"Aunt Hanako, Aunt Hanako!! Come quickly—Ash fell into the river!"
"What happened? What on earth happened?" Hearing the crying shout from outside, a woman wearing an apron who had been doing housework hurriedly ran out of the house.
"Just now we were fishing for Water-type Pokémon by the small river outside the village. Then Gary and Ash fished up a Poké Ball that someone had already used."
"Both of them said they caught it themselves. They started fighting over it, and during the scuffle Gary accidentally pushed Ash into the river."
The child explained tearfully as he hurriedly led the woman toward the small river outside the village.
"..."
"..."
~
~
"Ding, transporting host across worlds successful."
"Current world: Pokémon."
"System starting… 10%"
"System starting… 20%"
"System starting…"
"Ding, detected attack from world will. Activating self-defense protocol."
"Ding, insufficient system energy, unable to resist world-will attack…"
"Ding, insufficient system energy, unable to resist world-will attack…"
"..."
"..."
"System damaged!!!"
"System damaged!!!"
————————
No one knew how long his consciousness drifted in darkness and chaos before a faint light finally appeared in Xiao Zhi's vision.
That glimmer in the darkness was hope. With his semi-transparent body, he moved toward it without hesitation.
As he drew closer to the light, he vaguely heard someone calling his name. The voice felt familiar, yet strange.
"Xiao Zhi… Xiao Zhi…"
"Nurse Joy, is my son really okay? He already coughed up the water he swallowed—why hasn't he woken up yet?"
"Hanako, don't worry. Xiao Zhi will be fine," another woman said gently as she stood nearby with a child.
"..."
"..."
Passing through the white light, the woman's voice calling him became clearer and clearer.
When he forced his eyes open through a blinding glare, he found himself lying on what looked like a hospital bed. Beside him was a woman with tear-filled eyes, calling his name over and over again.
For the moment, he didn't know what had happened, why he was here, or who the woman in front of him was.
But he could be sure of one thing: the voice he had heard in his hazy state belonged to this very person.
"Xiao Zhi, you're awake!! You scared Mommy to death—boo hoo…" Seeing him open his eyes, the woman hugged him tightly and cried with joy.
"Mom—" Although Xiao Zhi didn't know who this woman was, when he opened his mouth, his body instinctively called her "Mom."
"As long as you're awake, that's all that matters, as long as you're awake…" The woman hugged the boy tightly, her face filled with the joy of having him back, repeating the words again and again.
"..."
"..."
While being held by her, Xiao Zhi curiously looked around the room and thought about what had happened to him.
"Did I transmigrate?" After observing his surroundings and thinking for a while, Xiao Zhi muttered in his heart in surprise.
He was so certain because he knew he had already died.
On a trip, he happened to see someone fall into the water. Confident in his swimming skills, Xiao Zhi jumped in to save them. The person was rescued, but he himself didn't make it.
Although he was an orphan with no family ties, he had just finished university and was about to start a new stage of life. But the pandemic took away his chance, and he still felt regret about that.
He had thought his life ended there—but unexpectedly, he had caught up with the great wave of transmigration, which gave him the feeling of "when the road seems blocked, a new village appears beyond the willows."
"Hiss!!" Just as Xiao Zhi was rejoicing at being able to live again, a large amount of memories suddenly flooded into his mind.
Because they came without warning, it felt like a massive lump of information was being forced into his head. The swelling pain made him extremely uncomfortable.
Fortunately, the original owner of this body was only six years old, so there weren't many memories. After enduring it for a short while, Xiao Zhi finished merging with them.
At first he didn't think much of it, but after fully absorbing the memories, he realized that fate had truly been kind to him.
"I didn't expect to transmigrate into the world of Pokémon, into Pallet Town—and even become the six-year-old protagonist, Ash." His heart was filled with joy.
Being able to live again in another world was already a gift of fate, something worth celebrating.
But if he could choose, Xiao Zhi would definitely want to transmigrate into a relatively safe world, not a brutal one like Naruto where lives are worth little.
In his previous life, even though he was an orphan, he grew up under a red flag, in a relatively peaceful and stable environment.
If he had gone to a chaotic, bloody world, even with a second life, it might not have been a blessing.
So after learning that he had transmigrated into the Pokémon world, he felt especially relieved and happy.
Although the Pokémon world isn't completely without danger, compared to many other worlds, it is much safer overall.
Of course, another very important reason for his happiness was—
In his previous life, he was a die-hard Pokémon fan. He had always been full of longing and dreams for that pure and beautiful Pokémon world.
When he was little, because of the orphanage's conditions, he could only watch the anime. As he grew older and began earning money, he also got into the games and manga.
His longing for the Pokémon world not only didn't fade with age—it grew stronger. He especially wished he could replace the original protagonist, Ash.
He never expected that a dream he couldn't realize while alive would come true after death. It truly felt like a gift from fate.
But amid his joy, as he looked at the woman hugging him tightly, a trace of guilt appeared in his eyes. After all, taking over this body meant that the original Ash was truly dead.
Although from the memories he learned that before he arrived, Ash had already drowned in the river, in the original story Ash later lived just fine.
So what if, after Nurse Joy's treatment, Ash could have woken up?
Because of that thought, Xiao Zhi always felt that he had erased Ash's chance to wake up, and that made him feel somewhat guilty.
However, Xiao Zhi wasn't the kind of overly soft-hearted or overly纠结 person. Since things had already happened and couldn't be changed, all he could do was live well—also for the sake of the original Ash.