Eleven at night, Earth, an office building in a technology park.
In the seventeenth-floor cubicles, only the screen in front of Lin Fan still glared with white light. The keyboard clattered as lines of code scrolled past, like an endless waterfall. He had been working overtime for forty-three hours straight, catching just two naps at his desk, neither longer than twenty minutes.
"Just one last round of interface debugging... I'll be done soon..." Lin Fan muttered, his eyes bloodshot and his temples throbbing.
His coffee cup had long been empty, and three instant-noodle containers were piled beside it. His phone lit up. It was a WeChat message from his mother: "Fan, don't stay up too late. I made soup for you. Come home this weekend and have some."
He glanced at it, warmth stirring in his heart, and quickly typed back: "Mom, go to sleep first. I'm almost done. I'll definitely come home this weekend."
He tapped send.
Then his heart seized.
As if an invisible hand had grabbed it and twisted hard.
Lin Fan opened his mouth, but no sound came out. His vision began to blur, and the code on the screen warped into bizarre patches of color. He tried to reach for the Fast-Acting Heart Pill in his drawer—the doctor had warned him just last month that, with his congenital arrhythmia, he couldn't keep pushing himself like this.
His fingers were still ten centimeters from the drawer.
The world went black.
***
His consciousness sank like a stone into the depths of the sea, falling endlessly.
There was no light, no sound, only a feeling of emptiness, as though everything had been stripped away. Lin Fan wanted to shout, to struggle, but even his sense of "self" had grown hazy.
Who knew how long passed—perhaps an instant, perhaps an eternity—when a point of light suddenly appeared below.
It rapidly expanded into a whirlpool and swallowed him.
***
Agony.
Not his heart—his whole skeleton felt as though it were being dismantled and pieced back together. Lin Fan abruptly opened his eyes and gasped for breath.
A low wooden ceiling beam came into view, tangled with cobwebs. The smell of mold mixed with the bitter scent of herbs and rushed into his nostrils. He was lying on a hard bed, covered by a thin quilt full of patches.
"Where... am I?"
He pushed himself upright, his palm touching the coarse bedsheet. Looking down, he saw a pair of young hands with dark skin, distinct knuckles, and a thin layer of calluses on the palms. They were nothing like his own, slightly pudgy hands that had spent ten years at a keyboard.
Fragments of memory surged in.
Memories that weren't his.
Blue Star. Year 300 of Spiritual Energy Resurgence. Jiangnan City. The Slum District. Parents dead. His younger sister, Lin Xiaoyu. The Martial Arts Academy. Survival...
"I transmigrated?"
Lin Fan pressed a hand to his forehead. Memories of a programmer from Earth collided with those of the body's Original Owner, leaving his head throbbing with pain. His name was Lin Fan, and he was sixteen. His parents had died three years ago in a small-scale Beast Tide, leaving him and his frail, sickly younger sister to rely on each other. Their family was destitute, surviving on the Original Owner's odd jobs and the meager relief payments from the Alliance. His sister suffered from Congenital Pulmonary Cold Syndrome and needed regular doses of Lung Cleansing Pills to suppress it. One pill cost 5,000 Credit Points—an astronomical price they couldn't afford.
"Big brother... you're awake?"
A weak little girl's voice came from beside the bed.
Lin Fan turned his head and saw a thin girl curled up on a Straw Mat beside the bed, covered with an even thinner old garment. She looked about thirteen or fourteen. Her face was as pale as paper, her lips almost colorless, but her big, dark eyes were bright as she watched him with concern.
Lin Xiaoyu. His younger sister.
The most important part of the Original Owner's memories came to him: to save up for his sister's medicine, the Original Owner had taken on jobs hauling goods and cleaning sewers at the same time. After three days of grueling labor, he had collapsed in an alley in the Slum District yesterday evening. Neighbors had carried him home.
"Xiaoyu..." Lin Fan spoke instinctively, his voice hoarse. "I'm fine."
He threw off the quilt and climbed out of bed, his steps unsteady. The room was tiny, less than ten square meters. Apart from a bed, a broken wooden chest, and a clay stove, it had almost nothing. He walked to the rice jar in the corner and lifted the lid. Only a thin layer of unpolished rice remained at the bottom, enough for two meals at most.
Outside the window, the sky was dim with the first hints of dawn. It was still early morning. Through the broken window covered in oiled paper, he could see the low, disorderly shacks outside. In the distance, the outline of towering city walls was faintly visible—that was the Inner City of Jiangnan City, separated from the Slum District by two barriers.
His circumstances were terrifyingly real.
Lin Fan walked over to a broken bronze mirror hanging on the wall. Its surface was blurry, reflecting an unfamiliar face: handsome, but gaunt from malnutrition; black hair in a disheveled mess; eyes sunken from exhaustion, yet carrying a composure beyond his years.
Sixteen years old. A pauper. A gravely ill younger sister. No money, no influence.
And... the entrance exam for Jiangnan Martial Arts Academy, one month away.
That was the Original Owner's—and now Lin Fan's—only way out. The Martial Arts Academy waived tuition and provided room and board. If he passed the assessment and became a Martial Artist, he could receive Alliance subsidies and qualify for better-paying missions. Only then would he have a chance to cure his sister's illness.
But the Martial Arts Academy's assessment was extremely difficult. Of the one hundred thousand youths in the Slum District, fewer than a hundred passed each year. The Original Owner had only average aptitude. Though he had gritted his teeth and practiced Basic Fist Technique for two years, he had barely reached the "initiate" level, still far from meeting the exam's standards.
"Hell of a start," Lin Fan said with a bitter smile.
On Earth, he had been an ordinary person too, but at least his parents were healthy, he had a steady job, and no matter how much pressure he faced, it had never been a matter of life or death. Here... survival was the starkest and most immediate concern.
"Big brother, there's half a bowl of porridge left in the pot. Heat it up and eat," Lin Xiaoyu said softly. Then she began to cough again, her thin shoulders trembling.
Lin Fan's heart tightened. He hurried over and patted her back. "Don't worry about me. Do we have any medicine left?"
Lin Xiaoyu shook her head, her eyes dimming. "We ran out yesterday. Doctor Wang said... said that if I don't keep taking the medicine, the cold will reach my marrow, and then..."
She didn't finish, but Lin Fan understood.
In his memories, a Lung Cleansing Pill had to be taken every month to suppress the cold. If the medicine ran out for more than three days, the cold would strike back. At best, it would leave her paralyzed; at worst, it would kill her.
And they didn't even have enough money to buy half a pill.
Lin Fan clenched his fists until his nails dug into his palms. Unfamiliar emotions churned in his chest—the Original Owner's lingering frustration and anger, as well as his own helplessness in that moment.
"There'll be a way," he said, his voice steady. "I promise you, big brother will get the medicine."
Lin Xiaoyu looked up at him, her big eyes glistening, and nodded firmly. "Mm. I believe you, big brother."
A faint chime came from outside, the morning bell of the Inner City. Dawn was near.
Lin Fan helped his sister lie down, tucked her shabby clothes tightly around her, and turned toward the stove. He needed to sort out his thoughts, make a plan, and...
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