For the first twenty-some years of his life, Yu Sheng had always considered himself just an ordinary person, living an ordinary life, doing ordinary things. And in the foreseeable future, this ordinariness was destined to continue—until the day his ordinary life came to an ordinary end.
Yes, that's what he had always believed—but those days now seemed so very long ago.
The sky was gloomy, the listless clouds spreading like thick cotton wadding from the northeast, blanketing the entire city. The air was saturated with a damp chill, a downpour brewing within it that would likely arrive in ten or so minutes.
Carrying the vegetables and seasonings he had just bought from the supermarket, Yu Sheng blended in with the pedestrians, his steps hurried as he crossed the street, heading for his residence under the ever-dimming sky.
As he passed a shop, he subconsciously stopped, his gaze fixed on the sign above the entrance. He stared at it for several seconds before looking away and continuing his hurried pace.
The pedestrians on the road gradually thinned out, the sprawling city seeming to quiet down in the atmosphere of the impending rain. Yu Sheng raised his gaze to the commercial street ahead, illuminated by the lights of the ground-floor shops. Though it was a familiar sight, an indescribable sense of strangeness couldn't help but well up from the bottom of his heart.
Yes, strangeness—he had lived in this city for over twenty years, but now, this absurdly massive, seemingly boundless "Boundary City" was a completely foreign place to him.
Because this city was not the "real" version from his memory. Although some places were quite similar, more of them were not quite right—the Boundary City he grew up in wasn't this huge, he remembered the big building downtown was supposed to be called Boyuan Tower, not the current "Directorate Tower," he remembered the intersection at Siyuan Street was originally a wall, and his original home was not this huge, dilapidated, crumbling old house deep in the old district.
And more importantly, the city in his memory didn't have so many… "not quite right" things, including but not limited to old-fashioned telephone booths with a style from the last century that would randomly appear at certain intersections, a steam engine that would pass over the rooftops late at night, empty classrooms from which the sound of reading constantly echoed, and…
On an evening when it was about to rain, standing under a streetlight, a tall, thin, pitch-black shadow, like a telephone pole.
Yu Sheng looked up, staring intently at a streetlight not far away. A lanky, humanoid silhouette stood there stiffly, its body three or four meters tall, topped with a pitch-black face where no features could be discerned. The shadow seemed to notice him as well, but it just stood there rigidly, its gaze meeting Yu Sheng's from afar.
Hurrying passersby walked under the tall, thin shadow, as if no one noticed this bizarre thing standing next to the streetlight. Some even walked right through the shadow without being affected in any way.
Only Yu Sheng himself could see it.
So after a few seconds of meaningless staring, he withdrew his gaze, suppressed his pounding heart, and took another street, walking away with hurried steps.
Yu Sheng had never been quite sure whether the city had suddenly changed, or if he himself had changed, but he clearly remembered that the ordinary, normal life from his memory had left him on a certain morning two months ago—
He remembered that on that sunny morning, he had pushed open the door to his home to go buy some oranges at the small supermarket at the intersection.
That was the last time he pushed open the door to "his home." After that, he never saw the home from his memory again.
He had analyzed it before. Perhaps it was some kind of "transmigration." He had pushed open his door and stepped into a parallel world that was similar yet different from his hometown. He could no longer find the door back to his original world because the spatio-temporal passage had collapsed the moment he crossed the threshold.
Another possibility was that an "abnormal change" had occurred in him. When he stepped out the door, or perhaps at some point after, he had become "different from ordinary people" due to some unknown influence. Thus, his eyes began to see certain "things" hidden beneath the surface. He was still living in the place he was familiar with, he just couldn't see the familiar things anymore…
But these analyses were meaningless.
Regardless, he could no longer return to the "ordinary and normal world" of his memory. This strange and enormous city was like a boundless forest, trapping a lost drifter within its gloomy, intertwining branches and vines. And a mere two months was not enough time for Yu Sheng to uncover the secrets of this "forest."
In fact, he had only just roughly adapted to his familiar yet strange "new home," barely managing to resume a "daily life" here.
Fortunately, in this Boundary City that was so at odds with his memory, he was still "Yu Sheng." He had a valid ID, a legally effective address, some savings that were neither too much nor too little, and a seemingly unreliable livelihood—if this was truly some kind of "transmigration," at least he didn't have to face the three great challenges of most transmigrators: "Who am I, where am I, and where do I get an ID?"
