I've always believed in control.
Control over my schedule. My emotions. My future.
But in the end, I couldn't even control the bus that crushed me.
The scream I let out wasn't from fear — it was rage. Rage that I had done everything right. Studied. Sacrificed. Fought for every inch of my life. And still, fate decided I was disposable.
It was supposed to be an ordinary walk home. A quiet evening. Instead, I died alone on a cracked sidewalk, the world passing me by like I was never part of it to begin with.
But death… didn't feel like an end.
It felt like falling.
Endless, directionless falling through a tunnel of starlight and whispers — some in languages I'd never heard, others that sounded hauntingly familiar, as if they were fragments of dreams I'd forgotten.
And then — silence.
A crushing stillness.
Followed by pain.
A thousand needles stabbed into my skull as I gasped for air. My lungs burned. My chest felt like it had caved in. My body was small, weak — no, wrong. This wasn't my body.
Voices rang out around me, harsh and cold.
"He's still alive? Impossible."
"Tch. That runt's got the devil's luck."
"Leave him. He'll die soon enough."
Footsteps. Fading.
I opened my eyes to a blur of blood and sky. The world was twisted, like I was seeing it through broken glass. The taste of iron coated my tongue.
My hands trembled as I pushed myself up from the mud.
Tiny hands.
This really isn't my body.
I was a child — bruised, battered, and left for dead on a mountain trail.
That's when the memories came.
Not mine. His.
Flashes of abuse. Hunger. Cold. The sting of a whip. A faceless master's scorn. A broken name whispered by a mother long gone.
Kai Jin. The name echoed in my skull like a funeral bell. His name. My name now.
The truth crashed over me.
I wasn't on Earth anymore.
I'd been reborn — no, dragged — into a world that stank of blood and spiritual energy. A place where strength was law, and weakness was an invitation to die screaming.
The body I now inhabited had just been cast out of the Crimson Bone Orphan Sect, beaten and left to rot.
He had no talent. No cultivation. No allies.
Perfect.
Perfect for someone like me.
But there was no guiding light. No divine interface. No whispering gods or mysterious systems to hand me a golden path.
Just pain.
Mud.
Silence.
And then… a voice.
"Tch. Pathetic."
It cut through the stillness like a blade through silk.
"Crying in the mud already? This is what I've inherited?"
The voice echoed inside me — not like a thought, not like an instinct. A second presence, older than I was. Quieter. Unshakeable.
I spun around, but the forest was silent. Still. Not even the wind stirred now.
"Don't bother looking. I'm not out there."
"I'm what's left behind… when you forget what it means to survive."
The words carried weight. Not loud. But sharp. Cold. Familiar in a way that unsettled me.
It sounded like me — but from years I hadn't lived yet.
"Who are you?" I asked aloud, heart pounding.
"You'll find out. Eventually."
A pause.
Then, a calm intensity.
"You were thrown away because they believed you couldn't climb. Let them believe it."
"Prove them right… and you'll die like a dog."
I tried to speak, but the breath caught in my throat.
"You want answers?"
"Then start by surviving. I won't teach you to cultivate. That's your fight — not mine."
The voice darkened.
"If you beg for shortcuts, if you expect mercy, then turn around now. This path is for monsters."
Silence followed.
But it didn't feel empty.
It felt like something ancient inside me had just opened one eye — and it was watching.
Waiting.
The wind howled through the ravine, tugging at my tattered robes. I stumbled forward, each step a fight against vertigo. My head throbbed with every movement.
No food. No weapon. No idea where I was.
Only a name carved in memory: Bloodroot Mountains — a cursed region filled with beasts and bandits.
The sect threw me out here to die.
Let them try.
They buried the wrong man.
A few hours later, night fell like a predator.
I found shelter beneath a jagged rock overhang. My stomach groaned, twisting painfully. I pressed my back to the cold stone and looked up at the stars.
They were… strange.
Too many. Too bright. Some formed constellations I'd never seen before. One pulsed faintly red — like it was watching me.
I closed my eyes.
That voice — my voice, yet not — echoed faintly one last time.
"We will meet again… when you earn the right to see."
I didn't know what it meant.
But something in me stirred — something old, coiled like a serpent in the dark.
And whatever it was…
It had just opened its eye.