Bang! Something as hard as a brick slammed into a boiling pot of broth. The pot shattered, the sound sharp yet strangely dull at the same time.
Thud! Like a sandbag slipping from someone's hands, a body lost all strength and collapsed onto the floor.
In the cramped room, the chatter cut off instantly. Silence crashed down—so sudden, so absolute, it felt unreal. For a heartbeat, the place was quiet enough for meditation.
It didn't last.Screams tore through the air, raw and piercing, like chickens being slaughtered. Harsh, endless, without the slightest restraint—more like the chaos of a bad talent show than human voices. This wasn't singing. It was fear. Bone-deep, soul-deep fear that refused to stop, flooding the world without pause.
"What happened? What happened!"
"Hurry—call the police!"
"Someone's dying—"
"Blood…"
Hurried footsteps crashed through the corridor, mixed with shouts and sharp gasps. Chaos swirled around the fallen man, yet his consciousness blurred, dissolving piece by piece.
The white doctor's coat still clung to his body. Blood poured from the crack in his skull, life leaking away in ruthless streams.
"Dial 120! Call an ambulance—what are you standing around for?!"
That was the last thing Danise Wu heard. And it was the funniest.
An ambulance? In the ER corridor of a hospital? What a joke. A gurney would make sense—but no, that voice was unmistakable. Old Kong. That damn Chief of Internal Medicine who loved to step on him at every chance. Even at the edge of life and death, the so-called city's famed internist was screaming to call 120.
Ridiculous. Laughable. As the world sank into blood-red darkness, Danise Wu's final thought was nothing but a silent, bitter laugh.
Maybe he's doing it on purpose. Maybe he can't wait for me to die.
The thought rose inside him, so absurd it drowned the pain splitting his brow and crushed the fear gnawing at his chest.
Absurdist art.So this… this must be absurdist art.
A wave of weightlessness hit him, then nothing—just blinding stillness, empty and endless.
He tried to pry his eyes open for one last glimpse of the world, but his eyelids refused. He strained to hear the chaos around him, the shrieks and wails that should have been unbearable… but sound itself was cut off. He tried to speak, even a weak little "ow." Nothing.
And in that blur, memories spilled out like film reels unspooling.
An orphan. No father, no mother. Dragged through school on public assistance until the end of compulsory education. Raised in the so-called glow of a "new society," he hadn't let himself sink or smash his future to pieces. He had one gift—the ability to endure—and after devouring book after book that drummed the same lesson—study and you'll rise; master math, physics, and chemistry and the world will open—he chose, stubbornly, to keep climbing.
High school came with a head full of hope… and empty pockets. Relief stipends trickled in, but survival meant scrubbing dishes, hauling coal, sweeping streets. That was how he clawed enough together to keep both body and tuition alive.
Scholarships? Don't joke. An orphan who traded hours for crumbs—rice with pickled vegetables, a steamed bun with salted greens—how could he compete with the glittering prodigies who lived in another world? He was bright, yes. But not brilliant enough to belong among the chosen.
Still, he clenched his teeth and endured three brutal years. Maybe Heaven took pity. After eighteen years of misfortune, Danise Wu's luck finally turned.
The acceptance letter came—Orthopedics, straight from bachelor's through to master's. And with it, a promise: every cent of tuition covered by a charitable foundation. His future, at last, had cracked open a sliver of light.
The day fortune struck without warning, Danise Wu was still holed up in his high school's decrepit dorm. He charged up the back hill behind campus like a lunatic—shouting, rolling in wild laughter one moment, bawling his eyes out the next. For weeks afterward, rumors spread. Some swore a madman lived on that hill. Others whispered it was haunted. Everyone ended with the same warning: "Keep out."
As for the culprit himself? Danise didn't care. He'd stepped onto university grounds and breathed in freedom. Compared to the hell of high school, college was paradise.
No more trembling at every new term, wondering how to scrape together tuition.Tutoring, handing out flyers—odd jobs paid better than scrubbing dishes. For the first time, he left behind the days of pickled greens and stale buns that had shadowed him for three long years.
