Chapter 1
Chapter 1
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: Transsexual
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There's a saying called the 10,000 Hour Rule.
It means that to become an expert in any field, you need 10,000 hours of training.
Train for 3 hours a day, and it'll take about 10 years.
Train for 10 hours a day, and it'll take about 3 years.
10,000 hours is enough time for a bumbling newbie employee to suddenly become the center of the operation, handling every task with ease.
It's enough time for a hobbyist newbie to turn into a seasoned veteran.
And yet... the time I've poured into acting comes to well over 50,000 hours, by my rough calculations.
More than 12 hours a day, sometimes skipping sleep entirely for full 24-hour marathons.
For 12 years, I've devoted my entire life to acting.
Of course, some people say it's not just about the hours, that the quality of effort matters.
But I've never played when others were playing.
I've never rested when others were resting.
If someone who hated it and forced themselves through 50,000 hours could become something, then sure.
But that wasn't me, at least.
I didn't blindly trust Anders Ericsson's 10,000 Hour Rule a hundred percent or run solely on faith in it.
I knew all about the flaws in the 10,000 Hour Rule.
But... even so, 50,000 hours is no small amount.
I've poured my whole life into it, focusing solely on acting, and still have nothing to show for it.
Is it because I lack innate talent? No matter how hard I try, is it impossible?
Am I just not fated to be an actor, so no amount of effort will ever make it happen?
The more I thought that, the more a stubborn resolve grew inside me.
I just couldn't let go of my dream of becoming an actor.
And this is the result. This pathetic state I'm in.
I could tell just from the casting director's expression. Rejected again.
"Good work."
It was familiar. This one was at least polite. Or maybe just indifferent.
-Your acting's decent enough, but... how do I put this...
-Stop wasting our time and get out.
-Why not try a different path? This doesn't suit you.
-Ha... good work.
-What a mess! Everyone and their dog thinks they can act these days.
-Jeong Gyeowol, you're pretty infamous in the industry... Isn't it time to call it quits?
I bounced from one part-time job to another just to make ends meet while auditioning everywhere, but I failed every single time.
Rumors had spread through the industry about my breakdowns, so now I was getting cut from the profile stage more often than not.
My family had given up on me long ago.
A grown adult who only caused trouble for their parents—an immature, undutiful child. That's how my family and relatives saw me.
If a few more years passed like this, I'd be too old to even land decent part-time gigs.
All that awaited was drifting through warehouses and manual labor sites, aging in lonely isolation.
Since when? How? Why?
What had twisted my life into this mess?
Was it the dream I started chasing at 17, much earlier than most?
Or that first day on set at 19, when I landed my debut role with lines and nearly burst a lung?
No. At 29, still clinging to the dream—that's probably the biggest problem.
I let out a sigh and picked up the glass in front of me.
"...My filmography isn't growing, but my liquor tolerance sure is."
My reflection in the glass looked utterly pathetic.
The eyes staring back at me were filled with sorrow, pity, and regret.
For now, I'd nurse my aching gut with another drink.
They say nothing's worse than drinking when you're in a bad mood.
But my life never had room for happy drinks.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Ugh... My head feels like it's going to split open.
How much did I drink?
I thought I didn't get hangovers, but maybe I only drank enough to avoid them before.
Every sensation in my body feels off.
Is this floaters or something? There's this long... thing in front of my eyes now.
And it's tickling my body. Like wearing a wig or something.
On top of that, my vision feels sharper somehow.
No contacts, no glasses, but it's like I'm looking through a magnifying glass—crystal clear.
Does chugging so much that your head throbs mess with your optic nerve?
That's not all. My body feels heavy. My shoulders hunch involuntarily.
Like all the muscle in my body has vanished...
"...?"
My limbs were like dried twigs, scrawny and frail.
The kind that would snap with a light tap—pitiful.
My 50,000 hours included self-maintenance.
I rarely skipped workouts.
I kept just enough muscle to look good in clothes.
A perfectly toned physique...
So what the hell is this spindly branch?
"Ah, ahh."
And why is my voice like this?
"Ah, eh, ee, oh, oo."
The clear, bell-like voice coming from my mouth wasn't mine.
Only then did the gravity of the situation hit me, and I rushed to the bathroom.
'What... the...'
The face in the mirror wasn't mine.
Beauty is subjective and varied.
Attractiveness means different things to different people.
Classical beauty, modern beauty, Eastern beauty, Western beauty.
There are all sorts, shaped by personal tastes.
Someone I call the world's most beautiful might be average to another.
But the beauty staring back at me transcended eras, continents, and subjectivity.
So perfect it almost seemed fake.
Like an AI had synthesized every human ideal of beauty into one face.
A face that could captivate anyone who laid eyes on it.
'...Though that's probably subjective too.'
Even the teeth were flawless, like they'd been orthodontically perfected at birth.
Who could resist a face like this?
'Unbelievable.'
How had a face like this stayed hidden until now?
It must have turned heads since infancy.
Any entertainment scout would drop everything to cast her.
And the craziest part? It's me.
I smile, and she smiles.
I move, and she moves.
Staring at my own reflection, feeling butterflies in real time—an ultimate narcissistic thrill.
For self-absorbed, narcissistic acting, this memory alone would make method acting effortless.
Come to think of it, I've heard of situations like this.
"TS Beam..."
From a webnovel I read thinking it might help my acting.
But that's just the author's imagination, a work of fiction.
So how do I explain this?
Impossible things unfolding right in front of me.
I'd already done a reality check. Not a lucid dream.
I'd raged for months trying to lucid dream and failed, so getting one blackout drunk doesn't make sense.
A webnovel author spamming TS Beams sounds more plausible.
But... what if this isn't my body?
What if I've become some evil spirit possessing someone else?
Thump-
Heart pounding wildly, I left the bathroom.
The house layout was identical to mine, same furniture.
Even the mold spots in the same places.
The unfamiliar scent filling the place gave it a slightly alien feel, but it was definitely my house.
Finding my phone and wallet was easy. I pulled out the ID from the wallet.
Jeong Gyeowol, born 2005.
Only the birth year and gender digits differed from the 1995 male Jeong Gyeowol.
Name, address, the rest of the ID number— all the same.
Jeong Gyeowol, just younger and female.
Does that make this body mine?
I tossed the ID aside and unlocked the phone.
Thankfully, fingerprint lock, no password or pattern.
With trembling hands, I searched everywhere...
It was like a brand-new phone with only the fingerprint set up. No info at all.
No contacts. No messages or chats. No gallery photos.
Nothing.
I tried calling numbers I knew by heart—either disconnected or wrong people.
Parents, friends—gone, along with male Jeong Gyeowol.
Even searches for presidents, companies, celebrities on the portal were subtly different.
But Russia-Ukraine war, Israel-Hamas, politician assassinations—my memories matched.
No trace of female Jeong Gyeowol.
Male Jeong Gyeowol erased from existence.
'What the hell is going on...'
The headache I chalked up to hangover returned.
My already tangled thoughts grew more chaotic.
At the same time, drowsiness flooded in, like my brain fleeing reality.
Has this frail body made my mind frail too?
I used to pull all-nighters on willpower alone...
Now, I couldn't fight the sleep.