The impact should have been a symphony of shattering bone and the wet slap of a life extinguished. Instead, when Li Tian hit the pavement, the air rippled. The concrete buckled in a three-meter radius, spider-webbing outward, but there was no blood.
Passers-by froze. A young woman dropped her coffee, the plastic lid clattering in the sudden, heavy silence. A businessman in a tailored suit paused, looking up at the towering Shanhai Building and then back at the crumpled form in the center of the crater.
"Call an ambulance!" someone screamed.
"Another one?" a middle-aged man muttered, pulling out his phone but shaking his head. "That's the fourth one this month from this block. Did you see the news report? Suicides are up 15% this quarter. The stress is turning this city into a graveyard."
They gathered at a distance, murmuring, their faces illuminated by the pale glow of their smartphones. They saw a broken office worker, a victim of the "996" grind. They didn't see the black smoke coiled like a serpent around his heart, or the way his shattered ribs were knitting back together with a series of sickening, metallic pops.
Inside the dark theater of the mind, Li Tian was dying. His memories—the smell of his sister's cheap hair ties, the stinging shame of Wang Meili's laughter—were dissolving into a grey mist.
Let it go, a voice boomed. It was a voice that sounded like grinding tectonic plates.
A figure emerged from the mist. Mo Jue. Even in a soul state, he stood like a god of old, his eyes two burning embers of violet spite. He reached out and caught the fading thread of Li Tian's consciousness.
"You wish for strength? I am the source of all terror. You wish for vengeance? I am the blade that never dulls. Give me this vessel, and I will carve your regrets into the flesh of your enemies."
The transition was violent. Mo Jue didn't just inhabit the body; he forged it. He absorbed the remnants of Li Tian's memories—the geography of this strange, metal-and-glass world, the complex emotions for the sister, and the burning hate for the "Meili" woman. To Mo Jue, this felt like reading a pathetic, tragic scroll.
The ambulance arrived within six minutes, sirens wailing like banshees. The paramedics were efficient, though their faces were grim. They had seen "jumpers" before; usually, there wasn't much to pick up.
"Pulse is... steady?" the younger paramedic stammered as they loaded the stretcher. "Wait, this can't be right. He fell from forty stories. His blood pressure is rising. It's... it's optimal."
By the time they reached the First People's Hospital, the trauma team was waiting. Dr. Chen, a veteran surgeon who had seen everything from gangland shootings to industrial accidents, tore open Li Tian's shirt to prep for emergency surgery.
He stopped. His scalpel hovered in mid-air.
"Where are the internal ruptures?" Chen demanded, looking at the monitor. "He fell from the Shanhai Building. Look at the scans! The X-rays show bone fractures, but look closer—they're already calcifying. The hematomas are... they're vanishing."
"Doctor!" a nurse gasped, pointing at the heart rate monitor.
The steady beep... beep... beep... had changed. It was now a slow, rhythmic thud that sounded more like a war drum than a human heart.
On the hospital bed, Li Tian's—no, Mo Jue's—eyes snapped open.
They weren't the dull, defeated eyes of a salaryman. For a fleeting second, they burned with a terrifying, abyssal purple light that made the LED overheads flicker and die. The temperature in the room plummeted. The medical equipment began to frost over.
"Which... era... is this?" the patient rasped. The voice was Li Tian's, but the cadence was ancient, dripping with a cold, regal authority that made Dr. Chen stumble backward, knocking over a tray of surgical instruments.
Mo Jue sat up, the white hospital gown tearing across his broadening shoulders. He looked at his hands—pale, thin, and weak. He felt the lingering sting of Li Tian's tears on his cheeks and felt a surge of cold disdain.
"So," Mo Jue whispered, clenching a fist until the knuckles turned white. "A world of machines and ants. No spiritual qi in the air... but enough malice to fuel a thousand demons."
He looked at the terrified doctor. "You. Where is the one called Xiao Ni?"