Chapter 2: I Never Wanted to Be a Woman!

To understand the magnitude of the disaster that Li Wei represents, one must understand what Legend of the Jade Heavens (LJH) was. 

It wasn't just another run-of-the-mill game for this protagonist; for the failed university student Li Wei, it was the only place where he wasn't a third-rate student with an overdrawn bank account and a love history that made you want to cry. 

LJH was the pinnacle of the modern Xianxia genre, a psychedelic blend of millennial soul cultivation with crystal technology that would make NASA engineers gasp in admiration purely because of how cool it looked.

In that world, you didn't just fly on swords; you flew on carbon fiber swords powered by spiritual condensation engines.

Li Wei had dedicated three years of his life — and a number of hours of sleep that probably took a decade off his lifespan — to perfecting his character.

On screen, she was the Empress of the Crimson Lotus.

It wasn't a random choice. Li Wei, like any good internet cynic, followed the golden rule of the solitary gamer: "If you're going to spend five hours staring at an ass while farming materials, make sure it's an ass worth it." 

So yeah... the guy spent weeks in the character editor just to create this goddess; the personification of his ideals of what a Fairy from a Xianxia World should be. 

The Empress was not just a beautiful woman; she was a true beauty capable of bringing down empires; the kind that all men want to knock off her pedestal and make their own.

She had an imposing height for a woman, porcelain skin that seemed to glow with its own light, and almond-shaped eyes that, thanks to a paid mod, had golden pupils in the shape of petals that changed color according to the level of "Killer Intent" accumulated.

The design of her clothing was what the game called "Transcendent Cultivation Aesthetic." She wore a crimson hanfu that was more magical armor than clothing. 

The silk, woven from threads of a ninth-level solar spider, clung to her curves with a decency-defying precision, while the long, flowing sleeves left trails of embers as she moved. 

The "V" neckline wasn't just for eye-catching looks (although it served its purpose), but it also served as the focal point where the "Phoenix Heart Crystal" hung on her chest, giving her almost unlimited mana in exchange for reduced base health. 

It was the epitome of what is known as a "glass cannon": it hit like a meteorite, but if touched, it would break like a wine glass (Only by high-level beings, of course).

But what really made the Empress the terror of the servants was her weapon: the Hónglián Fēngshàn, the Fan of the Crimson Lotus Wind.

In the game's lore, that fan was forged in the heart of a dying sun using the ribs of a celestial demon. In practice, it was a Divine-class item that Li Wei obtained after completing a 72-hour quest that nearly caused him to faint. 

The fan had twelve obsidian ribs, each engraved with a rune of mass destruction. It wasn't for fanning oneself in summer; it was to amplify his avatar abilities thousands of times; it was the only ability, however, that made him worthy of the divine rank, along with his indestructibility and the fact that he was eternally bound to his account (Soul).

Li Wei knew each of her 12 active abilities as the Crimson Lotus Empress like the back of her hand. 

He knew that skill number 4, "Dance of Celestial Fire," allowed for three meters of lateral movement with a 0.5 frame invisibility. He knew that his main passive, "Sovereignty of Flames," converted 15% of any damage received into energy for his next attack. 

All of that was amplified thousands of times by that god-grade weapon, making it a terror on the battlefield even among those of the same realm... Li Wei was an expert in damage optimization theory. He was a god of gaming...

The problem is that theory and practice are two lovers who rarely get along.

Now, as Li Wei felt the cold air of the unfamiliar city brushing against his thighs—too much air, damn it, the character design was 70% legs—reality hit him with the force of a truck. 

It wasn't an avatar on a screen, there weren't numbers jumping around every time there was a hit in the middle of the fight. 

He, or she, now felt the real weight of the gold hairpins pulling at his scalp. He could smell the sandalwood scent emanating from his own skin.

She looked at her hands. Her fingers were long and elegant, with nails painted a red so dark they looked like dried blood. 

These were hands that had never washed a dirty dish or typed a mediocre thesis. They were hands designed to hold the fate of an empire... or to tear apart a squad of female soldiers worthy of some anime.

When the silver-haired girl lunged at him with her lightsaber, Li Wei's brain split in two.

Part of him, the terrified college student, wanted to curl up in a ball on the floor and cry for his mother. But the other part, the part that was fused with the Empress's muscle memory, reacted before he could process it. 

His feet moved on their own, performing a dance step that shifted him out of the path of the slash with a grace no human could possess. The fan unfurled in his hand with a metallic sound, a dry clack that echoed throughout the crater.

"Interceptor fire!" he heard one of the girls shout in the air.

Missiles. Dozens of them. Li Wei saw them coming in slow motion. In the game, this would be a "bullet hell" phase, easily dodged with the Shift key. Here, it was a real rain of death.

—Hónglián Zhàng (Crimson Lotus Barrier) —he pronounced his voice.

It wasn't Li Wei who decided to speak. 

It was the Empress. Her voice was deep, melodious, with an echo of authority that made the very air vibrate. As she closed her fan and struck the ground with its base, a dome of crimson energy erupted around her. 

The missiles hit the barrier, transforming into flowers of fire that didn't even scratch it, but the noise... the noise was deafening. 

The ground trembled beneath her feet—her small feet, shod in Chinese silk heels that miraculously did not break—and Li Wei felt the energy drain from her chest.

"This isn't a game," she thought, as her body spun around again, unleashing a blast of cutting wind that forced the AST mages back to avoid being sliced ​​in two. "This...damn it, it's real...!"

Li Wei looked up. The sky above this Japanese city was filled with dark clouds and the contrails of the AST's boosters. 

She had spent hundreds of nights wishing she were someone else. Wishing she had the power to tell Lin Xiao and her equally badass friends to go to hell.

Wishing the world would look at him with awe instead of pity!

But now that the world was watching him, now that he had the power to reduce a city block to ashes with a flick of his fan, now that he inhabited the body of the most beautiful and dangerous woman he could ever imagine... regret burned him more than his own heavenly fire.

Because he wasn't just trapped in a world that wanted to kill him or seal him away. He was trapped in an identity that wasn't his, in a beauty that felt alien to him, and in a dress that, frankly, was a nightmare for someone who had never worn women's underwear.

He felt the Empress's murderous intent boiling in his blood, urging him to wipe those "metallic ants" from the sky. 

"It's so cool to have these powers! It's incredible to be so powerful!" his mind screamed as he deflected another missile with a careless flick of his sleeve. "It's every otaku's dream come true to become a god who looks down on mortals like insects...!"

However, feeling the weight of his new breasts, the touch of the silk against his strangely sensitive skin, and seeing how they tried to hunt him down...

"...but I never wanted to become a woman!" Li Wei shouted from the depths of his heart, just before a new burst of blue light from the AST forced him to unleash another blast of holy fire that made half the city tremble.