Chapter 1: Transmigrated into the Game I Designed

“Hey, young man, want to buy some bananas?”
In front of the fruit stall at the market, the robotic shop assistant’s face flickered with a smile as it asked enthusiastically in a warm, lifelike tone.

Standing across from the robot was a boy of about fifteen or sixteen. He had short, unremarkable hair, wore a standard-issue high school uniform, and possessed the kind of generic face you’d expect from the protagonist of a dating sim.

But the boy gave no response to the shop assistant’s greeting. He stood there, staring blankly.

After a long moment of contemplation, he finally spoke:

“Oh my god, did I just transmigrate into the very game I was designing?”

In his previous life, Chen Shang had led a relatively comfortable existence as a game writer and planner. By 2077, the year he hailed from, the world of gaming had evolved to unprecedented heights—even VR was considered an archaic relic. Immersive consciousness games were now the industry standard, and major companies had begun developing “quantum-leap games,” which would shatter and reconstruct a player’s mind and body in some alternate reality for the ultimate gaming experience.

None of this had much to do with Chen Shang, since he worked for a company that made dating sims. Their business model was simple: low production costs, meticulously crafted art designed to appeal to shut-ins, and stirring, formulaic romance stories—an efficient way to rake in cash from their target audience.

Over the years, Chen Shang had worked as a writer on five or six romance-raising games, each of which had been well received.

Just as his career was taking off, his boss handed him a major new project and put him in charge. This was to be the company’s first immersive consciousness dating sim, set in a cyberpunk world and featuring elements of combat, open-world exploration, and high player freedom—quite a departure from their traditional text-based games.

Chen Shang threw himself into the project, working day and night until the game was nearly ready for internal testing, with the finish line in sight.

But then, out of nowhere, the team was saddled with a new intern—the son of the project’s main investor. The rich kid strutted in, declared himself a veteran web novelist of five years, and insisted on making sweeping changes to the game.

Chen Shang tried to stop him, but the boss, eager to please the investors, stripped Chen Shang of his position and handed over the reins to the investor’s son.

From then on, all Chen Shang could do was watch helplessly as his hard work was butchered and twisted into something unrecognizable. After all, he was just a salaried planner—no point in falling out with the boss over it.

When the game launched, disaster struck.

What had once been a classic romance narrative was now a grotesque parody, with light-hearted romantic scenes warped into cringe-worthy, third-rate soap opera melodrama. To make matters worse, the investor’s son inserted a new character based on himself—a rival male lead who surpassed the protagonist in every way: personality, skills, even looks. He stole the spotlight completely.

The heroines, who were supposed to fall for the protagonist, now all had built-in affection for the rival. Winning over any girl as the protagonist required an endless grind of convoluted tasks, constant monitoring of daily events and affection meters, while the rival could swoop in and steal any girl with a few lines of nauseatingly over-the-top flattery.

And even when the player finally managed to max out a heroine’s affection, the only endings available were ones of betrayal—every single time.

“I’m sorry, but I like the rival more.”

In most endings, the heroine would kill the protagonist in cold blood and rush into the rival’s arms.

Even fans of cuckoldry couldn’t stomach a storyline like that.

After reading through the new script, Chen Shang repeatedly reported his concerns to the boss and tried to reason with the investor’s son, but all he got was: “This isn’t your concern.”

Predictably, the game became infamous within three days of launch. It was hailed as a “miracle of the gaming world”—aggregate review scores on major sites dropped below 1.0, refund requests soared past fifty thousand within seventy-two hours, and even paid reviewers couldn’t salvage its reputation. Forums and video sites were flooded with parodies and scathing criticism, and streamers who had agreed to promote the game were bombarded with private messages until they had to break their contracts.

“Victim Simulator,” “Digital Disaster Expo,” “The Masterpiece That United Cuckold Enthusiasts and Pure Love Defenders”—the game acquired a host of sarcastic nicknames, and even the company’s other titles were bombed with negative reviews.

The company’s reputation plummeted overnight, teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, while the investor and his spoiled son quietly pulled out and vanished.

At this moment of crisis, Chen Shang’s boss made a stroke-of-genius decision:

He pinned all the blame on Chen Shang, fired him on the spot, and demanded he organize a public apology conference to take the fall for everything.

Naturally, Chen Shang refused. Should he take the blame, his reputation in the industry would be ruined forever.

After countless arguments and even death threats from his boss, Chen Shang made a bold decision of his own:

He grabbed a fire poker and went up to the rooftop, where he got into a brawl with his boss—who, incidentally, had mechanical limbs.

Just as both men were battered within an inch of their lives and about to sit down for an honest conversation, the law enforcement robots arrived in a rush and shot them both dead on the spot, successfully ending this particularly nasty altercation.

Having recounted all this, Chen Shang now felt another impending migraine.

Of all the places to transmigrate, why did it have to be this trashy dating sim? And why did he have to be the protagonist?

Chen Shang vividly remembered the game’s opening, and there was no mistaking it.

Originally, he’d wanted the game to begin with the protagonist’s sister waking him up, and the two heading off to school together. But the investor’s son, apparently inspired by some grimdark anime, changed it so that the protagonist would be standing in front of a fruit stall, asked if he wanted to buy bananas.

Chen Shang had fiercely debated this point with the investor’s son, but all he got was a smug retort:

“Don’t you know the value of a golden opening? That cliché you wrote would never hook players—my unexpected twist will double their interest!”

If that’s true, then why are you still a level-one author after five years? The only income on your author account is the donation you made to yourself, you useless hack!

Chen Shang had nearly blurted this out, but managed to restrain himself.

Now, having actually transmigrated into the game, he found this opening… wasn’t so bad after all?

Ignoring the robot shop assistant’s puzzled gaze, he grabbed his schoolbag and dashed into the middle of the street, shouting at the top of his lungs:

“Where’s the truck? Someone get a truck over here, run me over and let’s start this over—come on, hurry!”

This “wanna buy some bananas” opening was great for one thing—it put him conveniently close to the road, perfect for getting run over and rebooting.

But fate would not oblige. Not a single vehicle was willing to hit him; they all swerved to avoid him, causing a traffic jam in the process.

Within a few minutes, a one-wheeled traffic police robot arrived, waving its red-and-blue flashing baton, and dragged Chen Shang off to the nearest police station.