Keeping Up with the Reincarnation Trend (Part 1)

Late at night, at a crossroads, Wang Rui sat cross-legged beside his own corpse.

The streetlamp's light passed straight through his translucent body, yet did not leave even the faintest shadow on the ground.

His story was simple: a wage slave woken in the middle of the night by an emergency call and ordered back to work overtime, crossing the road while looking at WeChat; a heavy truck forbidden from driving during the day; and a truck driver who was also driving while fatigued... Well, everyone knew what happened next.

The driver fled the scene, leaving only a horribly twisted corpse in the middle of the road. Under the dim yellow streetlight, the pool of blood beneath it looked as black as asphalt, while dark red tire tracks stretched down the road.

Maybe I could become part of some deluxe urban horror legend package, Wang Rui thought aimlessly. Apparently, this intersection was pretty cursed. Someone had even hanged themselves from a tree in the nearby greenbelt.

Then a subtle doubt arose within him—maybe he was still in bed, merely having a nightmare about being run over by a dump truck. The next morning, he would wake up, rush to work, and start another ordinary day.

Just as he sat there, pondering how to wake from such an absurd nightmare, a phone began ringing abruptly.

"Can't I even die in peace?" Wang Rui muttered with his eyes closed, showing no intention of getting up to check. "Still, this phone's a lot tougher than I am. It didn't even break from the fall."

He ignored the constantly buzzing phone and continued staring into space.

Yet the ringtone persisted, ringing again and again, until he finally spared the phone a glance.

The phone screen was covered in spiderweb-like cracks, but it still glowed stubbornly from within the pool of blood.

Wang Rui squinted at it for quite some time before making out the caller ID on the shattered screen: Wang Xiaohua.

That was the contact name he had set for his twin sister, Wang Rui.

Wang Rui froze for a long moment. Then, as if suddenly realizing something, he lunged toward the phone on the ground and stretched out trembling fingers to press the answer button.

But his translucent fingertips passed through the screen. At that moment, the green icon seemed to become an impassable chasm separating life and death.

Though a soul no longer needed to breathe, Wang Rui felt as though invisible hands were pressing him into icy water, leaving him unable to catch his breath—only then did he truly realize that he was dead.

Wang Rui would not call him at dawn for no reason.

Maybe, through some vague twin telepathy from superstition, she had sensed that something had happened to her brother. Or perhaps she truly had an urgent problem, had encountered danger, and was calling for her brother's help. Or maybe it was something as simple as a late-night breakup, and she desperately needed her big brother to comfort her.

Wang Rui could no longer answer that call.

He was dead. He would never be able to answer his sister's calls again.

The phone rang again and again, its muffled ringtone echoing through the accident scene and lending it an inexplicable air of eeriness.

And the dead man's ghost knelt beside that tiny screen, mechanically yet futilely trying over and over to answer a call that no one would ever pick up again.

Until the phone battery ran out and the little screen went dark.

After an unknown amount of time, Wang Rui heard a faint clattering sound behind him, like the claws of some large animal striking the ground as it walked. Maybe it was a homeless stray dog. He stiffly turned around—

A beautiful beast, as though it had stepped straight out of fantasy, stood beneath the orange-yellow glow of the streetlamp.

It was translucent, just like Wang Rui, and cast no shadow.

The four-legged creature stood as tall as a person. It resembled a lion, but not quite; its four claws were like a dragon's, its entire body gleamed with brilliant gold, and a pair of sharp horns emerged from its mane, which blazed like golden flames.

It tilted its head as it studied Wang Rui, a humanlike scrutiny in its golden eyes. Then the golden line on its forehead opened, revealing a scarlet eye.

After a brief moment of surprise, Wang Rui, a working stiff who had read countless novels, accepted the strange beast before him without much trouble. He did not feel afraid. Yet when facing that red vertical pupil, he suddenly felt deeply uncomfortable, as though he were completely naked.

He frowned and examined it in return, only to inexplicably find the golden lion-like beast somewhat familiar.

Man and beast stared at each other silently. After a while, the beast spoke first, but the voice it uttered was that of a cool, detached woman. "Human, do you want to live?"

Wang Rui said nothing, but the suspicion in his eyes was plain to see.

The beast seemed somewhat annoyed. "I am the Imperial Auspicious Beast of the Star Dou Great Forest, the Three-Eyed Golden Lion. Human, are you willing to exchange destinies with me in return for a chance to live?"

Wang Rui softly went, "Wow."

He was a little surprised, but only a little.

After all, he was already dead. Anything could happen after death. Even being reincarnated as a slime in another world would be perfectly normal.

