To Hell with Fire Drilling!

Just as Wu Chu felt as though some enormous beast had fixed its gaze on him, leaving his body stiff and his scalp tingling, a vast golden light descended from the sky and fell directly upon him.

The golden light was boundless, like a surging golden ocean.

Feeling himself bathed in that golden sea, Wu Chu's eyes widened once more, and he stood there without daring to move.

After a long while, the golden light drew back, and the feeling of being watched by a colossal beast finally vanished.

Wu Chu was somewhat puzzled. He turned to look around, but everything remained silent. Only the wisps of wind blowing from the lake toward the flower field seemed somewhat noisy.

He had no idea where that golden light had come from or where it had gone. Nor did he know whether even more terrifying things lurked within this strange place, where not a single insect chirp or birdcall could be heard. At that moment, he was like a rabbit on edge, carefully watching everything around him. The slightest rustle could make his heart pound.

He raised his head to look at the sky, and his brows furrowed slightly again. He realized that although fifteen or sixteen hours had passed on his phone since he had appeared in this world and arrived here, the sun in the sky seemed barely to have moved.

Puzzled, he thought for a moment, then stepped through the flower field. He planned to set up a simple shelter beneath that giant tree and start a campfire.

He could endure going without food for a while, but without fire, he felt far too unsafe.

Fire was the best source of strength for driving away fear in the darkness.

Though he had no idea when night would fall.

However, before he could cross the flower field, a sharp cramp twisted through his stomach. He immediately undid his belt, pulled down his pants, and squatted in the flowers.

Pfft, pfft, pfft...

A foul stench spread through the air, nearly knocking him unconscious.

Covering his mouth and nose with one hand, Wu Chu frowned in thought, worried that he might have swallowed some pathogen while drinking earlier and that his body had reacted so quickly.

I'm about to die, aren't I? Sure enough, transmigrating was the easiest way to get killed. Those movies and novels were all lies. How could organisms from Earth possibly adapt so easily to the germs of another world?

Sorry, predecessors of all transmigrators. I might become the first transmigrator to die of not adapting to the local environment after arriving in another world.

Squatting there, he thought gloomily, then laughed at himself. He realized that what filled his mind at this moment was not fear, but this sort of absurd nonsense.

Life really was full of surprises!

Fortunately, as the filth in his stomach emptied out, his whole body felt much more comfortable.

But he soon looked troubledly at the flowers and grass beside him, recalling those unbearable childhood days of using the outhouse in the countryside.

Still, out here in the wilderness, there was no need to be so particular.

After a while, Wu Chu resolutely reached his sinful hand toward the lovely flowers and grass beside him, committing the scenery-ruining atrocity of devastating flowers and boiling cranes.

Yet to his surprise, he could not tear apart those seemingly delicate flowers and grass.

"What kind of godforsaken place is this? I can't even tear these flowers and grass apart? Am I really this useless in this world? Don't I even have the strength of a blade of grass?"

Luckily, after trying a few times, Wu Chu discovered that he could still break them off by bending downward along the point where the leaf stalk connected to the stem.

After a while, Wu Chu finally stood up comfortably, fastened his belt, pinched his nose, and looked back at the rather horrific crime scene he had created.

Holding his breath, he "fled" the scene at top speed and crossed several hundred meters of flower field. Along the way, he came across a fruit the size of a washbasin.

The fruit resembled a piece of purple jade. It looked somewhat like a plum or a crabapple, with smooth skin and a satisfying weight in his hands. He had no idea whether it was poisonous.

Still, Wu Chu picked up the fruit and carried it beneath the giant tree.

Looking up, the enormous tree was like a vast wooden wall blocking his way. Its rough bark resembled parched, cracked earth, while its massive roots were like gray giant pythons, ancient and powerful as they plunged into the soil and gripped the land tightly.

Between two thick gray roots that protruded from the ground and stood more than ten meters apart, Wu Chu set down the purple fruit. Looking at the roots rising several meters above the ground on either side, he found that they could perfectly serve as two walls.

He wanted to find some dead branches for firewood, which meant he had to go around the giant tree.

