The morning stank of sweat and mud.
Lin Chen's fingers bled through the thin cloth wrapped around his palms. The shovel he gripped had long since lost its shine, its wooden handle smooth from years of being worn down by calloused hands—hands like his.
He stood ankle-deep in wet earth, pulling cartloads of soil under a rising sun that cared nothing for the people it lit. Behind him, fields stretched far, plowed and broken, waiting for walls and brickwork that he and the others would raise for a man whose name they would never know.
The old man beside him coughed again—dry, hacking, painful. "Chen... take a break, boy."
Lin Chen shook his head. He was only twenty-four, but the permanent slouch in his spine made him look older. "Not yet. They cut rations if we slow."
The old man spat blood into the dirt. "Let them cut it. It's poison anyway."
Lin Chen didn't reply. He tightened the knot on his waist rope, picked up the next brick basket, and staggered forward.
They called this place Quanyun Work Zone #6. But most of the workers just called it Hell with numbers. A gray-sky place, where laborers like Lin Chen were born, broke their backs, and died unnamed.
He was a mud-hauler. A brick-carrier. A wall-builder.
A nobody.
He didn't remember his mother. She'd died giving birth in a corner of the barracks. His father, he'd heard, had been crushed when a beam fell during construction.
It wasn't unusual.
People disappeared here. Some died. Others left to find work in other provinces, hoping for better luck. Lin Chen never tried.
Where would he go?
What could he do?
This was the life given to him. A chain of suffering tied to his spine, and he had never been strong enough to break it.
Still, there was something in him. Something small and silent.
He didn't talk much, but his eyes noticed things. When others swore at the sky, he watched the movement of clouds. When others fought for bread, he shared half his portion with an injured man who could no longer lift bricks.
He didn't know why. He just... couldn't stop himself.
Even in this wretched life, he cared. And somehow, it made the burden heavier.
That evening, when the overseer finally rang the dismissal bell, Lin Chen's hands trembled from overwork. Blisters had opened and popped. Blood mixed with dust on his fingertips.
He sat alone under the unfinished skeleton of a stone archway. Night crept in, cool and silent.
The old man returned, carrying two tin bowls of watery porridge.
"One's for you," he said, setting one down.
"I don't want it," Lin Chen said.
The old man didn't argue. He just sat beside him, staring at the empty field beyond the work zone.
"Did I ever tell you," the old man said, "that I once dreamed of being a scholar?"
Lin Chen looked at him, startled. "You?"
"Surprised, huh?" He chuckled weakly. "I used to read scrolls by torchlight. Wrote poems once. Thought I'd pass the civil exams."
"What happened?"
"I got hungry," the man said simply. "Dreams don't fill bellies."
They sat in silence.
Then, Lin Chen asked quietly, "Why do we keep going?"
The old man sighed. "Because we can't go back. And there's nowhere else to go."
That night, Lin Chen dreamed.
It was not like his usual dreams—short flashes of memory or nonsense from the day.
No.
This was something else.
He stood in a vast desert made entirely of ash. The sky was purple and cracked, and bones jutted from the ground like the remains of ancient beasts. Wind blew across the dead land, and every grain of dust whispered.
"You remember..."
A voice. Cold. Ageless.
He turned. A shadow stood across from him. Tall, thin, wearing rags.
Its face was hidden, but Lin Chen knew—somehow, impossibly—that this was him. Or what he could become.
"This world is not your end," the voice said. "It is your womb."
"Rise."
Lin Chen gasped awake.
The barracks were dark, quiet, except for the occasional cough or moan.
His heart pounded. He felt as if something had been planted inside him, just then.
Something waiting.
The next morning
"Line up!"
The overseer barked orders as the sun crept over the horizon.
They were short on workers. One of the men had tried to escape last night. He had been caught and beaten. Lin Chen saw his body lying by the gate.
No one dared speak.
They were assigned a new task—hauling bricks across the construction cliff near the eastern edge of the site.
It was dangerous. The pathway was narrow and wet from last night's storm.
Lin Chen carried the load without complaint. His body screamed in protest, but he moved forward.
Step by step.
One foot in front of the other.
Until he slipped.
His right foot skidded on a patch of moss, and the basket's weight threw him sideways.
He crashed down the embankment, hitting rock and branch, until his body tumbled into the river below.
Darkness.
Silence.
Then…
A pulse.
A hum in the void.
"This body has died..."
"But the root has not."
"You have been chosen, Lin Chen."
"Reborn not in fire, but in dust."
"Awaken."
In another world...
The sky was blue, impossibly so. Clouds drifted like paintings. Strange birds flew with wings of light.
A newborn baby cried in a poor village, his mother weeping with joy.
"Chen'er," she whispered, cradling him. "My little dust blossom."
She did not know that the soul in the child's eyes was not new. It was ancient. Quiet. And watching.
Watching everything.
Lin Chen had been reborn.
[END OF CHAPTER 1]