Sure, hemophobia cut him off from surgery and forced him into internal medicine. Sure, years of hardship dulled his sense of "romance," and he never managed a steady relationship. The few girls who admired his honesty ran once they realized his "old-school proletarian" background wasn't just an act—it was the real deal, straight out of another era.
Even so, he graduated smoothly. A top student with scholarships, no debts, no scandals—it was easy to land a post at the county hospital.
High school had been hell. University, the human world. Now? He was living in paradise. A respectable job, clean wards, decent pay, and pretty young nurses fluttering around—what more could a man ask for? Alone at night, Danise would sigh to himself: Beautiful. Truly beautiful.
Of course, paradise had its "Jade Emperor." And his face belonged to none other than Old Kong. Pockmarked, bloated, dripping arrogance—if anyone looked like a villain, it was him. But honest men ground down too long learn to lower their heads. Danise had clawed his way here; he wouldn't risk losing it. Born behind the starting line, he'd run with clenched teeth for over twenty years. Winning or losing terrified him all the same.
So he kept his head low, hoping only for peace.
Heaven, as always, had other plans.
An emergency run—120—brought a patient to the ER. Danise was on duty. He'd just taken the man's pulse and listened to his heart when the patient suddenly stopped breathing.
Bad luck didn't even begin to cover it. The bleached-haired, tattooed thugs who dragged the patient in weren't buying the hospital's explanation. Obscenities poured like a flood, their faces twisted like demons, scattering the nurses like frightened chicks. Danise glanced around. Old Kong's office door was shut tight; the bastard had hidden early. The orderlies stood off to the side, heads down, pretending to be invisible.
So it fell to him. The only young man left, trying to muster some backbone—
Bang!
The punk leader casually grabbed the inkstone from Danise's desk and smashed it down on his head.
The same inkstone he'd used to practice brush calligraphy during clinic hours, to pass time and calm his spirit—now turned into the weapon that ended his life.
Honest men always get bullied.Good guys always meet a sad end.
In this life… did I ever do anything that mattered? Such a loser lie...
◇◇◇
After drifting in a fog for who knew how long, Danise Wu suddenly felt something was wrong.
The hole in his forehead had been fatal. Even if Director Zack, his old advisor and one of the nation's top surgeons, had been standing over him, there would've been no saving him. With that much blood lost, all five senses, all awareness, should've shut down long ago. His lungs had already given out. His brain—soft as silken tofu—should've been nothing but meat.
So why?Why could he still think? Still reason? Still…analyze what his own brains looked like?
A violent shudder ran through him. The kind of shudder that could shake heaven and make ghosts weep—like hearing a hundred cold jokes at once and feeling the temperature drop fifty degrees. Danise trembled from head to toe.
His fingers twitched. They moved. He kicked his legs—numb, but not dead. A surge went through him. He rolled over. He sat up.
His nearsighted eyes were suddenly clear. He blinked. No dryness. No lenses. Where the hell are my Bausch & Lombs?
He froze.
The sight before him stole his breath. Hundreds of bodies sprawled across the ground, crammed together in a jagged, blood-soaked array.
Boom. His skull rang like a thunderclap. An honest man raised in peacetime, Danise could barely stomach watching an autopsy from afar. To wake up in the middle of a Shura field—a literal sea of corpses—and not black out instantly was a miracle.
Then—splash. Warm, metallic-smelling liquid sprayed across his head and face. His vision went red. Danise let out a strangled cry, clawing at his face.
The voice that came out wasn't his. It was soft, milky, wrong in every way. Not a twenty-seven-year-old man's voice at all. But the owner of that voice had no time to care.
Because the hand smearing blood from his eyes was tiny. Soft. Adorable.
Terror ransacked his nerves, twisting his expression into a grotesque mask. His teeth clamped hard, one brow arched while the other sank, half his cheek bulging unnaturally.
