BPDSB Chapter 1: “Dr. Xu, where are you?”

In the early hours of the morning, heavy rain poured down on the roadside where a sedan sat quietly, unmoving.

The night was thick and dark, and the rain fell in torrents. Dense sheets of water blurred everything into a single curtain. Splashes danced across the asphalt road, the sound of rain echoing nonstop—crash, crash. The lone car was swallowed by the downpour, its body pelted by the relentless rain, thud, thud, creating a sense of solitude in the stillness before dawn.

The highway was wide, and not a single vehicle had passed for ages, let alone a person. This only made the car parked by the roadside appear all the more isolated and desolate.

In stark contrast to the storm outside, the inside of the car was eerily quiet.

A figure sat silently in the driver’s seat. The young man leaned forward, slumped over the steering wheel, his head resting against his arm. Messy black hair obscured his face, buried too deep to make out any expression, but his completely motionless posture made it easy to guess—he was likely asleep.

“Mm…”

Suddenly, a muffled groan of pain and restraint broke the silence inside the car.

Xu Xiliu furrowed his brow and slowly straightened up. His eyes half-opened, and he tried to rub his throbbing temples. But just as he began to move, a wave of numbness and soreness shot through the muscles in his calves and arms, freezing his body in place. His face twisted as he let out a few low gasps. It took him quite a while to recover and groggily shift his body.

“What the hell…”

His unfinished sentence was abruptly swallowed by the sound of continuous rain drumming against the windows. The sight before his eyes and the sound in his ears made him freeze on the spot in utter bewilderment.

Where is this?

He was… in a car?

It was still raining heavily outside?

Xu Xiliu snapped back to his senses with a jolt and quickly turned his head to look out the window. All he could see was a rain-blurred windowpane, the outside view completely obscured. Only the windshield ahead, with its wipers sweeping back and forth nonstop, allowed him to make out that he was parked on the side of a deserted and unfamiliar highway.

But hadn’t he just been at the hospital?

That thought popped into his mind, only to be instantly overturned by the memory that followed.

No, that’s not right—he had already died suddenly.

Though he had been in the hospital just moments ago, sitting in front of a computer, he had collapsed without warning while sorting documents—his body unable to take the strain after working nonstop for three days on a medical research project.

He clearly remembered that sensation—the suffocating breathlessness, the stagnation of blood, and the heart struggling to keep beating.

So, this absolutely wasn’t a hallucination.

But if he had already died suddenly, how could he be here?

Could this be the road to heaven?

Xu Xiliu sat in a daze for a few seconds. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a faint glow at his feet. He looked down and saw a phone lying under the seat—it must have fallen there at some point. The screen was lit up, flashing persistently with an incoming call. Perhaps it had been accidentally set to silent, so there was no ringtone. When the call went unanswered, it ended automatically, only to dial again moments later, as if it were urgent.

Beside the phone lay a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. Xu Xiliu picked them up as well, instinctively placing them back on the bridge of his nose. Holding the ringing phone, his gaze paused on the screen where the caller ID read “Butler Zhong,” before he slid to answer.

“Hello.”

“Dr. Xu!”

The voice on the other end sounded elderly, but not frail—it was full and strong. He seemed frustrated that Xu Xiliu hadn’t answered the phone, and also quite anxious. As soon as the call connected, he rushed to ask, “Where are you? You haven’t answered in so long! The sir’s condition was already bad, and now it seems to have worsened…”

Sir?

Who?

Xu Xiliu blinked slowly, clearly bewildered, and asked, “How… is he?”

“How do you think? Same as always!” the caller sounded exasperated, but worry dominated his tone. “He refuses to take his medicine and barely eats. His health wasn’t good to begin with. Then today, someone from the Qin family came by—don’t know what they brought, but it set him off again. On top of that, with the rain… it’s just making things worse…”

The person on the line spoke quickly. Though his account was somewhat vague, Xu Xiliu still managed to catch several key words amid the rapid chatter.

The Qin family? A relapse?

He moved the phone away from his ear and took another look at the caller ID: Butler Zhong.

This all felt so familiar…

Like he’d seen it somewhere before.

Before he could recall anything clearly, a flood of memories rushed into his mind without warning. He let out a muffled groan and gripped the phone tightly.