The broken chunks scattered across the ground had grayish-white bark, but their interiors were purple like jade. He probably would not be able to drill through them.

Their texture was extremely hard. Wu Chu had tried striking them with a small stick, and the sound they made was not like wood at all, but more like clashing metal and iron.

Going around the giant tree, Wu Chu entered the forest behind it.

The forest here was the same as everywhere else, filled with shattered rocks and broken trees. Mountain peaks had been blasted apart through the middle, and countless clumps of mud and stone lay scattered everywhere.

He guessed that this place might once have experienced an earth-shaking battle.

In the end, that Azure Dragon had been slain here, and the countless miles of rolling green mountains and ancient forests around it had also been affected by that cataclysmic battle, leaving them utterly ruined.

Only a few fortunate towering trees still stood within the forest, but compared with the Heavenly Tree beside him, which soared straight into the heavens, the other giant trees could only be considered its descendants.

A world with dragons had to be a mythological world!

And in a mythological world, human lives...

Wu Chu felt that his own life might not even be worth as much as those little blades of grass.

There were plenty of dead branches on the ground. Wu Chu also found quite a bit of soft, pliable bark and some withered dry grass that could be used to start a fire.

He moved with great caution, because he had noticed that even the ants in this world seemed especially robust. Some were even as thick as his thumb.

He had no idea whether a single bite from them would poison him to death.

After Wu Chu made several panting trips back and forth and prepared everything needed to start a fire, he began his first-ever wilderness Fire Drilling operation.

About half an hour later, Wu Chu raised his head dejectedly. His hands were red and burning with pain, his brow was furrowed, and sweat covered his face.

When nearly an hour had passed, he smashed the dead branch in his hand onto the ground.

"To hell with Fire Drilling!"

Panting, he sat down in the shaded spot by the tree root, leaned against it, stared at his burning hands as though they were on fire, and silently recited the national-edition Three-Character Classic in his heart.

These dead branches were all incredibly hard. Even after stuffing the dry grass and soft bark into the "drilled hole," the speed at which he rubbed the thin stick was still insufficient to generate enough heat to ignite them.

Leaning against the giant tree, he rested for a while. Listening to his stomach growl, tears once again slid helplessly from his eyes.

Wu Chu felt that after winning that thirty-million jackpot, he had used up all the luck of his entire life. Now, his bad luck was about to begin.

After venting for a while, he forced himself to pull together his emotions, which were on the verge of collapse. He got up, glanced at the purple fruit on the ground, and headed toward the pool behind the flower field.

The only thing he could be certain of now was that the water in that pool was not poisonous.

Avoiding the crime scene he had created, he opened up a new path through the flower field and reached the pool. After fiercely replenishing his lost water, he returned beneath the Heavenly Tree and instinctively began considering what he should do next.

After resting for about half an hour, Wu Chu got up and walked east along the lakeshore. Back in the forest, he had used the direction in which the branches and leaves grew to determine the cardinal directions.

Though this method of finding direction on Earth might not suit this magical world, he would treat it as workable for now!

However, before he had even gone two or three li, he turned straight back.

He discovered a huge spiderweb in the woods by the lake, stretched between two giant trees. By rough estimate, the web covered dozens of square meters.

At the center of that web crouched a brightly colored spider the size of a washbasin.

Carefully retreating beneath the Heavenly Tree, Wu Chu could not help feeling discouraged.

Who knew how long passed before he lifted his head again and looked at the purple fruit. Having gone more than twenty hours without food, exhausted and starving, he no longer wanted to endure it.

"Fuck it! Poisonous or not, I'm eating it!"

Holding the fruit, Wu Chu thought about everything that had happened to him today and decided not to keep mistreating himself. Otherwise, some wild beast might carry him off while he was still starving.

Better to be poisoned to death with a full stomach than get carried off by a wild beast on an empty one!

With that fierce resolve, Wu Chu viciously bit into the fruit in his hand as though it were a hated enemy. Fortunately, although the skin was tough, it was not impossible to bite through, and it did not crack his teeth.

The flesh was crisp and refreshing. Pale-purple juice flowed from the purple pulp, and the fruit's fragrance filled his nostrils, making him feel utterly refreshed.

