In the dark, frigid universe, stars glittered like diamonds set into a black curtain.
In that desolate universe, nine enormous corpses lay motionless...
Nine colossal creatures remained still, as though they had lain there since time immemorial. Their presence evoked an endless, ancient desolation. They were, astonishingly, nine dragon corpses!
They were just like the dragons of ancient myth and legend.
Each dragon corpse stretched a hundred meters long, as though cast from molten iron, radiating a stunning sense of strength.
All nine were five-clawed black dragons. Their horns shimmered with translucent purple light, while their bodies were pitch-black, glinting darkly. Their scales sparkled with mysterious lights in the darkness.
Dragons were legendary beings, standing alongside gods and rising above the laws of nature. But with science as advanced as it was, who still believed dragons truly existed?
Each dragon corpse was a hundred meters long. At its tail, a black iron chain as thick as a bowl was fastened, stretching back into the dark reaches of space behind the nine corpses. There, a twenty-meter-long bronze coffin hung motionless.
The chains had been forged through countless hammer blows. Long, thick, and sturdy, they glinted with a chilling darkness.
The enormous bronze coffin was plain and unadorned, bearing only a few indistinct ancient patterns. It was steeped in the weathered aura of time, and no one could tell how many years it had drifted through space.
Nine Dragons Pulling the Coffin!
In that pitch-black, frigid universe, the nine dragon corpses and the enormous bronze coffin were linked by long, thick black chains—a sight that was deeply shocking.
Not far from the Nine Dragons Pulling the Coffin was a smaller version of it.
"Who am I, really?"
The miniature coffin shook incessantly, as though drawn by some force. Suddenly, a thunderbolt struck above it. The coffin shuddered violently, as if it were about to burst open.
A pale young man struggled to sit up inside, but the coffin lid blocked him. He stared blankly around, his eyes filled with confusion and unfamiliarity. After a long while, he let out a deep sigh. "I never thought I'd be reborn."
Suddenly, a thunderclap rang out, and the coffin shattered. The man appeared in a corner of the universe.
The stars overhead faded, then suddenly brightened before quickly darkening again, then lighting up once more. The changes came so quickly that the shifting shadows of time swept across Shi Lin, alternately brightening and dimming him.
Suddenly, a flash of white light appeared, and Shi Lin was back in a modern city district.
Everything around the district changed at a rapid pace. Shi Lin watched as the newly built seven-story building beside him rapidly came apart, going from a finished structure to a shocking skeleton before vanishing. The dense, tangled antennae overhead were gradually replaced by empty sky. The concrete utility poles by the road disappeared, and the concrete ground became earth, then stone. In the end, Shi Lin simply got used to the whole world collapsing and changing around him. What made his blood run cold was that, from beginning to end, he could not see a single person! Not a single soul! The world changed swiftly and silently, like a silent film. Terror and dread slowly spread through Shi Lin's motionless, statue-like body. Then the shifting daylight gradually slowed, slower and slower, until it moved like the time that had first frozen around him, and finally stopped once more.
Gradually, scenery appeared around Shi Lin. He seemed to have arrived in a desolate place.
He looked around in bewilderment. Suddenly, in the distance, he spotted a soft glow. Beneath the endless dark night sky and among the mountains, it was like a candle flame wavering, ready to go out at any moment.
Shi Lin drifted toward it like a ghost. As he drew closer, he could make out half of an enormous dead tree, its trunk more than ten meters across and charred black all over. Apart from that half of the trunk, only a single fragile branch remained, yet it brimmed with life. Its leaves gleamed like green jade carvings, and soft points of light spread outward, enveloping a village.
"Where... is this?"
The houses in the village were all made of stone. In the deep, quiet night, the place was peaceful and tranquil, as though cut off from the darkness and the roars of beasts outside.
Suddenly, a golden light shone from the village. It stung Shi Lin's eyes, and he raised a hand to shield them. But the moment he lowered it, he found himself inside one of the village's stone houses.
Inside, a sturdy, tiger-and-leopard-like middle-aged man wore animal hides. His skin was bronze, his black hair hung loose, and his bright, piercing eyes looked down at the swaddled infant in his hands.
"My precious son! Hahaha!" Shi Linhu roared with laughter.
But the child in his arms did not cry. He even imitated his father and laughed.
"Look, my son's laughing! My son's laughing!" Shi Linhu said to the woman on the stone bed.
