Awakening

The goose-yellow parchment scroll was already half used, covered in densely packed, neat black letters.

Song Ye touched the parchment. It was soft and rather thin.

"Um..."

A muffled, hesitant sound suddenly came from a corner of the bedroom.

Only then did Song Ye remember what his father had mentioned earlier.

He looked toward the dark corner, following the sound.

A delicate little girl with long hair was hugging her knees in the shadows by the wall. Though she was somewhat blurry in the darkness, Song Ye still recalled who she was.

"Your name is Cecilia?" Song Ye stood and walked over to the girl. He remembered her name as well.

"Y-yes." The little girl shrank farther into the corner, seemingly frightened. Her eyes were swollen, as if she had cried for a long time. There were dried tear streaks on her face as well. "Young Master Anglie... what are your orders?" she asked softly.

Song Ye glanced at her already developing figure and shook his head slightly. Though he had learned from his memories that this world was much like medieval Europe, with a casual and open attitude toward sex, as the soul of an adult in his twenties, he could neither bear nor find the mood to ruin a girl who looked only fifteen or sixteen.

He still had far too many things to do. He had no time for this sort of thing.

"Alright, I have no orders." Song Ye clapped his hands sharply. "Maggie! Maggie!"

The bedroom door opened with a click, and a woman in a gray maid's uniform entered respectfully. "What are your orders?"

"Take this girl out and settle her in a room. I haven't..." Song Ye paused, suddenly recalling his father's character. If he simply sent the girl away like this, people would likely assume Cecilia had angered him. The consequences... Besides, given Baron Kyle's methods, Cecilia had probably been sent here by her family to avert disaster. If she were returned untouched, deaths would be unavoidable. At best, this little girl would be sent to the guards to serve as...

Song Ye glanced at the terrified, uneasy girl huddled in the corner and changed his words. "I'm not in the mood today. Take her out and settle her in. I'll deal with her in a few days."

The maid bowed respectfully and led the timid Cecilia out of the bedroom.

Only then did Song Ye truly let out a complete sigh of relief.

Ever since crossing over into this world, he had remained in a state of confusion and helplessness.

Sitting at the writing desk, he picked up the white quill pen.

The shaft felt smooth in his hand. The end of the white feather carried a faint reddish tint, though he had no idea what kind of bird it had come from. It felt surprisingly heavy in his hand.

Under the candlelight, the white feather reflected a faint yellow glow. It was quite beautiful.

"I thought I was dead for sure. Who knew I'd end up transmigrating instead?" Song Ye turned the quill in his hand, lost in thought.

From Anglie's memories, this world appeared to be purely in the age of cold weapons. The only ranged weapons were bows, arrows, and javelins. As for gunpowder, he had never even heard of it. In such an era, individual martial strength carried tremendous influence.

The reason Anglie's father, Baron Kyle, could be so arrogant, brutal, and merciless yet still live so well was largely because he possessed formidable combat strength himself. Baron Kyle had fought in the Rudin Kingdom's Violetgold Campaign, a famous war so brutal that it had severely weakened the kingdom. Any warrior who had survived that war was no ordinary figure.

Skilled combat techniques, a powerful physique, and smooth yet mighty cross-swordsmanship had allowed Baron Kyle to achieve the record of killing fifteen heavily armored cavalrymen by himself.

Together with the notoriously fearsome Knight Audis, the two of them were enough to make even Candia Viscounty deeply wary.

In the present-day Rudin Kingdom, title was not the measure of strength. Only power mattered!

The power of armies! The power of the strong!

That was the true foundation.

This was an era of pure killing and fighting. Take the entire Kyle Barony, for example. Though Baron Kyle was incomparably cruel and infamous, few of his subjects moved away. That was the fundamental reason.

Without a lord's protection, the bandits, thieves, and exiles in the surrounding areas offered only one path: death. The land was currently suffering from a severe drought. Some food-starved bandits even cooked and ate human flesh. In an age like this, traveling from one territory to another without the protection of force required more than courage. It also meant facing a death rate close to fifty percent.

But things were completely different within the Kyle Barony.

The bandits around the territory had all been cleared out one by one by Baron Kyle and his guards. The baron's ferocious reputation terrified not only the commoners, but even the bandits, who fled at the mere mention of his name. Thus, the broad area encompassing the barony and Candiya City was considered safe territory. At least half of Candiya City's stability now relied on Baron Kyle's fearsome name. That was also why Steward Ward showed no courtesy toward Viscount Candia.

Living under such a powerful lord, one might occasionally fear his brutality, but it was still better than risking death at any time and place. Besides, no matter how cruel the lord was, only a small number of people would suffer. There were so many people in the territory that it might never be one's own turn. Song Ye guessed that was how most subjects thought.

He picked up the parchment on the desk.

The letters written on it were a kind of script Song Ye had never seen before. They resembled English somewhat, but also resembled the Tibetan script once used in China.

