"Beep... Beep..."
Chen Kuang's wrist trembled slightly as he turned the spatula, carefully watching the heat under the tomato scrambled eggs.
He held a phone between his shoulder and cheek, waiting for the other end to pick up.
"Beep! Hello, this is the Public Security Command Center. How may I help you?"
It was a gentle, pleasant, and formulaic female voice.
Heh...
Chen Kuang smiled faintly, turned off the gas stove, and poured the tomato scrambled eggs into a plate.
He picked up a pair of chopsticks, carried the plate into the living room, and gently set it down on the coffee table.
Then, he plopped himself onto the sofa.
Perhaps the operator had heard his laughter, there was hesitation in her voice: "Hello? Is there something you need?"
Chen Kuang picked up a bite of the tomato scrambled egg and tasted it. The color, aroma, and flavor were all perfect. It was, without a doubt, the best he'd ever made. His previously empty and downcast mood instantly lifted.
"Do you like tomato and scrambled eggs?"
He asked.
"...Sir, making prank calls to the public security line is a detainable offense."
"Eh, just asking casually. No need to take it so seriously, right? I do have a real reason for calling."
"Please state your situation clearly and immediately."
"Alright then... I'm turning myself in. I killed three people."
"What?"
Chen Kuang glanced down. The lower half of his clothes was soaked in a dark red, especially his pant legs, which were completely drenched. While he'd been moving around and cooking earlier, he had trailed blood all over the floor.
On the sofa and ground nearby lay one middle-aged man and two young men.
All three of them had collapsed as if fast asleep, sunk into a baby-like slumber..
Chen Kuang felt dizzy from oxygen deprivation, he simply gave an address, then leaned back:
"You'll know why soon enough... I uploaded everything online. A murder case from seventeen years ago. Even if it's deleted, others will spread it... cough cough... haa..."
"Sir? Sir?!"
With his thumb, Chen Kuang ended the call.
He curved his lips into a faint smile as a sweet metallic taste surged in his throat.
It felt like his lungs had been punctured...
As he suffocated, he sank into darkness.
In the year 1135 of the Cangyuan Calendar, the state of Liang was destroyed by Zhou.
The Black Armored Army stormed the Liang capital and Emperor Liang was beheaded.
Including Grand General Huo Hengxuan, more than 2,600 individuals within the imperial palace were captured and imprisoned in the Liang Capital's Heavenly Prison.
The dark dungeon was located underground. Along the corridor, an oil lamp was lit only once every ten meters.
The air was dull and damp, thick with both rot and the stench of blood, even the flames seemed to flicker on the verge of extinction.
When the soldier serving temporarily as prison guard opened the heavy refined-iron cell door at the end, a thread of cold rain and wind from outside slipped in, bringing a hint of airflow.
"Move it! Still think you're some great general?! Get in there!"
Smack!
Corporal Li Erhuang bellowed as he kicked a disheveled old man into the cell.
The old man's hands and feet had all been severed while chains pierced through his shoulder blades, mangling his flesh.
"Cough cough... urgh... cough..."
The old man lay on the ground, weakly coughing. His entire body was covered in wounds, some deep enough to reveal bone.
He tried to get up, but without hands or feet, he wriggled like a worm and slipped on the filth covering the ground.
The soldiers laughed loudly.
Li Erhuang pulled a dry, shriveled steamed bun from his ration box and threw it at the old man's head.
The bun bounced once and rolled aside, scattering crumbs all over the floor.
The old man saw the bun and immediately tried to crawl toward it, trembling as he clutched it with his wrists. He devoured it ravenously, nearly choking in the process.
"Hahaha! Good throw, Boss Li!"
"That so-called 'Slaughter God of Liang' looks more like a dog now!"
After having their fun mocking him, the prison guards moved on to distribute more buns.
In the next cell was a palace musician.
Before the city fell, Emperor Liang had still been enjoying music and dance inside the Jinghe Hall.
This musician was especially unlucky, he had survived seeing the emperor beheaded and his colleagues slaughtered, was so terrified he collapsed, and had been feverish and unconscious in the cell for three full days.
Li Erhuang figured that, after three days without food or water, the man had probably died.
Time to collect the body...
But when he walked up to the cell, he was stunned to see a young man dressed in rough white hemp robes standing straight in the middle of the room.
He was half-obscured by the dim light yet his eyes gleamed coldly like stars..
At first glance, he looked like a soul-reaping ghost from some folk tale!
Startled, Li Erhuang barked: "Are you human or ghost?!"
"Boss Li, what are you yelling about?"
"That's still the blind guy, isn't it? What ghost?"
The other soldiers were confused.
