Chapter 1

Translator: Abo Dammen

The northern city sky was bright and its air clean that not even a cloud was visible. It indicated an exceptionally fine day, but Chen Lu’s mood couldn’t have been more opposite. 

Because the moment he blinked, he’d been transmigrated into a novel.

And as luck would have it, he hadn’t even read the novel. The only reason he knew he was in a novel world at all was because a clear block of narrative text had popped inside his mind which were the next events that would unfold in this world. Along with that text came an undeniable requirement: he had to follow the plot.

He was, after all, this novel’s protagonist.

The protagonist! Sounds amazing! 

…If only the name of the novel weren’t [Contractual Lover: The Overbearing CEO’s Forceful Love], and if only he weren’t the one being ‘forcibly loved’, instead of the CEO.

Chen Lu lay in bed for a long time, struggling to digest this fact. Eventually, his attention drifted to the novel’s opening, which waxed poetic about the protagonist’s ethereal beauty. That grudgingly prompted him to shuffle out of bed and take a look in the mirror.

He’d braced himself for seeing something not quite his usual look, but even so, the moment he saw the reflection staring back at him, he went utterly still. Perched on his head was a yellow beret, his skin was pale as snow, hair black as ebony, lips red as… well, not blood, but cherries.

Chen Lu had prepared himself for a lot, but he hadn’t prepared to see his own face after being buried under 80layers of a beauty filter! 

Don’t just casually mess up someone’s face!!!

Watching his own features morph into something out of a porcelain-doll fever dream was even more unsettling than waking up in a completely unfamiliar body. Stunned into silence, Chen Lu stood frozen. Then he watched with a horrified gaze as the delicate, angelic face in the mirror began to tremble along with his own emotions, eyes glistening as if on the verge of tears. That fragile, heart-wrenching expression actually tugged at his heartstrings for a moment, until he remembered that the face he was seeing was now his. His brain exploded with millions of profanity.

He took several deep breaths, finally calming himself down.

It’s fine! 

It’s not like he has to see his own face anyway.

Chen Lu clung to this completely unhelpful reassurance and finally made a decision.

Well, he didn’t have much of a choice. He had spent hours searching for a way back to his original world but no luck. If he wanted to return, it seemed the only option was to follow the plot through to the end.

And as for playing this protagonist role given to him… well, based on every cliche he knew about these kinds of story genres, it shouldn’t be hard. 

His character was just a little white flower, a delicate, pretty shou who needed to act pitiful, fragile, and just go huhuhuhu. Judging by his face in the mirror, this was essentially a single player roleplaying game set to “easy mode.”

The one thing that was truly bothering Chen Lu right now was how little information he actually had. The fragments of the plot that had suddenly popped into his mind barely amounted to the first one or two chapters. It was basically just a tutorial guide.

He wasn’t sure if that was all he’d get, or if, like in video games, the next objective would appear once the first one was complete.

Either way… all he could do now is to just take it one step at a time and find out. 

With that mindset, Chen Lu turned his gaze to the clock hanging on the wall.

That mental rollercoaster of his had eaten up the entire afternoon. The clock’s hands now pointed to 5:30 PM.

Which meant…

With the book’s plot unwillingly engraved into his memory, Chen Lu shifted his eyes to the window. Just as expected, the grand iron gates of the estate were slowly opening in the distance. A line of cars rolled in, neat and polished. 

This, too, was exactly what the novel described as the beginning of the story.

Except in the novel, “Chen Lu” looked out at this scene and stood by this window filled with melancholy. Meanwhile, the current Chen Lu was staring at the vehicle in the middle of the convoy. It was a ridiculously stretched, luxury limousine car that practically screamed, ‘I’m expensive. Bump into me and you’ll owe me your life in monthly payments.’

He couldn’t help but pause in contemplation.

—Wouldn’t you need a commercial truck license to drive something that long? 

Before he could come up with an answer, the convoy came to a stop. From the front and rear escort cars, over a dozen bodyguards stepped out in perfect sync, surrounding the limo with practiced efficiency.

Their postures and formations were flawless.

Only once the full display of grandeur and pretentious aura had been established did one of them stride to the rear passenger side and, with utmost reverence, open the door.

Watching all of this unfold clearly from the upper floor, Chen Lu nearly choked. 

Okay, now that was ridiculous!

Yes, he remembered this part of the novel’s opening. The protagonist shou, which was now him, had been pacing around the room, only to hear a commotion outside. He then walked over to the window, and gazed out with wistful melancholy as the protagonist gong was ushered into the mansion by an entourage of men in black. Moments later came the knock at the door, and a servant would quietly announce that the young master had returned, inviting him to dinner downstairs.