"If I hadn't absorbed Anglie's memories, learning this world's language from scratch would probably have been extremely difficult." Song Ye could speak fluently with others, but that was an instinctive imprint of the body.

The contents of the language-memory region still remained. Whenever he instinctively wanted to express something, his brain directly called upon the appropriate combinations of language symbols from memory. At least he did not need to relearn spoken language.

"But this writing looks very complete..." Song Ye frowned slightly as he looked at the parchment in his hand. Its contents were a copy of a family history notebook he had transcribed before returning.

"If I still had my old chip, acquiring knowledge from books would be much more convenient, since the writing is so developed."

Song Ye habitually rubbed his left temple. This had been the activation method for those with implanted biological auxiliary chips on Earth in his previous life. He had done it merely out of unconscious habit.

"Beep!!"

A long tone suddenly rang in his ears.

Song Ye froze. He had heard that sound countless times before. It was so familiar that it could not have been more familiar. It was the sound of a biological auxiliary chip activating back on Earth.

"Biological Chip N18907 at your service. Manufactured by China Phytium Corporation and supervised by the Artificial Intelligence Oversight Department." A sweet female Chinese voice sounded in his mind.

Song Ye did not panic. He knew this was only the promotional message played upon initial activation, like the brand screen that appeared when a television was turned on. It did not mean the chip possessed intelligence.

As an auxiliary chip possessed by everyone in the twenty-third century, the Biochip had only two functions.

Analysis and storage.

Analysis was simply basic logical modeling analysis. It integrated data from mathematics, physics, and many other disciplines, then automatically stored the results in the storage area.

Because people feared that artificial intelligence might affect the human brain, the chip possessed no intelligence. It also existed in a perfected symbiotic state with the human brain—or rather, it was simply part of the human brain.

Storage, meanwhile, consisted of a biological memory module independent of the brain yet symbiotic with it. Its capacity far surpassed that of the human brain, allowing it to retain every image and sensory detail from thousands of years without omission. The human brain, by contrast, could remember at most a hundred and fifty years.

"The chip came with me too?" Song Ye could hardly believe it for a moment. His breathing quickened, and he sat silently in the chair for a long while. He needed time to digest the shock of this event.

"But it is possible. I heard that the new-generation chip I used was directly engraved into the genetic chain. Even if damaged, it could regenerate on its own like the liver. Does that mean my genes came with me too?" Song Ye speculated.

"Please name the chip." The sweet voice sounded in his mind again.

"Zero." Song Ye unconsciously spoke the name he had given his former chip.

"Name confirmed. Zero Chip's automatic initialization assistance program will now self-destruct. We wish you a pleasant experience. For complaints or suggestions, please call 40355627. Thank you for using our product." The female voice stopped abruptly.

Song Ye knew that this had been the chip's final auxiliary voice. From now on, there would be only a completely genderless mechanical voice, drawn directly from his own language-memory region.

For a moment, Song Ye's emotions surged, and his breathing quickened.

He knew very clearly what possessing a Biochip meant in an age of cold weapons.

The candle on the writing desk flickered with a faint yellow glow, shining on Song Ye's face and casting a thin layer of fluorescence across it.

Right beside the writing desk was a window. The wooden window was covered with a layer of white paper-like film, forming what passed for a window in the earthen fortress.

Song Ye stood and pushed the wooden window open.

With a creak, the wooden window swung outward.

A fresh night breeze blew in, carrying a faint scent of grass.

Song Ye leaned his head out the window. He wanted to calm down properly.

His bedroom was on the fourth floor of the earthen fortress. Looking out from the window—

In the distance lay vast stretches of black forest, like shadows. The wind stirred the leaves with a rustling sound, while the cries of countless unknown insects blended together.

Two crescent moons hung quietly in the night sky, scattering a thin wash of pale moonlight.

Among the woods, the only main road leading to the town beyond faintly carried the dense rhythm of hoofbeats.

The cold wind cleared Song Ye's head a little. By the moonlight, he saw a group of black-clad riders slowly approaching the earthen fortress from the depths of the forest at the end of the road.

Several of the riders held torches, and their horses occasionally snorted.

From afar, the leading rider seemed to be speaking with someone slightly behind him, letting out light laughter from time to time.

By the light of the torches, Song Ye could barely make out the leading rider's appearance.

He had a solemn face, a small black mustache on his chin, and long flaxen hair—a mixture of gold and brown—falling over his shoulders. He was powerfully built and wore full silver-white armor. He looked savage, yet carried a trace of nobility.

"It's Father, Baron Kyle." Song Ye recognized him immediately. He had seen him not long ago, and Anglie's memories also held a deep impression of him.

Both of the baron's hands holding the reins wore black leather gloves. Just as Song Ye looked over, the baron seemed to notice his gaze and turned to look in his direction.

Seeing Song Ye watching from the window, he removed one glove and waved toward him. A faint smile appeared on his face. After giving Song Ye a small nod, the baron lightly flicked the reins and urged his horse onward faster.