A bright moon and scattered stars, a dark night and a fierce wind.
Though it was the height of summer, an icy coldness filled Ye Qing's heart.
He stood on the edge of a rooftop, phone in hand, re-reading the last messages from his girlfriend. The two short words—"we're breaking up"—were dry and emotionless. No matter how much he begged her to reconsider, the only reply was silence.
If this was the way it had to be, then this was the end.
He was an orphan; nothing tied him to this world. Death would be a release. No pain, no more suffering.
Thirteen floors down. There was no one below. No one would notice, no one would call the police, and he certainly wouldn't land on anyone. Everything was perfectly aligned.
He looked down, then took a step into the void.
The wind roared in his ears, and a series of vivid memories flashed through his mind—all the happy moments of his life.
But in the end, it all turned to dust.
He closed his eyes, ready for the inevitable.
Seconds passed, then more... and he was still falling.
It was strange. Thirteen floors—could a fall really take this long?
Puzzled, he opened his eyes wide and found he was still in mid-air, plummeting downward.
But what was below was not the familiar city.
Sprawling green mountains stretched before him, and in the depths of a gorge, the smoke of battle swirled. Everywhere lay the mutilated bodies of soldiers in armor, and charred banners fluttered in the sky.
A burning battlefield, steeped in blood and agony.
Ye Qing's body trembled. What the hell? He had jumped from the roof of his building, so why was an ancient battlefield, consumed by fire and death, now below him instead of a city street?
What happened the moment he stepped into the void? Could it be... he had traveled through time?
There was no time for him to think. He was rapidly approaching the ground.
Closer. Even closer.
When he was only a dozen meters from the ground, a horrifying scene unfolded below: bodies scattered chaotically, twisted armor, blood-soaked earth...
Panic suddenly seized him.
"Aaaaaah!" a desperate scream tore from his throat.
"Ah-ah-ah!"
An instant later, everything went black. Instinctively screaming, he sat up with a jolt.
Before he could even look around or understand where he was, he felt a sharp, piercing pain in his stomach.
Reflexively grabbing the wound, he felt sticky, congealed blood. Looking down, he saw a long, deep cut on his body, more than ten centimeters long. The blood had almost clotted, but the wound was deep.
What was happening?!
What the hell?!
A grimace of pain twisted his face. The sudden movement broke the fresh scab, and blood began to flow anew. He gritted his teeth and pressed his palm to his stomach, trying to stop the bleeding.
His head was spinning. Perhaps from blood loss, or maybe from the shock.
Instinctively, he hit his temple, hoping to clear his head. But at that very moment, fragmented, unfamiliar memories flashed before his eyes...
Chen Dahu...
Chenjia Village...
The Great Jade Dynasty...
The Northern Legions...
Fragments of someone else's past flooded his mind, weaving together into a single picture.
Now, everything was clear.
He had indeed died when he jumped off the roof. He hadn't felt the pain or understood how it happened, but the fact remained—he was dead.
And then... his soul had crossed space and inhabited the body of this nameless soldier named Chen Dahu, who had lost his life in a bloody massacre.
In short, he had died... but he had still come back.
How was he supposed to understand this? Was it good fortune? Or a cruel twist of fate?
Realizing what had happened, Ye Qing didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
He couldn't even die in peace!
Fine. Since he was alive, he had to keep living.
This world seemed quite curious.
On one hand, it resembled ancient times, but it was clearly not from Chinese history. The memories told him that Chen Dahu was a subject of the Great Jade Dynasty.
But wait... a dynasty with that name never existed in Chinese history!
Did this mean it was a parallel world?
Gritting his teeth against the pain in his stomach, he propped himself up with one hand and struggled to his feet.
When he, as a soul, had fallen from the sky, the battle here had just ended. The empire's Northern Legions had been surrounded and annihilated by the enemy. As a simple soldier, Chen Dahu had fallen along with the rest.
Well, he was a brave man. If Ye Qing had been in his place, he doubted he would have lasted so long.
"Alright, brother, since I've taken over your body, I'll fulfill your last wish," he murmured quietly, more to himself, but perhaps also for Chen Dahu.
From the fragmented memories, Chen Dahu had a father back in the village. Even on the brink of death, he hadn't given up, wanting to return home to take care of him.
Such filial devotion and courage... it was hard not to admire a man like that.
Even if he was just a simple soldier.
Now, hundreds of bodies lay around him. After their victory, the enemy would surely return to collect their spoils and finish off any survivors. If they found him, death was certain.
And he wasn't sure that if he died again, he would be able to transmigrate into another body.
He couldn't take the risk. Especially not in such a strange and inexplicable situation.
The wound on his stomach was severe. Although it hadn't killed Chen Dahu instantly, it had caused significant blood loss, which ultimately led to his demise.
Now Ye Qing had come back to life in this body, but the wound hadn't disappeared. If he didn't treat it, he risked repeating Chen Dahu's fate—dying from blood loss.
Gritting his teeth, he staggered toward the nearest forest.
The main thing now was to get away, hide from the enemies who would soon appear on the battlefield, and then find a way to bandage the wound.