The unexpected sweetness left him dazed. It was as if every cell in his body were cheering for that sweet fragrance, and his entire body felt clear and unburdened.

In all his life, he had never eaten such a sweet and delicious fruit. Its taste was fragrant and sweet, its unusual aroma drifting through the air. It felt dreamlike, like walking among the clouds, a sensation beyond description.

"It's so sweet that even if it's poisonous, it's worth it!"

Wu Chu continued gnawing away, deciding to enjoy this brief moment of happiness first.

Cradling the fruit, he ate as he walked toward the lake. Then he climbed upward along the grayish-white roots, which were like dragons and pythons plunging headfirst into the earth, until he reached the place where the roots joined the trunk. He sat down there, eating the fruit and staring blankly at the giant lake.

Under the sunlight, the giant lake glittered with rippling waves, its misty waters vast and boundless. Occasionally, large fish churned up splashes within it, but they were too far away to affect him much.

His thoughts drifted wildly along with the sweetness of the strange fruit, like dandelions floating in the wind with their tiny umbrellas, aimless and unaware of where they would ultimately land.

Gradually, his movements slowed, and his eyes unconsciously became hazy.

Farewell, parents and friends. Alone... how was he supposed to live alone?

Before he knew it, he had finished the strange fruit. He casually tossed away the large pit in his hand, then leaned there lazily in the sun like a stuffed salted fish.

The spring sunlight felt especially warm, though after basking in it for too long, he could still feel his skin beginning to burn.

He wanted to roll over and jump down from the tree root, but in the end, he obediently climbed down along it instead. The bloated fullness in his lower belly made even moving feel troublesome.

He realized he had overeaten. The fruit was simply too delicious, and before he knew it, he had devoured the entire washbasin-sized thing.

"There should be quite a few more fruits like this. If I don't die from poison later, I can use them as food in the future. I just wonder what kind of tree they grow on."

With that happy thought, he lay down in the shade beneath the tree roots.

He did not know when exactly he fell asleep. Perhaps he had exhausted too much energy earlier and was simply too tired.

Or perhaps the dreamy sweetness of that fruit had intoxicated him without his realizing it. Or perhaps the troubled thoughts weighing on him had made him unwilling to face the reality before him.

In any case, he quickly drifted off to sleep.

In his dream, he found himself transformed into an azure divine dragon, commanding wind and rain above the Nine Heavens, riding clouds and mist, swallowing thunder and spitting lightning. Beneath the earth, he churned rivers and seas, striking the waters for ten thousand miles.

Then he became a young Daoist, herding beasts and cultivating forests across this vast land. With a sweep of his wide sleeve, the trees grew at tremendous speed as though enchanted.

Soon, he discovered that he had split into one dragon and one man, battling within his dream.

Endless green mountains collapsed one after another, the earth cracked open, rocks turned to dust, and grass and trees were crushed into mud... Before they could determine a victor, his dream changed once more.

A voluptuous woman danced before them. Her indistinct little face somewhat resembled a beauty from a painting. As she danced, the gauzy garments on her body fell away piece by piece...

The man and the dragon soon lost themselves in that pink, tender realm.

At a critical moment, Wu Chu suddenly woke up.

Instinctively reaching down to check, he let out a breath of relief, though he also felt somewhat disappointed.

But before he had time to savor the beautiful things he had just experienced in his dream, he once again felt a sharp cramp in his stomach.

He hurriedly got up and ran toward the flowers beside him, nearly tripping. After running less than twenty meters, he could no longer hold it in. He undid his belt and squatted down at top speed.

Amid a series of pffts, the foul stench spread once more, making him instinctively cover his nose.

After a long while, he finally let out a long breath.

He looked up at the sky, then at the shadows cast by the surrounding plants... Suddenly, he realized that his vision was much better than before. His field of view had widened, and the scenery had become far clearer, as if ordinary resolution had suddenly turned into ultra-high definition.

Moreover, the sun in the sky seemed to have moved only the tiniest bit.

So he took out his phone, intending to check the time.

But when he saw his phone, he was dumbfounded once again.

PS: Over seven thousand words in two chapters. Please support!