A Pig Falling From the Sky

[Deposit your brain here.]

[My readers don't need smart brains.]

[The earlier transition might be a bit draggy. If you mind... well, you still have to read it, because there are timeline explanations and power introductions.]

Jiang Bai was an orphan.

As early as when he came out of the orphanage, he plunged headfirst into the great dyeing vat of society, struggling and rolling around in it for several years.

Perhaps the heavens saw that he was too miserable and couldn't bear it anymore, so a bolt of unexpected wealth smashed right onto his forehead.

A lottery ticket, eight million after taxes.

Jiang Bai was not someone with lofty ambitions, and the first thing he did after getting the money was deposit all of it into the bank.

Just living off the interest would be enough for the rest of his life.

He immediately bought an apartment in the small county town of his hometown, starting a leisurely life like a retired old man ahead of schedule, occasionally traveling when the mood struck, and his days were as comfortable as could be.

At this moment, the night was thick.

Jiang Bai slumped on the sofa of his sixteenth-floor home, staring intently at the anime in front of him with an unlit cigarette clamped in his mouth.

On the screen, the blonde man in a suit was using a leg technique elegant to the extreme to kick an enemy with bizarre looks flying.

"Damn, this Sanji is too handsome."

"Elegant, simply too elegant!"

"I'll join you with one!"

Jiang Bai couldn't help letting out an exclamation, as if he were the curly-browed man twisting his posture in the kitchen.

And he lit the cigarette in his mouth, exhaling smoke together with Sanji on the screen.

After finishing an episode, a rumble came from his stomach.

Jiang Bai reluctantly turned off the tablet and rummaged out a barrel of collector's edition braised beef noodles from the storage room.

He skillfully tore open the packaging, poured in the seasoning packets, and poured in boiling hot water; a rich aroma instantly permeated the air.

Covering it with a fork, Jiang Bai glanced at the time: three more minutes.

Just waiting around wasn't a solution either.

He strolled over to the window, one hand in his pocket, ready to appreciate the night view of the small county town and incidentally see if there were any stars tonight.

Just as he cast his gaze toward the sky, an inconspicuous black dot broke into his vision.

"A drone?"

Jiang Bai instinctively narrowed his eyes.

This thought popped up and was immediately dismissed by himself.

No, it was too far; he couldn't see clearly what it specifically was, but that thing's flight trajectory was crooked and completely unlike a mechanical creation.

More importantly, that speed was somewhat outrageously fast.

Almost in the time it took Jiang Bai to blink, that black dot rapidly magnified in his pupils.

Finally, he saw clearly.

That was a pig.

A pink, round pig whose four hooves were kicking wildly in the air... pig.

Jiang Bai's brain suffered a system crash for a fraction of a second.

Why would a pig fly?

This question hovered in his mind for 0.01 seconds before he forcibly flung it out.

Was this the time to ponder such philosophical questions?

Watching that "flying divine pig" crash straight toward his own window, Jiang Bai didn't have a shred of the television protagonist's realization of "standing frozen in place, waiting for rescue."

"Holy shit!"

The desire to survive soared to its peak in an instant.

Jiang Bai whipped around in a fierce turn, not even caring about the instant noodles, and directly darted toward the room door like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.

Open the door, sprint—a set of movements flowed like water and drifting clouds without the slightest drag.

He didn't even choose to take the elevator, instead charging like crazy into the safety stairwell, running down a whole floor in one breath.

Until he stopped at the stair landing platform between the fifteenth and sixteenth floors, Jiang Bai supported himself against the wall and panted heavily in large gulps.

Above his head was a thick concrete ceiling, and all around were enclosed walls.

He looked up, then looked down, and a sigh of relief instantly escaped his heart.

This should be safe now, right?

You, a mere pig, surely couldn't run a wall-hack and phase directly through the floor from upstairs to smash down?

Newton's coffin lid had to be held down a little bit, right?

Jiang Bai even had the leisure to complain to himself.

However, before the thought could fully settle in his mind,

a strange sensation came from above his head.

He jerked his head up.

That pig had appeared out of thin air right above him.

It was less than half a meter away, close enough for him to see every coarse bristle on its body.

Yet the instant it fell, it seemed to carry the terrifying acceleration of something plummeting from a height of eight hundred meters.

There was no loud crash, no scream.

Jiang Bai didn't even feel the slightest pain before his consciousness was instantly annihilated by that world-destroying force.

The hallway fell silent again.

The mysterious pig disappeared.