"What do you mean?" The Auspicious Beast flicked her tail impatiently when he still did not answer. Wang Rui noticed that her glittering golden tail resembled a dragon's more than a lion's—it lacked the slender, tufted shape of the latter.

He chose his words carefully. "I always thought you were a character from a novel."

"The novels in your world may not be fictional worlds, and real worlds may not necessarily be anything other than novels." The Auspicious Beast shook her head as she spoke, saying something entirely in keeping with the mystical con artist setting of the Power of Destiny. "Well? Are you willing to use my destiny to live on in the Douluo World as an Auspicious Beast?"

Whether the Auspicious Beast's so-called resurrection was real or not, he was already dead anyway and had plenty of time. He might as well satisfy his curiosity about this Three-Eyed Golden Lion who had crossed over from a novel.

So he asked, "I thought you had already completely fused with Huo Yuhao. How did you appear here, then?"

The Auspicious Beast tilted her head toward him, and a trace of tenderness flashed through her golden eyes. "You are right. I did sacrifice myself to Yuhao. My soul and the Power of Destiny became part of Yuhao, and I have continued watching over him. Guided by a trace of my soul, my bloodline power reached..."

She paused. "That woman. At Blue Silver Valley, a part of me—or rather, a part that I once believed belonged to me—separated from Yuhao and attached itself to her."

Wang Rui desperately tried to recall this part of the plot, but he had read the novel ten years ago and could not remember at all which scene the Auspicious Beast was referring to. He could only go along with it and ask, "Was it the part of your Divine Sense that Tang Xiaoqi fused into herself?"

"Mm." The Auspicious Beast lowered her usually proud head and spoke in a muffled voice, looking especially sorrowful. "She said, 'Using the Power of Destiny, I fused my soul power and origin power into Dong'er's body while she was still asleep. Whether she is Dong'er or Tang Wutong, she is the one you love most. And I am a part of the one you love most. When you miss me, just hold Wutong a little more.'"

Wang Rui still could not remember where in the novel those words had appeared, but he understood perfectly well that, to the Auspicious Beast who had sacrificed herself for Huo Yuhao, those words were like a knife driven into her heart.

This was beyond anything NTR could describe.

Sure enough, the Auspicious Beast grew furious. Her golden mane rose like flames, and her sharp claws dug deeply into the ground. "But Tang Wutong is not me! What I wanted was for Yuhao to remember me forever, not to treat Tang Wutong as me! That woman is not even Wang Dong'er! I have seen the love in Wang Dong'er's eyes—that beautiful feeling, brighter than any gemstone, is nothing like the false love in that woman's eyes! And Yuhao actually believed her!"

Wang Rui shrank his neck. The little dragon person next door had an enraged lion hidden inside, while this lion before him had an enraged little dragon person inside her!

He silently swallowed the jab. Looking at the roaring Auspicious Beast, he knew that any intelligent creature that had suppressed its feelings for too long needed someone to talk to, so he did not interrupt.

Perhaps because he was used to comforting Wang Xiaohua, Wang Rui reflexively raised a hand once the Auspicious Beast had finished venting and patted her on the head.

"Then do you hate them?" he asked after a while.

"I hate that woman, but I do not hate Yuhao." After struggling with it for a moment, the Auspicious Beast answered, "In your human terms, Yuhao was CPU'd by a bad woman and that bad woman's father... Although I do not know exactly what CPU means, I know it is not his fault."

CPU... Wang Rui fell silent again. He truly admired the Three-Eyed Golden Lion's ability to accept new things...

She must have spent plenty of time surfing the internet after coming to this world, Miss Jin Ni.

At last, he sighed. "You've had it rough." Then he rubbed the Auspicious Beast's head as though she were his little sister. At this moment, the Three-Eyed Golden Lion did not seem all that different from an ordinary innocent girl devastated by heartbreak.

Instead, the thin-skinned Auspicious Beast became a little embarrassed.

After all, the young man before her had just died, yet he was the one comforting her...

"Only this small part of me remains. Even so, I do not want to watch Yuhao being lovey-dovey with that woman. I feel pain and unwillingness."

"I truly was willing to let Yuhao be with Wang Dong'er, because I admired Wang Dong'er. But that woman is not Wang Dong'er. I know her love is fake, shallow as morning dew." She flicked her tail, pain and the pride unique to the Imperial Auspicious Beast coloring her voice. "So I left. I hoped to find a turning point. I could not let Yuhao be hurt by her... Then destiny favored me one last time and brought me to this world."

"After coming to this world, I wandered through the place humans call the 'internet.'" The Auspicious Beast continued, "The power called the 'internet' in this world is very strange. To some extent, it seems to be a sea formed from the thoughts of countless humans."

...So you really are an internet-addicted girl.

Nice! I've started writing!

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