In a dark room lit only by a dim candle, boys around seventeen to eighteen years old slept in neat rows.
Swoosh.
The candle finally burned out, plunging the room into complete darkness, but soon a ray of sunlight pierced through the window.
One by one, the boys stirred. Some sat up rubbing their eyes, others groaned and rolled out of bed. Soon, all of them rose to begin another day in the Dark Bell Sect.
These boys had once come here with hopes of becoming immortals. Lacking talent, their dreams had been crushed, and they were relegated to the lowest position—servants.
Nang Hai, one of the servants, was a bit different from the others.
He washed his face with cold water, the chill snapping him fully awake. Without wasting even a breath, he stepped into the courtyard to begin his daily routine.
He swept the outer courtyard.
He entered the forest to chop firewood.
He carried it to the kitchen to assist with meal preparation, eating his lunch there before running off again.
He helped the butcher chop meat for the evening meal.
He cleaned the inner courtyard, returned to the kitchen for dinner duty, ate quickly, and then—
He trained.
Half an hour of Iron Fist practice.
Half an hour of pushing his body to its absolute limit.
Only after completing everything did he collapse onto his bed and sleep.
This had been his daily routine for the past three days.
Nang Hai used every second toward his goal of achieving immortality.
After all, Nang Hai had died once already… and something entirely different had crawled back into his body.
Four days ago, an inner sect disciple grabbed him and hurled him onto a pile of corpses. The force was so great that everyone believed he had died.
And they were right.
The original Nang Hai had died.
The one who crawled out of the corpse mountain was someone else entirely—a soul with no memory of who he was, where he came from, or why he had ended up in this body.
He only knew one thing:
This was not his world.
And this was not his body.
Since fate had dropped him here, he would seize this new life. If immortality was possible in this world, then he would achieve it.
But immortality required herbs.
Herbs required money.
And money required labor.
So Nang Hai worked tirelessly.
By the end of the third day, utterly exhausted, he fell asleep expecting the next few months to be exactly the same, but…
Next day.
When Nang Hai was cleaning near the Core Disciples' residence, he encountered something strange.
He found a female human head.
Just a head.
Eyes wide open.
Terrifying.
Nang Hai wanted to ignore it, but in the Dark Bell Sect, a servant's life was worth nothing. If he failed to clean properly, he would end up as material for pill refining.
Helplessly sighing, Nang Hai crouched down.
"What a pity… someone so beautiful ended up like this," he muttered softly. "Don't worry. I'll throw you away."
He grasped the head with both hands and stood up.
And froze.
His vision felt… wrong.
Lower than it should be.
Why did everything look taller?
He tried to turn his neck—nothing.
He couldn't feel his body at all.
Instead, something was gripping his head.
Firmly.
Then the grip tightened—and the world spun violently.
As he was flung through the air, his rotating vision caught sight of a boy standing behind him.
Same clothes.
Same face.
Same body.
Nang Hai's body.
He hit something hard with a dull clang, darkness flashing for an instant. When he opened his eyes again, he was inside a trash bin.
"…Oh."
Everything made sense now.
And Nang Hai couldn't help but laugh.
Now Nang Hai finally understood, and burst into laughter.
(End of Chapter)