Dead Right After Transmigrating

Flowing Cloud Kingdom, Azure Wind Mountain.

A small village lay at the foot of the mountain. It was not very large, with only a few hundred people.

Though it was remote, the people there lived contentedly.

Inside a dilapidated temple.

A youth opened his eyes, a flicker of doubt passing through them.

The youth was no longer the same person he had once been. The body's original owner had died, and the soul now residing in it was another one from Blue Star, named Shen Ge.

"Where am I? Didn't I die?"

Shen Ge had been riding his little electric scooter home when a car came out of nowhere and sent him flying more than ten meters. Then a passing truck ran him over.

He had died on the spot. Blood had splattered everywhere, and parts of his corpse had been flattened like pancakes. It was a gruesome sight.

If he went down to the underworld, he might have to spend hundreds or thousands of years in the Hell of Unjust Deaths before he could reincarnate.

Before long, the youth clutched his head in agony and began rolling and struggling on the ground. Beads of sweat as big as beans fell nonstop, soon dampening the dust beneath him.

After the pain subsided, the youth stared blankly at the dilapidated roof beams overhead.

"Flowing Cloud Kingdom..."

"Azure Wind Mountain..."

"Immortals..."

As Shen Ge lay on the ground murmuring, his eyes grew brighter and brighter, until they finally shone with brilliant light.

"Hahahaha, heaven has been good to me!"

"Hehuan Sect, your young master is coming!"

Outside the dilapidated temple, a farm woman carrying a bowl of leftover rice shuddered at the sudden laughter and nearly dropped the bowl.

"Oh no, I'm afraid the Shen family's only son has gone mad from hunger." A trace of panic appeared in the farm woman's eyes. She glanced at the bowl in her hands, then shook her head. "Forget it. I'll just leave it outside for him. I'd better not go in."

Inside the temple, Shen Ge had been excited for quite a while, yet he still couldn't calm down.

Good heavens, a world of immortal cultivation! I never imagined I'd one day catch the transmigration trend and come to a world of immortal cultivation. It's so damn unscientific!

Now that he thought about it, Shen Ge didn't hate the car that had suddenly appeared quite so much anymore.

He had been an orphan in the real world. Apart from being a little bothered that he hadn't finished spending the wages he'd saved up over such a long time, he truly had no attachment to that world.

"Damn it, if I'd known I was going to transmigrate, I should have taken the thirty thousand yuan I saved through all my hard work and given it to those young women who needed my help. Standing out in the cold wind so late at night in such thin clothes, they were really too pitiful."

"What a pity. I wonder where my money ended up. I hope it went to the orphanage where I grew up. It wasn't much, but it would have been a little something in return."

After musing for a while, Shen Ge suddenly remembered that transmigrators supposedly always came with a golden finger. He silently called for a system for quite some time, but got no response. Then he searched his entire body, but found nothing except a few balls of grime he rubbed off, not to mention any strange objects like beads or bottles.

After fussing over it for quite a while, Shen Ge finally gave up. He had realized a very practical truth: he had no golden finger.

"Forget it, forget it. If I don't have one, I don't have one. I refuse to believe that I, a born protagonist, can't grow stronger. I can do without a golden finger. Besides, this is a world of immortal cultivation. Cultivation and the like are more reliable when you earn them through your own practice. If I really had a system or something, wouldn't I just be working for someone else again?" Though that was what he said, no matter how one listened, Shen Ge's tone was sour.

Shen Ge then got to his feet, dusted himself off, and went over to look into a chipped bowl beside him, half-filled with water.

"Hmm, swordlike brows and starry eyes, handsome and spirited. Not bad."

Of course, Shen Ge was only fooling himself. This body wasn't handsome at all. On the contrary, years of not having enough to eat had left it terribly frail, with sallow skin and a scrawny frame. Its dry hair was like a chicken's nest. All of it showed how poor a state the body was in. After all, its original owner had starved to death; how could he have had a healthy physique?

"Alas, a bad start to the campaign." Shen Ge shook his head and sighed. "Your parents died young, and you went hungry. Your life was even more miserable than mine."

"Forget it. Now that I'm here, you won't live like that anymore." Shen Ge paused, then smiled bitterly. "I forgot you've already kicked the bucket. But even though you're dead, this body won't live the way you did anymore."

Just then, the smell of food drifted in from outside. Though it was a little sour, to Shen Ge, who had been hungry for a long time, it was undoubtedly a feast.

Following the smell, Shen Ge opened the temple door and immediately spotted the bowl of leftover rice on the ground. Without thinking much about it, he picked it up and wolfed it down. In three to five mouthfuls, the large bowl of rice was in his stomach.

He put the bowl and chopsticks down heavily and let out a satisfied breath. "That hit the spot."

"I'm finally alive again. Too bad there wasn't much. I'm only thirty percent full."

After washing the bowl, Shen Ge put it back where it had been. Then he left the temple, planning to find a way to secure his next meal.

Though he wanted to start cultivating immortality as soon as possible, he had to fill his stomach first. Going hungry for all nine meals in three days, he wouldn't even get to seek immortality and pursue the Dao before he'd likely be joining that brother in a few days.

Just then, a black, cloudlike mass drifted over from the horizon and stopped above the village, blotting out the sunlight.

"Holy shit! Holy shit!"

Shen Ge stared at the black cloud overhead in shock. There was no need to think about it; a cultivator had definitely conjured the damn thing. Whatever else one might say, it was quite a spectacle.

"Jie jie jie... I didn't expect this little backwater to have a place so rich in spiritual charm. It seems my Law Treasure is destined to be completed."

"Holy shit!"

If his previous two cries had been exclamations of amazement, this one was born of fear. As a genuine transmigrator, Shen Ge knew that anyone who cackled "jie jie jie" like that was definitely no good.

After finding some random nook to hide in, Shen Ge heard a voice from the sky. "Ten Thousand Souls Banner, go!"

Shen Ge's heart went cold. "It's over, it's over, it's over, it's over... Your young master has only just come back to life, and now I've got to croak again. Heavens, this joke really isn't funny at all. If you don't want me to live, just say so. There's no need to go to all this trouble to torment me."

He had only just come back to life, and he had already run into a Devil Cultivator offering a blood sacrifice to the Ten Thousand Souls Banner. He wouldn't even have peace in death, damn it.

Very quickly, without the slightest resistance, everyone in the village died, along with every living creature. Even their corpses were drained of blood and reduced to powder.

"Good, good, good! My Law Treasure is complete. I have a little more hope of attaining the Dao and becoming an immortal."

With a burst of laughter, the black cloud drifted away into the distance.

In a pitch-black space, dark red, ribbonlike things drifted slowly.

It was packed with countless ghostly souls. At a glance, there had to be tens of thousands of them, but unfortunately, all except a few wore vacant expressions, evidently having lost their minds.

Suddenly, a flicker of awareness flashed through the previously vacant eyes of one ghostly soul, though only for an instant.

Over the time that followed, that ghostly soul became increasingly aware, until it could make some instinctive responses.

After an unknown amount of time, Shen Ge finally broke through his shackles and regained his mind.

That year, he was eighteen, standing like a lackey inside the Ten Thousand Souls Banner!