Darkness. Silence. Numbness seeped into her bones, as if she had been trapped in an endless nightmare.
Shen Yue woke up with a sharp intake of breath. The sensation of warm air filled her lungs and the smell of fresh laundry and faint perfume.
She shot up from the bed, her heartbeat pounding like a war drum.
This room...
Pale cream-colored walls. A simple vanity with a small, round mirror, a secondhand wardrobe and a tiny window letting in the early morning sun.
She recognized it.
Her fingers clenched the blankets as her breath hitched. This was her apartment, the one she had rented after being kicked out of the orphanage when she just turned nineteen. The same room where she had dreamt of stardom, unaware that her life would spiral into hell.
Why am I here?
Is this another torture method that Jiang Xue came up with?
Shen Yue squeezed her eyes shut. The last thing she remembered was the cold, sterile walls of the asylum and the laughter of the nurses as they waterboarded her.
Something wasn't right though.
Shen Yue glanced around the room looking for anything tangible that would let her know it was a prank.
Nothing.
She glanced at the phone on the bedside table and then reached for it with shaking hands. The screen lit up.
June 3rd 20XX.
Her eyes widened.
This was seven years ago.
Before her life went downhill.
A sharp ringing interrupted her thoughts. Her gaze flickered towards the screen.
Incoming call: Zhao Jian (Agent)
Her fingers stiffened around the device. Zhao Jian was a talent agent who had scouted her into Star Brilliance Entertainment.
At least that was who he presented himself as when they first met, but she later found out it was a lie.
At first, he had seemed kind, offering her a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to enter the entertainment industry, but under his management, she was pushed into the lowest-ranking roles, overworked without proper resources, and thrown into the deep waters in the industry, it was only after switching agencies that she finally had a break and made her way into the top.
Why was he calling her though?
And more importantly why did she have a phone?
The last time she remembered was the asylum didn't permit any patient having any means of electronics. She shouldn't have anything, let alone a phone.
Her fingers trembled as she pressed the decline button.
Silence and then...
Ding.
A strange ringing echoed in her head, giving her a headache.
[Congratulation, Host!]
[You have been chosen for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be bound to the Ultimate Acting System!]
[Your mission is to become the number one actress in the industry of course with my assistance.]
[As a welcoming gift, your beauty has been enhanced to a goddess-like level. Your hair is now silky and healthy, and your skin is flawless and pale.]
Shen Yue raised one eyebrow up before she chuckled.
She concluded that she was now going crazy and imagining things to fit her fantasy.
Life at the asylum had wrecked her.
Haha.
The voice in her head sounded once again.
[Host isn't going crazy.]
The voice sounded pouty, making Shen Yue smile as she imagined what it would look like.
[Host died in her previous life from being waterboarded, and as per your dying wish, I was assigned to help you change your fate.]
Shen Yue stilled.
Dead?
"Hold on, if I am dead, then why am I here?"
[Host has been reborn, as per your wish to go back in time to change your fate.]
There was a ringing sound in her ears.
Reborn?!!
Shen Yue picked up her phone once more and looked at the date.
"Ha, so it wasn't a prank, I've really gone back to three years ago." Her voice cracked as tears slipped down her cheeks.
The system though remained silent, observing its host's unexpected reaction. It had expected immediate revenge plotting.... not tears.
Shen Yue had been famous in her last life, but she trusted the wrong people, and, in the end, she was betrayed and then put in a mental hospital by her so-called best friend.
The plan was basically to break Shen Yue's spirit, so she'll end up committing suicide in the mental hospital but for some reason, it was as if Shen Yue treated her life in the mental hospital as a phase, something that would soon pass.
Shen Yue was the type of person to treat life trials as a phase that would soon pass, comparing her to a basket would work, as any negativity that occurs in her life, she seemed to let it not get to her instead it flowed out of the holes and dripped onto the floor.
It had been sent by the Admin God to look for broken souls to help but for some reasons it got attached to Shen Yue's, it admired her resilient spirit and for once in its life it broke Admin God's rule, luckily it wasn't punished.
So now seeing its host crying instead of plotting for revenge was unfamiliar to him
[Host, you should look at yourself in the mirror to further confirm if I'm real or not.]
Shen Yue who had been crying was instantly broken out of that state, shaken, she slowly walked to the vanity.
The moment she saw her reflection, she froze.
The face staring back at her was.....breathtaking.
Naturally arched brows framed a pair of foxlike eyes, sharp, seductive, and slightly upturned at the corners. Her nose was straight, her full lips naturally rosy. Her defined jawline gave her a regal, sculpted elegance, while her porcelain skin glowed like polished jade.
This....is me?
In her past life, she had been beautiful, but the hardships of the orphanage made her once beautiful appearance dull. Thin hair, yellowish skin, and a face full of cyst and acne. Even at her peak, she had been known as the most beautiful actress in the country but compared to the face in the mirror now?
That past life Shen Yue couldn't even come close.
This face has no bad angles. It was perfection itself.
Shen Yue's lips curled upwards as she admired herself.
So this is what true beauty looks like.
Shen Yue's past life narcissism was starting to act up as she stared at her face in the mirror, the system who could read her thoughts was speechless at its host behavior.
[Is she... admiring herself right now?!!]
After being speechless, he though at least its host is back to normal instead of wallowing in tears, while it was thinking, Admin God sent it a message reminding him of the price they both had to pay for the fact that she got reborn.
[Ahem! Host I forgot to mention...]
[You must gain popularity within the next two months. If you fail, the punishment will be.... severe.]
"Punishment? Hold on I get punished?"
[Yes, the punishment for this mission failure would be you in a six-month coma and your appearance will revert back to its original state.]
[Consider this first mission as a trial to confirm if you're industry material or not and the punishment would cover the debt of having your rebirth.]
Shen Yue went silent, her mind working on the conversation between the system.
"Okay, I accept."
[Oh, umm host, you are not given an opportunity to accept or decline missions, but rest assured all missions will work in your favor.]
Shen Yue rolled her eyes, of course.
Still, it wasn't a bad deal. She had two months to make a name for herself.
Looking at the time, it was still 2am, she went back to bed.
Jiang Xue. Zhao Jian. All of you who betrayed me better prepare for my return.
With that, she closed her eyes and went to sleep.