Failed tribulation crossing

[Leave your brains here...]

[This novel doesn't require much thinking. Just enjoy yourselves ♥]

The story begins:

Shen Mo opened his eyes groggily. The sharp pain in his forehead gradually brought him around, and he reached up to touch it.

"Bandages?"

Wasn't I undergoing tribulation crossing? Did I fail?

As a cultivator who had climbed from an ordinary person to his current heights, Shen Mo was no stranger to injuries. Since he had retained his old habits, he was fairly familiar with bandages, too.

But later, he had stopped using them much. Rather than watching wounds heal, he preferred to see blood gush out.

That flowing sensation proved he was still alive, but... why was he still alive?

Why make me live?

Depressive thoughts assailed Shen Mo's still-befuddled mind. His breathing grew increasingly rapid, and faces of people who had died gruesome deaths surfaced before his eyes, one after another.

At some point, his fingers had uncontrollably pressed against the wound that still stung sharply. He pressed harder and harder until a warm, sticky sensation spread to his fingertips.

Endless darkness dragged his soul downward, the agony suffocating.

Just die. I should have died with them long ago. Then I could be free forever...

Gaining things only to lose them, over and over, hurt far too much. He couldn't take it anymore...

Suddenly, a gentle, refined voice surfaced from his memories, like a warm spring. "Stay alive. Maybe someone wants you to live. Maybe their very existence is meant to keep you alive. As long as you're alive, the people who love you will be happy."

Clarity returned to Shen Mo's eyes in an instant. Air rushed down his throat, making him instinctively draw several deep breaths. He soon brought himself back under control.

Lost control again.

Lowering his hand from his head, Shen Mo rubbed the red, wet fluid on his fingertips. Remembering the voice that had just echoed in his mind, he clicked his tongue. "You really won't leave me alone."

But then his expression turned gloomy again, and he muttered to himself, "This time, it wasn't that I didn't want to live. You can't blame me."

After all, tribulation crossing wasn't something he could control.

He wondered whether that close friend of his would collect his corpse. No, wait-after the heavenly tribulation lightning, there probably wouldn't be a corpse left to collect.

He'd probably be sad. Come to think of it, I seemed to see him in that final glimpse. Must have been an illusion.

After all, his heavenly tribulation lightning hadn't completely ended then. Coming close would have been suicide.

At that thought, Shen Mo suddenly realized something.

Didn't I fail my tribulation crossing? My soul should have been scattered, and I should be a pile of charcoal.

Puzzled, Shen Mo looked up and surveyed his surroundings.

An unfamiliar setting, an unfamiliar place.

Where the hell had that lightning blasted me?!

Just as Shen Mo was puzzling over it, an unfamiliar electronic voice suddenly sounded in his head.

[Ding! Transaction complete. Congratulations, host, on successfully returning to your original world. Loading memories...]

[...10%]

[...20%]

...

[99%]

[Warning, warning! Insufficient energy. Unknown obstruction detected. Memory loading failed! Activating backup walkthrough memories.]

[Activation successful. Transferring memories...]

Shen Mo hadn't caught the loading and transferring business very clearly. It vaguely seemed to have something to do with memories.

But Shen Mo didn't feel that he was missing any memories. His head felt muddled now. The effects of losing too much blood from his earlier self-harm were only just setting in fully, leaving him unable to tell whether those sounds actually existed.

Still, surely he wasn't so far gone that he was hallucinating-especially such a long sequence, complete with both sounds and images.

Before Shen Mo could think further, he felt something being forcibly stuffed into his head, making it throb painfully.

Scattered images flashed rapidly through his mind. Shen Mo closed his eyes to ease the discomfort. A short while later, he gradually understood what had happened.

The good news: it wasn't a hallucination.

The bad news: apparently, he couldn't die again.

Shen Mo sighed with some regret and first sorted out his current situation.

His situation was a little like being reborn by possessing someone else's body. This body's owner had already died, and for some unknown reason, his soul had entered it.

Although he had been gravely injured during the heavenly tribulation, his soul was still extremely powerful. After it fully fused with this body, the tremendous impact had kick-started its bodily functions.

Although his injuries hadn't healed completely, he was no longer in that half-dead state.

Shen Mo rubbed his forehead with a headache. Well, if I'm alive, I might as well stay alive.

Because of a certain someone, it had become a habit: he could keep himself from actively seeking death.

The images constantly flashing through his head told him that he had transmigrated into a book-an apocalyptic reverse-harem novel with one female lead and several male leads.

And as the female lead's younger brother, he had caused endless trouble early on, become unreasonable and obstinate in the middle, and later fallen for a male lead, repeatedly hurting the female lead over it.

In the end, the male leads had reached the limits of their patience and secretly killed him behind the female lead's back.

At this point in the story, the original owner was supposed to be dead. Unfortunately, something unexpected had happened, and Shen Mo's soul had transmigrated into him.

