A New Life on Douluo Continent

The cocoon of light drifted through the Spacetime Black Hole. Li Changqing's consciousness flickered between clarity and haze.

He felt like a fallen leaf caught in the wind. He could sense neither up nor down, left nor right, nor the passage of time.

Only one sentence echoed deep within his soul, laden with the weight of ages and a hope for what was to come.

"The future... is in your hands now..." It was the Kun Peng King's final sigh.

Then Li Changqing's consciousness sank completely into darkness.

Who knew how much time passed? Perhaps an instant, perhaps ten thousand years.

Above a thatched hut, a rift in spacetime suddenly opened. A faint golden light slipped out, and the rift closed behind it.

No one noticed. This was Douluo Continent, a world where Martial Souls reigned supreme, and two great empires stood alongside Spirit Hall.

Inside the hut, a six-year-old child had just starved to death. His body was growing cold and stiff.

The golden light shot straight into the dead boy's forehead, and life gradually returned to his body.

When Li Changqing's consciousness awoke again, the first thing he felt was warmth—the warmth of sunlight on his skin.

He slowly opened his eyes, and his vision gradually cleared.

Li Changqing was inside a small hut. Its thatched roof had several holes, through which sunlight streamed down onto him.

The walls were in tatters too.

The hut could hardly have been more bare. Apart from a broken bed, it held only a chipped earthenware bowl and a wooden stick.

He lay on the old bedboards atop a thin layer of dry straw.

"I'm... still alive?" Li Changqing said hoarsely, his voice parched.

He struggled to get up, but his limbs had no strength. His body was so weak that the slightest movement made his head spin and his vision blur.

He looked down at himself and froze.

Only then did Li Changqing realize what was wrong. This was not his original body. It seemed to belong to a boy around six years old.

His arms and legs were thin, his face was rough, and his hair was dry and yellow.

His clothes were filthy and riddled with holes.

"Where am I?" Li Changqing wondered.

Forcing himself upright, he slowly climbed off the bed. His feet touched the dirt floor, and he stumbled, nearly falling. He braced himself against the wall, made his way to the entrance step by step, and pushed open the creaking wooden door.

All he saw was desolation.

This was an abandoned little village. Most of its houses had collapsed, leaving broken walls and ruins overgrown with weeds half as tall as a person.

Barren hills rolled into the distance. Trees grew sparsely on their slopes, and there was not a soul in sight.

The sky was a brilliant blue, with a few white clouds drifting across it. In the bright sunlight, the scene stood in stark contrast to the hellish Immortal Ancient Battlefield.

Li Changqing leaned against the doorframe and closed his eyes, recalling everything that had happened.

He had gone hiking, stepped on a damn banana peel, and fallen off a cliff. He had passed through a Spacetime Black Hole and landed on a battlefield at the end of the Immortal Ancient era in Perfect World, where he had received the Kun Peng King's true blood. Then the Kun Peng King had self-destructed, sweeping him into the Spacetime Black Hole again. Spacetime turbulence had torn his body apart, while the Kunpeng True Blood had protected his soul...

The scenes flashed through his mind one after another.

Instinctively, he turned his attention inward and carefully sensed the drop of golden true blood deep in his Sea of Consciousness. It hung there like a little sun, radiating a gentle golden glow.

None of it had been an illusion!

"If spacetime turbulence tore my body apart, then where did this body come from?" Li Changqing murmured.

"Could the Kunpeng True Blood in my Sea of Consciousness have rebuilt my body?" Li Changqing immediately shook his head. "The Kun Peng King was one of the Ten Fiends of the Immortal Ancient era. His cultivation reached through heaven and earth. His true blood held boundless vitality and power. If it had formed this body, it shouldn't be so frail."

Li Changqing looked down at his filthy, ragged clothes, then turned toward the broken bowl and wooden stick in the corner. He thought of how weak this body was.

He understood what had happened.

The body's original owner had been a little beggar who had likely starved to death. Li Changqing's soul had entered the newly dead body and brought it back to life.

Just then, a fierce hunger struck.

Li Changqing's vision went black. His body gave way, and he slumped to the ground.

"Now I'm in trouble." Li Changqing gave a bitter smile.

"There's not a soul around, and this body is so weak. Forget finding food—even a gust of wind might knock me down and leave me unable to get up."

Don't I have Kunpeng True Blood in my Sea of Consciousness? He thought of the true blood deep within it.

Hoping it might work, Li Changqing turned his attention inward, focused his consciousness, and tried to reach the drop of golden blood.

As though answering him, the Kunpeng True Blood rippled faintly and released a surge of pure vitality. Like a trickling stream, it flowed into every part of his body.

Under its influence, Li Changqing's hunger slowly faded.

His once-skeletal body gradually filled out, and his sallow skin grew rosy. His weakness vanished, leaving strength in all four limbs.

Li Changqing let out a long breath and finally relaxed. "Good thing I have Kunpeng True Blood. Starving to death right after crossing over would have been a disgrace to all Otherworlders."

With the crisis over, he calmed himself again and considered what the Kun Peng King had told him.

"A unique soul... unbound by the laws of cause and effect of any world... outside the Heavenly Dao... a variable that could change everything..."

"The future is in your hands now..."

Li Changqing frowned, turning those words over and over in his mind.

No matter how he thought about it, he could not understand what was special about him. He was just an ordinary university student, the kind who would vanish into any crowd.

"Could this unique soul the Kun Peng King spoke of be why I was able to cross over?" he guessed.

As for those final words—"The future is in your hands now..." —Li Changqing was speechless. "However special I am, could I compare to the Desolate Heaven Emperor? The future belongs to him. I couldn't bear the weight of that cause and effect."

After pondering it for ages without finding an answer, Li Changqing simply gave up. "If I can't figure it out, so be it. Going by the way fantasy novels work, I'll understand once I'm strong enough."

Li Changqing turned his attention inward and tried to search for the original owner's memories so he could quickly learn about this world.

But no matter how he tried, he found only his own memories. Not even the tiniest fragment of the original owner's remained.

"What the hell!"

Li Changqing was speechless. "In all those novels I've read about people crossing over into someone else's body, don't the original owner's memories come flooding in like a tide? How come I get nothing? What a lousy deal!"

He could not help raising his middle finger at the sky and shouting, "One-star review!"

After venting, Li Changqing sighed helplessly. "Oh well. If there are no memories, there are no memories. I'll have to talk to someone sooner or later. Then I can find out what kind of world this is."