The forest was the only place to take cover.
The pain was draining his last strength, and sweat poured down his forehead, but he stubbornly kept going.
Several times he almost fell, but he overcame the weakness, forcing himself to get up and move on.
Finally, he reached the forest. Stumbling, he plunged into its depths, hiding among the trees.
He didn't know how long he had been walking through the woods.
And honestly, he didn't care. The only thing that mattered was getting as far away as possible.
The forest was wild and impassable: steep slopes, dense thickets of bushes, not a single path. He just had to keep moving in one direction without distraction.
He hadn't gone far when he heard a noise behind him.
Listening closely, he clearly heard excited voices. Someone was shouting that they had found traces of blood.
They had found him!
Obviously, the blood seeping from the wound had attracted his pursuers. But what could he do? He was already holding the wound with his hand, but it wasn't a bandage, and with his active movement, the blood inevitably continued to flow.
The footsteps behind him were getting louder. Chasing after him, the enemies were quickly closing in.
Overwhelmed with anxiety, he no longer thought about the pain and quickened his pace.
In his panic, he stopped looking at his feet.
As he stepped into another bush, the ground suddenly gave way beneath him.
A chill ran down his spine—he lost his balance.
And then he tumbled downward.
He was flying, hitting things, rolling head over heels until, at last, he fell into darkness and lost consciousness.
He didn't know how much time had passed.
When Ye Qing came to, his head was foggy.
He hadn't had a chance to look around yet when he heard muffled sounds from above.
Footsteps.
Shouts.
The clang of weapons cutting through branches.
The pursuers were still searching for him.
Judging by the fact that their noise came from directly above, they had lost his trail. The blood he had been leaving suddenly stopped. This puzzled them—they clearly understood that he must be hiding somewhere.
A faint light filtered through the dense foliage.
Looking more closely, Ye Qing realized he had fallen into a pit.
The hole in the ground was the entrance to a cave. Its steep, almost sixty-degree incline had saved him from a fatal fall. He had just lost consciousness from the impact, but his bones were intact.
Broad-leaved plants grew thickly over the cave entrance.
It was thanks to them that the place remained so hidden—if you didn't part the leaves, it was impossible to spot the entrance.
Judging by the sounds outside, the pursuers had not reached him but were continuing their search somewhere higher up the slope. They probably assumed he had tried to climb even higher into the mountains and had gone there.
But once they realized that the trail had been cut off and the search at the summit had yielded nothing, they would surely come back down.
And then this seemingly reliable hiding spot would inevitably be discovered.
Ye Qing, holding back the pain, sat up. Taking a few deep breaths, he was about to get to his feet when he suddenly felt something cold and slippery under his hand.
He flinced, glanced down sharply—and a black shadow lunged at him from the darkness!
Reflexively, he thrust his hand forward, but felt a sharp pain—something had pierced his skin.
Looking down, his face went pale.
It was a snake.
As thick as a rope, it held a death grip on his hand, its long body coiled around his forearm.
Oh, shit! This has to be a joke, right?!
Heaven, are you even going to let me live?
Not only am I bleeding to death from a wound, but now I've been bitten by a snake, too?!
If I'm supposed to die, just say it! Why torment me like this?!
The snake's body was icy cold, like a piece of frozen metal. But there was no time to ponder the strangeness of its temperature.
Ye Qing glanced at its head—it was triangular.
His heart sank.
Snakes with rounded heads are usually non-venomous.
A triangular head—almost always means poison.
In this world with no antivenom, it was a death sentence.
His vision darkened. Either the poison had already started to work, or the blood loss was taking its toll, but weakness and dizziness washed over him with renewed force.
To hell with it! If I'm going to die anyway, I'll take you with me!
Gritting his teeth and mustering the last of his strength, he grabbed the snake by its "seven inches" (the area right below the head—a snake's weak spot) and sank his teeth into it sharply, breaking through the skin.
An icy liquid immediately filled his mouth.
There was none of the characteristic stench of blood, none of the disgusting taste.
On the contrary.
The liquid was surprisingly sweetish, like cold water with a light hint of sugar.
Only very viscous.
A coolness flowed down his throat, and then suddenly surged back, like an explosion of an icy wave, hitting him directly in the head.
A second ago, he had barely been clinging to consciousness, but now the sharp coldness pierced his mind, as if cleansing it.
He continued to drink.
Suddenly, something hard, round, like a rice ball but firm, entered his mouth.
The next moment, it spread across his palate, causing numbness.
What the hell is this?!
Ye Qing instinctively tried to spit out the strange object, but before he could, he felt it instantly dissolve in his mouth.
Damn it! What the heck?!
He spat several times, but only the snake's blood mixed with saliva came out of his mouth.
Looking down, he saw the snake's jaws had unclasped, and its body went limp.
It was dead.
Well, at least there's that. If I'm killed by snake venom now, I can say I got my revenge!
Just as he was about to accept his fate, he suddenly felt something strange.
In his stomach, deep inside, a hurricane of cold erupted.
It was as if an icy tornado had exploded within him, which in a single instant began to spread rapidly throughout his entire body.