The Qin family, Qin Li.

Now Xu Xiliu finally realized why all of this felt so familiar.

This was the plot of that over-the-top, dog-blood BL novel one of his colleagues had shown him!

In the novel, the gong protagonist Qin Li was a powerful figure who could make or break the world from behind the scenes, but in the early stages of the story, he endured inhuman suffering. As a proper overbearing CEO archetype, he was naturally afflicted with the standard ailments—gastritis and migraines—and on top of that, had significant mental health issues. Long-term insomnia had left his personality dark and moody, waiting for the bright, sunny, little-radiant-shou protagonist to save him.

But even all that hadn’t been enough to catch Xu Xiliu’s attention. What actually made him frown and read on was the presence of a supporting character who shared his exact full name—a tool-like private doctor whose sole purpose was to treat the gong protagonist!

“Private doctor” might sound glamorous, with high pay and prestige, but in reality, it was a job even more exhausting than that of a corporate drone. Not only did he have to be a jack-of-all-trades, on call 24/7, and meticulously care for the gong’s minor ailments like stomach issues, but he also had to brave wind and rain to the remote mountain villa whenever the protagonist suffered a mental breakdown.

Worse yet, in the later stages of the novel, once the gong and shou were happily coupled and inseparably lovey-dovey, the doctor even had to double as the shou’s physician—especially when Qin Li got too “creative” in bed and wore the poor guy out. Then Xu Xiliu would have to rush to the villa in the middle of the night, exhausted, only to awkwardly and politely say:

“Mr. Qin, you need to show moderation… in bed.”

Wow. Xu Xiliu could practically feel his toes curling with secondhand embarrassment.

And now, he had transmigrated right into that very novel—into the miserable life of that overworked, tool-like doctor. What impeccable luck.

He could still clearly remember the secondhand embarrassment he felt when reading those scenes—along with the helplessness of being ruthlessly teased by his colleagues.

He had probably gone silent for too long, because the butler on the other end urged him again, “Dr. Xu, are you listening? Please come quickly—the sir’s condition is very serious right now!”

“Uh… I’m listening…”

Xu Xiliu was jolted back to reality and let out a silent sigh.

“…Got it. I’ll do my best. I’m still on the road.”

He glanced out the window.

Pulled over by the roadside still technically counted as on the road, didn’t it?

The original owner of this body had likely received the butler’s call in the middle of the night and rushed off in a hurry. Something must have happened along the way—and that’s how Xu Xiliu ended up transmigrating into this body.

Most likely, the guy had also died suddenly.

Ah, the miserable fate of a tool-like side character.

With that reply, the butler seemed slightly relieved, but was quickly distracted by some kind of commotion. Xu Xiliu could faintly hear a few anxious cries of “Sir!” from the other side of the call, followed by the sharp sound of something shattering and a heavy thud of something hitting the ground. Amid it all came a man’s hoarse, pained roar, low and rough.

Xu Xiliu pursed his lips unconsciously.

In the end, the butler hastily gave him one final reminder: “The roads are slippery in the rain, Dr. Xu. Please be careful.”

Then the call abruptly ended.

No doubt he had gone to deal with the chaos on his end.

Xu Xiliu set the phone down. After a moment’s pause, he resigned himself to fate, started the engine, and drove off toward the mountain villa where the protagonist gong was staying—guided by the memories in his head.

Who could understand this? He’d been working himself to death—literally.

Then the moment he opened his eyes after dying… he was still on the way to work.

And when he checked the time—perfect. One o’clock in the morning.

Xu Xiliu ground his teeth. Sure, he was grumbling, but he still had professional ethics. He couldn’t just leave a patient unattended. All he could do was comfort himself: yes, he was a tool character, but at least the pay was generous, right?

A million a year, after all.

Once the story’s timeline ended, he could take the money and live easy for the rest of his life.

With that thought, some of his frustration at being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night for work finally dissipated.

The night rain continued to fall, and the sedan sped down the road, splashing through puddles.

Before long, the car began winding up a mountain road.

Another half hour later, it pulled into a small estate halfway up the mountainside and came to a steady stop in front of a luxurious villa.

