In Yangcheng, as evening fell, Li Changle walked through a residential complex called Xingfuli, carrying a big haul of groceries from the market. They were a little heavy, and his still-weak body struggled under the weight.
He made it up to the third floor with difficulty, fumbled out his key, and finally put the groceries down. Then Li Changle collapsed onto the sofa like a dead dog.
"This is exhausting. I'll make myself some Chicken and Cordyceps Flower Soup tonight and build up my strength."
"Why is this body so weak? It's been two months. I only got hit a few times on the head and body. How come I'm still in such bad shape?"
Li Changle shook his head, then decided it wasn't his fault.
It was the fault of the previous guy named Li Changle.
Two months ago, Li Changle had worked overtime at the office until two in the morning. It was so late, and he was so tired, that he figured he'd lie down at the office for a while and call a cab home later.
But after lying down, he woke up to find himself in a hospital bed, with terrible pain in the back of his head and across his back.
At the time, Li Changle had no idea he'd crossed over into another world. He thought he'd overworked himself so badly that something had gone wrong with his body, causing him to pass out and get sent to the hospital.
"No, I haven't finished my proposal yet! I still need to revise the draft."
Li Changle couldn't sit still. He reached for his phone, intending to call his boss and ask him to bring over his work computer.
That was probably what it meant to be a corporate drone. Even after being hospitalized, his first thought upon waking was, "What am I going to do about my proposal?"
What made Li Changle realize something was wrong was this:
When he picked up the phone and said it wasn't his, the doctor insisted that it was.
The doctor even held it up to Li Changle's face to scan him, and the phone unlocked.
Then a flood of memories that didn't belong to him suddenly surged into his mind, racing through his head like a movie reel at five hundred times normal speed.
Li Changle passed out again.
When he woke up once more, he finally realized that he'd crossed into another world.
This was a world almost identical to Earth, with the same cultural and technological development, and a similar course of civilization.
People were ordinary, too. There was no cultivation, no supernatural powers, no spiritual energy revival. It was simply a copy of Earth's civilization.
Li Changle was a man, twenty-two years old, freshly out of university and just starting to look for a job. Aside from being handsome and warmhearted, he was an ordinary new graduate.
The reason he'd ended up in the hospital was that one night, two months earlier, a few men had tried to assault a beautiful woman in a residential building downstairs. Li Changle had stepped in to stop them.
He hadn't even considered that there were three or four of them. He'd dashed over in a flashy running leap and kicked the sleazy guy who was about to harass the woman. Then all three or four men had ganged up on him.
But Li Changle had plenty of fight in him. He'd used the essence of Seven Injuries Fist—dealing the enemy eight hundred points of damage at the cost of a thousand to himself. While taking punches and kicks from several men, he'd grabbed a nearby trash can and swung it wildly, beating the sleazy bastards until they scattered, covering their heads.
What he hadn't expected was that, in the heat of the moment, he'd left an opening behind him. One of the men seized the chance, ran up behind him, and brought another trash can crashing down on his head and back.
Li Changle had passed out on the spot. Seeing that things might turn deadly, the sleazy men abandoned the woman and fled in every direction.
It was the woman who had taken Li Changle to the hospital. He had no idea how she'd managed to drag a man who stood five foot ten into her car.
When he woke up, it was as Li Changle, now crossed over from Earth. But after absorbing the original Li Changle's memories, he felt that he was also the Li Changle of this world.
As the memories of his twenty-two years in this world played through his mind, he felt as though he'd lived here for twenty years himself.
The question had bothered Li Changle for a long time. Had he crossed over and become this world's Li Changle, or had this world's Li Changle gained his memories? But he didn't dwell on it too much.
Maybe parallel worlds really did exist.
Perhaps his soul had simply merged with that of his counterpart in a parallel world. He still had his memories of Earth, and he was still Li Changle. That was what mattered.
And besides, it wasn't so bad. He'd gone from twenty-six back to twenty-two. It felt great to be young again. No overtime, no capitalist exploitation, no boss manipulating him into working like a pack mule, and no more staying up all night over proposals.
Aside from his body still feeling a little rough, the future was bright!
Li Changle lay on the sofa, thinking back over the past two months. Aside from waking up covered in injuries, with a bit of a headache, things had been fairly uneventful.
Li Changle stood up, picked up the old hen and a handful of cordyceps flowers, and walked into the kitchen. The apartment was quite spacious, with three bedrooms and a living room, and Li Changle lived there alone.
Of course, the apartment wasn't his. But the current Li Changle was living there rent-free without the slightest qualm.
