The crimson moonlight faded, replaced by the morning sun's light to announce the beginning of a new day for life on this earth.
Birds sang cheerfully on the branches swaying with the breeze, while the traces of smoke rising from the factories of the distant city of Verndstream disappeared.
On the mountainside, the small village sparkled with its simple wooden houses. Their roofs resembled an open book, and their windows were small and modest but gave them an agreeable character. As for the doors, they were also made of wood, with small ball-shaped iron handles that emitted an annoying creak when turned.
The huts were scattered randomly across the slope, and between every four of them stood a wooden pole holding a small lantern.
With the break of day, the doors suddenly opened; women came out to hang the laundry, while the men went down to the fields below the mountain carrying empty sacks on their backs. The children rushed out, running and laughing between the huts after the fog had cleared, happy to be able to see again. They jumped into the puddles formed by last night's rain, their innocent smiles bringing life to the place, despite their simple clothes and worn-out shoes.
But far from the village's bustle, there was a solitary hut higher up the slope, dilapidated, its windows broken and open, its perforated roof allowing light and raindrops to seep through.
Inside, a sunbeam reflected off the pale face of a young man sleeping on an old bed, covered by a worn black coat. The bed was in the corner of the room, a desperate attempt to avoid the rain leaking in, but half of his body was already wet.
He turned onto his right side, pulling the coat tighter to avoid the light bothering him, even though it was wet itself. He continued sleeping until the sound of water dripping from the roof onto the damp floor began, accompanied by the sounds from a pot and a filled bucket.
"Tick… tock… tick…"
The pendulum of the wooden clock hanging on the wall—its face designed like a horse's head—swung tirelessly, and its sound was the only thing filling the space.
The clock's hands moved in circles; the second hand moved quickly, the minute hand moved slowly, approaching the number seven, while the hour hand crawled extremely slowly until it finally settled on the number 7.
At that moment, a sparrow emerged from a hole the size of an infant's palm and made a sound:
"Coo… coo! Coo… coo!"
The young man jumped from his bed in terror, imagining an attack had been launched against him in his sleep. His black head, with its few golden locks, hit the wet ground, while the upper half of his body remained stuck on the damp bed.
When he looked around the room, he saw no one except the bird making the sound.
"Damn that bird!" he shouted angrily, before unleashing a stream of curses towards the annoying clock.
He rose slowly, water droplets falling from his wet hair. He yawned, letting out a long cry as he stretched his body and raised his arms high. He wore a white shirt torn at the chest, showing a faint bloodstain that was no longer clear, and black pants in slightly better condition. His bare feet stuck to a small puddle of rainwater collected on the floor.
He raised his head and pushed his hair back irritably, revealing a pale white forehead, precisely curved black eyelashes, and pale green eyes weighed down by dark circles of fatigue and hunger. Even his lips were chapped and dry.
At that moment, Xiao Ping's stomach began making loud sounds, like a monster roaring from within, reminding him of its cruelty and his killer hunger.
He pressed his hand against his stomach and whispered in a tired voice:
"I'm hungry… so hungry. This frail body barely survived hunger in previous days… No wonder I feel like I'm decomposing from the inside."
But suddenly he remembered something more critical than hunger… the bullet embedded in his heart.
Yesterday, he hadn't dared to remove it for fear of breathing his last, but now, realizing he had survived exhaustion, digging, and running, he made his decision.
He sat on the old, wet bed, not caring about the dampness seeping into his body.
Slowly, he unbuttoned his torn shirt, revealing his pale body and thin chest disfigured by faint bloodstains. In the middle of his chest, the remnant of a small piece of metal glinted; it seemed round and flat, the slightly protruding tip of the bullet seeming to mock him.
Xiao Ping laughed a mad laugh and said sarcastically:
"If someone from my previous world saw me, they'd scream: What the hell is this? Are you a superhero?"
His laughter faded as he reached his right hand towards his chest. His trembling fingers gripped the flat base of the bullet.
Pain shot through his body like a hellish spark, but he didn't stop.
He pressed… then pulled slowly, every nerve in his body screaming.
The air in his chest grew heavy, and blood gushed out like a small fountain.
He let out a deafening scream as he fell to the ground, rolling on the wet floor, blood droplets mixing with the water to form dark red reflections under the faint light.
But Xiao Ping didn't allow himself to stay down for long.
Supported by his trembling arms, he struggled to his feet, then snatched the coat lying on the bed and pressed it firmly against his bleeding wound.
Sharp gasps came from his torn chest:
"Huff… huff… I won't… die… here."
He stood bent over, his breath ragged, his eyes staring at the drops of his blood falling on the ground, gathering like a small red stream… as if reminding him he was still alive, albeit at a great cost.
"Whoosh"
A wind blew through the half-open, broken window of the hut, sending a cold shiver over the bare upper part of his body, but he didn't care, he was focused on stopping the bleeding, and pressed harder.
After several moments, suddenly, his heart stopped bleeding, and the blood droplets stopped falling to the ground.
"What? Did my heart really stop bleeding? Is there no more blood in my heart, so it stopped bleeding?!" Xiao Ping muttered in a low voice, shocked and terrified at the same time.
