Charlotte Banks lay flat on her back with her eyes closed, hands neatly folded over her flat stomach, looking like she was in some serious meditation mode. On the outside, she kept it cool, but those twitching eyelids and the corners of her mouth that just wouldn’t stay down totally sold her out.

Finally—

She was officially retired.

Back when she worked for the Quick Transmigration Bureau, Charlotte was your average overworked employee. Compared to those flashier coworkers who stirred the pot with wild abilities, she was just clocking in and out, doing her tasks like it was payroll. She barely spoke to anyone—not her boss, not her team—until she hit her 999-task milestone and handed in her retirement letter. That’s when the higher-ups finally realized she even existed.

Her boss tried everything—heartfelt speeches, logical arguments, the whole emotional blackmail package: “The Bureau needs solid workers like you, Charlotte. Losing you would be a huge blow!” He even dangled a full-time gig as bait.

She felt touched for like, two seconds. Then nope.

Sure, her heart wavered—for dramatic effect.

Retirement life was calling, promising beauty, killer curves, and a fat bank account. Who wanted to be a corporate mule forever? Not her.

Unlike most coworkers who wanted to hop back into their old bodies in the real world, Charlotte picked a different route. She had no family, no ties. She was literally hit by a truck before joining the Bureau, so going back meant dealing with a broken mess—if there was even anything left. So why not start fresh?

She’d already written her dream retirement scenario: gorgeous looks, banging body, and ridiculous wealth. Mountains of it.

Right now, she was mentally manifesting that perfect life, seeing it play out behind her closed eyes. A sunny, spotless island villa, sipping coconut water on a soft beach chair, toes curling in warm sand under perfect sunlight. Or maybe strolling through a quiet forest estate with deer wandering nearby...

[Beeeeeep—]

A shrill mechanical tone cut through her thoughts. To Charlotte, though, it was as sweet as a symphony.

Teleportation complete. Her gorgeous looks? Check. Her dreamy retired life? Let’s go.

“Charlotte Banks, get out of the industry and go die!”

No sunlight. No beach. No deer. She opened her eyes to find two eggs flying at her face, deadly accurate and slicing through the air.

Her pupils shrank in shock.

What the hell kind of entry was this?

…

“Charlotte!”

Everything happened in a blur. Her poor assistant barely managed to call her name.

Everyone else either stood out of range or dove behind her in pure self-preservation mode. Honestly, they nailed the whole “better her than me” concept.

They were way too outnumbered to deal with the swarm of angry fanboys. Charlotte had somehow pissed them off big time, and who knew how news leaked so fast. These hardcore male idol fans literally camped outside the office, just waiting to ambush her. The verbal abuse turning into flying objects? Totally expected.

Now it had blown up.

She stood in the middle of the chaos, rocking a bold red dress that hugged every curve. It was the kind of color that could scream cheap if pulled off wrong—but despite everyone throwing shade, not one person could say it didn’t look amazing on her.

Seriously, she lit up the scene. Even with her recent scandals dragging her down, and her energy clearly drained, her beauty somehow looked even more delicate and striking.

But in less than a second, those two eggs were about to smash her pretty face.

Even the furious fanboys hesitated for a beat. Just one.

Clout-chasers deserve to rot!

Only… half a second later, instead of egg-yolk explosions, Charlotte suddenly lifted her arms like someone flipped a switch. Her hands shot up, and bam—she caught both eggs mid-air. Perfectly intact.

Not a single crack.

…Charlotte’s move was quick and clean. The noisy shouts and curses around her suddenly quieted down.

The boy idol’s fans: ??? What the heck just happened?

Charlotte frowned a little, looked down at the egg in her hand, equally confused.

So much for that peaceful retirement, huh.

Still, she held the two eggs and walked toward a direction, stopping in front of a round-faced girl.

Charlotte spoke up, “These your eggs?”

The round-faced girl flushed a deep red. She had thrown the egg, and yeah, she’d cussed too. Behind a crowd, she was fearless, but now face-to-face with Charlotte, all that fake boldness vanished.

She was really pretty—like, kind of unreal pretty. Even smelled nice. The kind of beauty you don’t run into often.

The girl hesitated but mumbled, “Yeah.”

Charlotte replied, “Cool. Then here you go.”

She opened her palm, offering the egg. But the girl shrank back, too embarrassed and nervous to take it. She even stepped back. “...You can keep it.”

Charlotte took that as a gift. “You giving it to me?”

The girl: Huh?

“Uh... yeah.”

Charlotte nodded. “Thanks.”

And just like that, under everyone’s weird stares, she casually slipped both eggs into her LV bag.

“Quit pretending!”

As soon as she zipped her bag, another angry voice came from the side. This time, it wasn’t an egg—it was a compact mirror, sharp-edged, catching the sunlight with a cold gleam as it flew through the air.

Compared to that, the eggs were nothing. One wrong move and her face would’ve been scratched. And for someone in showbiz, that’s game over.

But it didn’t hit her.

Charlotte caught it, just two fingers pinching the mirror mid-air.

???

Dead silence again.

Charlotte didn’t even look around. She turned the mirror toward her face.

