Prologue — Before Heaven Chose Him
Ling Tian once believed youth was something meant to be burned without restraint—bright, fast, intoxicating enough to make a person forget that flames eventually die. He lived like that for years, drifting through nights filled with music, lights, and fleeting warmth that he mistook for joy.
He had been handsome in a way that required no effort. A smile, a low murmur, a confident lean closer, and most women around him seemed to soften. He recognized their glances like a hunter recognized movement in the trees; every look, every playful tilt of the head, every nervous touch on the arm—they were all invitations he knew by instinct.
And he answered them all.
Bars, clubs, dim lounges—these were his hunting grounds. Faces changed nightly. Names were forgotten by morning. Perfumes blended into nothing. Whispered desires faded before sunrise. He made promises with his hands, not with words, and even those were meant to be broken by dawn.
When he left, it was always the same.
A charming smile.
A soft kiss on the forehead.
A casual, "Take care."
No woman ever expected more.
No one asked for his heart—he never offered it.
He told himself this was freedom.
But beneath that easy grin, beneath the glow of dark rooms and warm bodies, something fragile clawed at him. Something small, desperate, and stubborn. Something he ignored for years until he could no longer hide from the truth whispered in the hollow of his chest:
Lonely.
Empty.
Cold.
He buried it under laughter and alcohol, pretended it didn't exist, chased pleasure until even pleasure felt tired of him. He thought he understood life. He thought he was winning.
He didn't realize how wrong he was until everything ended.
The night of the accident started like all the others—gold lights, soft music, a woman leaning in close enough that her perfume wrapped around him like silk. She laughed at every joke he made. He responded with practiced charm, enjoying the attention without giving any of it meaning.
Later, he drove home with the windows down. The night air slapped his cheeks awake. City lights bled into streaks across the windshield. He hummed along with the radio, feeling almost weightless, untouchable.
His future felt infinite.
Until a pair of headlights pierced across his lane.
The impact came with no warning.
Metal twisted with a shriek.
Glass shattered in a spray of cold glitter.
His body jerked violently, slamming against the seat.
Pain exploded down his spine.
Then everything went black.
When he awoke, it was to a world washed in sterile white and the cold bite of antiseptic. Machines beeped rhythmically beside him. His vision swam. His breath scraped painfully in his throat.
A doctor entered. Older. Tired. Wearing the expression of someone who hated delivering bad news but had grown used to doing it.
"You're alive," the doctor said softly. "That alone is a miracle."
Ling Tian blinked slowly, relief fluttering weakly inside him.
It didn't last.
"There is… another matter we must discuss."
Cold dread crawled through him.
"The impact caused severe nerve damage. Your motor abilities will recover with time, but your… sexual function will not."
Silence.
A silence so deep it felt like gravity.
Ling Tian didn't scream.
Didn't cry.
Didn't deny it.
He simply stared at the doctor while the world quietly collapsed around him, piece by piece, until nothing was left except a hollowed-out shell of the man he used to be.
And slowly, life abandoned him.
Women who once texted him daily disappeared within days.
Friends who drank with him suddenly "had work" or "needed rest."
Pity turned into awkward glances.
Awkward glances into avoidance.
Avoidance into forgetting.
He tried going out again.
Tried to pretend nothing had changed.
But he saw it in their eyes—hesitation, sympathy, the slow retreat whenever intimacy loomed.
He stopped trying.
His apartment became a tomb of silence. Too tidy. Too cold. Too empty. He avoided mirrors, not because he feared his reflection, but because he no longer recognized the man staring back at him.
He had built his entire identity on something shallow.
And now it was gone.
He used to chase countless women… yet none cared if he lived or died.
He had touched countless bodies… yet none had touched his heart.
He had shared countless nights… but never a morning.
The realization sank into him with a coldness deeper than winter:
I've never actually loved anyone.
Not sincerely.
Not meaningfully.
Not in any way that mattered.
And no one had ever loved him, either.
Winter arrived quietly that year, painting the city in white. Ling Tian sat by his apartment window, watching snow drift like broken stars. Streetlights blurred beneath the falling flakes, glowing softly through the frost.
Beautiful.
Distant.
Unreachable.
He pressed his palm against the cold glass and let out a trembling breath.
"…If I could live again," he whispered into the quiet.
"I don't want lust anymore.
I don't want empty nights.
I don't want… this."
His voice broke.
"I want someone to hold.
Someone to protect.
Someone who stays."
A warmth gathered behind his eyes, blurring the snowy world beyond the window.
"I want real love. Just once… let me feel real love."
No one answered.
His breath faded.
His heartbeat slowed to a gentle hush.
And Ling Tian died quietly, his final wish swallowed by winter.
There were no goodbyes.
No hands holding his.
No heart mourns him.
Only snow falling outside a lonely window.
Then came darkness.
Not pain.
Not fear.
Just absence.
A weightless drifting, as though his soul floated through a dream without form or time. The loneliness he carried all his life loosened its grip, dissolving into the quiet.
For the first time in years… he felt peace.
But peace did not last.
A presence stirred in the void.
Something ancient.
Impartial.
Boundless.
The Heavenly Mechanism.
The unseen power that governed the cycles of life, fate, and cultivation—the same power the Codex described as the final arbiter of reincarnation.
It examined the fragments of who Ling Tian had been: his regrets, his desires, his final painfully honest wish.
A gentle vibration rippled through the darkness:
[Evaluating soul desire…]
[Authenticity: confirmed.]
[Compatibility with Unity Path: acceptable.]
Warmth—gentler than anything he had known—wrapped around his soul. Not love, not comfort, but acknowledgment.
[Candidate identified.]
[Initiating Reincarnation Protocol.]
Something glowed beneath him.
Something ancient.
Something sealed.
A system imprint formed, clear and resonant:
[Eternal Unity System Initializing...]
— Evaluating emotional resonance... sufficient.
— Detecting purity of final desire... confirmed.
— Assigning Unity Fate Imprint.
Eternal Unity Body: SEALED.
Soul Fragmentation: minimal.
Activation Conditions:
Genuine emotional bond. Mutual affection. Stabilized resonance between Yin and Yang.
Awaiting vessel incarnation...
Light wrapped around him—
not bright,
not blinding,
but warm.
The warmth of possibility.
Of a new beginning.
Of a destiny tied not to lust…
but to connection.
The void cracked like an eggshell.
Ling Tian's soul was pulled downward, through unseen realms, toward a distant world where spiritual energy flowed and destiny waited. His sealed constitution pulsed once—softly, like a heartbeat.
Heaven did not give him power.
It gave him a chance.
A chance to find what he had never touched in his previous life.
A chance to love—and be loved.
As the final darkness collapsed into light, Ling Tian whispered:
"Next time… I won't waste my life."
And with that vow, his soul descended into the Mortal Domain.
He began again.