1: Chapter 1 The Man Who Died in a Foreign Land

"Tell that Chinese guy who runs the Antique Shop that if he delays the protection money for one more day—next time, it won't be his ribs that break, it'll be his neck."

Yan Zheng woke up in pain.

Two broken ribs were grinding against his internal organs within his chest cavity; every breath felt like someone was dragging a rusty saw back and forth across his lungs.

He struggled to open his eyes, and what met his gaze was a filthy, nauseating alleyway—overturned trash cans, scattered broken liquor bottles, and hypodermic needles, with the stench of rotting food and the smell of urine mixed together and permeating the air.

Then, he saw that panel.

A grey-black, semi-transparent system panel, without any warning, appeared out of thin air right in the center of his vision like a tombstone.

The text on it was cold and mechanical, popping out one character at a time:

[ Undead Corpse Collection System has bound to the host. ]

[ Host detected in a near-death state... Performing initial life restoration. ]

[ Restoration progress: 3%. ]

[ Warning: Please complete the first corpse collection task within 24 hours—collect one complete corpse. If not completed by the deadline, the system will reclaim all of the host's vitality. ]

[ Countdown: 24:00:00. ]

Yan Zheng stared at those lines of text, his pupils constricting.

But he didn't cry out.

He didn't even speed up his breathing—not that he didn't want to, but his broken ribs wouldn't allow him to.

He just lay flat on the cold concrete ground, using a gaze that was almost like examining an autopsy report, and read every word on the system panel twice.

Corpse collection.

Reclaiming vitality.

It was phrased politely.

Translated into plain language, it meant four words—if you can't find a dead body, you die.

Just then, a splitting headache exploded.

Two sets of memories, like two opposing torrents, flooded into his brain unreasonably.

His temples felt as if someone had driven nails into them, hurting so much that his vision went white for a moment.

The first set of memories was fragmented.

It was like looking at things through frosted glass—blurry and incomplete, but several core fragments were as sharp as knife blades: His name was Yan Zheng.

He had died once before.

He did not belong to this World.

The second set of memories was complete and vivid.

It belonged to the original owner of this body—also named Yan Zheng.

Twenty-two years old, of Chinese descent, parents died early.

Two years ago, he had poured all his savings into Hell's Kitchen, New York, rented a palm-sized storefront, and opened an Antique Shop called "Echoes of the Past."

Although it was called an Antique Shop, it actually sold nothing but crafts wholesale from Yiwu; the profits were meager, barely covering the rent.

Three days ago, people from the Irish Gang came to collect protection money.

The original owner couldn't come up with the money.

Two White men, built like freezers, dragged him out of the shop and into this alley.

They kicked him, breaking two ribs, and stomped on his face a few times.

Before leaving, the leader, with a cigarette in his mouth, threw the original owner's empty wallet onto his face as if he were tossing trash.

Then they left.

No one called the police.

No one passed by.

In December in New York, the nighttime temperature dropped to sub-Zero.

A young man who had lost too much blood lay next to the trash pile, his body heat being drained away bit by bit by the cold ground.

The original owner died just like that, quietly.

He died in a foreign land, in an alley that didn't even have a name.

There would be no news reports, no one would come to collect his body; perhaps in a few days, when sanitation workers cleared the trash, they would discover a frozen body here.

And Yan Zheng's soul—he didn't know where it came from, nor did he know why—had usurped the magpie's nest, slipping into this shell that hadn't completely cooled yet.

"...Transmigration."

His hoarse voice barely echoed in the empty alley.

His throat felt like it was filled with sand, and every syllable carried the scent of blood.

But his eyes were calm.

Not the kind of calm that comes with resignation—it was the calm of someone who clearly understood his situation, had completed all emotional fluctuations in an extremely short amount of time, and then pushed them all below the surface of the Water.

Was panic useful?

Useless.

Was screaming useful?

Even more useless.

All the information he had now was: he had transmigrated.

He had transmigrated into a strange body in a strange World.

This body was already half-dead.

And something calling itself the "Undead Corpse Collection System" had given him a twenty-four-hour deadline to find a corpse, otherwise, even this life he had just picked up would be confiscated.

It was enough.

The information was enough.

Yan Zheng closed his eyes, letting those memory fragments that were still tearing at each other slowly settle.

The restoration progress on the system panel was slowly ticking up—3%... 4%... like an invisible hand repairing his shattered internal organs; the speed was despairingly slow, but it was indeed effective.

The broken ribs were no longer pushing against his lungs so crazily.

Breathing had been downgraded from "chewing broken glass" to "swallowing sandpaper."

Enough.

It was enough for him to stand up.

Yan Zheng rolled over and braced one hand against the wall.

The rough red bricks nearly cut his palm.

He poured all his remaining strength into his arm, and like crawling out of a grave, he pushed himself up from the ground inch by inch.

His knees were shaking.

The edges of his vision were blacking out in waves.

But he stood firm.

He looked down at himself—a crumpled, cheap grey suit, with large patches of dark brown bloodstains congealed on the front and cuffs.

In his left pocket were a few crumpled U.S. dollar bills, and in his right pocket was a brass key and a business card half-soaked in blood.

[ Echoes of the Past Antique Shop | Yan Zheng ]

[ Hell's Kitchen | 10th Avenue 431 ]

He tucked the business card back into his pocket.

First, back to the shop.

Before finding a corpse, he needed to figure out two things—what exactly this system was, and which World this was.

Yan Zheng, supporting himself against the wall, moved step by step toward the alley entrance.

The countdown on the system panel ticked quietly, like a patient bomb.

[ 23:54:37 ]

[ 23:54:36 ]

[ 23:54:35 ]

With every passing second, he was one second closer to death.