Just as his knees buckled, just as he was about to faint, a faint fragrance brushed his nose.
A warm, slender arm circled his waist and lifted him. His cheek pressed tight against two budding mounds on a girl's chest.
She was slim, pretty, with sorrow and reluctance written across her face. The ornaments in her hair marked her as unmarried—no older than sixteen. Yet her movements were firm, decisive.
Her left arm cradled a child not yet three, held with a tenderness so unyielding that not even Mount Tai collapsing could pry him away. In her right hand, a longsword trailed point-down. With a flick, it sang in a graceful arc—piercing clean through the machete-wielding killer before her. Blood dripped steadily from the blade into the earth.
"Senior Brother… we were still a step too late."
The refined-looking man at her side, about thirty-five, gave no answer. He touched two fingers to the child's wrist, then to his nose. Only when he was certain the boy still breathed did the deep furrow in his brow ease—just a fraction.
Year Six of the Qin Calendar.
On the westernmost border of Great Qin, a nameless hamlet was drowned in blood. A band of lamas in kasaya robes descended like demons, putting the village to the sword. Men, women, even dogs and chickens—none were spared.
All, that is, save for a two-year-old boy. Kunlun Sect experts, passing by, plucked him from the carnage.
Legend spread quickly. The boy did not cry in the face of slaughter. His grief and fury burned hotter than his fear. Only when sorrow and pain overwhelmed his tiny frame did he faint, his lip split by his own teeth so blood ran down his chin—yet still he shed not a single tear.
It was there, on that night of butchery, that the man who would one day be Kunlun's Sect Master—Master Xi Banlou, the "Mists-and-Clouds of the Six Directions"—took the child as his disciple.
Master Xi had already been famed throughout the martial world for his Azure Cloud Sword and Azure Cloud inner strength. Upright in conduct, unmatched in skill, he stood as a model of both chivalry and might. For such a man to extend his hand—such fortune could only be called a blessing sent by Heaven. The child too, for his eerie composure amid Kunlun's private hell, was hailed as a prodigy.
And when he woke, and Master Xi questioned him, the boy answered with flawless logic and calm poise. He gave his name: Danise Wu.
From then on, the name Danise Wu spread beneath heaven, carried on the winds together with Master Xi's own "Mists-and-Clouds" epithet.
It is said that the master of the Changzhi Sect—the foremost school of Northern Yan, itself foremost under heaven—sighed aloud:
"A pity. A pity, that such brilliance should be cast upon Kunlun's lesser path. A bright pearl, thrown into the dark."
Three years passed.
On the day Master Xi formally ascended to the seat of Sect Master, the summit of Kunlun swarmed with guests. Heroes of the martial world gathered like clouds. Officials of Great Qin sent gifts by the cartload.
At five years of age, Danise trailed behind his master, dragging his feet through one tedious rite after another.
"This must be Master Xi's beloved disciple, young friend Danise Wu. What a handsome little fellow."
"Master Xi's eye is keen indeed. The disciple he chose must be extraordinary."
Flatteries buzzed endlessly in his ears. Danise kept a polite smile on his face, but inside he scoffed—as he had a thousand times these past three years. Genius? Genius, my ass. Just a panic-stricken wretch with facial nerve palsy.
"Danise, endure it a little longer," said Serena Lin, the young woman who had carried him back to Kunlun three years ago. She caught the stiffness in his smile, the vague look in his eyes, and guessed his patience was at its end. Her heart ached as she drew him aside, half coaxing, half scolding. "Your master ascending to Sect Master is no small matter. These ceremonies can't be ignored. Half the guests here today came just to see you. If you make a fool of yourself, it won't just be you who loses face—it will be Kunlun itself."
Her maiden's fragrance drifted to his nose, and Danise's foul mood eased at once. Serena Lin half-knelt before him, her silk skirts spreading like lotus leaves around her feet. When he had first been carried up the mountain, his little Martial Aunt had been only fourteen; now she was seventeen, in truth still younger than Danise by far. And yet she doted on him like a loving mother. Heaven really has a taste for jokes, he thought.
