The green line on the monitor flattened into a straight line.
“BEEP—”
Lin Mu died at eighteen years and three months old.
He died in the terminal stage of one hundred and eight complex illnesses, on an ordinary weekday afternoon, with only cold machines keeping him company in the hospital room.
No one shed a tear for his death.
A nurse came in to record the time, removed the equipment, and covered his emaciated face with a white sheet.
His soul floated near the ceiling, watching as the bed was wheeled away and the room was cleared.
Lin Mu realized for the first time that death was so quiet.
He thought that was it, like water disappearing into water, with no one remembering him.
Until that seductive voice sounded directly in his consciousness.
It said it was the System…
The subsequent conversation was quickly skipped.
Under its coaxing, he agreed to a mysterious pact.
‘I’m… pretty helpless.’
A dizzying whirl of disorientation…
She was lying on a hard, cold, flat surface, like a stone slab.
Her body was wrapped in a silky, smooth fabric, but it wasn’t warm.
An unprecedented lightness filled every corner of her body.
So this is… a healthy body?
She tried to open her eyes.
Her vision was blurry at first, then slowly focused.
A cascade of silver hair, as smooth and lustrous as silk, scattered across her cheeks and chest.
She moved her gaze and found herself lying in a space lined with dark red velvet, surrounded by wooden walls carved with intricate patterns.
A coffin?
This realization caused her mind to freeze for a moment.
That made sense.
She probably hadn’t been dead long; being buried now seemed plausible, right?
As her thoughts settled, Lin Mu tried to move her arm.
An unusually slender, pale hand lifted into view.
Her fingers were wrapped in black silk, the tips cut open to reveal a faintly pink nail, giving off an inhumanly delicate feel.
She stared at her hand for a few seconds, then used it to touch her face.
The skin felt soft and delicate.
The contours of her face were small.
Her fingers slid down over her neck, finding it smooth and flat.
Further down was a slightly raised chest.
There were no expected strong emotional fluctuations.
Perhaps it was the high level of emotional burnout the System had mentioned before binding, or perhaps after experiencing an out-of-body experience and System binding, the strangeness of this body had become another absurd scene she could calmly accept.
Pressing her hands against the inside of the coffin lid, Lin Mu applied a little force, and the heavy lid slid open silently along its track.
This coffin was even a sliding lid. How high-end.
She supported herself on the coffin wall and stood up, her silver hair cascading down to her ankles.
Lin Mu finally noticed her clothes.
She was wearing an exquisitely designed gothic dress, its main color a deep, rich black.
The fabric was as smooth as satin and felt ice-cold to the touch.
The top half of the dress was a tightly fitted corset design, cinching the body’s slender waist fiercely.
‘No wonder I feel a bit breathless…’
The neckline was very low, trimmed with black lace, forming an elegant heart shape.
Her fair collarbone and skin were exposed.
Her legs were tightly wrapped in white silk, outlining the slender lines of her legs.
She wasn’t wearing shoes.
Her delicate ankles and arches, wrapped in white silk, pressed directly against the coffin’s bottom.
She silently examined herself.
Then she called out in her mind, “System.”
“Did I agree to be transmigrated?”
Lin Mu’s fingers unconsciously scraped across the delicate wood grain of the coffin edge.
“I just remember listening to you talk.”
[You agreed. We travel through different worlds, become NPCs to complete quests, and finally save up enough points to exchange for a healthy body!]
Lin Mu heard the System’s heart-wrenching statement.
[Host, you wouldn’t back out on me, would you?]
“No, I just forgot.”
Lin Mu shook her head to clear it.
“System, are you listening?”
[Listening. How does the new body feel?]
The System’s voice rang out immediately.
“It feels…”
As soon as the sound left her throat, Lin Mu herself was stunned.
Clear and soft, the unique immaturity of a girl whose voice hadn’t yet changed.
It was the complete opposite of the hoarse, weak voice she remembered.
She paused, then continued in this unfamiliar voice, “Don’t you have anything to say about this appearance of mine?”
[Hm?]
The System seemed to stutter for a moment.
[No. The basic template matches the soul’s vibration to find the most optimal container.]
[What’s wrong? Any feeling of incompatibility?]
Its explanation was by the book, with a matter-of-fact tone.
Lin Mu raised a hand and twirled a strand of silver hair around her finger.
The strands shimmered in the faint light filtering through the stained glass window.
