Chapter 1

### Chapter 1: The Cuckoo in the Magpie's Nest

The sky was pitch black, and the suddenly gathered dark clouds seemed like a thick barrier covering the entire sky. The distant rumbling of thunder began to approach.

Although it was the rainy season of midsummer, such a thunderstorm was still quite rare.

*Boom...* Suddenly, a thunderclap exploded, and the wind and clouds surged. A blue-white lightning bolt suddenly streaked across the sky, connecting heaven and earth, illuminating everything in a blinding white light.

In the next moment, raindrops as large as beans began to pour down. In the blink of an eye, the entire world was enveloped in a mist of water vapor. When the dense raindrops poured into the room through the open window, the person who had been lying motionless on the bed finally woke up from the deepest "dream."

Wang Yue sat up abruptly from the bed, his eyes wide open, breathing heavily, and his hands clenched into fists so tightly that his muscles were taut, and his bones and joints made a series of sharp, rapid cracking sounds.

"Huh? Damn it, thinking about the past again...!"

A cool breeze blew in, and the splashing raindrops pattered on his face, invigorating him. After a moment of daze, he realized where he was, and he couldn't help but smile, his tense muscles gradually relaxing.

Without turning on the light, he walked barefoot to the window, allowing the rain to pour over him. Instantly, his clothes were drenched, and his burning heart suddenly calmed down.

Through the floor-to-ceiling glass window, the reflection of the young man in the mirror gave him a sense of youth and naivety, both unfamiliar and familiar. Standing at about 1.7 meters tall, neither too tall nor too short, he had dark eyebrows and narrow eyes. Though not handsome, he was very refined, clean, and fresh.

The only flaw was that the "former owner" of this body seemed to be someone who didn't like to exercise much. The muscles were loose and weak, and after just a few seconds of unconscious tension, a wave of soreness washed over him. Fortunately, he was still young, and his muscles and bones had not fully formed, so it wouldn't be too difficult to correct this.

The world outside had become a "marsh," with raindrops pattering down as if someone had torn a huge "hole" in the sky, forming a stream that flowed like the Milky Way, with occasional flashes of lightning and thunder that shook the windows.

The rainwater flowed down his clothes and onto the floor. Standing on the balcony, Wang Yue's eyes were unfocused, as if he was lost in deep memories as the rain grew heavier.

Countless images and people flooded his mind, a mix of joy and sorrow, gradually becoming more real. Scenes from his past, from his childhood, his youthful vigor, and the blood and tears of adulthood, all froze on a seven-foot-long, dark green ancient sword. If it weren't for this sword, he might still be in the "Wansha Alliance," as a high-ranking "Grand Mind Master."

He wanted to regret, but where could he find a pill for regret in this world?

He thought that when a person died, everything would be over. But after passing through the black hole, he somehow "lived" again in another form.

In the black hole, where even light could not escape, it was cold, dark, and painful. All tangible and intangible things, even thoughts and spirits, were shattered and merged into a chaotic void, which should have been the final end of life.

Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.

But at some point, his spiritual core began to awaken. Instinctively, he absorbed the stray energy, and in a daze, he vaguely saw himself attached to the sword, floating and sinking like a small boat in the black hole.

After an unknown amount of "time," his consciousness would sometimes wake up and sometimes fall asleep. Relying on the ancient sword, the power of the black hole seemed to have no effect on it. Eventually, he regained a complete "thought" in his spiritual core.

By then, it had been "hundreds of years" since he entered the black hole.

His thoughts slowly settled, and his consciousness fully awakened. The first step in starting over was taken, but the vast chaos had no direction. Without the constraints of a body, his spirit was eternal!

In the chaos, there was no concept of time. Although some theories suggested that black holes were the greatest mysteries of the universe's creation, they were just conjectures. When he truly experienced it, he realized that what he had once cared about and desired was ultimately an illusion.

Many things, when viewed from a different perspective, time, and place, were just that. Even matters of life and death, if you could let go, were not as difficult as they seemed. However, dying like this still left a sense of regret. If he hadn't touched the sword, the outcome would have been different.

Perhaps there was a great, transcendent will in the universe, and thus, an "accident" occurred. One day, the chaos collapsed, and space began to layer and fold, like a piece of paper being continuously folded until it formed a point, a singularity that was almost nothing but truly existed.

