Chapter 1 of 10
Chapter 1
8 min read2,077 words
A piercing pain jolted Li Qingyun awake from his unconscious state. He used all his strength to open his eyes. The worried, tense, and mixed emotions on his parents' faces appeared through the slits of his eyelids, and he faintly heard their cries.
"Awake, awake, our child is awake, doctor, come and check on us..."
The sound of chaotic footsteps made Li Qingyun's mind momentarily dazed.
"Where am I? What happened to me?" He couldn't think much, only hearing a loud ringing in his ears, his head spinning, and scenes from the past flashing through his mind.
Then, he fell back into unconsciousness.
After graduating, Li Qingyun worked as a programmer at a medium-sized software company in Yunhuang City, mainly focusing on website design and backend program maintenance. On his way back from a business trip, he encountered a landslide. The company's business car collided with a large rock in the middle of the road, causing a severe accident.
His subsequent memories were a blank. He seemed to have struggled to crawl out of the deformed car, or perhaps been hit by falling rocks from the top of the mountain, or even buried by something, suffocating in the darkness.
When he regained consciousness again, he heard his parents chatting with the nurse who was changing his bandages. They said he was very fortunate, with an extraordinary healing ability. His left hand, which had been mangled by the rocks and was thought to be beyond saving, had even been considered for amputation. But unexpectedly, it had already scabbed over. As long as he woke up, he could be discharged.
Left hand? Amputation? Already healed? Li Qingyun frowned slightly. After the nurse mentioned it, he noticed something abnormal on his left wrist, a mix of pain and tingling, as if something foreign had grown into the flesh.
Hmm? Focusing on his left wrist, his body suddenly trembled. A stone-like object exerted a tremendous suction force, drawing something extremely important out of his body.
Before he could think more, he found himself in a misty space, floating in mid-air. Below him was a black field, about three to four acres in size, with a misty pond in the center. The water surface was smooth like a mirror, mysterious and serene.
"Where is this place? What happened to me? Am I already dead?" Thinking this, Li Qingyun's pale cheeks turned even paler, and he couldn't help but look around.
This small world was dim and dark, with nothing visible except the ground and the pond.
"Is this real ground? Is this real water?" With a thought, he instantly appeared on the black land, bent down, and grabbed a handful of soil. It had weight and the fragrance of fertile soil, everything felt real.
Then he went to the pond. Due to losing control of his speed, he rushed to the center of the pond with a swoosh. He was startled and let out a scream, thinking he would fall into the pond, but found himself floating on the surface.
"This..." Li Qingyun was stunned. The long hours of programming had made his mind somewhat rigid. "It must be a dream, definitely a dream. Dream, create a goddess for me to worship!"
No response! The space remained silent, still lifeless and soundless.
"Wrong, it must be the wrong spell. Say it again, dream, let the goddess appear to greet me!"
"Still wrong? Try another one. Goddess, if you don't come out, I'll leave!"
Whoosh! The perspective shifted, and "himself" returned to a familiar body, his own body. He suddenly opened his eyes and lifted his left hand. It was wrapped in bandages like a mummy, and he couldn't see anything.
Using too much force, he winced in pain: "Ouch! What's going on?"
"Son, are you really awake? Don't move around, don't faint again like last time. I'll go call the doctor." Without waiting for Li Qingyun to respond, Chen Xiuzhi hurried out of the ward, shouting for the doctor and nurses.
Seeing his mother's anxious and joyful figure, he gradually felt at ease, realizing that this was the real world, and dreams were the worst.
He habitually looked around the environment and found that this was an intensive care unit. There was a call button by the bed, but his mother, a farmer from the mountains, clearly didn't understand it, so she had run out to call the medical staff.
Given their family's financial situation, they couldn't afford this ward, so it must have been the company's accident insurance that helped. There were a few boxes of nutritional supplements and two fruit baskets on the table, indicating that someone had visited him.
As a programmer, he didn't have many real-life friends, so he was satisfied that a few people had visited him. He remembered that there were five people in the car, including the driver, when the accident happened, and he wondered about the others' conditions. Just as he was looking for his phone, his mother returned with the doctor, who seemed to be scolding her.
The usually strong-willed Chen Xiuzhi didn't argue, meekly agreeing and saying flattering words, only hoping the doctor would quickly examine her son.
Seeing his mother, whose temples were already gray from hard work, Li Qingyun's eyes moistened. No matter how upset he was with the doctor's attitude, he knew it wasn't the time to throw a tantrum, as it would make things harder for his mother.
Since high school, he had seen his mother less and less. Unconsciously, his parents had aged, and he had yet to fulfill his filial duties. He wasn't a qualified son and decided to spend more time with his parents in the future.
After the examination, Li Qingyun's body was found to be in no serious condition, and he was transferred to a general ward. He originally wanted to be discharged directly, but his mother insisted on further observation.
This general ward was a four-bed room, somewhat noisy, but the atmosphere was quite good. Seeing Li Qingyun out of danger, his mother finally smiled and told him about the events during his coma.
