The sky was overcast, and drizzle painted the gray city in a lonely hue.
Ye Chen, a twenty-two-year-old university student, walked home from campus with his hands in his pockets, his mind drifting between boredom and the dull ache of reality.
Bills. Exams. A life without meaning.
As he passed an empty alley, something caught his eye—a book, old and weather-beaten, lying in a puddle as if waiting for him.
> "Who drops a book here?"
Curiosity nudged him closer. The cover bore no title, just ancient golden characters engraved on black leather. When he wiped the dirt away, the words faintly shimmered:
> 「Heavenly Scripture of the Void Realm」
He chuckled. "Sounds like some fantasy novel."
Still, something about it pulled him in. Against better judgment, he slipped it into his bag.
---
That night, boredom took hold. Ye Chen sat at his desk, lamplight flickering, and opened the book.
The first page was blank. The second too. Then—on the third—words began to appear in elegant, shifting calligraphy.
> "When one reads the forgotten words of heaven, the river of time flows in reverse."
The letters twisted, glowing faintly. Ye Chen frowned and flipped the page. The next was sealed, the paper impossibly stiff.
He tapped the page.
A hum. A pulse.
The world shook.
Light burst from the book—white, blinding—and before Ye Chen could scream, everything vanished.
---
When he opened his eyes again, the scent of blood filled his nostrils.
He was lying on the ground, surrounded by shouting men in old Chinese robes. The clang of steel, the snarl of beasts—it was chaos.
> "Young Master Ye! Please retreat! The Black Tiger Clan has surrounded us!"
A man with torn armor and a whip bowed before him.
Ye Chen blinked, his mind reeling. Young Master? What the hell…?
Then pain shot through his head—memories not his own flooding in.
A different Ye Chen. A hound master of the Ye Family in the southern province of Qingyang. A mediocre martial artist, known for taming spirit beasts.
And now… that same Ye Chen was dead.
Or rather, replaced.
---
Hours later, in the quiet of a tent, Ye Chen finally steadied his breath. His reflection in a bronze mirror showed a young man's sharp eyes and a faint scar near his chin.
Then—something stirred in his mind.
A vast space opened before him, like a library stretching beyond the horizon. Countless floating books hovered in golden light.
> "What… is this place?"
A voice echoed faintly:
> "The Realm of Books. The legacy of Heaven's Scripture. Every truth lies within the written word."
Ye Chen reached for one tome titled "Foundations of Internal Qi".
As his fingers brushed it, knowledge flowed into him—how to circulate qi, how to sense dantian energy.
His eyes widened. I can learn through reading? Just by understanding?
A soft laugh escaped him.
> "In my world, the pen was mightier than the sword... In this world, perhaps both shall be mine."
He closed his eyes and began to meditate, the words he'd read still echoing in his soul.
> "When one reads the heavens, even the mountains bow."
That night, the Ye Family's useless hound master began his first steps on a path to become a saint of the martial world.