Xu Xiliu let out a slow breath and instinctively straightened his clothes. In the rearview mirror, his face—framed by gold-rimmed glasses—reflected back at him. His long, almond-shaped eyes caught a glint of light in the night, making them seem especially bright. Below them, even his tightly pressed lips carried a faint trace of a smile.

In those calm eyes, he skillfully arranged a soft, polite smile. Then he grabbed an umbrella and stepped out of the car.

The night sky was dusky yellow. Lights glowed inside the villa, and the patter of rain only made the mountain residence seem even more lonesome.

“Come in. The sir is already waiting for you inside.”

There was already a servant waiting at the door. Xu Xiliu held his umbrella and walked over on his own. The male servant, upon seeing him, calmly gestured for him to enter. Though he said nothing, Xu Xiliu clearly caught the sneer tugging at the corners of the man’s mouth before he turned away.

…Why?

Xu Xiliu paused for a moment but pretended not to notice, stepping inside and being led upstairs in a rush.

The closer they got, the more chaos he could sense.

The servants all had their heads lowered, moving in and out silently, like walking on thin ice. Their busy movements contrasted oddly with their rigid, indifferent expressions—it was eerie, as if they were puppets. Their eyes flicked toward the source of the disturbance with a mix of disgust, fear, and loathing, but those emotions were carefully hidden beneath a cold facade, enough to make one’s heart sink.

The atmosphere inside the villa was equally strange and stifling. It was vast, luxuriously cold. The sound of rain was shut outside, and the few drops that made it in echoed in the spacious interior.

Along the way, Xu Xiliu saw broken porcelain, overturned dishes, and even faint traces of blood on the floor.

Even though the mess had clearly been hastily cleaned up, the remaining traces revealed enough of what had just happened before his arrival.

He thought to himself—this protagonist gong really was seriously ill.

The workload ahead would definitely be intense.

Just as they reached the bedroom door, a middle-aged man burst out in a hurry. The moment he saw Xu Xiliu, he called out anxiously, “Dr. Xu!”—the voice matched the one from the phone. Xu Xiliu instantly recognized him as Butler Zhong, the ever-loyal attendant of the protagonist.

“Dr. Xu, please come in quickly, the sir—”

The rest of the sentence was drowned out by a hoarse, guttural shout from inside the room. Though the voice was low and magnetic, it was filled with pain—one could tell at once that its owner was enduring something unbearable. Realizing the urgency of the situation, Xu Xiliu simply nodded with pressed lips and entered without further delay.

He hadn’t even caught a clear glimpse of the room when a glass cup flew straight at his face. Xu Xiliu blurted out a startled “What the—!” and instinctively tilted his head to dodge. The cup smashed against the doorframe behind him with a sharp crash, glass scattering across the floor, making the servant behind him scream in fright.

“Sir!” Butler Zhong’s expression changed drastically, and from inside came more panicked voices:
“Ah! He broke free!”
“Quick, hold him down!”

Still stunned, Xu Xiliu suddenly found himself locking eyes with a pair of bloodshot, crimson-red eyes filled with violent madness. Before he could react, the man had broken free and lunged at him.

The wheelchair flipped over. His mind went blank. He tried to dodge, but the deranged man—clearly mistaking him for some imaginary enemy—chased him down relentlessly. Xu Xiliu scrambled around the toppled wheelchair, using it as cover while the man pursued him with wild, red eyes.

The people around them were so stunned by the man’s state that they couldn’t even move to restrain him again. The two circled the wheelchair a few times. Sweat started to bead on Xu Xiliu’s forehead. In a desperate moment, he turned around and landed a punch—knocking the protagonist gong to the ground and ending the chaos.

Looking down at the tall, thin man now temporarily subdued on the floor, Xu Xiliu adjusted the gold-rimmed glasses slipping down his nose and couldn’t help but mutter:

“…They never said combat would be part of the job.”

The room fell into dead silence. The surrounding servants stood frozen, their expressions complex and speechless. Butler Zhong stared at him, mouth agape, unable to say a word.

Only then did Xu Xiliu realize what he had just done. Awkwardly, he forced a polite smile back onto his face.

“Ahem… I’m sorry for being rude.”

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