At the time, five people were in the car, three of whom died. Li Qingyun and another technician were severely injured. The difference was that Li Qingyun, after being rescued, did not have to be amputated and had recovered to a basic level of health. The other severely injured person had both legs amputated and was still in a coma, possibly becoming a vegetative state, according to the doctor.
Another matter made Li Qingyun feel both heavy-hearted and angry. During his coma, the company handed him over to the insurance company and did not send anyone to visit him. A few days ago, upon learning that his arm could not recover quickly, they even fired him.
Seeing her son unhappy, Chen Xiuzhi quickly comforted him: "Such a dangerous job, if they don't want you to do it, we don't need it. Look how thin you've become; it makes me sad. It takes a hundred days to heal from a serious injury, so it's a good opportunity to go back to the village and rest. Oh, right, the company's manager said they've already transferred your last month's salary and bonus to your card. They also gave you 20,000 yuan for nutrition and had me sign some agreement."
"Mom, don't worry, I'm fine. I just feel the company isn't fair, bullying honest people. Oh, forget it, let's wait until I recover. Let's discharge me tomorrow. The spring farming is busy at home, and Dad can't manage alone."
Realizing the agreement had already been signed, he didn't mention it to avoid worrying his mother, knowing he had been fired by the company.
Listening to his mother's chatter about recent events, he learned that his father had returned home two days ago, and the spring farming was in full swing. He couldn't afford to stay in the city any longer.
His phone had been destroyed in the accident, and he could only contact his friends through his SIM card. Despite his mother's objections, he was discharged the next day. The insurance company sent someone to handle the related expenses, and they all went their separate ways.
Li Qingyun was eager to return home, mainly to experiment with the mysterious space. Since there was land, he wanted to plant crops. No matter how many years he had lived in the big city, he was still a farmer's son, a so-called second-generation farmer.
He rented a one-bedroom apartment in Yunhuang City with a small balcony and kitchen. The small balcony was filled with flowers, garlic sprouts, and scallions, and even two ginseng plants. In the corner, there was a glass fish tank with three goldfish, which were almost dead, floating listlessly.
The living room and bedroom were messy, with a few pieces of women's clothing, but Chen Xiuzhi selectively ignored them, tidying up and throwing the women's clothes into a garbage bag. After being hospitalized for ten days, no one had visited or even called, so such a woman was not worth keeping.
Li Qingyun secretly smiled bitterly. Regarding his relationship with Qin Yao, he couldn't say who was right or wrong. They had been arguing about breaking up before the accident, and now he was just accepting the reality. She had already taken the important clothes, and the remaining ones were outdated and unwanted.
"Son, go lie down in the room. I'll finish tidying up and then make dinner," Chen Xiuzhi called out while tidying up.
"Mom, it's fine. I only injured my arm; my body and legs are fine. I've been in the hospital for ten days, and my bones feel like they're falling apart."
If he had known he would be hit by falling rocks when he crawled out of the car, he would have stayed inside. But... fortune and misfortune come together. If he hadn't come out, how would he have gained the mysterious space on his wrist?
Thinking of this, he couldn't suppress his excitement. Standing by the fish tank, he focused his mind on the strange object in his left wrist. His mind trembled, and his soul was sucked away, reappearing in the misty space.
"How can I bring the little goldfish from the fish tank into the space pond?" His mind thought of the goldfish in the real world, and his soul-like self instantly appeared in the fish tank, using a strange energy to wrap around two goldfish, and then returned to the mysterious space.
Plop! The two goldfish were thrown into the pond. The half-dead goldfish suddenly became lively, swimming happily and excitedly blowing bubbles, no longer flipping over.
"This..." Li Qingyun was stunned for a moment, recalling the process of bringing the goldfish into the mysterious space, which seemed to be completed with a single thought. Afterward, he felt mentally exhausted.
To familiarize himself with the process, he set his target on two pots of ginseng in a dark corner. The ginseng had only grown for a year, bought from Taobao, with only two surviving out of a dozen. The one-year-old ginseng had a three-leaf compound leaf, but due to poor nutrition in the pot, it was fragile and seemed about to wither.
Swoosh! Swoosh! Li Qingyun was very vigorous, moving the clay pots with the ginseng into the mysterious space. As soon as the ginseng pots landed on the black land, he felt dizzy and almost fainted.
The illusory figure in the space, like his real body, sat weakly on the black land, wiping the sweat from his face, which was like a paste. The sweat was abnormally pungent and had a sour smell. Helplessly, he controlled a bit of water from the pond to rinse himself.
Splash! The cold, refreshing water made him shiver, and all the unpleasant odors and fatigue quickly disappeared. This water was like a divine elixir!
A bath had such a great effect, he wondered what would happen if he drank it. Thinking of this, he wanted to try, but no matter how he tried to drink it, he couldn't. Facing the elixir, his illusory soul was like a leaky sieve.
"Can't drink it or can't drink it? Forget it, let's plant the ginseng first, then bring the elixir to the outside world and see if I can drink it." With this wish, Li Qingyun planted the ginseng in the black land.
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