The Opening Chapter

Xu Feng was engulfed in darkness, and his first instinct was to scream.

But before he could make a sound, the darkness around him abruptly contracted.

The whole mass condensed into a falling drop of ink, which descended into a "river."

The ink spread through the water. The surface surged, yet beneath it, the river was still as a mirror.

On the riverbed, the ink became a rushing river, rammed-earth walls, houses, willow trees, and living people. There, it built a New World anew.

All things were born of ink.

Then the ink unfurled, and Xu Feng fell from it, becoming the only person in the world with color.

At last, everything became real. All things had color; all things were real!

This world had come alive because Xu Feng appeared!

And at that very moment, Xu Feng, newly arrived, opened his eyes and saw a Ghost-Head Saber swing not far away—and a great big head fall!

Blood sprayed from the severed neck and landed near Xu Feng. At the sight of it, the crowd erupted in delight. Their excitement shattered the barrier between Xu Feng and this world, drawing him into it all at once!

At the same time, ink descended from the sky before Xu Feng, stark against the fresh blood.

The words read: [Luoyin County, northern outskirts, execution ground]

Xu Feng looked around in confusion and saw face after delighted face.

Before he could react, four Executioners on the platform struck together once more.

One swing, one stroke, one head on the ground.

Each time a head fell, the crowd cheered!

Some even surged forward, shoving Xu Feng, who was already near the front, toward the platform. But people at the very front held them back.

Caught between the two forces, Xu Feng felt as though he would be crushed to death, trampled to pieces.

His feet left the ground.

The human tide surged, carrying Xu Feng helplessly along.

Pressed to the front, he smelled sweat, blood, and the stench of piss and shit mingled with strong liquor.

And he felt the air vanish from his lungs.

Fortunately, the guards holding back the crowd lashed out with their whips, scattering the people and saving Xu Feng's life.

After one shock after another, Xu Feng could barely think.

Then another line of text appeared before his eyes.

[Prologue: Execution at the Scaffold]

After the line appeared, nothing else changed.

Amid that "festive" atmosphere, the killing on the platform continued.

And the mood kept climbing!

Everyone around him was thrilled!

Whether by accident or design, some prisoners on the platform did not die from the first stroke. The executioners had to hack at them several more times.

Those condemned souls could neither live nor die. They screamed and screamed!

Everything Xu Feng saw, smelled, heard, and felt in that scene sent a chill through his entire body!

"Did the TV suck me into the game?"

The terrifying possibility struck him all at once, leaving him numb!

He tried to quit. He had thought the game would ignore him, but to his surprise, it answered.

[Sorry, you cannot exit during the prologue chapter. Please exit safely at a save point in a later chapter.]

He couldn't exit during the prologue? Did that mean he could leave in later chapters?

Could he skip the cutscene, then? Skip the prologue?

[The cutscene and prologue chapter cannot be skipped.]

While Xu Feng tried to quit the game, everything around him went on.

The screams from the platform did not frighten the onlookers. Instead, they drove the atmosphere at the execution ground to a fever pitch!

Each time a condemned prisoner's head dropped, the crowd cheered.

After a head fell, a guard carried it to the overseer's seat. The official presiding over the executions marked it with a cinnabar brush, and it was hung on a pole.

"A severed head on display as a warning"!

It was all so real that Xu Feng's mind began to shut down to protect itself.

Only when everyone on the platform had been killed did the crowd's feverish excitement gradually subside.

By the time Xu Feng came to his senses, almost everyone had left.

The few who remained hurried away as if wolves were at their heels!

They ignored him when he called out.

Before long, he was the only one left below the platform!

Xu Feng panicked. He went numb!

Ordinarily, few people would come near the execution ground. Looking around, Xu Feng saw a few hamlets in the distance and many willow trees so thick that three or four people could not encircle them.

The road was yellow mud, and he had no idea where it led.

The official presiding over the executions had been among the first to leave, and the guards were long gone. There was not a familiar face in sight. Only a few strangers remained on the platform, hanging up the corpses.

As Xu Feng glanced around, he caught sight of someone off to the side who seemed to be beckoning to him.

His hair stood on end. He turned at once and saw an old man hunched behind the nearest willow tree, beckoning to him!

Only half the old man's body and his head showed. Beneath the tree, his face was hard to make out.

Xu Feng glanced left and right. No one else was around.

So the man was beckoning to him? Calling him over?

Xu Feng considered it, but before he could decide, someone smacked the back of his head hard enough to make him duck.

When he raised his head, the person behind the tree was gone.

Xu Feng turned and saw the Executioner who had been killing people on the platform "grinning viciously" at him. As soon as Xu Feng looked up, the Executioner hoisted him off the ground.

Xu Feng was about to struggle when he saw—

[Prologue: Execution ground sequence complete]

[Main quest unlocked]

[Main Quest One: As a young apprentice, you made no mistakes, and your Master did not die because of you]

[Main Quest, Act One: Your First Corpse Stitching]

[Under your master's guidance, stitch a corpse and earn a rating above "Disappointing."]

[Complete the task to unlock a game feature: Safe Saving]

[Complete the task to unlock a game feature: Character Panel]

[Complete the task to unlock a game feature: Map]

Seeing those words, Xu Feng stopped struggling. The Executioner carried him over his shoulder and strode away. Halfway down the road, he set Xu Feng down and said, "All right, little one. No ghost will dare lure you away now. Walk on your own."

"Your Uncle Liu is getting old," he added. "I can't carry you the whole way!"

Evening.

[Luoyin County, northern outskirts, Earth God Shrine]

The Earth God Shrine was not large, but it had four rooms. Xu Feng and his Master sat together in the left side room.

His master, a middle-aged man as thin and tall as a bamboo pole, was feeding firewood into the flames. He also gave Xu Feng a bowl of water steeped with a talisman and told him to drink it.

The day's [Execution at the Scaffold] had been arranged by his corpse-stitching master. He had asked his friend, the executioner, to take Xu Feng to watch a beheading at the execution ground and steel his nerves!

Only after that could Xu Feng truly enter the corpse-stitching trade.

After tossing in more firewood, his Master noticed Xu Feng's silence and asked, "What's wrong? Frightened by the beheadings?"

Xu Feng said, "No. I just feel a little sick."

His Master said, "Sick? Good. Humans aren't grass or trees; who could be without feeling?

"It's only the hare mourning when the fox dies.

"The fact that you feel sick means I didn't ask your Uncle Liu to take you to see those beheadings for nothing."

With that, he offered no further explanation and watched Xu Feng eat.

Xu Feng dutifully ate his meal. Strangely, this body—which should have been Zhao San's—was far too thin, nothing like Xu Feng's own.

Seeing that Xu Feng had finished his meal and eaten his usual amount, his Master said, "Once you've had your fill, get some sleep. Tonight, you'll start your work.

"Tonight, you'll learn what I truly know.

"You're going to learn to stitch corpses!"