"Don't shoot me! I-I have a family!"
You might be wondering how Cang Lian ended up in this situation. The truth is simple: he had spent thirty years building a quiet life, raising a family, all while secretly working as a spy. Somehow, he was caught by the very country he had been spying on, and now there was no way out.
"Do you think I care, Mr. Cang Lian?" the man with the gun said, voice sharp and steady.
Cang Lian's mind raced. Thirty years of careful planning were all erased in an instant. He tried to reason, tried to plead, tried to find any opening for mercy. But the opposing person was as hard as a monolith to convince.
"Please… I've done nothing to you. My family is innocent. Please, I beg you."
It didn't matter. The gun didn't move, the man didn't flinch, and everything ended before Cang Lian could take another step.
BANG!
He fell to the ground, thirty years of life ending in a single heartbeat.
Since he was a child, Cang Lian had been considered a prodigy. Teachers marveled at his memory, his ability to solve problems that left others scratching their heads, his uncanny instinct for strategy and planning.
Everyone said he would achieve greatness. And for a time, he believed it too. But life had a way of twisting even the brightest paths.
Instead of building empires, leading discoveries, or changing the world, he had spent decades as a spy. Then, over fourty years of talent wasted on secrets and lies.
He could almost hear himself scolding his own reflection. What a fool you've been. You've wasted your life, just like that and it was gone. And for what? A life no one will remember? A family that will weep over a death that could have been avoided?
The words echoed in his mind, sharp and bitter, but even as he berated himself, there was a strange clarity in it, a sense that maybe, somehow, it was not too late to make sense of it all.
Then the world went black.
He was dead.
And yet, just as suddenly as it had ended, it felt like a dream.
THUMP!
Something fell on him with a soft thud, jolting him awake.
Where am I?
He blinked against the sunlight filtering through leaves and realized he was lying beneath a tree.
A bright red apple rested on his chest, wobbling slightly as if it had just landed.
His heart pounded in disbelief, the remnants of fear and confusion mixing with the absurdity of the moment.
"I'm alive!?" Cang Lian shouted, the words tearing out of him, half in disbelief, half in panic.
How am I here?
He scrambled to his feet and took in his new form.
His body was clad in something that looked like leaves stitched together, and hanging at his side was what appeared to be a leafy umbrella, soft and pliable like it had grown there. His hands flexed automatically, testing the strange texture.
The world around him was unlike anything he had ever seen.
Towering trees stretched impossibly high, trunks thick enough to be houses. Below the hill where he stood, a ruined house sagged with moss and vines.
Why am I here!?
He ran without thinking, driven by a mixture of curiosity and unease, toward a small lake near the tree.
The water was clear. As he stared at his reflection, he froze. He was… different.
Pale skin, a single red horn sprouting from the center of his forehead, and atop his head, a hat shaped entirely from leaves, as if it had grown with him.
The realization hit him in waves. He had died. Just moments ago, fourty years of life had ended in a single heartbeat.
And now… now he was here in this strange world with a strange body..
He lifted his hand, turning it slowly, testing the weight, the motion and the reality of it.
Floating islands drifted in the sky above, enormous chunks of land floated impossibly in midair. The wind carried strange scents and the rustle of unknown creatures through the air.
This was no Earth.
Everything about this place screamed that he had entered a world entirely unlike the one he had known.
And yet, somehow, it felt like a chance. A chance to start again, to explore, and to survive. Probably, he could start a real family.
Cang Lian clenched his fist. I just died. And now I'm here. So… what do I do next!?
As he stared at his reflection, a sudden thought pierced through the fog of shock. There were memories that didn't belong to him. They were someone else's.
Lemony Xaphan Pamon… the name rang faintly, like a bell in the back of his mind. I'm… him?
The realization hit hard. He was an Earthling. A species long considered weak, fragile, incapable of standing against stronger creatures.
Earthlings were intelligent, cunning, and filled with knowledge that could shape the world if used wisely.
They were underestimated, dismissed, and hunted, but their potential was enormous.
He blinked at the tree beside him, where a bag of apples sat untouched. The memories came in flashes.
Lemony's mother instructed him to gather apples for his family. He remembered how the old Lemony had simply collapsed under this very tree, exhausted and grateful for the brief comfort of shade.
A strange smile touched his lips as he touched the leafy umbrella at his side. I just woke up as someone else… and yet, I have all of his memories.
Doubt gnawed at him.
This… this had to be some kind of experiment. After all, he had been caught, exposed, seconds from death.
