What is pain?
For Jiang Shi, it was the pain he was feeling now inside his head, coming from the very core of his brain.
It was far too painful for him to endure. If his vocal cords weren't blocked by something, he would certainly have let out the loudest scream of his life.
Enduring everything silently, Jiang Shi, after suffering for twenty seconds, suddenly had the pain cut off.
"Ugh..."
Jiang Shi sighed in relief for no longer feeling that hellish pain.
"Why did my head explode out of nowhere? Wasn't I sleeping a moment ago, in my comfortable bed?"
"Did a migraine suddenly appear in my brain? Or did something even more extreme happen to me? Like an intruder breaking in and hitting my head with an iron rod?"
Dark thoughts flooded Jiang Shi's mind; he had no idea what was happening.
The only certainty he had was that he needed to open his eyes and wake up to reality.
On his first attempt, Jiang Shi couldn't open his eyelids.
His eyes were heavy, and his body felt as if it wasn't his.
He couldn't feel his legs or his arms.
In the dark sky born from his unconsciousness, he could only think.
"Sleep paralysis?" Jiang Shi guessed hesitantly.
The sleep paralysis he knew left the body immobile, but it rarely caused such brain-splitting pain, so he didn't trust that conclusion much.
"What is truly happening?"
With no answers at all, panic settled inside Jiang Shi. He felt discomfort—not from fear, but from the uneasiness of being in the dark with no knowledge of anything.
"Open your eyes at all costs."
Determined to solve this puzzle, he forcefully suppressed the discomfort and put all his will into opening his eyelids.
It worked.
Jiang Shi managed to open his eyes.
In front of him appeared an infinite darkness, as if he were inside a cavern with no exit to the outside world.
It was strange, but nothing compared to the shock that struck his heart.
"No... No... No..."
Jiang Shi muttered the same thing three times, not understanding why he couldn't feel his physical body and even had the impression he could fly.
He had wings!
"Damn it!" Jiang Shi cursed, frustrated, understanding instantly that he had transmigrated into an insect.
"Why the hell did I transmigrate? And why did it have to be an insect?!"
If he had tears, Jiang Shi would be crying nonstop at that moment. In his entire life, he had never felt so wronged.
"It's a dream! It's a dream!"
Telling himself lies, he fooled himself into believing it was just a nightmare.
That self-deception made Jiang Shi calmer and silent.
He no longer thought—he simply remained still, doing nothing.
Staying like that for an unknown amount of time, he eventually decided to move.
Shifting his body, he began to move abruptly within the dark space, slowly tearing the layer around his skin and revealing the humid forest air and daylight filling the darkness.
Jiang Shi emerged from the cocoon, revealing his form as a beautiful blue butterfly, with light-blue wings that looked as if an ocean were flowing within them.
It was a beautiful butterfly, a unique species he did not recognize and didn't even want to know about, given the trauma he was feeling.
The deception no longer worked. Jiang Shi knew he had transmigrated. He had always known the truth, which wouldn't change whether he accepted it or not.
'I'm so unlucky. Even if I died somehow on Earth, why transmigrate into a butterfly?'
He complained like a wronged soul.
Still crying inside, he had to accept reality and make an effort to live.
"I will survive! Even if I'm an insect at the bottom of the food chain, I will live a good life!"
Setting that goal, Jiang Shi clung to the branch to pump the fluid inside his body into the veins of his wings.
Even with wings, he couldn't fly immediately. He needed to wait for them to expand and strengthen.
While the blue butterfly was undergoing this process, an individual hid under a nearby bush.
Because of its emerald-green color, the foliage covered him perfectly, camouflaging him among the leaves.
The creature, a frog, looked upward with eyes shining with desire. That unusual butterfly had caught its attention.
Unable to hold back, the frog shot its huge red tongue into the air, crossing the distance in seconds.
Jiang Shi, now seeing the world in almost three hundred and sixty degrees, noticed the red line and wanted to run, but couldn't.
He had the body of a newborn butterfly; his limbs were still far too weak.
With such novice attributes, the frog's tongue struck Jiang Shi, trapping his wings in its sticky glands.
Pulling its tongue back, the frog swallowed the blue butterfly in one gulp.
...
No sky, no earth—only a river full of crystal-clear water flowing endlessly forward.
This was what Jiang Shi saw after dying.
"What the hell! Did I pick a fight with the goddess of luck? Why do I suffer so much misfortune?!"
In the river, a butterfly rolled its eyes in disgust.
While the peculiar insect vented its anger, the river, which had been flowing forward, began flowing backward.
The once calm waters turned turbulent, churning like waves crashing on the shore.
Jiang Shi, hearing strange sounds, stopped complaining and looked down.
Before he could fully grasp it, he was devoured by the waters, swallowed like prey by a voracious whale.
...
Darkness.
Waking for the third time, Jiang Shi felt a familiar sensation. It was the same feeling he had before inside the cocoon.
"..."
"Did I reincarnate as a butterfly again?"
The feeling was strong, making him roll each compound eye and at the same time thrash around violently, tearing apart the darkness in seconds.
"Isn't this the same scenery as before?" Jiang Shi sensed something was wrong.
Looking down with his sharp vision, he saw the bushes, and a shiver ran through every part of his body.
Without hesitating this time, Jiang Shi tried to move up the branch.
The individual below, the same frog as before, once again struck with its tongue, trapping the butterfly and swallowing it in a single gulp.
...
"..."
Reappearing in the waters, Jiang Shi was close to collapsing.
"Hell! Hell! Hell! Damn frog!"
A deep hatred rose in Jiang Shi's eyes. In his whole life, he had never been so irritated with someone as he was with that miserable frog, who took advantage of his moments of weakness.
"And this river? What the hell is this? The river of time?"
Jiang Shi noticed that the waters resembled his wings. This wasn't a coincidence; he knew he had some connection to it.
"This time, I'll wait three days before coming out of the cocoon."
Even treating the frog as his number one enemy, Jiang Shi wouldn't fight it.
A wise man knows when to retreat.
If he tried to fight an animal ten times his size, he'd be asking to be humiliated. In reality, the frog would eat him instantly.
This is the life of one of the weakest and most harmless insects in nature.