I Died

"Whooo-"

Perhaps the balcony window hadn't been shut properly. The night wind swept into the room with the red moonlight, gently brushing Xu Ye's face.

The chill made him slowly open his eyes.

I'm not dead?

Still a little dazed, Xu Ye braced a hand against the floor and sat up.

The monitor on his chest had shattered during the fight. The poisoned wound on his abdomen had somehow healed, leaving only a barely visible scar that would probably peel away in a couple of days.

Much of his strength seemed to have returned, too, though he still felt mentally exhausted.

What's going on?

How long was I unconscious this time?

"Hm?"

Just then, a faint sound came from the living room.

Xu Ye jolted. Without time to think, he rolled toward where the dagger had fallen, only to come up empty-handed.

The dagger was gone.

"I'm from Sky City," a middle-aged man's low voice said.

Xu Ye whipped his head around.

The living room floor had been cleaned spotless. There were no bodies or scraps of rubbish anywhere, and a faint fragrance resembling osmanthus drifted through the air.

A man in a crisp black suit sat on the sofa, his hair slicked back. He gently closed the book in his hands and watched Xu Ye with the hint of a smile.

Under the dim yellow light, his dark green eyes looked like twin ghostly flames, sending a chill down Xu Ye's spine.

"I'm here to announce the final result of your test. Shall we talk?" the middle-aged man said evenly.

Xu Ye nodded blankly.

He stood, lowered his head slightly, and sat on the sofa opposite the man, pretending to be a little timid.

"Did I pass?"

From the original owner's limited memories, he knew that the nobles of Sky City were the last people anyone should provoke. Their standing placed them above the law.

Their tempers were often unpredictable, too.

The man answered solemnly, "Strictly speaking, no."

He took out something resembling a voice recorder and switched it on.

Soon, a strange, frenzied recording played from it.

"Woof, woof, woof!"

A dog barking.

"Whine-"

A dog whimpering.

Thud, thud, thud.

The sound of a cleaver chopping meat against a cutting board.

"Chop it up... eat it... chop it up... eat it... hehehe..."

A middle-aged woman's crazed muttering.

"Honey... what are you doing?! Don't kill me! I'm not a dog!"

A middle-aged man's agonized screams.

"Chop it up... eat it... chop it up... eat it... throw away the head... hehehe..."

The middle-aged woman's twisted, sinister laughter continued.

By the end, she seemed to have lost her mind, unable to tell whether it was a person or a dog beneath her cleaver.

The horrifying sounds echoed around the small room before abruptly cutting off.

As though a cleaver had come down on them.

Xu Ye's breath caught. Thoughts scattered through his mind like sparks before he finally made up his mind.

At the same time, the man switched off the recorder and fixed Xu Ye with a cold stare. "Wu Shuyu's daughter-in-law secretly recorded this and handed it to us. The source of the mutation wasn't that stray dog. It was Wu Shuyu. That's also why her body never decomposed."

"She was about to kill you when I arrived, so I took care of her."

As he spoke, he stood, looming over Xu Ye.

"This test required you to find the source of the mutation. I'm sorry, but you found the wrong one."

Xu Ye's lips parted slightly. A bead of cold sweat slid down his back, making him shudder.

Fuck!

How the hell was I supposed to know that?!

Still, he had the nagging feeling that he had missed something. Something wasn't right, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

Now wasn't the time to dwell on that, though.

Xu Ye pressed his lips together, panic in his eyes as he frantically called out in his mind.

"Xiao Ai? Tmall Genie? Hey, Siri?"

Yet his heart didn't writhe at all. It merely beat steadily, just like an ordinary person's.

How unreliable can you get...?

In the end, I still have to rely on myself.

Click, click, click.

The man approached Xu Ye step by step, his leather shoes clicking sharply against the cold, hard tiles.

A smile remained on his face, but to Xu Ye, it looked terribly fake, as though it had been pasted on.

He held the Beginners Must Not Die dagger. Dazzling lightning flickered over its cold white tip, making the hairs on Xu Ye's arms stand on end before it even came close.

"Any last words?"

As the man drew nearer, Xu Ye suddenly wrapped both arms around himself and looked at him nervously. "Yes... let me tell you first... I have hemorrhoids... please don't use too much force..."

"???"

A flicker of bewilderment crossed the man's eyes, and he stopped.