But what Chen Lu really hadn’t expected was that a simple sentence from the novel, “surrounded by attendants”, once brought into reality and played out from beginning to end, could end up being so mortifyingly cringe it gave his whole body goosebumps.

Internally, he was ranting non-stop, mentally tearing the whole setup apart. He genuinely couldn’t imagine how the original protagonist shou had managed to witness this kind of spectacle and still stay melancholic. 

Maybe that’s the difference between a protagonist and an extra, huh.

Chen Lu was still mentally spit-roasting the scene when the other lead of the novel stepped out of the luxury car, and every single one of his internal complaints came to a screeching halt.

How should he put it… Chen Lu, who also did part-time work as a game streamer and prided himself on having a top-tier vocabulary within the community, found himself struck silent. In his head, there was only one thought stuck.

Damn. This pretentious guy really earned the right to show off.  

That over-the-top, logic-defying show of pretentious and grandeur he’d been mocking earlier? The moment this man appeared, the entire scene suddenly made sense. It didn’t feel ridiculous anymore. In fact, it felt perfectly appropriate.

His looks had already gone beyond what the word “handsome” could capture, And the aura he exuded wasn’t something that belonged to ordinary mortals.

He was the center of the entire universe!

With that kind of insane buff activated, even a very clear-headed Chen Lu couldn’t stop staring at him. He kept watching, entranced, until the man stepped into the front hall of the mansion and finally vanished from view. Only then did Chen Lu snapped out of it, and realized he had just been completely mesmerized by a guy. His mouth twitched. He quickly turned away and glanced at his reflection in the mirror again. 

Normally, his face should be showing a stunned, mind-blown expression. But thanks to the face he now wore, it looked more like a fragile little flower on the verge of tears after being startled.Once again filled with uncalled-for pity for himself, Chen Lu: “….…”

…Was this face enchanted or something?

‘Don’t cross the line!!!’ he screamed internally, desperately trying to reaffirm his heterosexuality.

Thankfully, the knock that was supposed to come according to the plot rang out right on cue, followed by a butler’s professionally polished voice from outside the door, “Young Master Lu, please prepare yourself. The eldest young master has returned. Tonight’s dinner will be served in the first-floor dining room.” 

Chen Lu let out a sigh of relief and was just about to respond when he suddenly hesitated answering between three choices which were, ‘Okay,’ ‘Got it,’ and ‘Understood’. They all hovered on the tip of his tongue… But somehow, none of them felt right. They’d all break the fragile illusion of the literary, innocent shou persona he was supposed to embody.

Frantically, Chen Lu flipped through the story’s opening in his mind, trying to recall how the original character responded here.

Then he realized…

Oh. It wasn’t written. 

The next line in the text was just the protagonist showing up in the dining room.

Chen Lu, “……”

How is this any different from writing ‘response omitted’ as the official answer key?!

In the end, Chen Lu silently accepted that he had missed his window to give a proper reply. 

…Well, since the moment had passed anyway, he might as well roll with it. With the practiced apathy of someone thoroughly resigned to his fate, Chen Lu made his decision with ease.

He didn’t say a word. No one outside the door made another sound, either. After staring silently at the entrance for a long moment, Chen Lu finally tiptoed over and opened the door.

—There was no one outside. Clearly, the servant who had knocked earlier had already left.

Maybe… he actually made the right call? 

Chen Lu wasn’t entirely sure. His eyes began to drift, slowly taking in the rest of this grand estate.

It really lived up to its reputation as the kind of mansion a protagonist in an old-school novel genre would live in. The house was absurdly huge. Chen Lu glanced around and still couldn’t get a clear picture of the entire floor’s layout. The house was practically a labyrinth. He honestly couldn’t fathom why a house meant for living needed to be this complicated.

At least he spotted an elevator nearby, which was pretty close to his room. That meant there was a guaranteed way to reach the dining room on the first floor. Chen Lu figured he didn’t really have anything to prepare, so after quickly reviewing what lines he might have to say at dinner, he stepped into the elevator and headed straight to the first floor.

‘Let’s just hope I don’t get lost,’ Chen Lu thought as the elevator descended. But the moment the doors slid open, he saw several servants already waiting. One of them came over with a bright smile and began leading the way, so he basically didn’t need to use a single brain cell to find his way to the dining room. The other protagonist of this novel was already there in the dining room. From this distance, Chen Lu could get a clear look at his face. Even without the story’s built-in beauty filter, the guy still looked pretty handsome, even by Chen Lu’s admittedly vain standards. 

Still, maybe because his little white flower character wasn’t supposed to be in love with the guy yet that now that he was seeing him up close, Chen Lu felt like he wasn’t quite as soul-shakingly stunning as he’d seemed upstairs.

Or maybe… the story’s special filter for this overbearing CEO only applied to people seeing him for the first time…. giving them one breathtaking moment of awe and nothing more?

