The Figure in the Woods Dragging a Giant Fish

A scorching sun hung high in the sky.

The sun seemed a size larger than the one in his memories.

The vicious sunlight pierced through layers upon layers of dense tree canopies.

The air was permeated with a humid, stifling heat.

This was a green cage constructed of towering ancient trees.

Every tree was astonishingly thick, as if they had been growing for thousands of years.

A thick layer of fallen leaves covered the ground, emitting a "crunch, crunch" sound with every step.

In this sweltering jungle filled with a primitive atmosphere, a figure was struggling to move forward.

It was a boy who looked to be only eleven or twelve years old.

He was shirtless, his skin a healthy, wheat-colored tan.

Sweat slid down his youthful yet well-defined face, gathered at his chin, and dripped into the soil beneath his feet.

Although his frame was small and thin, what he was doing at this moment would have made anyone who saw it drop their jaw in shock.

Behind him, he was dragging a colossal creature.

It was a strange fish several times his size.

The creature was at least five meters long, its body covered in iron-blue scales, each the size of a palm, shimmering with a metallic, cold light under the dappled sunlight.

Even more bizarre was the pair of wide, fleshy wings growing from its back, currently hanging limply against the ground and plowing two deep furrows into the humus as the boy dragged it along.

Lu Chongwei stopped in his tracks.

He raised the back of his dust-covered hand and wiped the sweat from his forehead with force.

His breathing was slightly ragged, his chest heaving violently.

Even with strength beyond that of an ordinary person, dragging such a mountain of flesh for several kilometers through rugged mountain forests left him feeling a hint of exhaustion.

He turned around and kicked the stiff carcass of the strange fish.

His eyes held a maturity and confusion that did not match his age.

"Is this thing... actually edible?"

Lu Chongwei muttered under his breath.

His brows were tightly locked as he circled the fish, his gaze lingering for a long time on those hard scales and strange wings.

He had never seen this fish before.

Not just this fish; many things in this forest were completely foreign to him.

Everything here was absurdly large and absurdly strange.

It was as if the world were a doodle made by a creator who had been drunk.

Lu Chongwei sighed and grabbed the fish's tail fin once more.

The fin was as rough as sandpaper, scraping his palms until they stung.

"Forget it. I've already dragged it this far; I can't just throw it away."

He spoke to himself, his voice tinged with helplessness.

His arms exerted force suddenly, and the massive, stationary fish carcass was set in motion once again.

With a dull, grinding sound, Lu Chongwei dragged his spoils of war step by step toward a cave not far ahead.

The cave was located beneath a cliff, its entrance half-hidden by dense vines.

This was his current home.

It was also his only shelter in this dangerous world.

Walking into the cave, a cool breeze washed over him, instantly dispelling the heat from his body.

Lu Chongwei tossed the strange fish onto a relatively flat patch of stone in the center of the cavern.

With a dull "thud," the ground seemed to tremble slightly.

He plopped down onto a nearby round rock, gasping for air.

His thoughts drifted involuntarily back to a month ago.

That was a turning point that felt like a nightmare to him.

Back then, although he was also called Lu Chongwei, he was not in this current state.

At that time, he was twenty-one years old.

He was in the prime of his youth, and while his life had been ordinary, it was at least stable.

That day had been his twenty-first birthday.

There were no grand parties, only a few close friends, a few cases of beer, and a modest barbecue.

Everyone was high on drink.

He was also dead drunk, and the last thing he remembered was the boisterous well-wishes of his friends and a dizzying ceiling.

However, when he opened his eyes again.

The world had changed.

There was no soft bed, no familiar ceiling, and no agonizing hangover headache.

In their place was a primeval forest that blotted out the sky, and the deafening roars of beasts ringing in his ears.

He hadn't even had time to figure out the situation, or even to scramble up from the ground.

A thick, pungent stench of blood rushed toward him.

He looked up in terror.

What met his eyes was a gargantuan beast resembling a Tyrannosaurus rex.

The beast was three stories tall, its mouth full of fangs as sharp as daggers, and its yellowish, slit-like pupils stared fixedly at him, as if looking at a tiny ant.

Fear.

In that instant, Lu Chongwei's mind went blank.

Only the most primitive survival instinct took control of his body.

The beast opened its blood-red maw, snapping at him with foul-smelling drool.

At that life-or-death moment, Lu Chongwei had no time to think at all.

He simply threw a punch instinctively.

It was a counterattack born of despair, a struggle before death.

Yet, this seemingly unremarkable punch—

"BOOM!"

A heaven-shaking, earth-shattering roar exploded through the forest.

Time seemed to freeze in that moment.

Lu Chongwei widened his eyes, watching as the multi-ton beast was actually sent flying into the air by his punch.

Its massive body traced an arc through the sky.

Then, it slammed heavily into a towering ancient tree a hundred meters away.

"CRACK!"

It was the sound of bones shattering, and the mournful cry of a tree trunk snapping.

A massive crater caved into the beast's chest, and blood gushed out like a fountain.

It didn't even have time to let out a final whimper before it died on the spot, sliding to the ground like a pile of mush.

Lu Chongwei stared blankly at the scene.

He looked at the corpse in the distance, then back at his own fist.

Upon closer inspection, he discovered something even more horrifying.

His hands had become smaller.

The large hands, slightly rough from years of manual labor, were now delicate and youthful; although they still had calluses, they clearly belonged to a child.

He hurried to a nearby river.

The water was crystal clear, reflecting his face.

It was a face that had yet to shed its childishness.

He looked about eleven or twelve years old, his features vaguely resembling those of his own childhood.

In that moment, Lu Chongwei finally understood what had happened.

Transmigration.

This term, which only existed in novels and movies, had actually descended upon him in reality.

Not only had he arrived in a strange world, but he had also been restored to his youth, returning to his childhood.

More importantly, he seemed to possess an inexplicable, innate divine strength.

The T-rex killed by a single punch was the best proof.

Over the past month, he had gone from initial panic to later caution, and finally to his current state of being accustomed to it all.

He had seen all sorts of strange and bizarre things.

Giant pythons with three heads, flowers that spat venom, and turtles that moved like small mountains.

Therefore, when he saw the strange fish before him—one with giant wings that could fly in the sky rather than swim in the water—he felt no real ripple of emotion in his heart.