The June sky was cloudless as a Boeing 747 cruised steadily above the Pacific Ocean.
Lin Yun sat by the window, gazing out at the rolling sea of clouds, but his mood was nowhere near as bright as the weather. He had just finished a six-month academic exchange in Europe and was now flying back to England. At twenty-five, he was a graduate student in his university's physics department, specializing in theoretical physics. He was especially fascinated—almost obsessively so—by theories of spatial structure.
"Lin Yun, still thinking about your thesis?"
His classmate Wang Hao, seated beside him, handed him a bottle of water, interrupting his thoughts.
Lin Yun took the bottle and gave a wry smile. "My advisor says my theoretical model for spatial folding is too bold and lacks experimental evidence. But I think if space really can be folded, then interstellar travel won't be a dream."
"Come on, you're practically obsessed with that theory." Wang Hao shook his head and rolled his eyes. "If you ask me, you should just finish your dissertation, find a job at a research institute, and call it a day. That'd be better than anything else."
Lin Yun didn't argue. He simply turned his gaze back to the window.
Ever since he was a child, he had been unusually fascinated by the stars. It was hard to describe the feeling—as though he didn't belong in this world, and the depths of space were his true home. The thought was so absurd that even he found it laughable, but he couldn't shake it.
A faint warmth spread across his chest.
Lin Yun instinctively touched the Small Bronze Tripod hanging around his neck. It was only the size of his thumb, its surface covered in mottled verdigris and engraved with ancient markings he couldn't make out. According to his grandfather, it had been passed down through the Lin family for generations. No one remembered how many, only that the eldest son of each generation had to wear it close to his body.
"You still haven't thrown that piece of junk away?" Wang Hao glanced at it and scoffed. "What age are we living in? You still believe in stuff like that?"
Lin Yun only smiled without explaining.
He had once asked a professor in the archaeology department to examine it, but even the professor couldn't tell which dynasty the tripod came from.
From that day on, Lin Yun knew the little tripod was no ordinary object.
But he never would have imagined that, in the next few hours, it would completely change his fate.
The disaster struck at 3:17 p.m.
Lin Yun was reading Hawking's A Brief History of Time when the plane suddenly shuddered violently. An overhead compartment sprang open, and a suitcase came crashing down. Wang Hao reacted quickly, blocking it with his arm.
"What's going on?" Wang Hao asked, rubbing his sore arm as he looked around.
The lights in the cabin began to flicker. The head flight attendant's voice came over the intercom, sounding somewhat hurried. "Ladies and gentlemen, we've encountered severe turbulence. Please fasten your seat belts and remain in your seats—"
Before she could finish, a deafening bang erupted from the right side of the plane.
Lin Yun looked through the window and saw thick smoke pouring from the right engine. Orange-red flames writhed wildly in the airflow. Then the plane began to tilt violently, and the passengers' screams filled the cabin.
"The engine's on fire! The engine's on fire!" someone screamed hysterically.
Oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling. Lin Yun frantically grabbed one and pulled it over his face. At that moment, his mind was eerily calm—perhaps the rational thinking he'd developed through studying physics had kicked in. He quickly assessed the situation: the plane was at an altitude of roughly ten thousand meters, both engines on the right side had failed, and the aircraft was plummeting. Their odds of survival were practically zero.
"I don't want to die! I don't want to die!" Wang Hao's face was deathly pale, and his whole body trembled.
Lin Yun took his hand, wanting to say something to comfort him, but his throat felt blocked, and no sound came out.
He thought of his grandfather, the dissertation he hadn't finished, and his wild theory about spatial folding.
The plane plunged downward. Clouds raced past the window, and the blue ocean drew closer and closer. Lin Yun closed his eyes, waiting for the final impact.
At that very moment, the Small Bronze Tripod on his chest suddenly erupted in blinding Azure Light!
The light pierced through Lin Yun's clothes, through his seat, and even through the disintegrating plane. The mysterious glow enveloped the entire cabin, and time seemed to freeze.
Lin Yun felt an enormous suction coming from his chest. It was as if an invisible hand were wrenching his soul from his body. He looked down and saw his body slumped helplessly in the seat, its eyes already closed, while another "him" transformed into a streak of light and was sucked into the thumb-sized Small Bronze Tripod.
Was this what it felt like to die?
There was no pain, no fear—only a strange calm.
The tripod spun in the air as flakes of verdigris fell away, revealing the deep, starry-bronze surface beneath. The ancient markings began to flow as if they had come to life, forming an incredibly complex Space Array.
Then a crack split open in the void.
Beyond it lay an endless starry sky, a vast universe, a world Lin Yun had seen only in his dreams.
Carrying Lin Yun's soul, the tripod plunged into the crack.
When Lin Yun regained consciousness, he experienced a sensation unlike anything he'd ever felt.
He seemed to be floating in a warm, empty space. Boundless darkness surrounded him, dotted with countless stars. He tried to open his eyes, only to realize he had no eyes to open. He tried to speak, only to discover he had no mouth.
He was nothing but a consciousness, a soul trapped inside the Small Bronze Tripod.
