Capítulo 1: Transmigration
Piercing pain—that was the first thing he felt as it coursed through his head the moment he weakly clung to consciousness once more.
It was like an ethereal sensation, existing only in his soul, tearing and cutting fiercely with each attempt he made to desperately escape the darkness and grasp onto his consciousness.
His face was planted on a cold, flat wooden surface as he kept his eyes shut tightly, struggling to open them because the light around him seemed so intense that it made his retinas burn.
This left him in a precarious state, not knowing where he was at that moment, and the loud buzzing sound in his ears that didn't seem to fade only made his situation worse.
"What is..." Cough, cough, cough.
Only now, as he tried to speak to express his disorientation, did he feel the dry, hoarse state of his throat that made him cough uncontrollably.
"Is this... my house? No, no, it can't be..." He said doubtfully because he knew the floor of his house wasn't brown wood but clean white tile.
Cough, cough
"A dream?... No, this is too realistic," he murmured in a hoarse voice, his heart beginning to grow worried "but what happened... and what even is my name?"
He now realized the worst part—as being face down on the cold floor of an unknown place wasn't bad enough; no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't remember anything from the last in the last few days and even worse, he doesn't even remember his name.
At this point, he was beginning to worry about the possibility that he might have been kidnapped, even though he was untied. This didn't ease his nerves, as he might have been thrown into a cell where he couldn't escape.
But even so, he uses the little mental clarity he has in this state to keep his mind calm and his breathing steady, even as his chest pounds heavily.
"I need... to look around!" He struggled to move his arms and legs, which were trembling with almost absolute weakness.
But at least in the midst of this struggle, he managed, with great difficulty, by grabbing and supporting himself on a wooden surface in front of him, to slowly stand up while forcing his eyes open despite the burning pain.
Now able to see his surroundings, he felt slightly relieved, realizing that he was in a medium-sized, ordinary room made of good-quality brown wood. The wooden surface he was supporting himself on was the foot of a single bed with a simple black rock in the middle of its disheveled sheets.
Next to it, there is a dresser with a small bonsai tree on top. The bonsai has white and green-tinted leaves, giving the plant a beautiful appearance, which he imagines could be worth a fortune.
As he looks the plant the piercing pain in his head moderately subsided, he could think more clearly than before.
'This looks... Chinese, or at least Asian in some way,' he thought, leaning against the bed's wood, struggling to keep his eyes open before they landed on a painting on the wall above the bed. The painting was of a white tiger with inscriptions he didn't understand, but he identified them as Asian.
Amidst these thoughts, his gaze shifted to the simple black rock on the bed. "And what could that—argh!!"
Before he even realized it or finished his sentence, he found himself lying on his back on the floor again, as the pain he had felt returned with full force, now many times worse, making him clutch his head as tears of agony streamed down his face, the piercing pain feeling like it was going to split his skull.
But to add to his desperation, during all this unbearable pain, he couldn't open his mouth to let out even the smallest sound or groan.
"Argh...ahh...ahh...argh," he finally managed to let out faint sounds of pain after what felt like an eternity when the relentless pain suddenly vanished in an instant.
Yet even before he could curse the infernal pain he never wanted to feel again, no matter what, he had a more pressing thought in his mind now that he could think with full clarity.
'I...this how... this isn't me?' His eyes trembled in shock as he tried to make sense of the broken and chaotic memories flooding his mind.
This might be a shocking and almost impossible reality for many to accept, and he would have felt the same way before. But now, due to his precarious situation and the undeniable evidence of memories flooding into his mind, he has no choice but to accept this as his reality.
Feeling this, he quickly stood up now, with little difficulty, while keeping one hand massaging the side of his head.
'This was just any teenager, it seems...' He looked around, searching for a mirror, trying to piece together the disorganized memories, but unfortunately, he couldn't find one among the room's furnishings.
But even without the fragmented and disordered memories in his mind, he could clearly tell that this body was not his, due to its shorter stature and relatively slim build of a teenager boy.
'Could this mean I've gone back in time? And not just that, but to ancient China or Japan?' Of course, he wasn't a history expert or anything like that, but he could clearly see the ancient oriental style, as if it came straight out of a period movie, in the room's furniture and the painting of the tiger on the wall, as well as 'his' memories which are mostly confused yet.
'Wait... maybe I'm in some rural village in the countryside where they still use things like this!' Without wasting time, he approached the slightly open window, letting the sunset light in, and opened it completely.
He was met with the view of a large city made of houses and medium-sized bamboo buildings, with trees growing in an unnaturally lush way up a green mountain that seemed to reach the clouds on the horizon.
Most of the people walking through the streets of the city wore simple but neat clothing, while a smaller portion wore well-made clothes, mainly in different shades of green. Yet, all of them still followed an ancient oriental style of dress that was instantly recognizable to his eyes.
'I really transmigrated to ancient China...' He could feel the weight of this thought pressing down on him.
Although this might be a thought that would make an enthusiast of oriental history catch their breath in excitement, he found his heart sinking significantly as he considered the situation. Because, from what little he knew, the quality of life in the ancient world would be terrible compared to what he, a person from the modern world, had grown accustomed to.
For example, something that's just a minor inconvenience in the modern world, like diarrhea, could cause someone to shit themselves to the point of death in this era. And that wasn't limited to poor peasants; even kings or high-ranking nobles dying in this manner wasn't uncommon.
"Wait...!" With this thought, he looked down at his clothes, which he had subconsciously paid no attention to.
To his relief, he saw high-quality, dark green silk garments that fit his body perfectly, as if tailor-made, even better than any clothes he had ever worn in his life.
