Chapter 1: A New Beginning

Arc 1 : Reincarnated Memories

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Yongyuan woke up, feeling more dead than alive.

His finger wiggle around as he felt soft veins of leaves beneath him scattered all over the dirty cabin. In a sudden grasp, his throat closed up as it held something back, like he was about to vomit a mouthful of blood. The sharp pain in his chest, squeezing the ever-living daylight out of him. Even when he just woke up in a whole ass new body, he still wasn't god's favorite. Feeling pain of any kind wasn't foreign at all for Yongyuan, but damn he just woke up, give him a moment of peace! Please!

As one hand held his chest, and the other pressed down onto the broken down floor, holding himself up as all his muscles teased up. He felt as if at any moment he would gagged out an (concerning) amount of blood, from the overbearing agony he felt all over his body. His heart squeezed till he felt like he was internally bleeding out, as his legs cramped up with his bones almost snapping in half from the sheer torment. He pressed his back up against the mold-stained wood wall, as the uncomfortable and uneasy feeling in his throat and body worsened. Yongyuan's back slid down, until his whole back was on the cold wood ground as he lie down on his sides still. He laid his head onto the filthy planks as he shut his eyes gently as possible. The moment Yongyuan closed his eyes, he saw a faint vision of the black and white figure he saw while he was on the falling tiled glazed platform. With his tiny gaping hole in his lower stomach as he held onto it like a (literal) lifeline. Blaring lights flash before he could grasped onto what happening around. Lights in the pitch black sky gleamed as Yongyuan shuts his eyes tight like he did before. As the familiar sensation of his skin burning away comes back. While the sky beams and collapses into nothing.

His heart aches as his body squeezed him inside and out. Feeling as if his limbs were being ripped apart one by one each second. His heart tightened as he kept spat out mouthfuls and handfuls of blood.

Foreseen visions of a familiar bloody hand reaching out in an unfamiliar scene. Yongyuan squeezed his eyes tight as he hitched his breath. Two or three blaring voices could be heard from a far distance, yelling out his name as he felt something pierced his stomach. It was all a blur. Nothing made sense at this point.

Why did he keep having foresights of a memory that never happened to him. Confusion filled Yongyuan head as he tried to put some logical sense into it.

Yongyuan lifted up a hand to rub one side of his temples. Laying on a floor with autumn leaves scattered around on top of dirty floor planks wasn't much of a comfort. Having no physical comfort there wasn't much mental comfort as well. With the weird foresight dreams of him being stabbed to death didn't help a bit.

He didn't lay down for long as the sharp pain all over his body pierced down forcing him to spring up as he coughed a huge overload of blood. Staining the decades-old unwashed wooden floors. He peered at the ungodly amount of coughed up blood on the floor as he collapsed in pain. He just woke up from a near death experience and he was already more dead than alive, then he was on the verge of actual death. Yongyuan didn't know if he should laugh or cry at this situation he got himself in.

As his stomach twisted around, feeling like he would vomit a mouthful of blood again, he forced himself to deal with the damn pain and get up.

A little color of a warm red covered half his vision as he plucked an autumn leaf out of his head of long raven-colored hair.

As he held the leaf high in the sky. The red autumn leaf itself seemed transparent as Yongyuan played around with it. Swaying it around like a toy as he quietly laughed. He never felt more like a young child until now, even as a child he had to act mature. With the irony Yongyuan couldn't help but laugh and cry slightly at this.

Standing up on the almost broken floor boards, he stretched out his arms and body. Feeling his own bones detached from each-other as he felt himself become jelly. He felt just a bag of organs at this point because of all this pain he felt all over his body. As Yongyuan stumbled over to the wooden door, he weakly placed his hand over the door to push it as he coughed out another mouthful of blood, his ribcage burned up with all sorts of injuries and discomfort as he kept internally bleeding.

As the faltering figure weakly pushed the old wooden door wide open, he leaned down onto the door gazing up onto the clear-clouded sky.

Yongyuan's right hand hovered over his lower stomach area, he squeezed the corner of it, the same way he did while on the voyage of death itself. Except he was in a much worse state than if he was laying cold on the ground like a corpse. As his eyes lingered around the grassy fields outside the wooden cabin. Seeming like he was in the middle of god knows where. Yongyuan rubbed his temples as he sighed, as blood spat out of his mouth involuntarily. As he pressed his back against the wooden broken down walls of the rusty and nasty cabin, he slid down effortlessly, hitting the tall grass itching around as he sat out, feeling fatigued and exhausted. He just woke up in a body that's supposed to be a reincarnation of him and he's already dying after basically being brought /back/ to life.

