Death of the Transmigrator

"Fifth day... I have to go out."

Lu Yuanming told himself this for the ninth time.

He had transmigrated, five years into the future, into the year 2028.

This was still Earth, why did he say that?

Because looking out the broken window of his room, he could see English letters everywhere on the street. He recognized the frequent appearance of the word "New York" among those letters, and also words like "South Bronx."

That's right, he had transmigrated to the South Bronx district of New York, USA, a famous slum area of New York.

Lu Yuanming was a soul transmigration. The original owner of the body he transmigrated into was an Asian. The key point was that Lu Yuanming did not gain a single bit of memory from this body, so he had no idea what the original owner's name was, nor his social connections, etc.

From the information Lu Yuanming gathered by exploring the apartment room, the original owner of the body was not old, likely around the same age as he was before transmigrating, both in their twenties.

The original owner of the body was very poor. The apartment he lived in was extremely dilapidated. Not only that, but there was almost no furniture in the room. And it was already 2028, yet the original owner didn't even have a mobile phone. Lu Yuanming only confirmed the current time by peeking at some signs outside the window. It was simple: it was the time of another US presidential election, and those signs were covered with information about the presidential candidates, which allowed Lu Yuanming to know the current time.

If it were just poverty, Lu Yuanming wouldn't be picky about living another life.

But the key was that the original owner of the body was not only poor but also an addict!!

The body was extremely thin. His arms were covered in needle marks. Lu Yuanming would start panting just by moving a little. Looking in the mirror, the original owner's eye sockets were sunken, his complexion was pale, and he looked like he was on the verge of death.

Lu Yuanming almost felt like committing suicide.

Alright!

The body was weak and dying, he could endure all of that. At most, he would rely on his willpower to correct the former non-existence of this body. After all, he was a soul transmigration, he himself never had these bad habits, so there would only be physical withdrawal symptoms, no psychological addiction. As long as his willpower was firm, it would be impossible for him to relapse into these bad habits.

If it were just these things, Lu Yuanming would have endured it. But the key was that it wasn't just these things!

Ever since he transmigrated, people had been constantly knocking on his door. There were Black people, White people, and various Asians. Everyone looked like trouble at first glance. Most of them were thin drug addicts, and some were petty thugs. The most terrifying thing was that among the people looking for him, there were clearly gangsters, real gangsters.

Why was Lu Yuanming so sure?

He swore on the few bullet holes that had appeared on his room door. What else could they be if not gangsters?

Before transmigrating, Lu Yuanming was a graduating university student from an ordinary family in Z Country. How could he have ever dealt with gangsters?

As an ordinary person in Z Country, drugs, guns, and gangs were all too far away from him, as distant as discussing politics online.

So Lu Yuanming was so scared that he didn't dare to go out, nor did he dare to respond to anyone outside the door. After transmigrating, he survived by eating a few pieces of bread he found in the room. When he was thirsty, he drank tap water. When he was hungry... he really had no choice but to starve. He endured it for four days, but he really couldn't hold on any longer. He had to go out!

"I found a total of six dollars and thirty-five cents. I don't know what the current prices are, but it should be enough to buy some food, and then... I'll take it one step at a time."

Lu Yuanming had too many thoughts, such as returning to Z Country, especially to Chongqing. He wanted to confirm whether he still existed, whether his parents were still there, whether he had transmigrated to the future or a parallel world. He wanted to confirm all of these.

Before transmigrating, Lu Yuanming was in a vegetative state. He had been in a car accident shortly after graduating at the age of 23 during a job interview.

From then on, he was unable to move, not even able to twitch an eyelid. Yet, miraculously, his consciousness remained clear. He could hear people talking around him and feel the existence of his body, but he simply couldn't make any movements. According to the doctors' explanation to his parents and sister, all his symptoms indicated he had become a vegetative state, with no guarantee of ever waking up.

Lu Yuanming endured this agonizing torment for over half a year, trapped in darkness. Until a beam of light appeared before his eyes. Subconsciously, Lu Yuanming "rushed" towards this light, and after that, he transmigrated into the body of this Asian American.

Even more miraculously, he could transmigrate back every seventy-two hours. However, when he transmigrated back, he was still trapped in that vegetative body. That situation was no different from being dead... No, being trapped in darkness, only able to hear the surrounding sounds, that state was even more terrifying than death!

There are too many mysteries. Why can I transmigrate? And into the future, no less... In any case, I need to find a way to keep this body alive first, and then go back to Chongqing, Z Country, to take a look!

