That Year I Transmigrated, and the Dragon Was Dead

Moo...

A dragon's roar shook the nine heavens, like a peal of thunder. The wind rose and clouds churned, rolling and surging.

Aside from that dragon's roar, not another sound could be heard between heaven and earth. The land lay utterly silent, as though all creation had bowed before the roar.

As far as the eye could see, towering green mountains had crumbled, deep, secluded valleys had been filled in, and colossal trees that once propped up the sky had toppled one after another. The landscape was riddled with destruction, a scene of utter devastation. From the clouds above, it was clear that this desolation stretched for tens of millions of miles.

A young man had suddenly appeared atop a green mountain. He found it a little hard to breathe and looked around in bewilderment. Then he burst into laughter, sprang up with all his might, and seemed poised to soar straight into the clouds.

But he only bounced a few inches off the ground before landing again.

"Wait, what? I still can't fly in a dream? That's ridiculous! Let me fly..."

He tried jumping again, but he only made it a few inches this time, too—not even high enough to clear a soda can.

So he froze for a moment, then slapped his thigh.

Smack...

The sound rang out crisp and clear, and his thigh stung.

"This isn't a dream?"

He slapped his thigh again, then frowned and sucked in a breath through his teeth.

After he'd collected himself, he secretly pinched his thigh. His expression turned uncertain. Finally, he pulled out his phone and checked it. There was no network signal at all; he couldn't even call for help.

His name was Wu Chu, an ordinary working stiff with a bit of luck.

A minute earlier, he'd been overjoyed that he'd won thirty million in the lottery and, more importantly, had actually collected the money. He'd sprinted down the street, howling with delight, and plenty of people had taken him for a lunatic.

He'd never imagined that the next moment, he'd keep running and end up in this desolate wilderness.

Wu Chu had assumed he was so happy that his memories had become jumbled—that he'd thought he was already back home resting and was now dreaming up this strange scene.

Looking back, though, the scenery rushing backward as he'd sprinted down the street had seemed a little unusual.

But how was that possible?

How could anything so supernatural happen in this world?

Could he really have run straight into a time tunnel?

Wu Chu's mind was buzzing.

He held out his hands and looked at them, then glanced down at his feet. He wore an ordinary pair of black canvas shoes, familiar black jeans, a white T-shirt, and a lightweight black jacket—the classic outfit for spring.

So he couldn't help slapping his other thigh.

It hurt just as much as before.

Once it dawned on him that he might really have entered some kind of time tunnel and arrived in a strange world, Wu Chu immediately lost his composure.

He'd won thirty million, taken home twenty-four million, and hadn't even had a chance to spend it!

He'd even thought he wouldn't have to worry about money for the rest of his life. A fancy car and beautiful women had seemed within reach.

But now...

Of course, the key issue wasn't whether he'd get to spend the money. It was the instinctive fear people felt when faced with an unfamiliar environment.

What the hell kind of place was this?

And what kind of monster had made that sound like a dragon's roar?

He looked again at the fallen giant trees around him. The only word that came to mind was...a kind of green plant known for its resilience.

How could there be trees that big on Earth? And so many of them? Far away, one enormous tree stood without a crown, like a gigantic spear thrust into the heavens.

Beside himself with worry, he slapped his thighs a few more times. He didn't even know how many times he'd hit himself without thinking. Once he realized there was nothing he could do to change what had happened, he could only sink down onto the ground in despair.

Life's highs and lows had come too fast. He felt so wronged he could have cried.

Wu Chu sat blankly on the ground for a while, his mind empty. Then he stood up anxiously and paced back and forth across the bare mountaintop. It was as if three huge words were spinning above his head: "What now? What now? What now?"

He found he couldn't calm down at all. His usual easygoing nature was no use here; it couldn't soothe his restless, troubled emotions.

The thought that he might have left modern society behind, or even left Earth, made his body tremble uncontrollably. It wasn't excitement. It was fear and panic.

Transmigration?

How could that be possible?

That was just something novelists and screenwriters imagined!

But when he looked at this desolate wilderness, with not a single insect chirping or bird calling, and a silence so eerie it was frightening, unease crept into his heart. The pressure nearly broke him, and he had no choice but to face the terrifying truth before him.

He slumped onto the ground. After a while, he reached up and slapped his face, steadying his breathing and emotions as he tried to prepare himself mentally.

It took a long time before Wu Chu noticed what lay beneath him.

The bare green boulder under him looked as if it were made of green stone scales, each one the size of a bathtub, fitted together. The scales were all the same size and arranged in neat, orderly rows. Their texture wasn't rough; they even had a smooth, jade-like sheen.

Under the sunlight, they didn't feel scorching. Instead, they were cool to the touch.

After taking a closer look, he sprang up from the ground—only to land flat on his backside halfway through the jump. He seemed to have thought of something terrifying. His heart skipped several beats, and then he carefully crawled forward to confirm his suspicion.

He crawled on until he saw the enormous, fierce-looking head hanging halfway down the mountainside. He was so terrified that he froze.

He shrank his neck and ducked his head. After taking several deep breaths, he carefully pulled his phone from his pocket and zoomed in on the huge head.

It was the head of a mythical creature revered by countless people in China: a blue ox's head, white deer antlers, enormous golden eyes, and two long whiskers, like giant whips, drooping carelessly beside its lips.

Its scarlet tongue hung limply from the corner of its mouth. Beneath the fierce head, a crimson stream wound down the mountain.

This was a Azure Dragon, a creature that should have existed only in myth. Its body lay stretched across the mountainside, and from the looks of it, it was dead, hanging there on the mountain.

