The last thing Bai Yi remembered was the soft sigh of his own heart stopping in a quiet hospital bed. The first thing he knew now was the metallic scent of blood and the scream of tearing steel.
He was on his knees on cold jade tiles. Chaos roared around him.
Men in black robes moved like shadows, their blades cutting arcs of glowing light through the air. Guards in vermillion armor fell, their cries cut short. Old men in elaborate silk hats scrambled and wept, tripping over their own robes.
A play, Bai Yi thought, his mind swimming. Some dreadful, overacted play.
A hand shoved him from behind. He fell forward, palms scraping the polished floor. He saw his reflection—a young man with a pale, delicate face and wide, tired eyes. Not his face. Not his old, lined, peaceful face.
"Run, you fool!" a man screeched, diving behind a thick red pillar. The man's official hat was crooked, his face slick with terror.
Bai Yi pushed himself up. His body felt light, weak. Unfamiliar. He looked around.
The hall was vast, supported by pillars carved with great flaming birds. High above, a ceiling was painted with a cosmic battle. It was the most beautiful set design he had ever seen.
And they were ruining it with all the red.
At the far end of the hall, on a throne of dark wood and pearl, sat a woman.
She was beautiful, with hair like a waterfall of night and robes of deep crimson. She watched the slaughter. Her chin rested on one hand. She looked… bored. Her eyes, from this distance, seemed to glaze over the dying men as if they were mildly annoying insects.
A shadow fell over Bai Yi.
He turned.
A man in black stood there, a sword of condensed, buzzing light pointed at Bai Yi's throat. The man's eyes were empty pits. He did not speak. He just thrust.
Time did not slow. Bai Yi did not see his life flash before his eyes. He had already lived a full life. A great life. He had won. He had finished.
This was just… tacky.
A profound, soul-deep frustration welled up in him. Not fear. Not anger. It was the frustration of a master artist watching a child smear mud on a finished masterpiece. It was the weariness of a man who had chosen a perfect, quiet ending, only to be shoved onto a loud, bloody stage.
The blade tip was a hair's breadth from his skin.
He sighed.
It was not a sigh of resignation. It was the sigh of a critic.
The air from his lips did not disperse. It shimmered. It formed words, visible and silent, hanging in the space between him and the assassin.
Must drama always be so red?
Can't we try a softer hue instead?
The words glowed with a gentle, rose-colored light.
The assassin's piercing blade touched the first word. The light cascaded over the steel, up the man's arm, and encased his entire body in a fraction of a second. He froze, not in ice, but in a translucent shell of rosy quartz. The vicious light of his sword winked out inside it. The murderous intent was gone, replaced by a still, petrified peace.
The clanging and screaming in an immediate circle around Bai Yi stopped.
Two other assassins, moving to cut down a minister, stumbled. They looked at their trapped comrade. They looked at Bai Yi, kneeling before the beautiful, frozen statue.
Bai Yi stared at the words fading from the air. He understood language. He understood the meter, the simple AABB rhyme. It was a throwaway couplet. A piece of critique.
Why is it doing that?
His eyes traveled across the suddenly quiet patch of floor, past the frozen assassin, to the throne.
The Empress was no longer slouching.
She was sitting forward. Her bored expression was gone. Her eyes, now fully open, were fixed on him. They were not the eyes of a grateful ruler saved by a miracle. They were the eyes of a connoisseur who had just spotted something inexplicable in a familiar painting. Something new.
Intrigue.
A true, genuine spark of it in a sea of immortal boredom.
A system window, blue and stark, materialized in the corner of Bai Yi's vision. It was the only thing in this world that looked clean and modern.
[Natural Return to Dao System Initialized.]
[Primary Mission: Achieve Natural Death.]
[Permitted Methods: Old Age, Illness, Accidental Misadventure.]
[Strict Penalty for Death by Murder, Combat, or Suicide: Soul Obliteration.]
[Reward upon Natural Death: Return to Source World (Earth) in State of Eternal Peace.]
[Passive Ability 'Unintended Poetry Resonance'… Detected. Already Active.]
[Welcome, User Bai Yi. Please Proceed.]
The words hung in his sight. He understood.
He had gotten his peaceful death. His masterpiece ending.
And then he had been ripped from his earned rest and thrown into this violent, noisy, garish world.
To get back to his peace, he had to die again. But only the right way.
He looked at the rose-colored statue of the assassin. He looked at the Empress, who was still watching him with that unnerving, focused curiosity. He looked at the cowering officials, now peering at him with a mix of terror and awe.
He looked at the blood on the jade tiles.
A natural death. In this place.
A dry, humorless sound escaped his lips. It was almost a laugh.
The problem was no longer the assassin in front of him.
The problem was the entire world behind him.