Nangong Yan

In the year 1494 of the Sea Circle Calendar, around three in the afternoon.

On a shoal of an unnamed island in the West Blue, a young man in a black short-sleeved shirt and black trousers lay quietly on the sand, his face turned toward the ground. His exposed arms were frighteningly pale.

He let the shrimp and crabs on the shoal crawl all over him without moving, as though all life had left his body.

Suddenly, his fingers twitched. He pressed his hands into the mud and sand, struggling to roll over and sit up. The abrupt movement sent the shrimp and crabs on and around him scurrying away. It took him two or three minutes before he finally turned over and sat on the ground, his eyes utterly blank.

The young man was quite handsome. His long black hair hung loose, and he had yellow skin, sharp brows, bright eyes, a high nose, thin lips, and a distinctly angular face. He looked sunny and dashing.

After sitting there in a daze for several minutes, he finally came to his senses. Looking at his brand-new body, he muttered with a bitter smile, "Is this luck or misfortune? I was just watching anime in my room during a thunderstorm. What the hell was wrong with that lightning?"

"They replaced the lightning rod on the roof just last month, and the place I rented was halfway up the building. How did lightning strike me right in the face? It's not like I usually did anything shameful. I even donated regularly!"

"This is seriously bizarre. If there were a way, I'd definitely file a complaint against whoever was throwing lightning around up there. My poor parents... I have no idea how heartbroken they must be."

Thinking of his parents, Nangong Yan could not help growing sad again. He sat motionless on the cold shoal.

More than ten minutes later, a loud growl from his stomach snapped Nangong Yan back to his senses. Feeling the hunger in his belly, he scrambled to his feet and smiled in relief. "Well, what's done is done. Since I'm here, I might as well make the best of it! My brother and sister will definitely take good care of our parents. Dad and Mom always loved those two the most anyway."

Having worked it out, Nangong Yan prepared to head into the island's dense forest to find some wild fruit to fill his stomach. He was starving badly enough that he did not even have the strength to catch the shrimp and crabs on the shore, so he could only settle for fruit that would not run away.

Nangong Yan had been a freelance combat coach. His family was fairly well-off and could be considered middle class. He had loved martial arts films, anime, and proper action movies since childhood, so he had been sent to learn freestyle fighting. He had trained for fifteen years, and his movements were extremely agile.

What Nangong Yan had wanted to learn most was traditional Chinese martial arts. Unfortunately, his family had no connections in that field, and he did not want to learn flashy but useless routines, so he had had to settle for the next best thing.

There were five people in Nangong Yan's family: his father, his mother, his older brother, his younger sister, and himself. He was the middle child, and in terms of being spoiled, his position was rather awkward.

Fortunately, although his father and mother sometimes favored the others, it was still within an acceptable range. They also supported whatever he wanted to do, so Nangong Yan never took it to heart. Their family had always gotten along happily.

One day in June 2018, after dinner during a thunderstorm, Nangong Yan turned on his computer in his rented apartment and prepared to watch the latest episode of One Piece.

After finishing it, he did not close the webpage. He paused it, switched pages, and went back to rewatch the completed Naruto.

He had just reached the part where Kakashi Hatake obtained Obito Uchiha's Kamui Sharingan through what was practically a bug and used the silver-white Susanoo when purple light suddenly filled the room. A bolt of purple lightning shot through the window and struck him directly in the forehead. After that, he knew nothing. When he woke up, he found himself here.

As he walked, Nangong Yan recalled the fragmented memories of this body. This body had belonged to someone named Blair. His parents were both merchants, and their family had some savings.

This time, Blair had accompanied his parents aboard their family's merchant ship to learn the business. He had not expected them to encounter pirates. Fortunately, the guards had fought desperately, and there had been no particularly formidable people among the pirates. They had managed to repel the attack and preserve the cargo.

They had barely breathed a sigh of relief when, less than half a day later, the weather abruptly changed. Hurricane winds and towering waves capsized the entire ship, throwing everyone into the raging sea.

Blair had been separated from his parents. He had not lasted long in the sea before being swallowed by the churning waters and drowning. His corpse had been carried by the waves to this beach.

Based on Blair's fragmented memories from before his death, Nangong Yan estimated that most of them had likely perished. The waves and winds had been far too violent for ordinary people to survive.

The sea stretched endlessly in every direction, with no food or drinking water, not to mention countless dangers hidden beneath the surface. Anyone who survived would basically have to be a child of fate.

In fact, Nangong Yan's estimate had been correct. No one from the merchant ship survived—not the parents who owned it, nor the guards, cooks, doctors, sailors, or laborers. They had all been wiped out.

After briefly mourning his rebirth, Nangong Yan became excited. Blair had been dead for almost a day, and from the few memories available to him, Nangong Yan had learned what kind of world he had been reborn into!

This world had incomparably miraculous Devil Fruits, unique Haki, powerful physical techniques, the mountain-shaking Whitebeard, the lofty Five Elders, pirates who ran rampant and committed every evil, and single-minded adventurers!

This world held many interesting things for Nangong Yan to explore, many anticipated opponents for him to clash with, and many people worth getting to know!

As he thought of everything this world contained, Nangong Yan gradually grew excited. An unhealthy flush rose to his pale cheeks. Lost in thought, he tripped over a grayish-brown tree trunk on the ground and immediately crashed down in a miserable heap.

"Who the hell has no public decency? Leaving such a thick tree trunk lying—" Nangong Yan turned around, ready to complain, only to see a grayish-brown python as thick as an adult's thigh staring coldly and mercilessly at him with pale brown snake eyes, as if it were considering whether it would be better to swallow him headfirst or feet first.

Every hair on Nangong Yan's body stood on end, and goosebumps covered him from head to toe. He instinctively scrambled up and fled wildly. Under the threat of death, Nangong Yan ran no slower than he normally did.

Seeing the meat in its mouth fly away, how could the python let him go? Its long body slithered rapidly, weaving nimbly through the island's forest as it swiftly closed in on the fleeing Nangong Yan.

An explosion of strength under mortal danger could not last long. Before long, the distance between them rapidly shrank. The forest paths were rugged and covered in thorns. Nangong Yan was soon covered in countless small cuts, yet he still failed to escape the python's pursuit. The python coiled around his body, powerful force crushing in from all directions.

With death looming over him and no way to escape, Nangong Yan became ruthless. He opened his mouth and bit down hard on the python's body. To his despair, this body had already been weak and had gone a long time without food, its strength severely depleted. The beast's scales were also extremely hard. His bite left only teeth marks; he could not even pierce them.

Feeling the python's constriction gradually tighten and breathing become increasingly difficult, Nangong Yan was filled with despair and hatred. Intense unwillingness flooded his heart as his eyes glared furiously at the python's savage, terrifying head wrapped around him.