually transmigrated me into this garbage novel just because I criticized it?!’

She took a sharp breath, her chest heaving with internal rage.

‘Come on, God! If you wanted to transmigrate me, at least do it in a romantic one where the main lead dotes on the heroine, spoils her rotten, and cares for her every need! Why did you drop me right into the middle of this toxic, brain-melting nightmare?!’

Lu Chen frowned, his dark eyebrows pulling together as he watched her stare blankly at the ceiling for ten straight seconds without saying a word. In the original story, Lin Yan should have already been on her knees, sobbing onto his shiny Italian leather shoes, pleading for a crumb of his affection.

"Lin Yan?" Lu Chen’s voice cut through the silence, growing even colder. "Aren't you going to cry? Aren't you going to beg me to stay like you always do?"

She slowly snapped her gaze away from the ceiling and looked at him. Then, she turned her head slightly toward an imaginary camera angle in the upper corner of the room, raising one mocking eyebrow toward the sky.

‘Watch this, God. Watch close. This is how a real, functional human being reacts.’

She kicked the heavy, silk-embroidered duvet off her legs and pushed herself up, sitting up straight in bed despite the throbbing ache in her temples. She looked Lu Chen dead in the eye, her face devoid of a single tear.

"Beg you?" She let out a sharp, dry laugh that startled even herself. "Bro, are you serious right now? The door is right behind you. Do you need me to call you a taxi, or can your multi-billion-dollar driver handle it? Just leave so I can finally get some sleep!"

Lu Chen froze instantly. His hand, which was halfway through adjusting his lapel, stopped mid-air. For the first time in his arrogant, pampered life, his expression cracked. His cold mask shattered into pure, unadulterated shock.

"What did you just call me?" he demanded, his voice dropping an octave.

"I said leave," she repeated, making a subtle shooing gesture with her hand before slumping back against the silk pillows. "You’re blocking the airflow, and your expensive cologne is giving me an even worse headache than the fever. Go cater to your White Moonlight."

Lu Chen’s jaw twitched. His eyes burned with anger, but he quickly forced a cold, condescending smirk onto his face, trying to regain control. He shook his head, looking at her as if she were a bratty child throwing a temporary fit.

"Playing hard to get now, Lin Yan?" he scoffed, smoothing down his jacket. "Don't think this ridiculous act will get my attention. It’s pathetic. When I come back tomorrow, I expect you to have properly reflected on your disgraceful attitude."

Without waiting for a response, he turned on his heel, his leather shoes clicking sharply against the marble floor. He strode out of the master bedroom, pulling the massive double doors shut behind him with a loud, resounding SLAM!

The heavy click of the lock reverberated through the quiet room.

She lay in bed, staring at the closed doors for two full seconds before bursting out into another hysterical laugh, staring back up at the ceiling.

‘Did you see that, God?!’ She threw her hands up in the air, ranting internally at full volume. ‘He actually walked out! He really thinks he’s the undisputed king of the world! What kind of male lead is this? He has negative emotional intelligence! His brain is literally made of cardboard!’

She let out a long, heavy sigh and rubbed her burning temples. The fever was definitely real, and if she didn't get some medicine into this delicate heroine’s body soon, she was going to transmigrate right back out of this world via medical emergency.

‘Fine,’ she thought, a sharp, vengeful smile creeping onto her lips as she pulled the duvet back over her shoulders. ‘If you brought me into this world, God, then I’m rewriting this whole mess myself. No begging, no crying, no doormat heroine... and definitely no arrogant CEO.’

Lu Chen thought he was coming back tomorrow to a repentant, tearful wife. He had no idea that the woman waiting for him was about to flip his entire universe upside down.