Yongyuan lets out a heavy sigh as he shut his eyes for a little while. In a far distance he could hear sounds of stepped on leaves, crunching down with light footsteps. It was gentle and soft, like a bird softly shedding feathers as it fell down from the clear-clouded sky. Yongyuan faintly opened both his eyes as he saw a blurred figure walking closer with each step. Unsurprisingly it was another person, seemingly younger than him. Well anyone he would meet along was bound to be younger than him. Well, he was a god, in fact, more divine and powerful in his last life than any earthly god nebulas had to offer. The nearing incoming individual looked like a young soul, too young to be considered older than eighteen or nineteen, and too old to be considered younger than sixteen.

As the wind rustled around, blowing delicately through the thick trees of autumn leaves, full of warm tones. Yongyuan's 20/20 eyesight finally kicked in as he took a closer glimpse at the figure of a young girl around the age of seventeen, wearing a straw hat, a red roped bracelet and carrying a woven basket full of edibles. She was silently humming a calm toon, matching the breeze of the wind.

Her eyeballs viewed the breathtaking leaves on the trees, reaching high in the sea of clearing clouds as the warm rays of sunlight peeked through. The corners of her mouth turn upwards, smiling a slight curve. The young girl places her hand on the trunk of a tree, admiring it, smiling even more until she sees an almost dead-like individual sitting on the grassy land. Laying his back on the wooden walls of the crusty cabin.

All the joy the girl felt wiped off completely on her face as her expression became a wide-range of emotions. First, surprised, shocked, but never disgust or fear. She rolled her eyes up and down, left and right while walking towards Yongyuan.

Yongyuan fully opens his eyes to see the figure face right in front of his, staring right at him with a blank face. As Yongyuan pushes his back up the wall of the rusty cabin harder as the girl stays still in her place, squatting with tired eyes.

"How'd you find this place." She asked, her undertone making it sound more of a statement than a question. Yongyuan blinked once, twice, thinking of an excuse to give the young soul. One that will make her satisfied enough to not ask another question. It's not like he could tell her he was on the verge of death, somehow managing to cough up less blood than he did while waking up in his reincarnated body. Glaring at the collapse and end of everything as he twisted his wounds to make it bleed less. Seeing the constellation in the sky shine for the last time as it explodes as a final goodbye. Skin and bones burning away as he shuts his eyes. If he said a word of any of that, he would look like a maniac on some kind of weed.

Blinking for the third time, he uttered out words he would be too embarrassed to even think of with anyone close to him, but she was a stranger and one he will never met again, so it couldn't be this bad to make this excuse, right?..

"I don't remember exactly how I got here. All I remember is that I was drinking with some friends, passed out and woke up here." Yongyuan said, ears full with the shade of cherry-red. Blushing as he bit his lip. He forced his head down, unable to look at the girl or even in her eyes anymore. Out of all the excuses he thought of, it had to be that…

"Girl, you got some shitty friends." She replied with a stone face, her undertone annoyed and exhausted. Yongyuan nodded in response, not knowing how to reply back, but still said, "Yeah, I get that a lot.." Yongyuan Mutter under his breath, feeling guilt in his heart for people who don't even exist.

The girl plotted down beside the figure with red flushed ears, her legs long and out as she stretched out her arms, letting out a groan while she was at it. She slouched down onto the wooden wall with Yongyuan as she grabbed the rims of her straw hat to hold in her arms. Grabbing the basket to put beside her. She sighed as she sharply turned her head towards Yongyuan, the girl opened her mouth as words spoke out.

"What's your name?"

"…"

No sound came from the other. Yongyuan raised his head up, he knew I'd he didn't answer for a long time it would be suspicious as hell, but on the other hand, should he tell her his name or a temporary name. He mentally slapped himself in the face, why the hell would he give her a temporary name? It wasn't like he had a criminal record of any in the first place.

"Yongyuan." He finally replied.

"Ah, so a pretty name for a pretty boy, huh?" The girl snickered, snarkly.

"…"

Yongyuan responded, blankly with a confused face.

"I'm Bai Lian. I come here every so often to just chill, I never knew another living person knew about this place too. You know?" Bai Lian laughed out.

"For correction, I didn't stumble upon this place one day, I woke up in it out of the blue." Yongyuan corrected.

"God..you sound like that one emoji I text my friends to mock them…" Bai Lian said while rolling her eyes. As she muttered out the letters N-E-R-D to Yongyuan. With him not knowing how to respond.

