Prologue: The Winds of Transmigration Rise, Chapter One: Anomaly

How did an ordinary person's life unfold, exactly? Though it might differ from country to country, it generally followed one pattern: birth, kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, university, work, dating, marriage and children, supporting a family, retirement, old age, death. No extraordinary adventures, no love vows sworn to the seas and mountains. Plain and ordinary was the real thing.

And I, Liu Ye, was one of countless ordinary people. An eighteen-year-old freshman engineering student, 175 centimeters tall, 120 jin, with above-average grades. I considered myself fairly handsome, but I had no luck with women. My hobbies were anime and manga; I liked table tennis, though I was pretty mediocre at it. I had no talents worth showing off... But there was nothing wrong with that. I actually liked my ordinary self quite a lot.

"Old Liu, let's go have noodles for lunch today. My treat!" After leaving the library, my roommate Brother Zhang brought up lunch. As I replied, "Why have you only wanted noodles lately?" I secretly rejoiced at saving money on lunch. We walked side by side toward the cafeteria, chatting on and off about the books we had read in the library, before the topic shifted to girls. Brother Zhang liked lolis under fourteen. He often said that unripe girls were the best. I strongly disagreed. The girls I liked were student girls between seventeen and twenty—and they had to have huge breasts and long straight black hair!

"If I ever turned into a girl, I'd definitely want huge breasts and long straight black hair. Side-swept bangs would be even better," I said.

"Don't forget to let your brothers have some fun first." He grinned lecherously.

At the cafeteria, I ordered a bowl of fried noodles, while Brother Zhang got plain noodles in clear broth. He indignantly accused me of deliberately picking the expensive option. After finding empty seats, I happily began enjoying lunch, only for the news on the cafeteria television to kill my appetite.

"...How the murderer drained twenty workers and hundreds of livestock dry of blood in a single night, leaving them with ruptured bellies and spilled intestines as they lay dead in the wilderness, remains a complete mystery to police..."

Seeing that I was unsettled, Brother Zhang deliberately tried to gross me out. "Looks like that vampire really hasn't been resting. It slaughtered two families of five just a few days ago, and now it's caused something this huge..."

"What did you say? Vampire?" I cut him off. He helplessly rolled his eyes. "Big Brother, don't scare me. You seriously don't know about the large-scale bizarre murder case everyone's been talking about lately? In less than a week, around three hundred people and animals combined have died horribly. And they all have one thing in common: human or animal, every corpse was drained completely dry. Lots of people say vampires are on the loose. Others say zombies, aliens, or monsters."

I honestly hadn't known, because I'd been busy keeping up with new anime releases and hadn't paid attention to the news. Besides, I wasn't some freak-show enthusiast. My only thought about such bloody incidents was: let it happen to anyone but me.

Still, it was far too shocking. So many people had died in less than a week... It was truly brutal.

After afternoon classes ended, I carried dinner for the three animals in our dorm back to the room. The moment Brother Zhang saw me, he shouted, "Perfect timing! No classes next weekend. Tonight, we're queueing as a team in Dota!" "There are only four of us—what team queue are we even playing? With Old Liu's shit-tier skills, he'd be griefing his own side." Xiao Li, on the neighboring bed, looked disdainful. Brother Lin, who was doing homework, pushed up his glasses and said seriously, "We have more and more homework now. We should hurry up and study." The three of us booed him together. As if you were some serious student—you're the one who hooks up with the most girls...

After dinner, I suddenly remembered that I still hadn't picked up the bicycle I had sent in for repairs yesterday. I needed it early tomorrow morning, so I temporarily turned down the so-called team-queue plan.

"Old Liu, things have been unsettled outside lately. Pick up your bike and get back quickly!" They still remembered to remind me before I left, and my heart suddenly felt warm. "What could happen to me? It'll take less than an hour there and back. What the hell are you worrying about?" With that, I hurried off.

As I walked, my phone rang. It was my mother's routine call. When I answered, her familiar voice came through. "Ye Ye, how was your day? What classes did you have? Were you happy? You didn't have any conflicts with your classmates, did you? I'm always the one calling you. You should call me on your own sometimes too..."

My mother asked the same questions every time she called, going on and on. But I wasn't impatient. I answered every one of her questions, then asked about things back home... I felt that although these daily calls were small things, they were also my only connection with my family far away. Being fussed over by family was truly a happy thing.

I chatted as I walked, and by the time we hung up, I had already left campus. The repair shop on campus was too expensive; if I wanted it cheaper, I had to go outside.