The woman's face was pale; she had clearly just given birth.
She smiled at the two of them as well.
"Dear, give the baby a name!"
"Hmm... let's name him Shi Lin. I hope he'll one day stir the mountain forests and achieve great things!"
"Good. We'll do that."
The two of them chatted back and forth, sharing a moment of bliss.
Watching the warm scene from the side, Shi Lin felt a warmth rise within him. But why had they given the child the same name as him?
Suddenly, the golden light appeared again. It pushed Shi Lin toward the swaddled infant, and he merged with the child...
Stone Village lay in the Vast Mountain Range, surrounded by towering peaks and deep ravines, with mountain ranges stretching into the distance.
At dawn, brilliant rosy clouds scattered like gold dust, bathing everyone in warmth.
Dozens of children, from four or five years old to their teens, gathered in the open ground before the village. Facing the dawn glow, they practiced their bodies with spirited grunts. Their young faces were full of earnest concentration. The older children moved with the force of tigers, while even the younger ones imitated them quite well.
A middle-aged man in animal hides, sturdy as a tiger or leopard, carefully instructed them.
"The sun has just risen, and all things are beginning anew. The energy of life is at its strongest. Though we can't, as legend says, feed on rosy clouds and breathe in the vital essence, training our bodies beneath the dawn glow still does us tremendous good. It can fill the body with vitality. The day's work begins in the morning. Rise early and train every day to strengthen your tendons and bones, circulate your blood, and temper your sinews. Only then will you have the strength to survive in the Vast Mountain Range." Standing before the children, the man spoke with a stern expression, then called out, "Do you understand?"
"Understood!" the children answered loudly, their voices full of energy.
"Understood..." a little fellow called out in a childish voice, a beat late after clearly getting distracted.
He was very small, only a year or two old. He had learned to walk just a few months ago, yet he was also following along with the physical training. He had obviously wandered over on his own and squeezed in among the older children, even though he was clearly too young to be in the group.
"Hi-yah! Ha!" The little fellow shouted as he energetically swung his tender arms, copying the older children's movements. But he was so young that his actions were lopsided, his steps unsteady and wavering. With a smear of white milk still at the corner of his mouth, he was impossible not to laugh at.
The older children all watched him, making faces at one another. The otherwise serious morning training session became much more relaxed.
Little One was fair and pretty, with large, dark eyes that darted about. He looked like a delicate porcelain doll, utterly adorable. His childish movements and babbling made him look especially endearing. Some elders were sitting cross-legged on nearby boulders, breathing in the essence of heaven and earth, and they too smiled at him.
Even the tall, powerfully built adult men, bare-chested with gleaming, bulging muscles, looked over with smiles. They were the strongest people in the village, the most important force for hunting and protecting it, and they were training as well. Some held White Bone Clubs carved from the bones of unknown giant beasts, while others gripped broad swords cast from black metal and swung them with such force that the wind roared.
The environment was extremely harsh, teeming with primordial beasts and poisonous insects. Many men died young in the wilderness before reaching adulthood, whether for food or simply to survive. Their only hope was to make themselves stronger. Training in the morning was a habit everyone had formed since childhood, whether they were adults, elders, or children. "Focus!" shouted the middle-aged man responsible for supervising and instructing the children. They quickly got serious again and resumed their training beneath the gentle, brilliant dawn glow.
One child took advantage of the man's inattention and sneaked out of the group. Tiptoeing away, he quickly ran off.
"Where's my son, Shi Lin?" The man turned around and realized his son was missing.
Shi Lin came to a hillside and sat on a boulder there.
"My name is Shi Lin. I died in a sudden accident, then unexpectedly came back to life inside a coffin. After being revived, I became the child of someone called Shi Linhu."
"This is Stone Village, the beginner village in Perfect World, a web novel written in my previous life by the master of online fiction, Red-Haired Monster Chen Dong."
"The protagonist here, Little One Shi Hao, has become my younger brother, even though he's only three years younger than me."
My name is Shi Lin. My legendary life has begun! But first, I still have to face reality.
"Little Shi Lin, why have you run off to slack around again? Let's see if I don't give you a beating today!" A middle-aged man came running up the hillside, dusty from the road.
This is bad, brothers! Survival comes first, so I'm running. See you next chapter, everyone!
Before you continue