You Surviving Came as Quite a Surprise

April 25, 329, Federal Calendar. Midnight.

Room 401, a residential building on Cloudpool Road in the outer district of Mount Yuan City.

Xiao Wang slowly woke in the darkness, only to be hit by intense, burning pain in his chest, as if a massive gash had been cut open with a knife.

Instinctively, he tried to touch the painful spot with his right hand, but discovered that it was tightly clutching something. There was also a considerable sticky sensation between the object and his palm.

So he reached toward the painful area with his left hand instead.

The moment he touched it—

"Hiss..."

The agony intensified, making him suck in a sharp breath.

What was going on?

Wasn't I working a public-sector job in the Fifth War?

Where was this?

And what was with the pain in my chest?

A string of questions rang through Xiao Wang's mind. It was pitch-black before his eyes, and he could not see a thing. All he could hear was the torrential rain outside, slashing down with a constant rush.

Still, Xiao Wang judged that he was indoors.

Enduring the intense pain, he got to his feet and tried to find the light switch.

During this process, he did not discard the thing in his right hand. Instead, he gripped it even tighter.

He felt that it had to be important. After all, he had still been clutching it tightly even while unconscious.

He carefully felt around in the darkness for a while, trying not to knock anything over. Still, he sensed that he had stepped on several objects already lying on the floor, crushing them with a brittle crunch.

There was no time to worry about that. He needed to turn on the light first.

Finally, after about three minutes of searching—

Click!

The switch was pressed.

A crisp sound rang out.

Then, dim yellow light illuminated the entire room.

The sudden light made Xiao Wang instinctively close his eyes for a moment before reopening them.

The sight before him left him completely stunned.

Glass shards were scattered across the floor. Two goldfish lay motionless among them, clearly devoid of life.

Several chairs lay toppled about, and two of them were partially damaged, their legs broken.

A table had also fallen onto its side, lying in a puddle of water.

But none of that was what concerned him most.

What concerned him most was the blood that seemed to be everywhere amid the mess.

The floor, the chairs, and the table were all covered in bloodstains.

Bright bloody footprints were also left on the floor from when he had just walked over to turn on the lights.

When he looked down at himself, he found that nearly all his clothes had been soaked in blood and were half-dry. At the hem, thick blood that had not yet dried was still dripping slowly onto the floor, drop by drop.

He then looked at where the pain was coming from—the left side of his chest, where his heart should have been. Carefully pulling aside his clothing, he saw a glaring wound.

The blood had already clotted, and no fresh blood was seeping out.

Then he looked at his right hand. When he saw what he was holding, he froze.

It was a dagger.

It too was stained with blood. Where the metal showed through, it gleamed with dazzling white light beneath the lamp.

It looked incomparably sharp.

"What the hell?"

"Did I stab myself?"

Xiao Wang's thoughts were in complete disarray, but he quickly used the composure he had developed from his public-sector job in the Fifth War to calm himself down.

He first scanned his surroundings. This was a two-bedroom apartment, and the entire layout was unfamiliar.

"This isn't my home."

Xiao Wang made his first judgment inwardly.

"But where is this?"

"What happened?"

"How did I end up here?"

A series of doubts quickly filled his mind again.

Still gripping the dagger, Xiao Wang walked back from the light switch toward where he had come from. He wanted to see what had happened where he had initially been lying.

He moved forward slowly.

When his gaze passed over the edge of the overturned table and landed beside the sofa, Xiao Wang's heart leaped into his throat.

Because he saw a person lying motionless in a pool of blood.

Xiao Wang froze for two seconds, then hurried over and checked. The person was already dead.

His carotid artery had been slit.

But his blood was still relatively fresh and flowing, unlike the blood on Xiao Wang's body, which was gradually coagulating.

Clearly, this man had been stabbed after Xiao Wang.

Xiao Wang then quickly searched the entire apartment and found no one else.

He immediately went limp and collapsed back onto the floor.

"What the hell is going on? Did I kill this guy?"

"If he didn't stab himself, then I must have stabbed him. There's no one else in the apartment."

Xiao Wang was completely lost.

Outside, the rain still poured in sheets. Howling winds drove raindrops slantwise against the glass windows, producing crisp pattering sounds.

Xiao Wang quickly turned to look. The curtains were all drawn.

"Good."

Just then, a memory that did not belong to him flooded into his mind.

Vast and chaotic...

There were too many memories for Xiao Wang to process them all. He could only rapidly digest those related to the current scene, so he could determine what exactly was going on.

A moment later...

"Fuck, I really transmigrated."

The original owner of this body was also named Xiao Wang, though he was younger and about to turn eighteen. The corpse on the floor was the enemy who had murdered his parents, and this was that enemy's home.

He had come here for revenge, but they had perished together in the struggle.

His enemy's carotid artery had been slit by him, and he had died from excessive blood loss.

He himself had died the same way, also from excessive blood loss. Although he had been stabbed deeply in the left chest, Xiao Wang had discovered while examining the wound that the original owner's heart, like his own, was on the right side.

He had escaped death.

That was why he had later risked his life to slit the other man's carotid artery.

As Xiao Wang looked at the scene before him and prepared to search through more memories to see what he should do next—

Suddenly.

A knock sounded at the door.

Knock, knock, knock.

It was not loud, but every knock struck Xiao Wang right in the heart.

His entire body tensed.

His thoughts instantly became chaotic again, so chaotic that he could not sort through the newly received memories at all.

"Could it be a neighbor?"

Xiao Wang guessed, uncertain. His muddled memories left him unable to recall anything, so he could only return to the switch and turn off the light, hoping the neighbor would take the hint and leave.

But...

Knock, knock, knock.

The knocking sounded again, still three times, exactly like before. No more, no less, neither hurried nor slow, carrying a lazy air.

As though the person knew everything that had happened inside.

Before Xiao Wang could think of what to do next, a voice came from outside the door.

"It's me, Aries. Open the door."

Upon hearing that name, the relevant memories in Xiao Wang's mind began to clear.

Aries. It was this person named Aries who had given him information about his enemy, which was why he had come here to take revenge and killed the man.

Xiao Wang steadied himself again, turned on the light, and walked to the door.

Before opening it, he looked at the "himself" in the full-length mirror. Only after confirming that he looked exactly the same as his original self did he open the door a crack.

Through the gap, Xiao Wang saw a middle-aged man in his forties standing outside. He wore a white top hat, a white formal suit, and white leather shoes. He carried a black cane in one hand and a black bag in the other.

When he saw Xiao Wang, he gave him a slight bow.

Xiao Wang then opened the door, and Aries entered before quickly closing it again.

Standing by the door and looking over the scene inside, Aries did not seem particularly surprised. He merely sighed softly.

"That was intense."

After a pause, he added, "Still, you surviving came as quite a surprise."