The apartment belonged to the beautiful woman he'd rescued that night. She'd felt terribly sorry that he'd been beaten up because of her.
Then she'd found out that Li Changle was a recent university graduate with no job lined up, and that he'd been sharing an apartment with someone else. So she'd simply offered him one of her apartments, the one she rarely used.
She had two or three apartments in Yangcheng and barely stayed in them anyway, so she'd figured this was a good way to repay him.
Li Changle had spent about a week in the hospital. Apart from the night he rescued her, he'd only seen the beautiful woman once more, when he was discharged.
She'd been wearing a mask both times, so he couldn't see what she looked like. But from her tall figure and the pair of smiling eyes above the mask, Li Changle was certain she was beautiful.
When he was discharged, she'd brought along a girl of average height with a round face to pick him up. She seemed to be her assistant.
She'd also arranged for people to help him move and take him to her apartment, and had made sure all his household essentials, furniture, and appliances were taken care of.
Li Changle had been living there for two months. He still didn't know the woman's name, or when she might come back to reclaim the apartment.
But there was one thing he did know: she was definitely a Rich Woman.
He could tell from the size of the apartment and its furnishings. He'd also heard from her young assistant that the apartment across the hall belonged to the Rich Woman, too.
Li Changle had sucked in a breath at that.
"The lives of the rich really are terrifying!"
She didn't buy apartments one at a time. She bought entire floors?
Li Changle truly didn't understand how rich people lived.
"Bored, I hesitate; reaching my dreams won't be easy..."
Li Changle hummed as he prepared the old hen, feeling that life was so beautiful.
He didn't have a job or a house of his own, but he wasn't worried at all.
Li Changle had looked into the general state of this world. To put it simply, its entertainment and culture had absolutely nothing in common with Earth's.
The novels, songs, movies, and plays that existed on Earth didn't exist here at all.
In other words, he could make a living by bringing over novels from Earth. This world had web fiction, too.
Li Changle was planning to write web fiction. He'd never written any before, but he'd read plenty. Besides, he'd worked with words in his previous life, and he had a good writing style.
Most importantly, Li Changle had discovered that after experiencing the twenty-two years of this world's Li Changle's life in his mind, his memory had become freakishly good. He could recall the contents of almost anything he'd ever seen, down to the smallest detail.
This... was probably his cheat ability. Li Changle was pretty happy about it. It would make writing novels even easier.
He wouldn't have to worry about making a living. He could do whatever he wanted. No proposals, no overtime. Wasn't that exactly what he'd dreamed of?
The Chicken and Cordyceps Flower Soup he'd spent two hours making tasted incredible. It was loaded with purines, but he was still young. He probably wouldn't get gout, right? Right?
Being young was everything. Young people could do whatever they wanted.
Li Changle drank two big bowls of chicken soup and burped with satisfaction.
He went to the computer desk in his study. His time off had been due to an accident, but after two months of rest, it was time to get back to work.
Li Changle quickly opened the browser and found the homepage of Huaxia Novel Chinese Network. He clicked Register.
He stared at the blank pen-name field for a moment, then finally typed in three characters: Li Xiaoyao.
The Li Xiaoyao from his previous life had had a pretty tragic story, but Li Changle liked the name.
He'd come to this world hoping to live freely—without being a corporate drone or pulling overtime.
After all, he'd probably worked himself to death on Earth before ending up in this world.
Getting a job was never an option. He'd never get a job in this lifetime.
Not even a dog would take one.
Li Changle stubbornly stuck with the pen name Li Xiaoyao.
The guy named Li Xiaoyao had had it rough, but that was Li Xiaoyao's problem. What did it have to do with him, Li Changle?
Since his pen name was Li Xiaoyao, there was no question that his first novel would be Legend of Sword and Fairy.
Legend of Sword and Fairy 1 had been part of Li Changle's childhood. For kids who grew up in that era, unless they hadn't had the chance, who hadn't watched the first Legend of Sword and Fairy?
At first, people had thought the Sword and Fairy series marked the beginning of Xianxia dramas. No one could have imagined it would turn out to be the peak.
That only showed how good the story of Legend of Sword and Fairy was.
As someone born in the nineties, Li Changle knew almost no one who hadn't watched, or at least heard of, Legend of Sword and Fairy 1.
The reruns every summer vacation had been the happiest part of childhood.
Although Legend of Sword and Fairy was a Xianxia drama adapted from a game, the novel version was quite short.
But Li Changle had worked with words himself, so he planned to adapt the first Legend of Sword and Fairy into a web novel.
He'd see how deep the waters of web fiction in this world were, and whether he could handle it!
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