A New Beginning

Living is such a strange concept when you do not know what to do with yourself. According to the rest of the world, you are supposed to have ambitions and connections that keep you tethered to life.

Technically, Meng Mei has ambitions and connections. She thinks she would like to be an author one day and she loves her friends and family. But those things don't give her any great sense of purpose.

“A-Mei, A-Mei” Her best friend would pout, poking her in the cheek whenever Meng Mei zoned out mid conversation. “You're ignoring me again.”

“No I'm not.” Meng Mei would laugh, pulling her mind back to the present. She slipped like that frequently. One minute she was talking animatedly with her friends and the next she was lost to the world.

It's not even like she is particularly unhappy with her life. She has amazing friends, a loving family, and a comfortable life. There's nothing for her to be particularly unhappy with.

It's more like she feels that she doesn't belong amongst her loved ones. For a few years she attributed this feeling to teenage angst and she desperately tried to work through it.

But as the years progressed, nothing changed. Even now at nineteen, Meng Mei still feels disconnected with her life.

The only reprieve she gets is in the form of books. It doesn't matter if it's adventure, fantasy, romance, or horror. If it has a good plot Meng Mei will spend hours on end reading it.

That's how she found Seasons of Sorrow, a chart topping xianxia webnovel. Meng Mei was one of the few who found the novel in its early days due to her endless time scrolling through the different webnovel sites. She fell in love with it instantly.

Meng Mei read all 863 chapters twice. At one point she even wrote a short spin-off story that won a competition and got her a signed copy of the first paper volume of the novel.

It was the only time she truly felt present in her life.

Nothing got her heart racing or focused her mind quite like Seasons of Sorrow. She so fiercely wishes that she could live inside the story instead of repeating the monotony of modern life.

“I’d make a great protagonist!” She would laugh with her best friend whenever the topic came up. She told her best friend everything. Meng Mei knew that at least she would understand her.

“No way! You'd spend more time chasing mythical beasts than furthering the plot!” Was her instant rebuttal. Meng Mei would always deny this. She wouldn't dare to abandon the plot, no matter how much she wanted to see a blue tiger or a dragon’s pearl.

Meng Mei wasn't built to last in the modern world. Her heart never really belonged to it. No matter how many people she surrounded herself with or how many books she read she couldn't ever want to be alive.

Her death had been a long time coming.

It didn't really surprise her when she closed her eyes for the last time. Death did not scare her in the slightest. Even if there is no God to greet her after her final breath, she no longer has to worry about what to do with her life. She would finally be free.

And if a God does greet her in the next stage, maybe she would find something interesting to do in her afterlife.

Either way she might finally be satisfied.

These were the thoughts that Meng Mei had as she closed her eyes and took her final breath. She was at peace with her death, no matter if it was premature.

But that changed when she opened her eyes again.

Meng Mei was met with neither the weightlessness of death nor the expected feeling of a hospital. Instead she was greeted with an open sky and grass reeds looming over her.

She still felt very alive. But where in the world was she?

Blinking, she shifted a bit. She could feel all of her limbs but she felt strangely restricted. Like she had been layered in blankets.

[Welcome New User! Welcome New User! Welcome New User! Important things must be said three times! (≧▽≦)/]

She blinked at the blue screen that suddenly appeared in front of her face. It was oddly reminiscent of a video game quest pop-up. Experimentally Meng Mei sat up and watched as the screen readjusted itself until it was in her clear line of sight again.

"Huh."

‘Is this the afterlife?’ She wondered, looking around. The reeds loomed so far over her head. Even as she sat up she couldn't see anything other than the sprawling grass. In the distance she thought she heard running water.

Maybe this peaceful grassland was what the end looked like. Weird blue screen and all.

[User!! Please let this system explain everything before you get up!! \⁠(⁠>⁠o⁠<⁠)⁠ﾉ Once you leave this spot you will be spotted by your new body's mother and you will have no time to get acclimated to your new world!!]

Meng Mei stared blankly at the screen as the text changed. System? New body? New world?

Her mind spun as she tried to make this information fit. No afterlife she had read about behaved like this. She definitely doesn't remember this in any religious teaching.

She raised her hand to rub at her eyes. The last thing she remembered was dying and now she was in some strange field with a strange blue screen spouting nonsense.

Her hand was halfway to her face when she realized that something was seriously wrong.

The most noticeable thing was the long red sleeve hanging off of her arm. Golden thread decorated the cuff in intricate patterns.

The next thing she noticed was just how small her hand was. Meng Mei was nineteen when she died. She was nearly a fully grown woman, but the hand in front of her face now was clearly that of a child's.

“What.” She breathed.

Slowly, with a pounding heart, Meng Mei looked down at herself. The sight of her clothing almost made her faint. She was covered in a beautiful red hanfu that belonged in a museum. Red gems and golden embroidery decorated the outermost layer of the hanfu in patterns of dragons and flowers.

Suddenly the screen’s words came back to her.

New body. New world.

“No way.” She gasped, her mind finally connecting the dots. Had she actually—?

[It is exactly as you suspect dear User!! After your death in your original world your soul was transported here!! You are currently in the world of 'Seasons of Sorrow']

Meng Mei stared at the screen in disbelief. Has it finally happened? Had she really been….transmigrated?

[Welcome to your new life User!! Shall this system gst started with the introductions?]