"I'll surely put it in your ass!"
Shen roared as he looked at his friend playing a legendary card and destroying his whole deck.
"Hahaha, try if you can, loser. In fact, you'd better protect that one of yours, I'll enjoy it with the gang as payback for last time." His friend tilted his head upwards and laughed maniacally, breaking into tears.
Thud!
With a wave of his hand, Shen closed the PC and lay on his bed, a rare smile appearing on his face.
"Jerk, haha."
Suddenly...
'Hmm?' Looking at the door's thin opening, a letter could be seen hanging inside by a thread, almost dropping to the ground outside. If not for the sound of the bike outside, he could've sworn he would have never noticed it.
'I'm not expecting anything these days, and all bills are paid. Who would send a letter at this time?' He casually stood up, not expecting anything big, probably just a random message from his grandfather, as usual.
However, right after opening the cover and unfolding it, and reading a bit of its contents, a bitter smile appeared on his face.
In just a moment, all the fun he had with his friend vanished into oblivion, replaced by a doom-like feeling.
"Only seven days, huh?" Shen muttered as he stared at the letter in his hand.
He looked like he hadn't slept in weeks, black hair messy, bags under his eyes so deep they could've swallowed his face. He looked half-dead already. A walking corpse with a pulse.
The letter slipped from his fingers and landed in a pile of clutter. Papers, paid bill confirmations, ramen wrappers. His room was a landfill, but he didn't care.
In fact, he never did.
Since the moment he heard of that, at least...
"Seven days left before I pass out from this damn brain tumor." He laughed and grabbed his head, the grin on his face shaky. "Heh… figures."
This wasn't news to him. Shen had known for a few months, thanks to his grandfather, that something was wrong with his brain.
The doctors called it "non-stop chronological memory imprint disorder." Basically, his brain remembered every single second of his life. No gaps, no sleep, or anything of that sort, just constant memorization.
The worst part? His brain couldn't handle all that data.
He was told early on: You won't live past twenty-five. At best, he'd collapse into a vegetable.
At worst? He'd die choking on his own thoughts.
The government provided him with a prototype AI implant to monitor his brain, send updates to hospitals, and alert them if anything went wrong with his health. High-tech junk was slapped onto a guy who was already a lost cause to make him feel better.
For what reason? Just to send such letters in case of emergencies...
Shen's legs twitched, his rage slowly bubbling up from constant suppression.
"Damn it... damn it!" Shen kicked the table in front of him. It cracked down the middle and collapsed with a pathetic crash. His face didn't even flinch while doing it.
He turned expressionless.
"Grandpa said working out would help," he muttered mockingly. "Said it could slow it down. Strengthen my body. Buy more time. But all of it was bullshit."
He turned to his phone, which had just buzzed from the locker next to his bed.
Ding. Ding. Ding.
"Ka-cha."
The locker clicked open. Shen snatched the phone, the screen lighting up with a new message.
"$33,000"
He stared at it blankly.
"...Well. Guess those loan sharks won't have to chase me after I'm dead."
Bam.
The phone hit the wall and shattered into several pieces.
"Time is time, I guess."
He grabbed his clothes, a black shirt, black pants, and slung a baseball bat over his shoulder, almost a meter long. The thing looked more like a weapon than sports gear.
He cracked open the window.
"Such a nice breeze of gentle wind. Shall I?"
He stepped one foot on the ledge.
Then... knock knock.
Shen froze as his heart skipped a beat.
"I know you are there, Shen," a voice said.
Shen clenched his teeth while his hands slightly trembled.
'Are you serious?' he thought. 'Even now?'
He sighed hard and stepped down.
He walked to the door and opened it with the kind of sigh that felt older than he was.
"Dick, what do you want at this hour? Shouldn't you be..."
However, right before he finished his words, a sharp knife held by a middle-aged woman stabbed through his jaw and went out the middle of his skull.
Shen didn't even have time to think about what had happened before he collapsed to the ground with a loud thud.
Blood spluttered everywhere like a miniature fountain had gushed open from Shen's body.
With a flip of her hands, she opened her phone and dialed a number. "Great Elder, the threat is gone, but…"
On the other side of the call, an aged voice, sounding ancient, yet with a hint of indescribable emotion, could be heard.
"Sigh. You're wondering why I would place my own son on one of our farms, suppress him, and then have him killed, right?"
"I deeply apologize, Great Elder." The woman didn't dare say another word as she knelt on one knee. The whole floor shuddered at her actions, though she wasn't even exerting any strength.
"Haha, relax, relax. But the answer is rather simple," the old man chuckled on the other side of the call.
After a moment of silence, he uttered:
"That's because he is dangerous."
***
Creak... Creak...
Sounds of branches breaking and falling echoed every few seconds as a young boy could be seen helplessly trying to stand up, yet to no avail.
"What kind of place is this? Where am I?"
The kid was about to think further and recall what had just happened when an intense pain jolted through his brain, making him feel extremely dizzy and on the verge of collapsing.
'Aghhh! Stop... Stop this pain!'
Tears flooded down his face as he grabbed his hair with both hands, scratching fiercely as though he were about to go insane.
In a moment, his eyes rolled back, and he fell unconscious on the spot, spit and tears smeared across his face.
***
"Ughh, I feel like shit."
Shen woke up groggily and rubbed his eyes, yawning.
He felt a weird sensation spreading throughout his body; it was as if he wasn't the same anymore, but he couldn't place his hand on what had changed.
Standing up, after falling three times in a row, he realized that his point of view seemed off. It was shorter or off-balance.
All in all, something was definitely different.
Instinctively, as if already familiar with his surroundings, Shen stepped to the left and walked a few meters toward the river beside him. Kneeling down, he looked at his reflection in the water.
Black hair. Sunken cheeks. Sharp jawline. Eyes black like ink. A bit chubby around the face, but the shape told him that a fine jawline was hidden behind it at a glance. And above all of that...
The face of a twelve-year-old.
"Have I transmigrated?"
He blinked at the reflection.
"Again?!"