Remembering the original owner's foolish deeds, Shen Mo's face darkened. He was utterly speechless.

From beginning to end, he hadn't found any logic behind the original owner's actions in those images. Was he just plain stupid?

If he was that stupid, wasn't he better off dead?

Fine, he was already dead now.

Just then, a strange smell interrupted his thoughts. Shen Mo sniffed around and discovered that it was actually coming from his own body.

He raised his arm and took a closer sniff, nearly throwing up.

How long had this body gone without a bath? Although the wounds had been treated well and there wasn't much of a bloody smell, the undisguised stench of rot and sweat was unbearable.

Although this was common in the apocalypse, that didn't stop him from being disgusted.

Shen Mo thought it over carefully. The female lead must have treated his current wounds. Although the original owner was awful, she doted on her younger brother.

But the female lead was a woman, after all, and couldn't exactly wipe down the original owner's body. As for the male leads, they avoided him like the plague, let alone waited on him.

A trace of disgust flashed through Shen Mo's eyes. Back in the Cultivation Realm, he would have crushed someone like the original owner the moment he started stirring up trouble.

He really admired the leads' patience, keeping this menace around until now.

Remembering the images of the original owner doing those things with a face identical to his own, Shen Mo shuddered with revulsion.

Horrifying! Thank goodness none of the things he tried had succeeded. Otherwise, I really wouldn't mind dying again. Even my closest friend couldn't stop me.

Although none of it had succeeded, those images were still enough to make Shen Mo, who had a severe aversion to any mental stain, feel uncomfortable all over.

At this moment, both physically and mentally, he desperately wanted to take a bath and clean himself up first.

With that thought, Shen Mo dragged his barely recovered body wearily out of bed.

After lying in bed for days, his body couldn't keep up with his intentions. His legs were as soft as cotton. He stumbled, swaying, and only barely steadied himself by bracing against the wall.

With something wrapped around his head, Shen Mo kept feeling uncomfortable.

Since he intended to bathe in a moment anyway, he simply raised his hand and unwrapped it.

Looking at the bandages stained with blood and medicine in his hand, Shen Mo casually tossed them into the trash can beside the bed.

The bandages still looked quite new and had probably been changed recently, but his earlier actions had stained a large patch bright red. Freed from their restraint, his overgrown black hair fell loosely.

His messy bangs covered his brows and eyes, concealing his current expression. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn't pleasant.

After resting for a moment, Shen Mo took his hand off the wall and loosened the joints throughout his body, then raised his arms in a long, full stretch.

Only after hearing the crisp cracks and pops of his bones did Shen Mo finally feel the heaviness in his body disappear completely.

"That's better~"

Shen Mo sighed softly with narrowed eyes. He continued stretching his arms and moving around for a while. Once he was completely accustomed to this body, he began searching his memories for the villa's layout.

The villa had three floors. The first was used to store supplies, and the male leads lived on the second. The third was the safest; for certain "special" reasons, only the female lead and he lived there at present.

After the apocalypse, resources were precious. The water and power systems had collapsed long ago, with supplies cut off and services shut down. Many people didn't even have drinking water, let alone the luxury of a bath.

But as the main cast, they were naturally very different from everyone else.

He remembered that, in the story, everyone in the main cast had awakened an ability except for "himself," the dead weight.

One male lead had awakened both ice and water abilities, while another had awakened a Lightning Ability, conveniently solving the villa's water and electricity problems.

However, their abilities hadn't leveled up much this early on. To conserve resources, it seemed that only the bathroom on the second floor, which housed the most people, worked normally.

But the problem Shen Mo faced now was that the original owner had offended every male lead equally. As a result, the main cast had specifically forbidden him from going to the second floor.

If he violated the rule, they would throw him out, even over the female lead's objections.

Since the original owner still wanted to seduce a male lead, he hadn't dared keep causing trouble. He had behaved himself for several days, confining his movements to the first and third floors.

Until he was finally set up and injured.

Strictly speaking, though, the male leads had struck first, so they were the ones who had broken the agreement.

With his omniscient perspective, Shen Mo knew all this from the plot, but he had no evidence. Those male leads had covered their tracks thoroughly.

But the current Shen Mo didn't care about any of that. If he were in the male leads' shoes, he might have gone even further and rooted out the problem for good.

In any case, he wasn't the original owner. If the male leads still couldn't tolerate him from here on, he could simply leave the group and find somewhere to lie low for a while.

Once his injuries had more or less healed, he could support himself. After all, his time in the Cultivation Realm hadn't been for nothing.

If all else fails, I can just die. No one here will stop me anyway.

As for whether he was allowed on the second floor, Shen Mo couldn't care less. He was taking that bath. Right now, he would rather be thrown out clean and bitten to death by zombies than stay here filthy all over.