She spoke slowly into the air, and also to the voice in her mind, “When I was alive, even with bone cancer, lung cancer, all sorts of cancers and diseases, at least my brain was fine…”
[You had a brain tumor. Third ventricle. It pressed on your optic nerve, hence the late-stage vision loss.]
Lin Mu: “…”
She closed her eyes, her long lashes casting a shadow on her delicate face.
“But my mental state was definitely fine,” she stated flatly, though she wasn’t sure why she cared.
“And when I was alive, I was definitely male.”
“I don’t have gender dysphoria.”
This time, the System was silent for a little longer.
Just as Lin Mu thought it was browsing through some psychological counseling manual, it spoke.
[Firstly, Host Lin Mu, please confirm your awareness: you are dead.]
[All physiological characteristics of your living self, including gender, have perished along with your old body. This is premise one.]
[Secondly, I didn’t deceive you. All bodies are matched based on your soul.]
“So you’re saying the bodies that match my soul are all female?”
[Yes!]
Expressionlessly, she extended her small hand, covered in a black lace glove.
She hesitated for a moment.
In the end, Lin Mu lifted the layers of exquisite but useless fabric.
Lin Mu reached out.
Lin Mu grasped nothing.
She looked down.
It was glaringly white.
That last shred of possibility was gone.
“Fine.”
“Proceed with the integration.”
[Alright, loading the background data pack.]
[This world is a mix of gothic, political intrigue, and… well, a bit of a special interest medieval fantasy backdrop.]
[Your identity is Keleiya Scarlett. The only daughter of Adrian Scarlett, the Crimson Grand Duke among the thirteen Vampire Dukes.]
The System’s voice continued.
[A year ago, your father mysteriously vanished after an inspection tour to a border territory. His fate is unknown, causing instability within the Scarlett family.]
[Three months after your father’s disappearance, Duchess Elizabeth, a long-time rival of the Scarletts, took advantage of the situation. Under the guise of protecting the daughter of an old friend, she took you from the family castle. In truth, she placed you under house arrest in her domain.]
Lin Mu, no.
Keleiya stepped out of the coffin.
She first extended a small foot wrapped in thin white silk.
Her arch arched into a graceful curve, and her toes tentatively touched the cold stone floor.
The chill instantly seeped through the thin silk.
She unconsciously curled her toes, the small digits wriggling slightly beneath the white silk.
She paused, her long lashes fluttering, then slowly placed her entire foot down.
She looked around.
It was a spacious room, or rather, a combination of a prison cell and a bedchamber.
The towering ceiling was painted with bats and roses in a deep red pigment.
Several narrow stained-glass windows were set into the stone walls.
Outside, the eternal night reigned, with only a false moonlight casting eerie red and blue patterns on the floor through the glass.
In one corner of the room was a fireplace, with a ghostly blue magical flame burning inside.
It gave off light but no heat.
To the left of the fireplace hung a huge, gilded oval mirror.
[Duchess Elizabeth has a… uh, rather obsessive fondness for you.]
The System’s tone had a subtle pause there.
[The report describes it as a pathological mixture of collector’s desire and controlling affection. In terms you can understand, she’s a control freak and a sadist.]
[And you are her most prized possession. For this past year, she’s been nominally your guardian, but in reality, you are her personal property, receiving her ‘education’ and ‘nurturing’.]
Keleiya didn’t speak.
Instead, she walked straight towards the mirror.
The reflection in the mirror made her stop in her tracks.
The girl in the mirror looked no older than fifteen or sixteen.
Her skin was the characteristic cold white of the vampire nobility, with faint bluish veins visible beneath.
Her face was so delicate it didn’t look real.
A pointed chin, a straight nose bridge.
Her lips were slightly parted, her cherry-pink lips standing out strikingly among the famously pale vampires, as if they had been deliberately colored.
Her eyes were large and round, with a naturally charming, drooping curve at the outer corners.
Her pupils were a deep ruby red, like wine.
Apart from her somewhat underwhelming figure, everything else was near perfect.
Dressed in this outfit, she looked like a meticulously groomed doll.
“So this is…”
Keleiya spoke, her voice soft and sweet.
“Me, now.”
She raised her hand, her fingertips gently touching the face in the mirror.
The girl in the mirror did the exact same thing.
[Yes. This is Keleiya Scarlett. Your new identity, and the role you play in this module.]
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