But in that instant of distraction, Xu Ye, who had been sitting meekly on the sofa like a cat, suddenly sprang into action.

He charged like a bull, clamping his right hand precisely around the man's wrist. With a forceful twist, he drove the dagger that had been aimed at him toward the man's abdomen.

"Shit!"

The man's expression changed sharply.

Caught off guard, he had his suit sliced open and his skin pierced by the dagger. Crimson blood quickly soaked through the white shirt beneath. He staggered twice and fell to the floor.

Xu Ye didn't pause after any of it. Using his remaining momentum, he ducked forward and burst through the front door.

Run!

Get out first and worry about the rest later!

Those nobles had never intended to let him live.

All their tests were nothing but a way to find a plausible excuse to kill him.

This was his only chance.

Thump, thump, thump!

He couldn't take the elevator because he didn't know whether the Mirror Spirit was still there. Xu Ye could only race down the stairs.

Behind him came the sounds of pursuit and the man's curses between sharp intakes of breath.

Xu Ye ignored everything and charged straight out of the building.

Outside, all was silent. The dim yellow streetlights cast overlapping shadows that swayed with his movements.

Xu Ye didn't know where to run. Following the streetlights along the narrow road, he sprinted wildly, even losing a shoe along the way.

He had no idea how long he ran-perhaps half an hour-before he finally spotted a crowd.

It was a small night market.

Low, rundown houses crowded together.

Flashing neon lights, utility poles plastered with advertisements, and bustling crowds provided Xu Ye with the perfect cover.

He plunged into the crowd without hesitation.

He kept changing his position and direction, stripped off his clothes, and stole a cloak from a stall to wrap around himself.

He didn't know where to go, but at the very least, he had to disappear completely from the nobles' sight.

Much later, Xu Ye stopped outside a public restroom, drenched from head to toe.

He went inside, turned on the faucet, cupped some water in his hands, and splashed it onto his face.

"Whew!"

He drew a deep, ragged breath. His heart hadn't been pounding much, but every muscle in his body ached terribly.

What do I do now?

Xu Ye stared at himself in the mirror, feeling lost.

Surviving in this strange, unfamiliar world would be no easy task.

Still, the face in the mirror was his original face.

Did I cross over with my own body this time?

Is my family all right?

His thoughts suddenly spread like ink across rice paper.

Drip... drip...

The sudden sound of dripping water jolted Xu Ye out of his thoughts.

He snapped back to his senses and felt a chill around his neck.

Alarmed, Xu Ye looked up and saw a pair of hands in the mirror, clamped around his throat.

What's going on?

Why is there a Mirror Spirit here?

A second later, a grim face appeared out of thin air above the hands. It was unmistakably the nobleman who had tried to kill Xu Ye earlier, except he had no body and simply floated inside the mirror.

Xu Ye felt as though someone had stuffed ice into his skull. His whole body went cold.

He struggled to breathe.

The man's hands tightened, veins bulging.

"Tell me, what experiments did Doctor Chen perform on you?"

"Talk!"

"Talk!"

"Talk!"

"Talk or die!"

The restroom lights flickered.

The voice sounded both female and male, mingling, tugging, and roaring until it filled Xu Ye's entire skull.

A secret?

How would I know?

Apart from his unfortunate crossing into this world, he remembered nothing.

I'd tell you if I could!

Did my good looks get me killed?

An absurd thought popped into Xu Ye's head.

Crack, crack, crack!

Like the stray dog before him, he was hoisted into the air. His entire head was slowly twisted like a screw cap.

His head dropped heavily into the sink.

Cold water instantly flooded his nostrils.

"Cough, cough, cough..."

Xu Ye coughed violently, and the next moment, everything spun.

He jolted upright.

The cool night breeze stirred the balcony curtains, and gentle moonlight drifted like petals across the living room floor.

To his horror, Xu Ye discovered that the hands around his throat were his own. He released them at once, his eyes full of terror.

Then he saw the man on the sofa opposite him, holding the voice recorder. The eerie light in his eyes gradually faded.

Suddenly, the man reached up and peeled off his face, revealing another with softer features.

Xu Ye recognized that face. It belonged to the person who had given him the F-Class Forbidden Object before the test.

"Let's start over. I'm Meng Chengfei, from the Dawn Blade."

"Congratulations. You passed the second round of testing."