Bai Lian crossed her arms up, closing her eyes, which was pointless since she only opened one eye to look at Yongyuan. She tilted her head as she took a better look at Yongyuan, checking him out from head to toe. Besides her was a figure with snow-white skin with long raven hair strands. Black void-like eyes that could engulf millions of stars but somehow still held a warm gaze. Truly a radiant beauty besides her. It wasn't like Bai Lian wasn't a quite looker as well, but compared to Yongyuan she looked like some background character in a show or book.

She peered up and down as words finally came out of her mouth.

"Hm..may I ask you a simple question? It has been on my mind since I've met you." Bai Lian curiously asked. As Yongyuan noded in response to the girl.

"Are you a hooker?"

Yongyuan this time, voluntarily spat out mouthfuls of blood inside and out. As he scrambled out the shocked words, "What?.."

"Well, are you? If you are, I don't care. What would I benefit from knowing you have a side-hustle. Just pure curiosity, that's all."

"I'm..I'm not." Yongyuan said, wanting to scream but it all came in lowercase. Baffled to the core as his head moved away from the girl, who was seemingly inching closer to the confused individual. Although he felt astonished and even with the staggered question the girl asked, he added, "What..what made you think that?."

"Well you have a pretty face, nice heathy long hair, I wouldn't be surprised that if you had a job you'd pretend to be a girl for money, snow-white pale skin, that's what all the guys are into, oh and also you're only wearing one or two layers of clothes." Bai Lian quickly and /somehow/ slowly replied, taking no breaths as the words spat out. While she continued her rambling about Yongyuan appearance, he had to take it all in as he blankly stared at the non stop rambling girl.

"And I can see most of your skin even with that. Your voice sounds a bit feminine too. If I didn't look down at your lack of a chest I would thought you're a mellow lady as well. Well honestly, I would've thought you're just a flat-chested girl if your voice was more feminine than it already is and you had more softer features." Bai Lian said, taking no breathers as she continued. "You're still beautiful, probably the most breathtaking person I've seen in my life. So don't think too much about that." She shrugged as a figure with a blank stunned face stared at her, after all that's all he could do.

As the girl put her crossed arms down, she tugged around her lower waist to untie a knot, it was her outer robe she wore around her waist. She moved closer to Yongyuan to cover him up with the robe, giving him a third layer.

"It gets cold around the season of the Mid-Autumn Festival [1] so take it." Bai Lian said, while wrapping the outer robe around the other person. "By the way..does your service as a hooker require you to not dress properly?" Bai Lian joked as Yongyuan's ears flushed into cherry-red again.

"The Ghost Realm?" Yongyuan asked. As a topic change, Yongyuan let curiosity kill the cat and this time it was Yongyuan who was asking the question with Bai Lian answering.

"It's when the Ghost Realm [2] opens up and we send wishes too, remember? How hard did you pass out???" With the second question, Yongyuan didn't want to answer as Bai Lian raised her eyebrows. While she continued. "You know… where all the dead things are?" Bai Lian said with a tone full of questions. As Yongyuan stood up, leaving the girl unanswered and dazed. He flicks off the dirt and grim on him and the robe, still hesitant if he should keep Bai Lian's outer robe. A gentle hand lightly tug on the robe as the corners of his mouth turn down. His eyes sorrow down as he swiftly turns to see a relaxed individual laying her head onto the wall.

"Bai Lian, do you want your robe back?"

"Nah, keep it. I don't need it and you look like you need it more. Even with your side hustle, dress properly with the seasons. You won't survive for long with just two layers of clothing." Bai Lian responded, unbothered.

Yongyuan only stared at Bai Lian, and her hooker jokes she kept making about it. He sighed as he took a narrowed step forward towards the thick autumn trees. While Bai Lian blurts out nonsense. "Oh by the way! Did you get here with one of your clients? Did they go too hard on you? Is that why you passed out?"

Yongyuan instantly stops his track and slowly turns his head to see a cheeky smile on the girl's face. From the way she looks and her outer demeanor she looked and seemed like an average and stereotypical quiet kid. Keeping to herself and others but turning the tables where she has the loudest mouth and the most to say out of everyone.

"When will you stop with this..?" Yongyuan tiredly asked as Bai Lian laughs out like a hyena, choking her lungs.

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[1]-Mid-Autumn Festival

-A wide spread Asian festival where families gather together to light lanterns, eat moon cakes and appreciate the round moon. The full moon is a symbol for family reunion, which is why that day is also known as the Festival of Reunion. The Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations date back more than 2,000 years

[2]-Ghsot Realm

"Ghost"

-an apparition of a dead person which is believed to appear or become manifest to the living, typically as a nebulous image

"Realm"

-domain

A realm where the dead soul descend too, looking for a peaceful life where ones could never have in their mortal life.