'This means I must belong to a noble family... or at least be an aristocrat or a wealthy merchant.' Thinking this, he looked around the room to confirm his assumption, and seeing the quality of the wood, as well as the furniture and bed linens, he felt even more certain. '...in any case, the chance of dying from diarrhea is better than the certainty of dying from hunger'
As he looked around the room, his gaze once again fell on the painting of a white tiger. But unlike before, he could now fully understand what was written on it!
"My strength is as high as the roar of the White Tiger descending from the mountain..." He read aloud, still shocked that he could now perfectly understand the script that had been nothing more than indecipherable oriental markings to him a moment ago.
Honestly, he was starting to wonder if he hadn't just ended up in some kind of fantasy xianxia world because of this. But he quickly reasoned that it must be a result of the disorganized memories flooding his mind, or rather, the ones that remained in 'his' head from before he took over this body.
'Well, at least I'm even more sure this body belongs to a teenager.'
Walking to the front of his bed with these thoughts in his head, he fixed his gaze on the simple black rock he was about to examine before he fell to the floor as memories flooded his mind.
The rock was entirely black, with no lighter or darker spots, and had no lines, holes, irregularities, or markings on its surface, which appeared rocky to his eyes.
And apart from its perfect rectangular shape and mysterious dark color, there was absolutely nothing about it that distinguished it from an ordinary stone. Yet, every time his eyes landed on it, a strange feeling came over him.
The sensation could be described as a familiarity and attraction that was hard to put into words, compelling him to pick up the rock and try to open it, even though that made no sense.
But he didn't act, as a sense of fear built up in his chest, making him close his eyes tightly.
'For all intents and purposes, the original owner of this body is dead now that I'm here...' He put his hand on his chin, trying to think calmly at that moment. 'But was that the case before I transmigrated? Most likely, yes, since I was lying face down on the floor.'
Thinking this, he looked at the spot where he had woken up, then at the black rock on the bed before stepping back slightly.
'And if that's the case, this object could be the cause of of this mysterious death.'
Of course, a type of cursed object capable of killing a person like this is merely the stuff of folklore told by questionable-looking old man or fictional stories meant to entertain bored readers.
But after transmigrating into the body of another person he had never seen in his life, and additionally being able to read in a language he had never encountered before in just a moment, he wasn't so quick to dismiss the idea, no matter how improbable it seemed.
'If anything, the kind of stories about protagonists transmigrating into Chinese cultivation worlds are too common not to have at least some truth to them.'
This might seem like a completely illogical line of reasoning from an outside perspective, but given the unprecedented situation he found himself in, there wasn't much better logic to follow.
But one thing he was sure of was that until he confirmed whether this was truly a different magical world from his own or just the past, he wasn't going to risk tampering with the black stone without reason.
'The most efficient way to figure this out would be to talk to someone... but how will I ask my questions without raising suspicion?' He frowned, trying to figure out how to do this, when he realized he couldn't even remember anyone who might be acquainted with the former inhabitant of this body.
And even more, what if these people speak an Oriental language that he doesn't understand at all, or a language that isn't even from his world? Will the same thing that happened with the writings on the painting of the white tiger happen again, giving him the ability to speak the language of this place and preventing him from ending up in a helpless situation?
'Well... this makes things even harder—' He was interrupted mid-thought by the sound of a gentle knock on his bedroom door.
He felt his body tense up for a moment, his breath catching as his heart began to beat slightly faster.
Then, acting almost on instinct, he quickly grabbed the disheveled blankets on the bed and threw them over the black stone to cover it without drawing attention.
After doing this, he took a deep breath and massaged his head, trying to recall any relevant memories for this situation, but unfortunately, none came to him.
With that, he slowly walked to the door, trying to think quickly about what to say in this situation.
"Ah, who is it?... I'm coming," he said, trying to make his voice sound casual, but at that very moment, he found himself shocked because the words that instinctively came out of his mouth sounded exactly like Chinese. And not only that, he understood them perfectly.
Almost immediately, he received a response when a soft and delicate voice, clearly marked by age, came from behind the door. And just like his own words, he understood them completely, as if it were his native language that he had spoken all his life.
"It's me, young master. I came to check on you..." she said slowly, not seeming to be in a hurry, even pausing to catch her breath.
As he listened, he furrowed his brow, trying to remember to whom the gentle, aged voice belonged.
'Grandma Li... it must be her, right?' He frowned, and now that he heard the voice, he was able to recall to whom it belonged.
She was a short elderly lady, nearly eighty years old, with gray hair and a gentle smile that highlighted the wrinkles around her eyes as she walked with the help of a simple-looking cane.
He moved to open the door but didn't open it all the way, leaving it slightly ajar so that the room's interior, especially the bed, wasn't visible.
"I'm fine..." he said to the old lady, who looked exactly as he remembered, though with a slight expression of concern on her face.
Hearing this, she looked him up and down, then sighed helplessly, shaking her head slightly as her worried expression softened into a simple smile.
"I know the Awakening Ceremony will be tomorrow, and the all young members of the clan are on edge..." she said in such a calm and gentle way that he couldn't tell if she was reprimanding him and why, exactly, she was doing it. "...but caution and self-control are the most important skills for a strong and heroic Gu Master, as the young master Hei Tu is destined to be."
He remained silent for a second because, even though he completely understood the foreign language, it was still a weird experience for him to formulate a response to the question, given that he had never spoken the language before. Fortunately, Grandma Li didn't seem to be in any hurry, as she continued to look at him with a gentle smile on her wrinkled face.
"I will take that into consideration, Grandma Li..." after thinking a little he replied, filled with great doubt about what she meant by the Awakening Ceremony or Gu Master. However, he had no way to address these doubts without sounding extremely suspicious, so he remained silent on the matter.
But at that moment, one thing he was sure of, without needing to ask any questions, was that as memories surged back into his mind with force upon hearing her words, one thing became clear—now his name was Hei Tu!
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