A Lucky Day

He had been a die-hard wuxia fan for as long as he could remember. Though only twenty-one years old, he was already such an insufferable wuxia purist that even veteran authors threw up their hands in disgust.

"Every single time I politely share actual knowledge, the author's shills have an absolute seizure."

Thanks to antics like that, he was something of a celebrity reader across major wuxia serial platforms.

Adopting such a weird persona earned him plenty of enemies, but it was his own peculiar way of enjoying the genre. Of course, he had a method to his madness. Playing the curmudgeon in his twenties was bizarre, sure, but internet folklore always said that if you pissed off an author enough, they might transmigrate you into the story out of spite. That was his real goal.

He genuinely dreamed of becoming a chivalrous wanderer in a martial world, so in his own twisted way, he was constantly submitting resumes to the heavens. Granted, even after years of trolling, not a single author proved talented enough to actually whisk him away. What began as a transmigration scheme eventually turned into a habit simply because drawing aggro proved hilarious.

Then, one day, he opened his eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling.

It was not the wallpapered ceiling common to ordinary apartments. Judging by the hanging stalactites, it was unquestionably a cavern, though strangely enough, every spear of rock was frozen solid. In fact, it was not just the stalactites—the entire chamber glistened in pure, crystalline frost.

Whoosh.

A fragrant aroma drifted through the cave, accompanied by an icy draft sweeping in from an unseen opening.

"Wait, what?"

At first, he thought he was dreaming. When a long-cherished wish finally comes true, reality often feels surreal, much like a lottery jackpot winner struggling to comprehend their winning ticket.

"Is this... real?"

Clichéd as it was, he pinched his cheek. Pain aside, the skin that should have felt rough and calloused was as soft and supple as a newborn baby's.

He pushed himself up and moved toward the breeze. Without a mirror or pool of water nearby, he couldn't see his face, but the arms and legs in his field of vision certainly did not belong to him. The coarse, weather-beaten skin forged from years of hard manual labor was gone, replaced by an unblemished, luminous complexion that looked as though it had undergone the legendary cleansing of marrow and bone.

"What the hell happened to me?"

Utterly dazed, he spoke aloud. In his initial disorientation, he hadn't noticed, but his voice had completely changed as well. It sounded like a young, prepubescent boy whose voice had yet to crack. Looking down at his frame, he was distinctly petite, definitely resembling a child.

Yet, something felt strangely elevated around his chest. He pressed a hand against it, and the sensation was entirely distinct from the gamer flab he had once possessed. Having formerly belonged to the slouched, screen-bound brotherhood of man-boobs, he knew the difference immediately.

"Huh?"

Instinctively, his hand drifted down between his thighs. A shudder tore through his spine at the complete and utter void down there.

He was no longer a he. He was a she.

It was an absurd situation, but considering she had just crossed into an entirely different universe, a change in gender felt like small change in the grand scheme of things.

Though bewildered by the bizarre turn of events, she kept moving. Standing still would solve nothing.

After a short walk, the mouth of the cavern came into view. The opening tilted upward toward the open sky, requiring her to grasp protruding ledges along the wall to climb out. As she pulled herself onto the cavern's threshold, another gust of wind whipped violently against her.

The wind was so fierce she could barely keep her eyes open, yet the breathtaking panorama unfolding before her forbade her from shutting them. What met her gaze was a colossal mountain range. Looking left or right, the sprawling ridgeline stretched endlessly into the horizon, possessing a scale and majesty beyond imagination.

Nowhere in South Korea did such a landscape exist. Taking in the peaks that looked as if an immortal realm had been transplanted directly onto the earth, she felt an intuitive certainty: her lifelong prayer had finally been answered. She had left behind a hopeless, grinding existence in Korea and arrived in the Central Plains, a world brimming with soaring heroic spirit.

Staring dizzily at the grand vista, she took a bold step forward.

"Hyeeek!"

Her foot found only thin air, and her body instantly plummeted.

Twisting mid-fall, she threw her arms out and clamped her fingers onto a rocky outcrop jutting from the cavern ledge.

"Are you insane?!"

Beyond the mouth of the cave lay a sheer, vertical precipice. Looking down, dense layers of mist choked the abyss, obscuring the ground entirely. An icy chill seized her heart.

Bracing her arms, she attempted to haul herself up. Expecting to struggle ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠under the weight of an entire human body, she was shocked when she vaulted cleanly through the air, landing lightly inside the cave mouth like a feather drifting on the wind. The sensation of effortlessly defying gravity was utterly foreign, unlike anything she had ever felt.

Was this the difference between a modern Korean civilian and a native of the Central Plains? If this had been her past body, she would have plummeted to her death, unable to lift herself back up.

"So this is what it means to be a martial artist..."

She muttered under her breath, staring in fascination at her small, pale palms.

"Fucking incredible."

A surge of excitement swelled in her chest. Even with a martial artist's physique, however, running down a bottomless cliff face was out of the question. Instinctively, she understood what this body could and could not do, as if she had lived in it for many years. Without a dramatic breakthrough in cultivation realm, scaling down that precipice right now was pure suicide.