Honestly, that didn’t sound too far-fetched. This entire world gave off such a strong aura of absurdity, after all.

Chen Lu silently grumbled to himself as he stared at the other party. 

The other seemed to sense Chen Lu’s gaze. He lifted his head slightly, shifting his eyes from the papers in front of him to glance over at Chen Lu. That look made Chen Lu pause for a second, like it gave him a strange, indescribable feeling.

The man’s gaze felt oddly unfamiliar, like he was trying to figure out who Chen Lu was, as if they’d never met before.

‘Weird,’ Chen Lu muttered silently to himself.

But he didn’t get a chance to study the man’s expression more closely because after a few seconds of looking, the man seemed to lose interest entirely and just lowered his head again to resume reading his documents. 

As the man moved on, the weird feeling in Chen Lu’s chest vanished without a trace, leaving behind only one loud complaint.

—Okay, sure, you’re the overbearing CEO type. But besides being overbearing to everyone in the story, all your scenes are just you dealing with paperwork. Do you seriously need to keep working even during the 5 minutes while the chefs are serving dinner?!

After venting, Chen Lu thought about it again and realized… yeah, actually, that kinda makes sense.

Since all the CEO’s screen time was spent endlessly falling in love, it made sense that, outside the story’s spotlight, he had to scramble like a student cramming on the last day of vacation just to catch up on his paperwork. 

Makes sense.

It’s kind of hilarious, though.

Chen Lu pressed his lips together to keep from breaking character. He worked hard to maintain that cool, melancholic expression on his face as he sat down in the seat furthest from the other protagonist.

—This was, theoretically, the farthest distance possible between the two of them. 

As he sat down, Chen Lu had the vague feeling that the other party glanced at him again. But when he looked back, it seemed like it had just been his imagination.

So cold.

Chen Lu felt a faint sense of doubt and once again flipped through the plot presented in his mind, only to find……

Still no relevant descriptions.

This section of the story was mostly about him, the protagonist shou, arriving at the dining room and feeling an intense inner anguish upon seeing the luxurious, extravagant feast laid before him.

——This was not the life he longed for. He missed his old life.

——The sunlight, the flowers. 

——The free wind’s careless fingers in his hair, each strand alight with joy.

——Why was he always the one to suffer?

Mm, that about sums it up.

Chen Lu himself obviously didn’t share that kind of emotional turmoil, but fortunately, it seemed the character’s inner feelings as written in the text didn’t actually need to be acted out. After all, back in the scene in the bedroom earlier, he hadn’t performed any of the internal monologue either, and nothing had gone wrong. 

Stripping away all that dramatic emotional prose, there actually wasn’t much left for him to act out.

Momentarily dazed by the artistic barrage of the story’s narrative, Chen Lu forgot the bit of doubt he’d had earlier and began silently reviewing the lines he was supposed to say next.

After all, there wasn’t much else to do.

Chen Lu had barely finished going over his lines when the dishes on the table were rapidly served one after another. As the servants lifted the lids from each platter, Chen Lu felt as if he were witnessing divine light. 

The aroma of the food wafted into his nose, rich and tempting. Each dish shimmered with a glossy sheen, as if proudly presenting itself to him, ‘Look how delicious I am’. Chen Lu’s gaze locked onto the dishes, utterly transfixed.

In the story, the food had only been vaguely described as “luxurious and lavish.” Who would’ve thought that in reality it would look like this?!!!

Qin Guchuan noticed a pair of unusually intense eyes staring from across the table. His hand paused mid-motion as he passed the documents to his assistant, and he lifted his gaze to follow the source of that heat, only to be quite surprised when he realized it came from the very same “Chen Lu” who he theoretically was supposed to fall deeply in love with in the future.

But that heated gaze wasn’t directed at him. 

It was locked firmly onto the food in front of him.

The words ‘I want to eat’ were practically materializing in his eyes.

A flicker of confusion crossed Qin Guchuan’s face. He sifted through the plot details stored in his own memory, and the confusion only deepened.

Even though this was their first meeting… Was this really what Chen Lu’s personality’s supposed to be like?

Translator’s Feed:

The plot is indeed starting! Welcome to my new project. This novel was recommended to me by Bob, one of my editors. Thanks for introducing me this novel~

There’s actually 28 translated chapters already posted on NU but I’m still going to be translating from the very first chapter because I like to work on my solo projects from start to finish. I haven’t finished reading this yet but I’ll make sure it’ll be an enjoyable read for everyone. After I finish one of my on-going chapters, I will probably go back to my roots and take on Psychological/ABO novels wkwkwk I miss deeply resonating with the characters’ psyche.

Well, with that said, I hope you guys will enjoy this new pit I’ve dug~