I have to fight Suguru Geto? Seriously?

He opened his eyes again.

Gu Yanzhi found himself standing in a deep blue void.

It stretched endlessly around him, with nothing but a glowing screen floating before him.

[Awake?]

"Who are you?"

[Causality System. Host binding complete.]

[Unfortunately, the host elbowed a truck while crossing the road in his previous life.]

[As compensation, we will send you into the world of Jujutsu Kaisen, the host's favorite series during his lifetime.]

[You will randomly transmigrate into a character connected to the plot. After each death, the system will retrieve the host's soul and carry over one ability from his previous identity-physique, cursed energy, or cursed technique.]

[With each rebirth, you may select three slots from your accumulated abilities. The slotted abilities will take effect immediately in your new body.]

Gu Yanzhi took a moment to process this. He had transmigrated? And he even had a system? The mechanics it described actually sounded pretty good.

"Randomly become a character connected to the plot? How broad is that range?"

[...]

"Hey, System! Did you crash?"

"Whatever. I know the plot of Jujutsu Kaisen inside out, so I basically have something like future sight."

"If I'm guaranteed to end up in someone connected to the plot, then whoever it is, I'm sure I won't do too badly."

The corners of Gu Yanzhi's mouth rose slightly. He knew Jujutsu Kaisen all too well. He had followed the manga from beginning to end; every name in the original felt as familiar as an old friend.

With that thought, Gu Yanzhi clapped his hands and said, "...All right. Pretty hardcore. Let's do this."

The screen before him lit up, spilling orange light that enveloped his body.

[Transmigration in progress...]

[Drawing host identity...]

Gu Yanzhi felt his consciousness abruptly sink.

He opened his eyes again.

Gu Yanzhi frowned.

The smell of cheap tobacco mixed with sweat and the earthy stink of dirt flooded his nostrils.

The sunlight was blinding. He found himself standing in a dirt courtyard, with rows of gray-tiled roofs and dark green mountain ridges in the distance.

What was this place?

Gu Yanzhi called out into the air, "System, where the hell did you send me? Is this even Jujutsu High?"

There was no reply. Gu Yanzhi looked down at his hands-black dirt was packed beneath his uncleaned nails, and an old scar marked the web between his thumb and forefinger.

Gu Yanzhi clicked his tongue. These weren't the hands of the "Jujutsu High student" he had imagined.

"Which character is this guy?"

Gu Yanzhi considered himself very familiar with the characters in Jujutsu Kaisen, but he had no clue who he had become. An inexplicable unease welled up in his heart.

"A Cheng! Let's go!"

While he was still puzzling over it, someone shouted from outside the courtyard.

"The sorcerer's already at the village entrance! The village chief wants everyone to hurry over!"

Before Gu Yanzhi could answer, the man had hurried away.

"A Cheng?"

Gu Yanzhi clenched his fists, getting a feel for this body. It was probably in its early forties, and fairly strong.

He needed to figure out who he had become and where he was in the timeline, fast.

The system had guaranteed a connection to the plot, so this "sorcerer" must have appeared in some panel of the manga.

"A sorcerer? Who could it be?"

He pushed open the courtyard gate and stepped outside. The village road was narrow, flanked by low earthen houses and wooden shacks. Villagers headed toward the entrance in twos and threes, anticipation on their faces.

He walked among them for a while and noticed a woodshed at the end of the road, even more dilapidated than the other buildings. Its door stood half-open, but no villagers gathered around it, as though everyone was deliberately avoiding the place.

Gu Yanzhi had intended to avoid it too, but his steps involuntarily slowed as he passed.

He heard something-very faint. At first, Gu Yanzhi thought it was a rat, but when he listened closely, he realized it was sobbing.

He peered through the gap in the door.

The room was dark. Only the light slipping through the doorway drew a narrow bright streak across the floor.

At the end of that streak was a cage, with two little girls huddled inside. Twins, perhaps only five or six years old.

They were covered in rags. Their exposed wrists were as thin as dead twigs, with numerous horrific wounds.

Gu Yanzhi's stomach suddenly twisted. Before his brain could catch up, his heart had already begun to sink.

A wave of déjà vu washed over him-that feeling of having seen this scene somewhere before.

He stared at the two children for several seconds.

Then a memory exploded in his mind, and scenes of all kinds of abuse flashed past.