"Whew..."

She drew a deep breath of the mountain air. A crisp coolness permeated her lungs, carrying a pristine purity impossible to find in modern South Korea. Inhaling the atmosphere of the Central Plains alone felt enough to kindle a man's grand, heroic ambitions—though regretfully, that masculine vigor was no longer of much use to her.

The euphoria proved fleeting. Her mind had not magically transformed into that of a native, and familiar modern anxieties began creeping back into her thoughts.

If there was no other exit, how was she supposed to climb down? Could she even survive long enough to leave this place? And why on earth had she turned into a girl?

"Sigh..."

A heavy sigh escaped her lips. Naturally, a martial arts world would not be all sunshine and roses. Life was a battlefield no matter where one went. Even worse was the unsettling fact that she had no clue which web novel she had landed in. If this happened to be a grimdark, soul-crushing tragedy like The Drifting Martial Artist, her new life would be set to hardcore mode compared to her previous one.

Still, survival came first. Speculating on titles could wait.

She began methodically exploring the cavern. A faint, ambient luminescence seeped from the rocky ceiling without any clear light source, making navigation surprisingly manageable.

Venture deeper into the mountain, she arrived at a wide, plaza-like cavern flanked by several branching corridors. In the dead center of the chamber stood a wooden cylinder holding a rolled-up scroll of dried paper. Approaching the pedestal, she drew out the scroll and unfurled it.

The letter concluded with a father's desperate, enduring love. As an orphan in her past life, parental affection was an alien concept, and strictly speaking, the letter was addressed to the body's original owner, not her. Even so, an odd warmth tightened in her ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠chest.

Shaking her head to dispel the sentimentality, So Rihwa resumed her search.

With the central plaza serving as a hub, several chambers branched outward. She stepped into the nearest room first. Inside lay a sack tightly bound with twine. Untying the knot revealed an abundance of small, aromatic pellets resembling beans.

Hesitating briefly, she picked up a pellet, popped it into her mouth, and bit down.

A fresh scent of pine needles washed over her tongue, followed by a savory, bean-like richness, before leaving behind the subtle, nutty aftertaste of roasted Solomon's seal tea. The moment she swallowed the tiny morsel, her hunger receded, leaving behind a profound sense of fullness—not unlike receiving a megadose of a modern GLP-1 weight-loss injection.

As a seasoned connoisseur of wuxia lore, Rihwa identified it immediately: this was a Fasting Pill, the staple sustenance for long years of closed-door cultivation.

"So this is what a Fasting Pill tastes like."

Relief washed over her alongside pure satisfaction. Experiencing an authentic staple of martial arts legends was thrilling, but more importantly, it guaranteed she wouldn't starve to death. By her calculations, a single Fasting Pill could sustain a person for an entire day, meaning this single burlap sack contained enough rations to last at least a decade.

"Alright. Wait, no English—this is the Central Plains. Understood. Acknowledged."

Drunk on the thrill of genuine wuxia romance, So Rihwa explored the remaining chambers.

The rooms varied in size and clear purpose. One room held stone shelves packed tightly with bound scrolls and books, evidently a repository for martial manuals. Another was a vast, open training hall equipped with wooden striking dummies arranged in the center. The remaining alcoves were dedicated to living necessities: a bathing pool and a functional latrine.

"Perfect."

So Rihwa clapped her hands together in delight. The purpose of this subterranean haven was crystal clear.

It was a secluded cultivation retreat constructed solely for her. Starting day one of transmigration trapped in closed-door training sounded intense, but thinking it through, it was an ideal scenario. Wandering out into the Jianghu unprepared was an open invitation to get butchered by some third-rate mountain bandit.

Whoever went to the trouble of building such an elaborate retreat would certainly not stock it with mediocre martial arts. If she mastered every manual stored here before venturing out, wouldn't she emerge as an unrivaled supreme master, free to roam the martial world in magnificent glory? The mere thought made her delicate chest swell with grandeur.

To think such an immaculate setup existed for a single person. Whatever novel this was, for the newly transmigrated So Rihwa, this was undeniably a very lucky day.

She thought that when she discovered the droplets dripping from the stalactites were genuine stalactite milk. She thought that when she realized the manuals stacked upon the stone shelves contained profound, supreme martial arts.

...Yes, up until that point, everything was truly beyond magnificent.

However.

"Hey, you! Did you just circulate internal qi? That's an added charge of aggravated assault!"

"Don't you know this is a demilitarized public zone? Present your weapon!"

"Ah, come on, officer, it's just a toy sword!"

After reaching supreme mastery in her arts and painstakingly descending the treacherous cliff...

"Did you hear about the box office numbers for Chronicles of the Knight-Errant? Rumor has it they pulled it from theaters after barely three thousand tickets."

"Who the hell watches classic wuxia in this day and age? The producers have completely lost touch with reality."

The Central Plains she encountered after descending the mountain was...

"...I am so, so utterly screwed."

Vastly different from anything So Rihwa had ever imagined.