Cold. Endless, bone-chilling cold flooded Lu Chen's mind.
That cold did not come from the outside world. It radiated from within his body, as if a block of ice filled him, endlessly releasing frigid energy.
Beyond the cold, waves of venomous resentment and shrieking screams filled Lu Chen's mind.
Those howls were enough to drive anyone mad. Amid them, Lu Chen felt as though his head were splitting apart, seized by the urge to smash it against the wall.
Unfortunately, though his head felt ready to burst, the frigid energy within him left Lu Chen utterly unable to move.
He could only lie in bed, allowing the cold gloom to erode his body and the maddening voices of resentment to echo relentlessly through his mind.
"Damn it, what the hell is happening? If this keeps up, I'm done for!"
As an outstanding young man of the twenty-first century, Lu Chen was thoroughly bewildered. He had no idea why this had suddenly happened to him.
"Could I be sick? But what kind of illness is this?"
Confusion filled both Lu Chen's body and mind.
Still, though he did not understand his current condition, Lu Chen knew that if things went on like this, he would surely be finished.
Unfortunately, even with that premonition, the cold energy lingering within him and the ceaseless, piercing screams made it impossible for Lu Chen to do anything at all.
Soon, he would not even be able to think.
Just as Lu Chen felt he was about to die like this, he vaguely sensed someone arriving beside his bed and making strange sounds.
It was a crude, strange language, yet Lu Chen somehow understood what it meant.
"Shaman, A'Chen... his condition...?"
"Not good. Later, I will give him... medicine. Whether he can... survive depends on himself..."
"May the ancestors bless him!"
"Shaman, there are more and more of those things around the village. At this rate, we won't be able to hold on for much longer."
"Alas!"
There were not many words, but they were laden with sorrow. Yet Lu Chen had no mood to pay attention to them. The condition within his own body had already exhausted all his strength.
Not long after the two finished speaking, a shriveled finger pried open Lu Chen's mouth and poured in a bowl of hot soup that carried a strange scent.
The soup did not smell unpleasant; it simply gave off an odd sensation.
But once the thick soup entered his stomach, a warm feeling spread through Lu Chen's body and mind.
Stimulated by the thick soup, Lu Chen's chilling sensation finally eased somewhat.
As his body improved, the shrill screams in his mind also began to blur.
In this way, the heat released by the thick soup continuously circulated through Lu Chen's body, driving out the cold energy within him.
As the cold energy dispersed, the screams in Lu Chen's mind grew weaker and weaker.
Finally, before the warmth released by the thick soup faded away, the cold energy in Lu Chen's body was completely driven out first.
And with the cold energy gone, the murmuring voices in his mind also fell silent.
Once everything had settled, an icy voice, mechanical in nature, suddenly appeared in Lu Chen's mind.
But at that moment, Lu Chen had no mind to pay it any attention.
The struggle between the warm current and the cold energy, along with the screams endlessly echoing in his mind, had drained too much of his strength.
Once those bothersome things vanished, Lu Chen fell asleep at once from sheer exhaustion.
Yet Lu Chen was destined to sleep uneasily that night. From the outside, one could clearly see him constantly flailing his arms and struggling, as if trapped in a nightmare.
Lu Chen truly was dreaming, but whether it was a nightmare was another matter entirely.
In that dream, Lu Chen changed from an outstanding young man of the twenty-first century into Chen, a Barbarian youth living in a tribe in the Barbarian Wastes.
In the dream, Lu Chen experienced Chen's brief fifteen-year life, as well as the terror he encountered at the end!...
Lu Chen slept through the entire night. Only when the next day had fully brightened and the sun had already reached the middle of the sky did he finally wake completely.
Yet after waking, Lu Chen sat on the bed for quite a while before coming back to himself.
"Judging from those memories, I transmigrated. I came from China to a tribe in the Barbarian Wastes. But this world is rather unusual."
To be honest, transmigrating into a tribe in the Barbarian Wastes did not distress Lu Chen.
Not to mention that this world possessed extraordinary powers—even without them, Lu Chen was confident that he could live quite well here using the knowledge from his original world.
Unfortunately, after accepting the memories of Chen, the original Barbarian youth, Lu Chen tragically discovered that this world was far from simple.
Lu Chen had not forgotten that the Barbarian youth's final memory was of patrolling around the village when someone called his name. When he turned back in confusion, he instantly collapsed.
After that came everything Lu Chen had experienced upon transmigrating here.
Such an eerie experience filled Lu Chen with terror.
"Someone calls your name, and you collapse the moment you turn around? That doesn't fit the Barbarian Wastes at all. Shouldn't the Barbarian Wastes be a place where Barbarian Beasts run rampant, where humans struggle against nature? What is this now? Why is it turning into a supernatural horror world?"
"Moreover, it isn't just my fainting. Recently, the Clan Chief and the shaman have repeatedly warned us not to go out at night. Something about this world feels seriously wrong!"
Lu Chen, who had transmigrated here, worried about the world he was in. But he soon stopped dwelling on it, as the hunger in his stomach forced him to consider something more immediate.
"I'm starving. The state of this world can wait. Right now, I need to eat."
Struggling to rise from bed, Lu Chen relied on the memories he had fused with the previous night and fumbled around the room. After a while, he grabbed a slab of cured meat and savagely tore into it.
Soon, half the slab of meat had gone into Lu Chen's stomach. Only then did the hunger in his belly ease a little.
But when he looked at the remaining half, a bitter smile appeared on Lu Chen's face.
"Damn it. That Barbarian youth—no, I should say I am an orphan in this world. This chunk of food is all that's left at home. Now I have to worry about food."
"Alas, this is a proper hell-start!"
An eerie world, the identity of an orphan, insufficient food—everything made Lu Chen keenly feel the hardship of his situation.
Just as Lu Chen was troubled, a somewhat familiar icy, mechanical voice suddenly rang out in his mind.
The host has accumulated sufficient Experience Points. Upgrade?
The voice sounded mechanical and devoid of all emotion, yet Lu Chen knew it well. He had heard it in both his original world and this one.
"This voice is... that idiotic mobile game I was making when I transmigrated! How did it come along too?!"
"No, I remember hearing this voice after arriving in this world too. When was it?"
Lu Chen quickly remembered. When that bowl of hot soup had cleared the cold energy from his body, this mechanical voice had sounded.
But Lu Chen had passed out from exhaustion then and had not heard it clearly. Only when the voice sounded again now did he recall it.
"This is the system's voice. I remember that system logs can be checked!"
As Lu Chen recalled this, a virtual screen soon appeared in his mind, displaying several familiar system logs.
How could they not be familiar? He had stayed up late creating those system logs himself.
System Notification: The host has killed a White Wanderer-level Evil Soul and gained 200 Experience Points. System Notification: The host has sufficient Experience Points and can upgrade. Upgrade: Yes/No.
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