A Nightmare Shrouded in Mystery

The millet porridge in the pot bubbled away, steaming hot. The fragrance of rice mingled with the clean scent of firewood, filling the tiny thatched hut.

Fufu's body temperature was a little high in his arms, like a fluffy little furnace.

Everything felt so real, so warm.

Yet it was precisely that sense of reality that pulled Bai Mo's thoughts back into that cold nightmare.

This was not the first time he had dreamed it. Like a timed curse, it played out in his mind at regular intervals, never differing by the slightest bit.

In the dream, there was no Icebound Forest, no Blackstone Village, and certainly not this body of a boy around six years old.

He had transmigrated into the era of Legend of the Dragon King, twenty thousand years after the age of Spirit Hall.

It was an age of extraordinarily advanced soul-guided technology, but one where social classes had become increasingly rigid.

Worse still, because he had transmigrated with his original body, he did not even possess a Martial Soul or soul power. He had become a complete and utter "muggle."

In that world, where the strong were revered and people killed for treasure at every turn, how difficult was it for an ordinary person without the strength to bind a chicken to survive?

He followed the same path as in his previous life, becoming a screw mercilessly ground down by the machinery of society. He toiled day and night for three meals a day, living in constant awe and fear of the powerful.

More than twenty years passed in mediocrity.

He had witnessed the strength of soul masters and seen the sorrow of ordinary people.

Like a rat in a gutter, he carefully avoided every disaster that might befall him and lived in humiliation.

But if that had been all, it could not really have been called a nightmare. At most, it was a suffocating preview of a life.

The true nightmare began when those people in black robes, radiating evil auras, set their sights on him.

He was captured and turned into "consumable material" for an Evil Soul Master's cultivation.

Perhaps because he possessed neither a Martial Soul nor soul power, something virtually unheard of on the Douluo Continent, he had aroused that Evil Soul Master's intense interest.

He was no longer mere expendable material. He had become a more valuable test subject.

Dismembered, reassembled, injected with all manner of bizarre drugs... Even the lingering fragments of that pain, where soul and flesh were torn apart and ground to dust together, were enough to make Bai Mo's hands and feet go cold involuntarily.

He remembered those eyes, visible through the mask and brimming with fanaticism and curiosity. He also remembered the cold instruments in the laboratory, stained with dark red blood.

In that world, even the lowliest commoner had Martial Soul blood flowing through their body. It was the most basic mark bestowed upon its people by the Douluo Continent.

Whether it awakened or not only determined whether they could take another path.

But Bai Mo did not have it.

His bloodline, his soul, were fundamentally incompatible with this world.

And so, after enduring inhuman torment, he was discarded like a toy that had been played with until it lost its novelty, then died.

Death was not the end.

His soul was imprisoned within a small vessel by some evil secret art, condemned to eternal damnation.

Bai Mo remembered that amid the endless darkness and loneliness, the "him" in the dream had been left with only the most primal, pure desires—hatred, fury, and the impulse to destroy everything.

He hated without distinction the Evil Soul Master who had tortured him, hated his own weakness, and hated this world that offered him not the slightest shred of hope.

And when his will to bring everything to an end reached its peak, an incomparably pure white light suddenly erupted.

Then the nightmare ended.

The dream was so real. Every detail, every agony, had been branded deep into his soul.

So much so that Bai Mo had doubted more than once: Had this really been his first transmigration? Was this truly not a second playthrough?

But if the dream was real, too many things were impossible to explain.

Why had he returned from the Legend of the Dragon King era twenty thousand years in the future to this ancient age, when Spirit Hall still stood at the height of its power?

And there were the changes to his own body.

In the dream, he had standard black hair and black eyes, an appearance that would only be considered slightly above average in a crowd, and ordinary red blood.

But now?

A head of striking white hair, a pair of brilliant golden eyes, features as though sculpted by a god's own hand. Traces of his original appearance could still be seen, yet he was so perfect that he no longer seemed human.

Most importantly, his blood had become a dazzling gold, like molten metal.

All of it was like a cloud of fog, wrapping around him layer by layer.

Still, Bai Mo had never been one to obsess over dead ends.

His experiences from his previous life had taught him that dwelling on things he could neither understand nor change would only waste his energy.

If he could not figure it out, then he would not think about it for now.

It was just that this damned nightmare always appeared right on time whenever he was about to forget it, replaying that bone-deep pain and despair before his eyes.

Again and again, like a vicious reminder.

Just then, a rhythmic knock, knock, knock sounded at the door, interrupting Bai Mo's thoughts.

He gently placed the docile Fufu from his arms onto the bed, then rose and walked toward the door.

With a creak, the crude wooden door was pulled open.

The howling cold wind immediately poured inside, stirring several strands of dry grass across the floor.

An old man stood at the entrance.

His back was already somewhat stooped, and the wrinkles on his face resembled the roots of an ancient tree, crisscrossing in deep furrows. Every line bore the marks of wind, frost, and time.

He wore a thick, grayish-brown garment of coarse hemp cloth, with darker patches sewn onto both the shoulders and elbows.

When the old man saw Bai Mo open the door, a kind smile appeared on his wrinkled face, and the crow's-feet at the corners of his eyes relaxed.

He held out a faded cloth sack he had been carrying.

"Here, Little Bai. This is what the herbs you asked me to take to town last time were exchanged for. Take it."

The cloth sack had some weight to it. A joy Bai Mo could hardly suppress immediately appeared on his face. This bag of rice and flour was truly timely aid.

The rice jar at home was nearly empty.

"Thank you, Grandpa Village Chief."

Bai Mo hurriedly thanked him, his voice full of sincere gratitude.

Although the village provided them with assistance, the villagers themselves were not well-off, and he could not rely on others forever.

At his current age, he could not find any work that paid. His only option was to gather wild vegetables in the nearby woods to fill their stomachs. If he was lucky, he could find valuable herbs.

Last time, his luck had been good. He had found a decent-looking herb beneath a sheltered rock face, so he had asked Grandpa Village Chief to take it to the apothecary in town and exchange it for food.

After all, this home had him, Na'er, and Fufu, whose appetite was impossible to gauge.

Na'er and he were both still growing, especially him. Perhaps because of the changes in his body, his appetite was astonishingly large. Even the amount an ordinary adult ate in one meal could only fill him to a third.

Na'er's appetite was second only to his.

As for Fufu, although she did not eat much at home, she often ran out on her own. Every time she returned, her little belly was round and swollen, and Bai Mo had no idea what kind of wild game she had caught outside.