Ewan was a solitary traveler, a wandering soul who had been drifting along the endless river of time for tens of thousands of years. Though called a soul, he was not the remnant of a deceased life. Ewan did not know his own origins - whether he was the condensed essence of heaven and earth, or the impromptu "masterpiece" of some nameless sage. He only knew that from the moment his consciousness awakened, he had existed in this ethereal form, formless and invisible, roaming the world.
In primordial times, Ewan had looked down arrogantly upon the tiny beings struggling against harsh nature. Back then, humans lived in caves and wore furs, their lives revolving around dark caverns and bloody hunts. Ewan had laughed coldly, thinking, "Why is being human so miserable? It would be far better to just be a drifting cloud, free and unburdened like me."
However, the stars shifted and the world changed, the wheels of history turned ceaselessly. Ewan witnessed brilliant civilizations rising from ashes, saw peace and prosperity replace chaos, and watched the smoke and fire of the mortal world turn into a flourishing tapestry. It was precisely this bustling atmosphere, filled with the full spectrum of joy, anger, love, and sorrow, that caused the eternal traveler's heart to waver. From the position of an outside observer, he began to yearn to touch, to dissolve into that radiant flow.
Cruel time never stopped for anyone. Countless dynasties flourished and then decayed; countless magnificent cities were erected only to crumble into ruins. Only Ewan remained solitary, the sole witness who never changed amidst the impermanence of all things.
Did Ewan have a dream? Of course. He yearned to live like a normal human. He had seen so many emperors holding the power of life and death, possessing the whole world, yet frantically seeking the art of eternal youth. How laughable - in Yu's eyes, that endless existence was merely a string of dull, tasteless days. To him, a fleeting human life of barely a hundred years - where one could cry, laugh, love, and grow old - was the most fascinating thing in the world.
But alas, Ewan had no cycle of reincarnation. He could not die, nor could he be reborn. If Ewan were to disappear one day, it would mean disappearing completely. No one would know such a soul had ever existed; no one would remember, and no one would regret his loss.
How sad...
While he was still lost in thought, Ewan vaguely heard a young girl's scream, followed by the slap-slap of footsteps getting closer, and finally, a loud slam of the door.
"I already said I don't like him! Mom, you're being so weird!" The young girl threw herself onto the bed, passing right through Ewan's body, and buried her face in the pillow to complain.
Ah, this was the young landlady Ewan had been "squatting" with recently. In every era, Ewan would find a few pleasing people and blatantly "crash" at their homes - watching them learn, watching them work - and thereby pick up a few skills prominent in that era.
Like his name, for instance. Actually, Ewan didn't have a name - yeah, who would name a soul? It was just that during thousands of years of wandering, Ewan traveled from East to West and heard everyone calling each other by names. So he gave himself a name: Ewan.
It had no special meaning, he just liked it.
Ewan glanced at the girl wailing on the bed, lost interest, and floated around. This kid had been reading nothing but novels lately, staying cooped up in the house, so her mother had agreed to send her on a blind date. She was probably making a scene right now to spite her mother.
Ewan didn't care, he was planning to fly outside to see if there was anything fun nearby. Suddenly, he felt himself being sucked in by something. The surroundings turned pitch black and then went completely dark.
In his daze, Ewan's consciousness flickered like a lamp in the wind. He tried to open his eyes, but the response was only a thick, endless, suffocating darkness. The space around him seemed to be twisting. Strange, chaotic sounds rang in his ears: the wild howling of sea wind mixed with the roar of an engine shaking his eardrums - a cold, metallic sound he had never heard in any era.
Ewan panic-strickenly realized he was being dragged violently by an invisible force. Amidst that chaotic noise, a weak voice suddenly spoke up, piercing through the darkness. As a traveler throughout history, Ewan prided himself on being fluent in every language, from ancient characters carved on cliffs to the modern tongues of civilized humanity. However, this language stunned him. It carried a cadence that was both familiar and strange, like a variant that had undergone thousands of years of evolution, leaving him to only guess at the meaning.
"Oh, Supreme Deity... I willingly sacrifice... this body..."
The words were broken and wheezing, like the final breath of a dying person.
Before he could regain his composure, the terrifying suction force suddenly exploded. It no longer wrapped around him gently as it had at first but became violent, as if wanting to tear his soul into a hundred pieces.
"Aaa!!!"
Ewan let out a bloodcurdling scream. Pain! Pain cutting to his very core! It felt as though every fiber of muscle was being torn apart, every bone crushed and then pressed back together. What was this sensation? How could a formless, invisible soul like him feel such authentic physical pain? Unless... he was being forced into a narrow "frame"!