Maybe this was the enemy's way of punishing him, of testing him. He picked up a rock and hurled it into the trees, watching it vanish without a sound, without effect.
Nothing responds. Of course, this has to be some test.
He realized panic wasn't helping, so he sat cross-legged on the ground, and began massaging the pressure points along his head, trying to calm his racing thoughts.
After a few moments, the dizziness ebbed and clarity returned.
He stood, grabbed the leafy umbrella at his side, and looked down the hill.
Without hesitation, he leapt.
The umbrella unfurled in his hand, catching the wind and carrying him gently downward.
As he glided, the memories of this world began to settle, filling in gaps, giving him strange but vivid context.
Then, something made him stop mid thought.
Blue and green fish swam lazily through the sky, twisting between floating islands as though water and air were the same here.
What… what is this world?
Further ahead, across the hills and valleys, he saw creatures unlike any he had ever imagined.
Over the trees, Ash spotted a gigantic tree that dwarfed everything around it. Its trunk was thick as small village and its branches cradled entire houses. Enormous fruits hung like lanterns.
Cang Lian stared, recalling what little he had heard about it from Lemony's memory.
The tree was ancient, older than any living creature he knew. Its books dated back millions of years. Even an Earthling, who could live up to three centuries, or the rare few that surpassed a thousand years, would never witness its full history.
The fruits were called the Fruits of Knowledge.
A single bite could grant understanding of almost anything you asked. Unsurprisingly, countless species hunted Earthlings for them.
Yet, thanks to the Sun God, they had survived, carving out their existence beneath the tree while the world above constantly sought to claim them.
This world is really unique! There are a lot of histories from what he could recall. But, it'd just be wasting time if he analyzed all of them.
But then—
He leaned forward too eagerly, and his grip on the umbrella slipped.
"AHHH!!"
He plummeted, panic and adrenaline mixing as he fell through the air. The water of a lake rushed toward him and he hit with a splash.
"Ouch," he muttered. His body hurt from the fall, but from what it looked like, there wasn't any permanent damage on his body.
"I'm lucky to be alive after what happened. That would've been my second death."
---
Cang Lian shook himself, water dripping from his blue hair and leaves clinging to his skin. He was clothless now, standing bare in the forest.
Nice. For a brief moment, the absurdity of it made him smirk.
Then his eyes drifted down. His body… everything was different. Even his little stick had changed.
"Damn… I got a small one," he muttered, holding it in his hand.
He began preparing himself, testing his grip, flexing his limbs, trying to accept the strangeness of this new form.
Then—
"Pssttt…"
A whisper carried across the water.
As he turned, he screamed on the top of his lungs in the most high pitch possible. The reason he screamed was because someone was there watching him naked.
"AHHH!"
On the surface of the lake, dancing lightly across the water, was a creature unlike anything he had seen.
She was thin, her body insect-like, her arms and legs jointed and graceful, moving in a way that should have seemed unnatural, but was hypnotic.
Her face, though, was the strangest. It was mischievous and almost playful.
He yanked a leaf from the ground and covered himself hastily.
"Who… who are you?" he stammered, keeping his distance.
She tilted her head, gliding across the water in loops, humming faintly.
"I… don't know," she replied.
He frowned, eyes narrowing. "You don't know?"
She laughed, a sound that bounced and warped in the air. "I know… I know many things, but not all."
He stepped closer, cautious. "Are you… dangerous?"
"Ohhh… dangerous?" she cooed, tilting her head. "I might be, but mostly, I just watch."
She spun in a circle, leaving tiny ripples across the lake, almost like she was part of the water itself.
"And why are you here?"
Her eyes flicked toward the horizon, then back to him. "Because… because you should know something, but it's hard to say. Secrets are really tricky, and Earthlings… ohhh, they always underestimate secrets."
"Tell me," he said firmly, gripping his leafy umbrella.
Her smile widened unnaturally.
"Hmm… I have a warning for you. Today… today… the Tree of Knowledge and Wisdom of the Earthlings… will be destroyed. Everyone in your species will die, including your mother, the great old sage, and everyone you know of..."
Cang Lian's eyes went wide.
"What?! The Tree of Knowledge and Wisdom?!"
She tilted her head.
"Do you believe me? I wonder what you will do."
He laughed, disbelief cutting through panic. "You're lying. This isn't real. None of this can be true."
She laughed too, and the sound was unnervingly layered, overlapping, almost as if it came from everywhere at once.
"Maybe I lie… but maybe, I just vanish."
Before he could react, she grinned wide, waved one hand, and in the blink of an eye, she was gone.
"Goodbye, my friend... We'll meet again."