Chapter 1: The Return of My Sister

The rapid roar of tires grinding against the concrete echoed ceaselessly along the street outside the window. As the silent night deepened, Mo Jiang sat in a daze, staring at the faint, barely perceptible moonlight at the window, his expression odd and unsettled.

His gaze drifted to several items resting on his bedside desk—a sharp knife and a bottle of Carloch Ifura solution. The name was a bit of a tongue-twister and awkward to pronounce, but its effects were deeply disturbing.

Illusions and exhilaration.

It was obviously a narcotic.

Why such things would be at his bedside, Mo Jiang already understood, having just sorted through his own memories.

He had transmigrated—or perhaps, more precisely, been reborn.

His new family was exceedingly well-off, and he even had a fiancée to whom he was betrothed from an early age. This fiancée was also quite beautiful, and after several meetings, she had begun to accept him.

Everything seemed perfect—a life of unblemished privilege. Yet Mo Jiang found his situation rather awkward.

The problem was not that he was an illegitimate child, nor that he wasn’t even his father’s biological son, but rather… he had fallen for his own blood sister.

The thought might have seemed thrilling in moments of depraved fantasy, but in reality, it was excruciatingly awkward.

Worse still, his sister, Mo Qingqing, had died under mysterious circumstances just a few days ago.

Her death had occurred after their relationship had come to light.

“Fortunately, I transmigrated just in time—one moment later, and my first act here would have been to save myself or go into detox,” Mo Jiang muttered in relief.

The reason he could inhabit the body of someone with his same name was that this individual had already lost the will to live, intending to take his own life in a frenzy brought on by the Carloch Ifura solution.

So Mo Jiang’s passage into this body had been remarkably smooth.

“But what should I do? After all…” Mo Jiang tossed and turned, unable to sleep for myriad reasons: the confusion of recent rebirth, the mysterious death of Mo Qingqing, the lingering memories in this body…

Yet the most critical reason was something else—an inexplicable sensation.

“Damn it, why does Mo Qingqing keep surfacing in my mind?”

Mo Jiang struggled upright, sweat beading on his brow. Suddenly, his vision blurred—the night grew hazy, and the moonlight filtering in took on a pixelated, ambiguous quality.

But instead of feeling enchanted, Mo Jiang was seized by terror. He realized he had gone blind; his world was engulfed in darkness with no colors to be seen. All he could hear was the pounding on his door—knock, knock, knock.

The knocking was slow, as if the one outside was on the verge of collapse, with no strength to spare.

And the person only knocked, never uttering a sound.

Mo Jiang’s mind was a chaotic mess. He wondered if he had stumbled into something truly sinister.

After a moment’s struggle, Mo Jiang spoke out, “Is that you, Qingqing?”

“It’s me, brother. I’ve come,” a soft, clear girl’s voice, as crisp as jade beads tumbling, sounded behind him, sending chills racing down his spine.

“Brother, I’ve missed you so much,” the girl continued.

Mo Jiang’s scalp prickled with fear.

If he really were that deranged man, he might have happily reached for the knife to end his life, hoping to follow Mo Qingqing in death.

But he was not, and from beginning to end, all he felt was terror.

“Brother, don’t you miss me?” the girl’s voice persisted.

Mo Jiang tensed, thinking that in every melodrama, the next words would almost certainly be: “Then go die!”

“Then, I won’t scare you anymore,” the girl said.

In an instant, Mo Jiang’s vision returned. The sight of the murky moonlight made him feel as though he’d just survived a brush with death.

“Muddy?” he muttered, startled. He realized the moonlight was indeed dim, dull, like the glow of a dying candle.

“What’s going on?”

He blurted out the question, then caught himself, realizing he was just jumping at shadows.

He rubbed his eyes, knowing sleep would not come. After a moment’s thought, he tossed the bottle of Carloch Ifura into the trash, though he kept the knife—perhaps it would serve as a fruit knife someday.

Lying on his back in bed, Mo Jiang marveled at the size of his own heart—he’d just seen a ghost, yet could remain so composed.

“Maybe it’s because I already died once; this life feels like a bonus… And besides, that really was her, wasn’t it?” Mo Jiang murmured. His mind was crowded with images of that girl—her face, her figure, her smile, her tears, her mischief…

A torrent of memories surged, giving him a splitting headache. Unable to endure it, he got up, seeking medicine.

“There’s a pharmacy downstairs, there should be something,” Mo Jiang thought as he walked to the door. Reaching for the handle, he was surprised by its icy chill—it sent a shiver through him.

“Am I coming down with something?” he wondered, thinking nothing of it. He opened the door, and a gust of cold wind elicited a yawn. Drowsily, he stepped out. After only a few steps, the sky abruptly brightened.

Mo Jiang’s eyes widened. He whirled around, only to find a blank wall behind him—nothing but a window.

The window frame was old, paint peeling to reveal worm-eaten holes. The grimy glass was cracked and webbed with a spider’s web—though the spider had long since withered away, wrapped in dust.

Outside the window stood a pomegranate tree, lush and green, though there wasn’t a single pomegranate to be seen. Instead, the branches were festooned with wriggling white caterpillars.

Beside the tree sat a minivan, and atop the van perched a chicken, swaying as it pecked caterpillars from the tree.

It all seemed perfectly ordinary.

But just seconds before, Mo Jiang had not been in this seemingly rural house!

He looked around, baffled and uneasy, then froze.

Mo Jiang had spotted a corpse.

It was a withered body slumped over a battered old computer. The machine was still on, though its screen was dark.

After a moment’s hesitation, Mo Jiang prodded the mouse with his foot. The monitor flickered to life, and after a moment, a software window popped up—a note-taking program, judging by the text on the screen, containing a chapter of a novel, a tale of fantasy.

It told of a world ruled by a young witch, filled with bizarre absurdities.

“A web novelist? Died pitifully—no one even bothered to collect the body.”

Mo Jiang’s gaze drifted back to the corpse. Dried to a husk, it was curled up so tightly its features were unrecognizable.

He took a deep breath—the air was thick with a heavy, putrid stench that made him ill.

“Where is this place?” he murmured, staring at the window again. The minivan was still there, the chicken still eating caterpillars.

Nothing had changed.

“No, something’s wrong!” Suddenly, Mo Jiang whipped his head around.