Palace musicians had a chance of glimpsing court secrets. And blindness was believed to enhance auditory sensitivity, so all palace musicians were 'trained' as blind from childhood.
Li Erhuang looked closer. The young man lowered his head, revealing a thin, sharp-featured face. His eyes were unfocused and vacant, sure enough, it was the same blind man.
He was still alive, but from his dazed expression, he might've been turned into a fool.
"Phew..." Li Erhuang let out a breath of relief, only to hear snickering from the soldiers behind him, causing his irritation to flare.
"Hey, blindy! Come eat!"
He banged the bars a few times, watching as the young man slowly approached.
Li Erhuang rolled his eyes, discreetly spat on the bun in his hand, then reached out to hand it over.
The soldiers behind him winked at each other and laughed, clearly finding joy in bullying this "blind man."
...
Though he'd expected to wake up either in a hospital or a jail cell, he hadn't expected... this.
Chen Kuang lowered his gaze. In the bottom-right corner of his vision, a few small lines of text floated.
If he hadn't looked closely, he'd have thought he was hallucinating.
[You have digested the Elixir of Immortality and gained the passive ability "Flesh Reishi": Your flesh can regenerate nearly infinitely and is comparable to heavenly essence; eating it can extend life and cure illness.]
[Your eye condition has been completely cured. You gained the passive ability "Piercing Insight": Your vision is greatly enhanced, and you can see through all illusions and disguises.]
[You spent the entire day doing nothing but eating and sleeping, like a pure child. You gained the passive ability "Fetal Breathing Technique": In harmony with nature, you breathe naturally. Each breath cycles Spiritual Energy between heaven and earth.]
[You have successfully formed your first Qi Aperture, reaching the Ninth Grade Qi Channeling Realm. You gained the passive ability "Chaotic Meridians": All your meridians are in complete disorder, entirely different from an ordinary person's.]
This was... the cheat that had followed him across time and space.
A log that recorded everything he experienced each day and converted it into passive skills.
Though his life in recent years had been dull, he had still read plenty of novels to pass the time, so he quickly accepted this strange reality.
And with it came another set of memories.
Same name, same identity. At six years old, his family had been so poor that his parents blinded his eyes and sold him off to some musician as an apprentice, for just 10 kilograms of rice.
Only 10 kilograms of rice...
In this era, it was barely enough to feed a family of three for a month.
He entered the palace, endured silence, and was eventually even praised by Emperor Liang once.
He thought he had finally found hope.
Then... the country fell.
Chen Kuang then frowned. He had no memory of this so-called "Elixir of Immortality."
All he remembered was being summoned along with the other musicians to perform at Jinghe Hall.
After the performance, Emperor Liang bestowed fine wine.. he drank it...
And that was the end.
When he next opened his eyes, Great Zhou soldiers had already stormed in and pinned him to the ground.
Around him, the other musicians' limbs were strewn all across the floor...
On the throne, Emperor Liang slumped lifelessly, his head gone.
The original owner of the body had been so terrified he collapsed, developed a fever in prison, and died three days later. That was when Chen Kuang seized the chance to be reborn.
"You blind bastard, burned your brain too?!"
Li Erhuang cursed.
Only then did Chen Kuang reach out, feigning a blind man's groping movements, and expressionlessly accepted the bun.
His gaze fell on the thick yellow spit dripping from it, paused, then calmly peeled off the outer layer of the bun.
The soldiers moved on to the next cell.
Inside was one adult and one child, Lady Liang and the young princess.
The leering men toyed with them for a while, but seemed apprehensive and didn't actually dare to act beyond words.
The beautiful Lady Liang refused to yield, and in the end, was only given half a bun. When the soldiers left, she hugged her four-year-old daughter and wept in despair.
No one knew how long she cried. Her expression changed several times, and at last, as if reaching a decision, her eyes looked out of the cell like a dead person's.
The little princess was starving while she clutched the bun and tried to gnaw on it.
But she was losing her baby teeth, and it was clearly difficult. After a long while, she had only soaked the bun's outer skin with her drool.
She looked up, saw the tears on her mother's face, and reluctantly tore off a piece as she gently wiped her mother's tears with her small palm.
"Mommy, eat. Don't cry."
Her expression was serious: "If you eat... you won't cry."
Lady Liang was startled, then instinctively swallowed. But in the end, she shook her head and smiled gently: "Ying'er, good girl. Mommy's not hungry..."
Plop!
Lady Liang suddenly flinched and looked down, a misshapen, pockmarked steamed bun had rolled over to her.
"It's yours."
She turned her head, only to see a youth sitting half-shadowed in the darkness, his expression was unreadable.