He just didn't know whether it was really dead. After all, it was a mythical creature.

Wu Chu clicked his tongue in secret, his heart filled with fear and unease. He thought again of the dragon's roar he'd heard earlier.

He couldn't help quietly pinching his thigh again...

The pain made him stick out his tongue. His features twisted of their own accord, and he hissed as he sucked in a sharp breath. He felt chilled to the bone.

What kind of astonishing world was this?

Wu Chu was close to tears. Still panicking, he looked around again. He couldn't stay on this mountain for long. Who knew whether the great dragon was really dead?

When he spotted an enormous lake of unknown size beside the giant tree in the distance, he decided to leave first and head that way.

After unconsciously snapping a few more photos, Wu Chu carefully followed the dragon's spine toward its tail. The dragon's back was broad, but it sloped downward. Aside from the dorsal spines along its back, there was nothing to slow his descent.

He was especially cautious.

By the time he reached the dragon's tail, he was at the foot of the mountain.

Fortunately, the shattered mountain wasn't very steep, so the dragon's back didn't slope too sharply. Otherwise, he really wouldn't have been able to make it down.

Only when his feet touched the freshly exposed ground did he feel a little steadier.

He looked back. The enormous dragon's body seemed to hang across the mountainside. Giant trees and rubble lay scattered on either side, with a little green visible here and there between the rocks.

Wu Chu took out his phone and snapped a few more pictures, then turned and headed toward the distant lake.

As soon as he started walking, he noticed something was wrong. He hadn't realized it while crawling cautiously along the dragon's back, but now that he was on his feet, it hit him: the gravity in this world seemed different from Earth's. No wonder he couldn't jump as high as a soda can.

The stronger gravity made him tire faster and faster. The distance didn't look like more than a dozen miles, but even with all his stops and starts, it took him over ten hours to reach it. Blisters had rubbed raw on the soles of his feet. He was soaked in sweat, dizzy and bleary-eyed, with cracked lips. His black pant legs and shoes had turned a dusty yellow, and he looked utterly miserable.

At first, he'd thought that a world with trees this huge might have a higher oxygen concentration than Earth, and that his body might not be able to adapt. But after walking for a while, he realized that worry had been unnecessary.

And when he stopped to rest after tiring himself out, his strength came back so quickly that it astonished him. On top of that, the great lake in the distance was waiting for him, letting him quench his thirst with the hope of reaching it.

Of course, most important of all, the mountain had crumbled, and there were no shrubs on the way, making it easier to walk. If he'd been trekking through a primeval jungle, he probably would've cried his eyes out.

When giant trees, ten or even dozens of meters across, lay across his path, he could only squeeze through gaps between their trunks and branches.

Here, ancient trees that would once have been several meters across were nothing but little brothers.

The leaves on the fallen giant trees had already softened under the blazing sun, drooping and drifting in the breeze without a trace of spirit.

The different gravity, the dragon corpse hanging on the mountain, the ancient trees broken and scattered everywhere, and all kinds of strange plants he couldn't identify made him realize he was no longer on Earth.

He walked in fits and starts, until it felt like his feet weren't even his own. Wu Chu had no idea how many times he'd muttered that kind of resilient green plant along the way.

From thinking it was a dream to facing reality, from smug satisfaction to disappointment, from calm composure to panic...only then did he discover that he was the real clown all along!

I never wanted to transmigrate!

Wu Chu lamented silently.

He trudged along, stumbling through the difficult journey, until he finally reached the lakeshore. Only when he got a clear look at the giant tree did he understand the wonder of creation.

The tree's bark was grayish white, and to him, the Sacred Tree was at least two or three hundred meters thick. Its trunk stood straight as a spear, and he couldn't tell how high it reached. Its crown had disappeared.

Standing beside it, a person was as tiny as an ant.

Fragments of the giant tree lay scattered around the lakeshore, like purple jade mountains. The fallen crown slanted into the lake, so immense it looked like a small forest rising from the water.

The lake's surface was calm and still, stretching so far it seemed to have no end. The opposite shore was a blur in the distance, at least dozens or even hundreds of miles away.

In a world this primeval, he felt as if he could lose his life at any moment.

Dazed and helpless, he stared at everything around him, then instinctively pulled out his phone and snapped picture after picture. He even took a selfie with the giant tree in the background.

Beside the giant tree lay a broad valley, thick with all kinds of exotic flowers and plants. Their stalks were enormous; some had leaves broader than he was.

The valley had probably been flooded by the lake. The flower beds sloped in patches toward its depths, as though they'd been battered by wind and waves.

But even though the clusters of exotic flowers were broken and battered, their rich fragrance still drifted through the valley, refreshing the mind and intoxicating the senses.

Yet not a bee or butterfly could be seen among the flowers.

Wu Chu wandered around the flower beds for a while and discovered a round pool of water, two or three meters across, deep in the valley behind them.

The pool looked as though it had been set into a rock. Its water was exceptionally clear, bubbling out through a crack in the stone, yet strangely never overflowing.

He was thirsty, but Wu Chu still hadn't drawn water from the great lake. It was only after finding the pool that he hesitated.

He checked the area around it. There were no animal hoofprints, so he finally licked his lips as he gazed into the water.

A long while passed...

Wu Chu silently lay down beside the pool.

Whatever happened, he needed to quench his thirst first. Surely spring water this clear wouldn't have any terrifying parasites, right? That was all he could tell himself.

But the moment he drank a mouthful of the sweet spring water, he seemed to feel some kind of giant beast watching him, and his scalp went numb.

P.S. I'm starting a new book on April Fools' Day. Happy April Fools' Day, everyone! The new book's underway, so please show it your support!