Considering this was an orderly, modern metropolis, the aforementioned challenges were particularly important. After all, modern societies have comprehensive population management systems, and it wouldn't be easy for a transmigrator to get rid of their undocumented status in such a city.
Of course, looking at it from another angle, transmigrating to a chaotic old society or a barbaric otherworld might have its own little troubles—like being sliced up as an enemy spy, being sliced up as an invading alien, being sliced up as an evil creature emerging from the ground, or being sliced up and stewed as a temporary meal by goblins in a cave…
These random associations, appearing out of nowhere, swirled in Yu Sheng's mind as he walked through the old, narrow path next to the commercial street, taking another route towards "home."
The sky grew darker, and it seemed that because of this growing gloom, the "not quite right" things slowly began to multiply.
In the periphery of Yu Sheng's vision, some swaying figures were projected onto the mottled, old outer walls of the buildings by the road. An agile cat leaped out from a shadow on the wall, lightly climbing a beam of light from an unknown source. It meowed twice in Yu Sheng's direction, then melted and scattered along with the raindrops, splashing onto the ground.
The rain had started, a bit earlier than expected.
The wind turned somewhat cold, the chill swirling as if it were tangible, drilling into the seams of his clothes.
Yu Sheng clicked his tongue, forced to hold the shopping bag over his head as he quickened his pace.
If he hadn't taken a detour to avoid the black shadow under the streetlight, he could have taken the main road and gotten home faster—though that house was also somewhat strange and eerie, it was at least a place to shelter from the wind and rain.
Thinking of the black shadow under the streetlight, Yu Sheng felt a bit annoyed.
Based on his experience, he knew that the strange things he saw were basically harmless, at least as long as he didn't actively provoke them. They would ignore him just as ordinary people ignored them. But even knowing this, he would still instinctively avoid the ones that looked particularly sinister—but now it seemed that taking a detour today was not a good idea.
It was getting colder and colder.
For a rain shower, it was absurdly cold.
Yu Sheng noticed his breath was slowly turning into condensing frost. The raindrops falling from the sky were like sharp nails, hard and icy, hitting him with a stinging pain.
And the ground was gradually turning into a smooth mirror under the freezing rain.
A great sense of unease put Yu Sheng on instant alert. He realized something was wrong, very wrong. Even in this bizarre city, this was a situation he had never encountered before.
Unlike the "shadows" he usually saw, which were at most a bit of an eyesore, this time he felt… malice.
This rain held malice.
He abruptly looked up, only to see that the small road, which had a few pedestrians just moments ago, was now completely empty. He was all alone in the narrow alley.
Not a single person could be seen. The lights in the distance became hazy and illusory. The intersection at the end of his vision seemed to be blocked by something, appearing distant one moment and near the next. Around him, besides the cold and sealed buildings, there was only rain, cold rain.
He felt as if the whole world was raining just for him.
Yu Sheng took a sharp breath and ran towards the nearest building. An old iron door stood there, looking like the back door of some ground-floor shop—whatever it was, he had to find someone to help him, quickly.
Because the raindrops had begun to glint with the sharp quality of blades, and the surrounding temperature had dropped to the point where every breath brought a needle-like pain to his lungs.
In just a few steps, Yu Sheng reached the door and slammed his hand against it: "Is anyone…"
His eyes widened, his voice cut short.
His hand had hit the wall. The door was painted on the wall.
The nearby windows were also painted on the wall.
A rustling sound came from nearby.
Yu Sheng slowly turned his head, looking in the direction of the sound.
In the blade-like falling sleet, a grotesque thing was slowly rising from the mirror-like surface of the water. It gained a physical form from a pitch-black shadow and watched Yu Sheng with cold indifference.
It was a frog, a frog nearly a meter tall, its head densely covered with eyes, its body reflecting the freezing rain that filled the sky.
The frog opened its mouth, and a sharp tongue shot straight toward the prey's heart.
"Holy f— you son of a—"
Yu Sheng, ever so eloquent and quick to react, had his body responding before the curse even left his lips—he dodged sharply to the side, one hand already pulling the retractable baton he carried for self-defense from his pocket, stepping, twisting, ducking, and lunging forward…
The frog's tongue took a sharp turn in mid-air and pierced Yu Sheng's heart from behind.
Yu Sheng: "…?"
He blinked, watching the frog's tongue emerge from his chest, a heart beating rapidly at its tip.
"...Damn bastard, that thing's mine…"
He thought for a moment, cursing inwardly.
Then he died.