The reflection showed a stunning face—pretty much her old one but upgraded, like a beauty-cam version. Exactly what she wanted from retirement.

She breathed a tiny sigh of relief. Stuff was clearly weird, but at least she looked amazing. Body? Haven’t checked it out yet... probably decent.

Same as before, she walked up to the girl who’d tossed the mirror. That girl had lost her fire and looked like she half-expected a slap.

Charlotte just tossed the mirror back and said with a calm but firm tone, “Don’t throw stuff around like that.”

Right then, the girl got that ‘dad’s angry and staring at you’ vibe—instant regret.

She backed down.

After Charlotte’s back-to-back barehanded catches, the angry crowd around her started to drift away. Her assistant and the security guard jumped at the chance, guiding Charlotte—still holding her luxury bag with two raw eggs—straight out of the chaos.

After she left, a video started circulating online.

And for once, instead of haters flooding the comments, the feed was packed with just one thing: “???”

In the clip, Charlotte caught an egg with one hand, and mid-turn, pinched a flying mirror with two fingers. The whole thing flowed so smoothly it looked fake—but there were no cuts.

In all the confusion, someone finally said what everyone was thinking.

“Wait—what’s going on? Did Charlotte ditch the entertainment industry and switch to circus acts?”

Not gonna lie, her performance? Kinda epic. Who knew she had this hidden acrobat skill?

...

After days of nonstop hate, the sudden shift in public opinion toward Charlotte as some underground stunt queen found her now sitting on a bench, looking dead serious.

About an hour earlier, when she had been mentally ranting nonstop at the Fast-Travel Bureau, she finally heard that oh-so-familiar robotic voice in her head.

As a former employee of the Bureau, she was about as used to that sound as students were to school bells. It was the system's voice.To get the whole picture from the system, Charlotte Banks didn’t even bother with the so-called company president—just rushed straight back to this body’s dingy little rental.

The system really did come through with the background info.

Turns out, this world was pulled straight from a generic rags-to-riches entertainment novel. The female lead gets canceled online, gets hate from crazy idol stans, goes broke and hungry, then hits rock bottom… only to bounce back hard, crushing everyone in her path and climbing all the way to the top.

Charlotte frowned and asked, “And that has what to do with me?”

She knew retired employees from the Fast Travel Bureau don’t go back to the real world—they always get slotted into one of these pocket universes. She’d seen it a bunch, even worked missions in similar plots.

So what was the point of all that world info? She wasn’t here to play the game.

She had already started to get a bad feeling, but when the system explained she’d dropped into the original female lead’s body—like, right in the gutter phase before the rise—Charlotte seriously felt like flipping a table.

Taking a deep breath, she snapped, “I want to report this to HQ. This setup isn’t what I agreed to.” She wasn’t exaggerating either. It was practically the opposite of what she had bargained for.

Even now, Charlotte still wanted to believe the Bureau had at least a sliver of decency. With a huge organization like that, surely someone would step in if there was a major mess-up, right?

The system went quiet for a beat, then finally chimed in, “It’s not that far off. You got the looks. The figure... Money’s just–”

Charlotte jabbed a finger at the barely-furnished room, a plastic basin on the floor catching water from a leaky ceiling. “Look around first before you talk nonsense.”

Even when hearing about the original host’s backstory, she already found it ridiculous—rumored to be a rich guy’s kept woman? In a dump like this?

After a pause, the system continued, saying the money part was coming, swear on it. She’d even become the richest woman alive—but only if she stirred up drama faster and followed the upgrade arc to the letter. Once that was done, the family butler would pop up and welcome her home to receive her massive inheritance.

Charlotte realized then that trusting the Bureau to have a conscience had been her biggest mistake. It was dirty through and through, not even pretending to fix its own screw-ups, just shoving innocent retirees into the chaos. She’d knocked out 999 missions for them, and for what? Where was her union rep when she needed one?

At that point, she dropped the act and went full savage.

The system, on the other hand, stared in stunned silence. It had never seen someone switch personalities so fast—from easy-going office worker to combative queen in a single heartbeat.

“Hold up.”

Charlotte hit the pause button on her rant, something clicking in her brain. She quickly crossed over to the tiny kitchen and stared down at the stove.

On it, two eggs simmered in gently boiling water—eggs fans of a boyband idol had hurled at her, which she’d managed to catch and stash in a luxury LV handbag. The bag had been snatched by the company, of course. Since the original host was broke as a joke and everything she wore had been issued by the company, Charlotte had taken the eggs home in a plastic delivery bag borrowed from the staff.

This shabby apartment had zip in terms of food. Those two eggs? Lifesavers.

In the book's original version, the female lead had literally gotten pegged in the forehead by an egg thrown by wild fans—ugly crying, knocked down in public, photos blasted everywhere. That very moment kicked off her journey from humiliation to stardom.

Now, Charlotte lifted the two eggs out of the pot and studied them. Somewhere between them lay the real “start” of the plot.

One in each hand, she tapped them against the edge of the table.

“Crack. Crack.” The shells broke cleanly. As she peeled them, smooth whites gleamed under the light—flawless, soft around the edges.

At long last, Charlotte smiled. Her first genuine smile since landing in this mess.

They were boiled perfectly. Time to eat.