Lu Yuanming contemplated his long-term future plans, but for now, he had to face going outside... In a city and region filled with gangsters, drug dealers, robbers, and frequent shootings, it was no different from a battlefield for Lu Yuanming!

He pressed himself against the door, listening to the sounds outside. After confirming for at least several minutes, he cautiously opened the door and slowly shuffled out.

Outside the door was a dilapidated apartment hallway. The wooden floorboards creaked with every step. The hallway was dimly lit, with a single light bulb on each floor. These were the oldest type of yellow incandescent bulbs, and whether due to age or disrepair, the lights on many floors flickered incessantly.

Seeing this, Lu Yuanming felt a chill run down his spine. This old apartment was exactly like the setting of those ghost and curse-themed horror movies.

However, he was starving now and couldn't afford to worry about such things. Seizing the opportunity while the hallway was empty, he quickly ran towards the exit on the first floor.

Just as Lu Yuanming reached the apartment's main door, he suddenly felt an inexplicable sense of being watched from behind. It was that creepy, ticklish feeling on his back. He instinctively turned to look, only to see the hallway behind him plunged into darkness. Starting from the fourth floor he had descended, the lights on every floor had gone out. Apart from the light shining in from outside the apartment behind him, everything in his sight was pitch black and deep, like the entrance to hell.

Lu Yuanming trembled all over. He couldn't see through the darkness, but he felt as if someone was watching him from within that darkness... Perhaps not human!

Driven by the primal instinct for survival, Lu Yuanming began to run out of the apartment. The unknown, immense terror rendered his mind blank, and he even let out an involuntary scream. But just as he stepped out of the apartment, about to rush into the sunlight, a flower pot fell directly from above the apartment, landing precisely on Lu Yuanming's head.

With a crisp crack, Lu Yuanming's head split open, and he was sent sprawling to the ground. The intense dizziness almost made him pass out.

But perhaps due to his experience of being hit by a car and becoming a vegetative state, Lu Yuanming had developed some resistance to dizziness. Or perhaps it was the inexplicable, immense terror behind him that propelled him. In any case, he didn't pass out immediately. Instead, he lay on the ground, inching his fingers towards the sunlight outside the apartment.

From the corner of his eye, Lu Yuanming could see into the apartment. In a daze, he seemed to see darkness surging towards him. The darkness within the apartment, at that moment, appeared to transform into a liquid, rapidly spreading towards him.

He couldn't be touched by that darkness!

Lu Yuanming instinctively knew this. If he were touched by that darkness, he might suffer torment a million times more terrifying than death, more terrifying than becoming a vegetative state!

Mustering his last bit of strength, Lu Yuanming crawled towards the sunlight with his fingers. Though the distance was less than half a meter, Lu Yuanming crawled so hard that his fingernails were torn off, leaving his fingers bloody. Finally, when the darkness behind him was less than a meter away, his head entered the sunlight. In that instant, he felt a warm sensation spread from his head to his body. The goosebumps that had been rising and the icy feeling from the depths of his heart disappeared.

I'm alive...

Just as Lu Yuanming let out a sigh of relief, a window on the upper floor of the apartment opened. A pair of tumor-covered hands held a broken television set and threw it out, smashing directly onto Lu Yuanming's head. With a loud bang, Lu Yuanming's head was completely crushed.

Then... Lu Yuanming watched his own crushed corpse from a peculiar perspective, as if he were suspended about five to six meters above his body, looking down. Lu Yuanming felt he should be scared, terrified, angry, excited, and so on, but he felt no emotion at all. He couldn't even think. Lu Yuanming felt the "self" that constituted his existence was dissipating...

Then, in the next second, or rather, without even perceiving time, Lu Yuanming was violently pulled "down" by an immense, colossal force!

Lu Yuanming saw a magnificent spiral phenomenon, similar to a tornado or a meteorological typhoon. He saw it all from a higher perspective. The core of this giant spiral storm was the Earth. He was caught in the spiral storm, dark, chaotic, inexplicable. He was being pulled downwards, from top to bottom, falling an unknown distance.

Then Lu Yuanming saw the land, an endless black and gray expanse. In the distance, there were things larger than stars, which he couldn't see clearly. And below him, he was falling towards a burning, shattered New York City...

At this moment, Lu Yuanming suddenly had an epiphany.

He was dead.

This was the world after humans died!