Xiao Ping was afraid that his blood had been completely drained, and this would most likely lead to his death, even though he had survived a whole night with a bullet lodged in his heart.
So Xiao Ping bit his dry lips and began counting down from ten, while slowly leaning his upper body back onto the bed. He felt his end was very near!
10
Xiao Ping looked at the ceiling with his pale green eyes and said, "Will I die like this after transmigrating to this world under mysterious circumstances?"
9
"Why was my end like this? Why couldn't it have been a beautiful ending?"
8
"Why did I have to suffer since arriving in this world?! Because of a body that's dying from hunger and extreme exhaustion."
7
He suddenly pressed his lips together harder until blood appeared, and shouted weakly, "What did I do in my miserable life to deserve such a pitiful end?!"
6
"It's not my fault that the owner of this body was poor and couldn't provide food for himself…"
5
He shouted louder, but his voice resembled that of a dying man, which he indeed was, and said:
"Where are the beautiful women? Why didn't I find any girl to help or stand by this foolish body's owner? Was he alone?"
At that moment, he fell silent… and heard the sound of children's laughter and women talking happily.
4
The sound came from below the mountain; some children were running around actively and laughing as they circled two women drying laundry.
One of them, wearing a simple yellow dress and a straw hat on her head, said:
"Oh, how are you, Amelia? Did you see last night's rain? It was heavy, but fortunately our hut was in the best condition, otherwise we would have been soaked. And you, are you alright?"
The other woman, wearing a simple green dress and also a straw hat, replied:
"I'm fine, thank you. But our hut suffered some leaks, though my husband fixed it quickly."
"Oh, good," the first woman commented.
But at that moment, one of the children stopped and looked up the mountainside, seeing a dilapidated hut standing alone.
He asked his mother loudly:
"Mom, why is that hut not near our huts? Why is it standing alone? And are there people inside? Also… why are there sounds coming from it like someone is in pain? Should I tell Dad to go take a look?"
3
Xiao Ping heard the child's and the women's words clearly and strangely. He mocked, saying:
"Hah, did my superpower finally arrive? But what good is it now when I'm about to die? Unless the child goes and tells his father, and he comes to take a look… maybe they can save me. But… why didn't I know there was a village nearby? I thought I was the only one living on this mountain… Ah, perhaps because of that damned smoke from the factory I couldn't see it."
His words carried a glimmer of hope after he had lost it.
But Amelia listened clearly to her child's words, and soon her face and the face of the woman beside her changed to a stern expression carrying caution and hatred. She grabbed her child's shoulder before saying in a harsh voice:
"You shouldn't care about that dilapidated hut; there's nothing in it but trash. As for the screaming you heard, it was your imagination. Come on, go finish playing."
The child nodded in agreement, though curious.
2
"Huh? What did I just hear? Did they call me trash? Was I abandoned by that woman? Did the villagers know I was suffering and not care?" Xiao Ping muttered in a low, sad voice.
"Did they treat the previous owner of this body so horribly? Did they leave him and abandon him in this hut?! No… he was an outcast. Now I understand why I suffered. Those damned peasants! And I was the one who thought there was goodness or pity in this world… and I forgot the philosophy of life: the strong eat the weak."
He laughed laughs that were both mad and sad and continued:
"It seems I will die now with my ridiculous beliefs about transmigrating to another world and getting a system, then becoming the strongest and gathering a harem… Hahahahaha!"
He laughed again and looked towards the small desk, where there was a book with a black cover, inscribed with mysterious words.
They were the only words he could read. He didn't know why he remembered them now, but he tried to utter them, coughing up blood, his body swaying on the bed. He barely managed to stammer them out:
"The Eter… Eternal Sacrifice…"
1
At that moment, the book flew from the desk towards the bed, its white pages flipping with mad speed, then suddenly stopped, the introduction appearing before Xiao Ping, who had read it before and hadn't cared. He looked with his half-closed eyes that had lost their shine, almost dead.
And that was the first sentence that appeared before him:
"Reader, are you ready to go with us on a journey no human has undertaken before? A journey that will reveal to you the meaning of this world."
Xiao Ping lifted his head from the bed, opened his mouth trying to utter the word "Yes," but what came out was a sharp cough that sprayed blood from between his lips.
Nevertheless, he mustered the last ounce of his exhausted energy to say in a weak, broken voice:
"Y… Yes."
No sooner had he spoken than his head fell onto the bed as he passed out, his body seeming like a corpse that had lost all remaining life.
At that moment, a golden light burst forth from between the pages of the book. It emerged like a thin thread, cutting through the air swiftly, then rushed towards the desk, where it lifted the quill from the inkwell with eerie automatism, and returned to inscribe glowing words on the pages:
"The return of the Eternal Sacrifice… to the world beyond nothingness."
Suddenly, a small cube materialized in the air, adorned with strange sigils that shifted and moved as if alive, before stopping beside the book as if awaiting an order.
The pages of the book soon moved violently again, flipping with mad speed, until they settled on one page.
And at that moment, an immense flash of light erupted, so powerful it swallowed the entire hut, turning everything within it into a boundless, eternal whiteness.