I walked alone down the silent road. It was late autumn, and the cold wind whistled. I couldn't help shrinking my neck and pulling my coat tighter around myself. When I reached a deathly pale streetlamp, I realized with a start that aside from the patrolling police, I was the only person on the street. It was only eight o'clock. People must have been afraid of danger and unwilling to stay out late. I couldn't let the guys in the dorm worry about me... Thinking that, I quickened my pace.

But man proposed and heaven disposed. By the time I arrived, the repair shop had already closed early. Depressed, I could only head back. On the way back, even the patrol officers were gone. The cold wind howled, and the streetlights flickered on and off. This was completely the atmosphere of a horror novel! I mocked inwardly.

And then, the anomaly occurred.

The sound of the wind suddenly stopped. Not just the wind—the rustling of fallen leaves, the faint buzz of the streetlights—all of it seemed to have been paused. Silence instantly became dead silence. I shuddered violently, my hands and feet turning icy cold. The air around me seemed to have spoiled, cold and viscous. A groundless terror rose in my heart. This feeling... It was like a frog being watched by a snake. My instincts as a living creature told me: something behind me was staring at me! I wanted to run, but my limbs seemed to have gone on strike, unable to move at all! I could only desperately suppress my pounding heart, brace myself against the pressure, and slowly turn my head...

What... was that?

A ball of mist the size of a human head floated silently in midair around twenty meters away. Its color was a deep crimson like blood, and as it rolled and surged, bright red runes flickered faintly within it. It was clearly only a ball of mist, yet it radiated the oppressive aura of a ferocious beast.

It seemed to be examining me. The runes flickered as though they were considering something. Then an extremely hoarse voice came from within the mist.

"Good... today... you will be... the first..."

As it spoke, it moved without wind, charging at me at an astonishing speed!

At that moment, my fear-frozen limbs finally began moving. I threw myself sideways with all my strength, barely dodging the bizarre Blood Mist. The Blood Mist surged madly and slammed into a roadside tree. The trunk, thick enough for two people to wrap their arms around, instantly disintegrated, while the scattered branches dried up like firewood, as though all life had been sucked out of them!

It had to be the murderer behind the recent massacres! I desperately forced my legs to move, sprinting forward at full speed. But where could I run?

The university? No! Thousands of teachers and students would suffer!

The police station? That sounded somewhat more reliable, but would guns even work against it?

Forget it, no more thinking! Wherever I went, I just had to get away from that damned thing first!

Yet as I ran wildly, the stench of blood rushed into my face. The Blood Mist had somehow circled around in front of me. It was too fast! But I could no longer evade it. Churning violently, the Blood Mist slammed directly into my body.

!!!!!!

The world seemed frozen in that instant. I could feel astonishing pain erupting from my body, suffering blooming like a flower alongside the frigid cold of life being drained away.

As though I were watching a scene in a movie, my wildly pounding heart instead calmed down. There was no terror, no anger—only faint sorrow. Ah... Was the ordinary yet happy life I had hoped for ending just like this? My family's smiling faces flashed before my eyes, followed by my friends' faces. From now on, I would never see any of them again...

I... wasn't willing to accept this...

At that razor-thin moment, several cracks suddenly split open in the empty space beside the Blood Mist. Like whirlpools, the cracks instantly swallowed both me and the Blood Mist!

I couldn't open my eyes. I felt as though I had been thrown into a raging sea, battered by enormous waves and helpless to control myself. Then, from close at hand, came the Blood Mist's hoarse voice...

"Damn... why... at a time like this..."

"But... there is hope... as long as I hide... in the body..."

My consciousness was hazy when I suddenly felt a chill in my chest. Something cold was burrowing into my body! The icy sensation spread through my veins like tentacles, and I snapped awake. This mist wanted to take over my body!

I hurriedly focused all my strength on resisting its invasion. Hold on, hold on! My head hurt as though it were about to explode. My consciousness was dyed blood-red, and my spinal cord throbbed as if a knife had been driven into it. Yet at the same time, the cold spread more slowly. Gradually, a tug-of-war began between the Blood Mist and me! I knew perfectly well that if I relaxed even slightly, everything would be over!

My brain wailed. Every nerve in my body felt as though it were being seared by blazing flames. My heart pounded madly, my blood turned into blades that crashed wildly through my veins, and my muscles seemed ready to melt... This pain was absolutely beyond what a human could endure! Just as I was about to give out—

"Damn it... can't do it... even though... I was only one step away..."

"To die... in a place like this... I'm not... willing..."

The hoarse voice gradually weakened, finally disappearing completely. As the voice vanished, the Blood Mist stopped its frenzied assault and quietly merged into my flesh. The runes within the Blood Mist also lost their radiance and vanished into my body. Then I lost consciousness.