Time had no meaning in this space. He had no idea how long it lasted—perhaps days, perhaps tens of thousands of years. Gradually, Lin Yun sensed the world around him changing. The tripod was passing through some kind of spatial structure beyond his comprehension, far more complex than any theoretical model he had proposed on Earth.
Space was like a sheet of white paper folded over and over, each crease a separate universe. The tripod darted among those folds at a speed beyond even light.
Finally, after a violent tremor, the tripod came to a stop.
Lin Yun extended his Soul Perception outward and "saw" a brilliant starry sky—a real starry sky, not the blurry points of light seen through Earth's atmosphere, but a magnificent vista of countless stars, nebulae, and galaxies.
Then the tripod began to fall.
It plunged through the atmosphere, through the clouds, and over ruined cities. Lin Yun looked down at the land, stunned. Below him lay modern cities reduced to rubble, their shattered skyscrapers standing like gravestones. Weeds choked the streets, and every so often, enormous creatures moved among the ruins.
Where was this?
Earth? Or another world?
The tripod eventually descended over an eastern city. It was more dilapidated than any city Lin Yun had ever seen, though traces of its former prosperity remained. The city walls were tall and solid, and people moved about within them. Their clothes resembled early twenty-first-century fashion, but with a few differences.
The tripod turned into a streak of light and slipped into a low, modest home.
Lin Yun's consciousness followed it inside, where he sensed a warm place—a woman's womb.
He was about to be reborn.
The experience was wondrous, beginning with a single cell dividing, then the formation of organs, and finally the gradual return of consciousness. Lin Yun could feel his mother's heartbeat and hear sounds from the outside world. He could even sense the flow of energy in this world—an unfamiliar force that had never existed on Earth, permeating the heavens and earth.
Ten months of pregnancy, then a single day of labor.
When Lin Yun first opened his eyes and saw this world, he wanted to burst into tears.
The shabby home, the yellowed calendar on the wall, the scrap metal piled in the corner, the ruined skyscrapers in the distance outside the window—as these sights came into view, a strange familiarity welled up in the depths of Lin Yun's subconscious, as if he had seen them somewhere before. But he was only a newborn, and his brain couldn't process such complicated information. The feeling of familiarity vanished in an instant, drowned out by instinctive needs: hunger, warmth, and sleep.
"Why isn't this child crying?" an elderly voice asked.
A pair of rough hands lifted Lin Yun. They belonged to an old man in his sixties, his face lined with wrinkles and his hair graying at the temples, yet his eyes were full of kindness and resolve.
"Come on, child, cry a little. You'll feel better once you do." The old man gently patted Lin Yun's back.
Only then did Lin Yun realize he was still staring blankly. He hurriedly opened his mouth and began bawling. His loud cries caught the attention of the neighbors.
"Old Master Lin, do you think your grandson's hungry? Why don't you bring him over? Xiao Feng just finished feeding, so I can nurse your grandson too." A woman carrying a baby came out of the neighboring home.
"Xinlan, I'm troubling you again. This little rascal eats so much. The milk I bought just a few days ago is already gone." The old man beamed, though tears glistened in his eyes.
From the adults' conversation, Lin Yun gradually pieced together his story. His surname was Lin, and his grandfather was called Lin Guodong. His father had been an ordinary laborer who had recently died in a monster attack on the city. His mother, overcome with grief, had passed away after giving birth to him. He was a posthumous child and the only hope left in this impoverished family.
Their home was in a block of low-rent housing in Yangzhou City, Jiangnan Base.
The neighbors had a boy two months older than him. His name was Luo Feng.
When Lin Yun first heard that name, his soul trembled.
Luo Feng—the protagonist of Swallowed Star, the future Universe Master, and humanity's strongest warrior!
And he had become Luo Feng's neighbor and childhood friend!
The days passed, and Lin Yun slowly grew up under his grandfather's care. He retained all his memories from his previous life, and he knew the tripod would appear again when the time was right. He waited patiently, quietly observing this world.
He could even sense a special energy permeating the air around him: Gene Energy. Warriors absorbed it through cultivation to strengthen themselves, while Spiritual Masters used Spiritual Energy to control it. Because of his unusual soul, Lin Yun's perception of Spiritual Energy was far beyond that of ordinary people.
But the tripod remained silent.
Lin Yun wasn't worried. He knew the time wasn't right yet.
Every day, he played with Luo Feng. Luo Feng was two months older, but they were about the same height. He was steady and mature beyond his years, with a resoluteness unusual for a child. Lin Yun, too, carried himself with a maturity beyond his age because he retained his memories from his previous life. The two boys quickly became inseparable friends.
"Lin Yun, what do you want to do when you grow up?" When they were five, the two of them lay on the roof, gazing at the towering city walls and the broken world beyond them. Luo Feng couldn't help asking.
Lin Yun thought for a moment, then answered seriously, "Get stronger—strong enough to protect everyone I want to protect."
Luo Feng raised his head, a flicker of surprise crossing his dark, bright eyes. Then he smiled. "Me too."
The two boys looked at each other and saw the same determination in one another's eyes, a resolve that belied their age.
The sun set in the west. The two small figures lay on the rooftop, their shadows stretching long behind them.
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