This singularity had infinite mass, infinite density, and an infinitesimal volume. All the laws of space and time were destroyed and reformed in its presence. After accumulating and brewing, it exploded in an instant.

(Here, it should be noted that there is no concept of time in a black hole. The mention of black hole time is for the convenience of the narrative.)

As some genius physicists had theorized thousands of years ago, this explosion was silent, sweeping from a point to the entire void, with countless matter and energy being ejected at the speed of light. Among them was the sword he was attached to. In it, he only felt a beam of light, an endless light.

When the light slowly faded, a long journey awaited him. Endless darkness, his main consciousness naturally sleeping and waking, then sleeping again, and waking again. All his memories were a constant darkness and distant stars.

After an unknown amount of time, perhaps a year or a thousand years, when he had already become numb, one day, when he woke up again, a flood of memories overwhelmed him.

This world clearly followed a path of technological civilization but was still somewhat "lagging." It was roughly equivalent to the 1950s and 1960s of Earth's "Common Era." Industrial development was just beginning, with planes, cars, televisions, computers, and various explosive weapons. However, these had not yet developed to the point of breaking through the planet, and technological innovation was still limited to the thick atmosphere.

Fortunately, the only thing that gave Wang Yue some comfort was that even with a new identity as a 16-17-year-old boy, his name was still "Wang Yue," unchanged. His eyes were still black, his skin yellow, and his hair black. Although his nose was slightly higher and his eye sockets slightly sunken, he still maintained an Eastern appearance, fitting his aesthetic.

His current "parents" were ordinary government employees, working from nine to five with moderate income. He had a mixed-race sister named "Angel," born to his father "Wang Chaozong" with another wife after he came to this country.

The living environment was somewhat similar to that of European and American countries on Earth, with a significant number of people of color, but whites were clearly the majority, making it a predominantly white nation.

Memories that did not belong to him flowed naturally, like a black-and-white silent film. Despite having reviewed these memories many times, they still felt foreign.

But no matter how foreign and unacceptable, what could he do? He had become the current Wang Yue, and the clear memories told him he was no longer the same person.

After all, worlds were different, and a new beginning awaited him.

This was an unchangeable reality.

And there was much more...

As he recalled, the rain outside gradually subsided. The fresh morning air blowing in through the window was cool and refreshing. The cool breeze cleared his mind, and when he looked through the sparse raindrops on the eaves, he realized it was already dawn. He had stood there all night without realizing it.

Integrating two sets of memories was far more difficult than he had imagined.

The universe was vast and boundless, and it was impossible for Earth to be the only world. In his original era, even though humans had long left the Milky Way, they still knew and understood only a tiny fraction of the vast universe.

For example, he could easily accept the result of traveling through a black hole to another world, but he instinctively doubted and resisted the idea of becoming a completely different person. From the most advanced time dimension theories to the ancient Big Bang theory, what happened to him was almost inexplicable. Instead, some primitive religions on Earth had some descriptions of such phenomena.

If Wang Yue remembered correctly, his situation was called "descent" in Western religions, and in Eastern Taoism, it was vividly described as "occupying a body," or "the cuckoo in the magpie's nest," meaning occupying someone else's "territory" when the owner was away.

"Qinglian, come forth!"

As he spoke, a hand outstretched, and a green light suddenly bloomed. The light was pure and clear, like water, and as it appeared, it seemed like a tiny lotus seed sprouted in his palm. It grew rapidly, and in the blink of an eye, the light spread out, forming a fist-sized, blooming green lotus.

In the center of the lotus, a sword emerged. The sword was covered with intricate, tadpole-like patterns, and a faint, flowing light enveloped it, connecting the inside and outside. However, the light was dim, just a thin layer on the sword, indicating that the unknown sword had suffered significant damage and consumption in the black hole.

Although he still didn't know the name or origin of the sword, during the long journey through the universe, Wang Yue's consciousness had always been intertwined with it. After being integrated by the mysterious forces inside the black hole, some unknown changes had occurred. After Wang Yue regained consciousness, the sword "parasitized" within his body.

As for how he became this young man, Wang Yue didn't know. But after three days of memory integration, these details were no longer as important.

What mattered was that he was alive again, and that was enough for him.

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