Jiang Bai, who should have been crushed into a pile of flesh, vanished without a trace as well, as if he had never existed in this world.

His consciousness gathered again from the boundless darkness.

When Jiang Bai opened his eyes once more, dazzling sunlight filtered through layers of leaves, casting dappled shadows across his face.

The fragrance of earth and the freshness of plants lingered beneath his nose, and he lay on a soft, slightly damp layer of fallen leaves.

I'm not dead?

As soon as the thought surfaced, memories of being crushed to pulp by the Flying Sky Divine Pig surged back like a tide.

That world-destroying force had definitely been real.

So... was this the world after death? Heaven? Or hell?

Jiang Bai struggled to sit up and looked around, only to find himself in an unfamiliar primeval forest.

Then a sorrow deeper than death itself seized his heart.

My money!

A grief-stricken wail cut through the forest's silence.

My eight million, and I hadn't even had time to enjoy it! The interest! The interest I'd have lived on for the rest of my life!

Jiang Bai clutched his hair in anguish, his whole face contorting.

The most painful thing in life was dying before you'd spent all your money.

His house, his trip around the world, his leisurely retirement... They were all gone!

It was all that damn pig's fault!

Hadn't we always learned that pots fell from the sky? How the hell were pigs falling from the sky too?

However, this heart-wrenching pain lasted less than a minute.

Jiang Bai took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. The grief on his face gave way to a calm acceptance of his fate.

"Good thing this is another world. Otherwise, I might really be too ashamed to face society."

It was kind of funny when you said it out loud: he'd been crushed to death by a pig.

Forget it.

He'd already wailed about it, and no amount of anguish would bring back the balance in his bank account.

As an orphan who'd struggled through society for years, he was best at accepting reality.

He slowly got to his feet, intending to figure out where he was first.

But the moment he stood upright, Jiang Bai sensed something was wrong.

The world before him... seemed a little too tall.

The bushes he could once see at eye level now required him to tilt his head up slightly.

He abruptly lowered his head and looked at his hands.

A pair of soft, plump little hands, white and tender, with even a few adorable dimples around the wrists.

Oh, no.

Just as he'd thought.

He'd gotten smaller.

Jiang Bai's heart sank, and a new wave of panic surged over him.

He quickly set off running in one direction.

He'd heard the sound of rushing water beside him as soon as he woke up.

He stumbled through a patch of bushes, and a clear stream appeared before him.

Jiang Bai eagerly rushed to the stream, carefully leaned forward, and looked at his reflection in the water.

The surface of the water reflected a young face, around six or seven years old, with short black hair and delicate features. A trace of bewilderment lingered between his brows.

This face was unmistakably his own from childhood.

Jiang Bai let out a long breath of relief and plopped down on the ground.

Thank goodness, thank goodness.

Although his body had gotten smaller, at least it was still his own body. He hadn't transmigrated as a soul into someone else.

Once the shock had passed, Jiang Bai's thoughts began racing.

As a seasoned webnovel reader, the scene before him instantly brought to mind a classic opening.

"Let me think..."

Jiang Bai sat cross-legged, propping his chin on one hand, his eyes gleaming with reason.

"Before I transmigrated, I was watching the anime One Piece, and I'd even praised Sanji's chivalrous spirit."

"Then I got hit and killed by a flying pig. The way I died was already full of surreal, fantastical absurdity, just like a Devil Fruit."

"Now I've become a child again and appeared in a primeval forest in the middle of nowhere. This place looks a lot like some uninhabited island on the Grand Line."

Based on those three points, Jiang Bai boldly made a guess, drawing on his experience of reading over a thousand novels.

He had most likely transmigrated into the world of One Piece.

The thought made him both a little excited and a little frustrated.

The exciting part was that this was the world of One Piece, a world full of adventure and miracles.

The frustrating part was that it was also a high-risk world where the strong were everywhere, the weak were worth less than dogs, and a single careless moment could get you caught in an area-wide attack and blown to pieces.

And right now, he was just a helpless six-year-old brat who couldn't even truss a chicken.

"This opening's a little too difficult..."

Jiang Bai couldn't help sighing.

Just as he was thinking about how to survive in this dangerous world...

"Ding!"

A crisp electronic chime rang without warning in the depths of his mind.

Jiang Bai's body stiffened, and the hand propping up his chin froze in midair.

That sound...

He knew it all too well!

[Host's soul stability detected. Binding conditions met.]

[Strongest System is binding...]

[1%...30%...70%...99%!]

[Binding failed! World error detected!]

A string of mechanical notification sounds rang in his mind.