Chapter 1: The Ledger of a New Life
The hum of the computer was a funeral dirge for his ambition. Kenji Tanaka stared at the spreadsheet, the glowing cells blurring into a grid of meaningless numbers. The air was thick with the smell of stale coffee and regret.
"Tanaka."
The voice was a whip-crack. Mr. Shimura, his suit too tight around the middle, loomed over his cubicle, a stack of papers clutched in his meaty hand.
"The Q3 projections. The client is furious. They want them revised by five. Don't bother going home until it's done." The papers hit Kenji's desk with a dismissive thud.
Kenji's jaw tightened. He'd prepared those projections. Shimura had taken the credit for the initial success. Now, the slightest miscalculation was Kenji's cross to bear.
"Yes, Shimura-san," he said, the words tasting like ash.
His boss walked away without another word. Kenji was a ghost already. A cog. A number in a spreadsheet no one ever read.
Hours later, the city lights were a smear of color against the dark sky. Kenji stumbled out of the office building, his mind still swimming with formulas and deadlines. The weight of a life lived for someone else's profit pressed down on him. Is this it? Is this all I am?
He didn't see the truck. He only heard the blaring horn, a shocking, metallic scream that tore through the night. There was a moment of incredible, shattering impact.
His last thought wasn't of love, or family, or dreams unfulfilled.
I never finished that spreadsheet.
---
Ahhhhhhh
Pain. That was the first thing. A deep, throbbing ache in his ribs.
Kenji—no, the consciousness that had been Kenji—jolted awake. Not to an afterlife of light or fire, but to the grit of dirt against his cheek.
A sharp kick connected with his side, and he gasped, curling into a ball.
"Get up, you spiritual cripple! You think you can bump into me and just walk away?"
The voice was young, sneering, and full of casual cruelty. Kenji forced his eyes open. He was in a dusty courtyard, surrounded by simple wooden buildings. The air smelled of hay, sweat, and something else… something electric he couldn't name.
A young man in rough-spun robes glared down at him, flanked by two snickering companions. Memories that were not his own slammed into his mind—a dizzying, painful flood.
Li Wei. Orphan. Servant. The Red Maple Sect. Blocked meridians. Spiritual trash. Worthless.
He was Li Wei now. And he was at the very bottom of a world where power was everything.
"Zhang… please…" Li Wei croaked, the words coming from a place of muscle memory and instinct.
"'Please' what?" The bully, Zhang, laughed. He delivered another kick, not hard enough to break bones, but hard enough to reinforce Li Wei's place in the universe. "The dogs have more use than you. At least they can cultivate fleas."
The small crowd laughed. The humiliation was a familiar burn, far too similar to Shimura's dismissive scorn. He had died for this? To trade one form of powerlessness for another?
Zhang spat on the ground near his head. "Remember your place, trash."
With one last mocking laugh, he and his friends sauntered off, leaving Li Wei broken and alone in the dirt. True, utter despair washed over him. This was worse than death. This was an eternity of being nothing.
Ding.
The sound was so clean, so digital, so utterly out of place that Li Wei thought he'd finally lost his mind. He blinked, and a flickering, blue, semi-transparent screen materialized in the air before his eyes.
It looked like a corporate login portal.
Tears of pain and frustration welled in his eyes. He was hallucinating. He had to be.
Text began to appear, line by line, in a calm, sans-serif font.
[ System Initializing… ]
[ Scanning Host… ]
[ Host Status: Deceased. Soul Transmigration Successful. ]
[ New Identity: Li Wei. Location: Azure Dragon Continent, Red Maple Sect. ]
[ Cultivation Base: Null. Spirit Root: Null. Meridian Integrity: 0%. ]
[ Assessment: Unsuitable for cultivation. Suitable for management. ]
[ Celestial Vault System activated. Welcome, Shopkeeper. ]
Li Wei stared, his breath catching in his throat. This wasn't a hallucination. It was an interface. Logic. Rules. A spreadsheet for reality itself. A wild, impossible hope began to push back the despair.
The screen changed.
Welcome, Shopkeeper Li Wei. Shop Level: 1 Available Rentals: 1 [View Inventory]
He focused on the last option, the way he'd stared at a thousand buttons on a screen.
A new window popped up, displaying a single item. It was a sleek, vicious-looking dagger, rotating slowly in 3D.
Item: Gale-Edge Dagger (Mortal Grade - High) Rental Fee: 10 Low-Grade Spirit Stones / 24 hrs Description: A dagger imbued with wind energy. Can project a sharp blade of cutting wind. Warning: Late return penalty: 100x fee. Default will result in asset repossession and cultivation drain.
The sound of coarse laughter echoed from across the courtyard. Zhang was coming back. "Forgot my waterskin! Looks like you get another lesson in respect, you worthless—"
Li Wei didn't let him finish. With a mental scream that was all his pent-up frustration from two lifetimes, he focused on the flashing [Rent? Y/N] prompt and chose Y.
The air in front of him shimmered. With a sound like a ringing crystal, the dagger from the screen materialized in a beam of soft light and dropped into his waiting hand.
It was perfectly balanced. The blade glinted with a faint emerald glow, and it hummed with a power that vibrated up his arm, feeling more real than anything ever had.
Zhang skidded to a halt, his sneer vanishing, replaced by wide-eyed shock and confusion. He stared at the divine weapon in the hands of the sect's biggest failure.
Li Wei pushed himself to his feet, his ribs screaming in protest. He looked from the humming dagger in his hand to the frozen bully, his heart hammering against his chest.
For the first time, the ledger of his life was balanced in his favor. And he was holding the collection notice.