Danise clasped his hands behind his back and forced a solemn air. In a milk-soft child's voice he sighed, "So this is life."
Serena Lin laughed, unsurprised. She had long since grown used to his little-old-man airs. She patted his cheek lightly. "Yes, yes, that's life. Kunlun's little prodigy—off you go and live it."
She straightened his clothes, then teased with a mock-stern look. "Hurry along. If you rile the Sect Master Senior Brother and end up with the paddle, I won't be able to save you."
Danise sighed once more. He risked a glance toward the hall. The look Master Xi shot him over the guests' shoulders was anything but kind. However unwilling he was in his heart, he had no choice but to put one foot in front of the other and return to his place. His bobbing head carried the comic air of a precocious little adult, but Serena Lin alone caught the faint hint of desolation behind it.
◇◇◇
"The… imperial… edict… arrives!"
A shrill voice split the air like a demonic note, piercing every eardrum in the hall.
The assembly rippled into brief chaos. No one had expected an edict; no whisper had preceded it. Master Xi was the first to step out of the hall, Danise in tow, with the other guests filing after them.
On the platform stood an elderly eunuch in full court attire, hair and beard gone white, a roll of golden silk cradled in his hands with scrupulous reverence. Two middle-aged eunuchs flanked him. The old man looked so frail a single gust of mountain wind might topple him—yet only now did Kunlun's gatekeepers come panting up the path. Kunlun disciples were famed for lightness skill; that their footwork could not catch up to this frail eunuch left more than a few guests quietly astonished.
Master Xi dared not be remiss. An incense table was set out at once, and he knelt to receive the decree.
"By the Mandate of Heaven, the Emperor decrees: It has been twelve years since Our accession to the throne. Ever have We desired to gather the worthies of the realm to secure the state and pacify the land. You, Xi Banlou of Kunlun, Commandant of the Martial Guard and a gentleman of renown, are peerless in martial skill and upright in character, long famed for your virtue. We hereby grant you the title of General of Stirring Valor and appoint you Commandant of Troops and Horse for Liangzhou. So ordered."
Expressionless, Danise knelt beside his master. Since the day he'd crossed over, this had been the single thing that shook him most: in this world, the so-called people of the jianghu were nothing like the lofty heroes of wuxia novels in his past life, the kind who scorned princes and marquises. Here, every renowned expert carried an official post. As for an absolute great like Master Xi—he'd long since been named a Commandant of the Martial Guard.
And that was what irked him most. With the status of Kunlun's chief disciple and the label of genius on his head, shouldn't he be out wasting afternoons with flunkies, bullying respectable folk, and living like some second-generation wastrel? Otherwise wasn't it all a criminal waste of potential? Damn it, this world is a lot more dangerous than the one I left behind.
Now his master had taken the sect head's seat and immediately been granted an actual command, with soldiers under his name. Rumor was the Inspector of Liangzhou was old and about to retire. When that happened, civil and military power alike would fall into Master Xi's hands, making him frontier governor in short order.
Only—what's that got to do with me?
I'm an internist. A good one. I worked over twenty years for it. I had just secured a job that would keep me comfortable for life. Then, out of nowhere, I landed in a world that doesn't fit me in the least. My hard-won undergrad-to-master's training, stripped of modern equipment, is reduced to parlor tricks. I can barely manage the four traditional examinations—look, listen and smell, ask, and take the pulse. Without penicillin, without anti-inflammatories, all I can do is treat colds and sniffles.
The thought made him clench his fist in frustration—then laugh bitterly at himself.
He turned his gaze to the horizon. Great masses of black cloud drifted slow and heavy overhead, severing sky from earth. Danise frowned. Beneath heaven, all things were changing—just like his own unfathomable life.
This so-called transmigration? Pure, unadulterated bullshit.
Yet even as he cursed his fate, destiny had already set its mark upon him—an unseen hand pushing him toward storms greater than he could ever imagine.