A cage. Sticks. Foul swill.

The owner of this body was named A Cheng. The village had appointed him to guard the monsters, but the creatures everyone considered dangerous monsters were actually two children barely a few years old.

This A Cheng was an animal. Since he had the most contact with the children, he knew these supposed monsters were nothing but paper tigers. He often beat them to vent his frustrations under the pretense of protecting the villagers.

Trembling all over, Gu Yanzhi backed away from the gap in the door.

"A mountain village. A sorcerer!"

"Fuck!"

He took a deep breath and forcibly suppressed the nausea rising inside him. The confidence he had felt in the system's space had now shattered beyond repair.

So much for being a Jujutsu High student. So much for fighting alongside Satoru Gojo.

He had become a piece of human garbage, and the twins locked in that cage were Nanako and Mimiko.

This was the very incident that had pushed Suguru Geto past his breaking point.

After seeing what had happened to them, Suguru Geto had acted on the spot, slaughtering all 112 people in the village without leaving a single survivor.

And the body's original owner-A Cheng-was one of those 112.

"The sorcerer's already at the village entrance." Those words echoed through his mind again.

Suguru Geto had already arrived. The village chief was welcoming him and would take him to the woodshed to see the two "monsters" any moment now.

Then it would all be over.

I'm the guard who regularly abused them. Who knows how horribly I'll die?

Thus, within seconds, Gu Yanzhi's brain reached a decision.

Run.

He had transmigrated into an ordinary person, and all three of his ability slots were empty.

He couldn't even see the weakest cursed spirit. How was he supposed to face Suguru Geto, who wielded Cursed Spirit Manipulation?

As for the two children, they didn't actually need him to save them.

In the original story, Suguru Geto would take them away. If he rashly opened the cage and fled with them, he would only get himself killed faster.

He had to leave the village before Suguru Geto was brought to the woodshed.

That damned village chief would probably spout a load of groveling nonsense. It should take a few minutes, enough for him to get far away.

Gu Yanzhi turned and ran without hesitation.

He passed through a main room, went against the flow of people, pushed open a backyard fence gate, and moved along the low wall at the village's outermost edge toward the foot of the mountain.

A clamor of voices rose behind him.

Gu Yanzhi didn't look back. He passed the last low wall, and the scent of pine resin and rotting leaves entered the air.

He had reached the woods.

He entered the woods and stopped behind a thick beech tree, bending over to steady his breathing.

The trip had taken less than ten minutes, but his nerves had been stretched to their limit, leaving him suddenly exhausted.

He sat down against the trunk and glanced toward the village through a gap in the foliage. He could still see the crowd gathered at the entrance, a dense mass of people.

Then that crowd exploded.

Yes, literally exploded.

After so many years living in a peaceful society, Gu Yanzhi would never forget that gruesome sight for the rest of his life.

Cries and screams erupted from the center of the crowd.

People fled in every direction, but one after another, they fell before making it more than a few steps.

From hundreds of meters away, Gu Yanzhi could see the villagers' bodies being torn apart, blood splashing across earthen walls and gray tiles, severed limbs and remains suspended in the air.

Something was spreading through the village.

He couldn't see cursed spirits.

But he could see people suddenly impaled from behind by something as they ran, their entire bodies hoisted into the air before being slammed to the ground.

Terrified, Gu Yanzhi immediately turned away. He needed to go deeper into the woods and find somewhere better hidden to stay until dark.

He had just stood up when he heard footsteps.

The approaching footsteps were light, clearly unhurried.

Gu Yanzhi's back abruptly tensed. He turned and saw a figure emerging from the shadows of the woods.

A dark Jujutsu High uniform, long hair spilling over his shoulders, and a face so gaunt his cheekbones protruded.

The slightly haggard-looking man was now looking at him with a radiant smile.

It was none other than Suguru Geto!

He should have been in the village. He should have been slaughtering its people.

Gu Yanzhi's mind raced-it was a cursed spirit. Geto had sent one around behind the village to block every possible escape route. Upon discovering someone fleeing, he had immediately come to cut him off.

Suguru Geto stopped.

He stood less than five meters from Gu Yanzhi and tilted his head slightly.

Those hollow eyes reflected the middle-aged farmer before him-it felt like a human spotting an ant by the roadside.

"You run pretty fast, monkey."

"G-Geto, buddy... can we work this out?"