Chapter One: Bai Tangjing's Fate Reading

“You little brat! How did you get yourself this filthy? Always making trouble for others!” An irate scolding in Japanese rang out by his ear.

What’s this? Scolding me right off the bat?

But before the newly reborn traveler could react, a large hand seized his slender arm with irresistible force and dragged him into the bathroom.

The showerhead was turned to full blast, and the torrent of water poured over him as though washing livestock. Reflected in the bathroom mirror, he could see the boy being handled and scrubbed like a rag doll by his foster mother.

No matter how his body was turned or scrubbed, his eyes remained fixed, vacant, staring into the mirror. After all, any twenty-something adult suddenly finding themselves in the body of a child not yet ten would be struck by bewilderment and alarm at their new form.

The boy in the mirror had delicate features, but there was a softness, almost a weakness, between his brows. The muddy footprints and filth smeared across him were clear traces of bullying from his peers.

Enduring the constant scolding, he was finally sent back to his room and made to lie on his bed before his senses slowly returned. Still dazed, the boy noticed a name tag on the schoolbag beside him.

“Shirado Kagami, second grade... only eight years old?” Perhaps due to the melding of souls, the former youth of the Republic could now read Japanese fluently.

He nodded at the name on the bag. “Not bad—a name that rolls off the tongue in both Chinese and Japanese.”

Now settled in this unfamiliar place, the newly reborn Shirado Kagami gradually shed his initial panic. The delicate little boy began to explore the room with growing curiosity, gathering information from his textbooks and scraps of newspaper found inside his bag.

“So, it’s still Japan, the era name is still Heisei. Heisei 20... that’s 2008, right?” His childish voice murmured to himself amid the slightly messy room.

Holding a newspaper, a series of classic ideas burst forth in his young mind.

Write songs! Write novels! Make movies!

Save money to buy stocks! Buy Moutai! Buy Tesla! Dive into cryptocurrency!

For someone from the future, the world of 2008 was a land paved with gold!

Shirado Kagami’s clear, childlike eyes sparkled with excitement. He could almost see bundles of cash waiting for him to carry them away!

So what if he came from the countryside?

So what if this body was orphaned?

So what if his foster parents only adopted him for the government subsidy?

Things that might seem tragic or painful to an ordinary person meant nothing to this newly reborn traveler. As long as he could save up money over a few years and invest it in the wondrous financial markets, the tidal wave of cash would be enough to drown his little frame.

With money, isn’t anywhere in the world a paradise?

~~~~~~

While Shirado Kagami was lost in fantasies of traveling the globe, spending freely, surrounded by beauties from every nation and indulging in a life of endless pleasure, a ripple arose deep within his consciousness.

Before he could react, it was as if an old black-and-white film had invaded reality—the world turned gray, colors bled away, and all motion ceased.

Only the little boy in the center of the room remained vivid.

“What... is this?”

Shirado Kagami’s delicate face froze in fear. Faced with a darkness that seemed ready to devour the world, his legs went weak and he stumbled back, collapsing to the floor.

The mutation was not over. A gentle, mysterious light began to shine through the floor, growing ever brighter. Yet no matter how intense the glow became, it did not hurt his young eyes at all.

When he looked down toward the source, the floor had vanished.

What he saw was a boundless sea of radiant orbs, endless as the desert or the ocean!

Faced with this infinite ocean of light, Shirado Kagami stared blankly, dwarfed like a speck of dust.

Then, as if by instinct, he extended his hand, palm-down. A crystalline, translucent fishhook, attached to a matching line, emerged from his palm and descended into the sea of light.

The drop was neither long nor short, and by the time it finished, Shirado Kagami’s shock had finally subsided.

His eyes followed the hook and line, his face alight with excitement.

“Down there... could it really be the Sea of Dimensions?”

His small body trembled with excitement. Being reborn into 2008 was already an incredible stroke of luck; the life he’d always dreamed of was now within reach. And now, he discovered he hadn’t just been reborn—he’d brought with him a golden cheat, the ability to fish objects from the endless dimensions.

Even “heavenly luck” couldn’t describe Shirado Kagami’s joy!

A faint tug came from his palm, and the line that had been descending now stopped.

“Is this as far as the line goes?” he muttered, seeing that the hook nearly reached a larger orb but fell just short.

He kicked his little legs in vain, but in the void, movement was impossible.

After struggling for a while, he sighed and gave up, then laughed at his own greed.

This beginning was already the best of the best. Besides, he had no idea what the size of the orbs represented. If he still complained, he’d truly be insatiable.

He cast the hook, catching a relatively large orb.

“As expected, I prefer the big ones,” he grinned.

The moment the hook snagged the orb, everything went black.

When he came to, he was standing right where he’d been, newspaper still in hand.

Nothing in the room had changed; even his panic-stricken movements seemed never to have happened.

Shirado Kagami almost believed it had all been a fever dream brought on by the ecstasy of reincarnation.

…If not for the sheet of paper that had appeared in his hand.

With a rustle, the newspaper he’d worked so hard to find was tossed aside.

Excited, the boy spread the page retrieved from the Sea of Dimensions across his desk.

“Come on, come on! No fisherman’s first catch is ever a blank!” he declared, pulling out his chair and sitting down with great ceremony.

Holding the corners of the paper, he slowly unfolded it.

“What will it be? A manual of supreme martial arts? A secret elixir recipe?”

A smile of anticipation curled on Shirado Kagami’s lips, his eyes brimming with curiosity.

But as the paper was fully revealed, a blood-red, archaic character leapt out at him, chilling him to the bone as if doused with cold water.

On the paper, written in a hand reeking of blood, was a single word—Calamity!

“Honored Senior,

This junior does not know what mighty being you are, to locate me across ten thousand miles with but a thought and send me this message, commanding me to divine your fate.

Your cultivation must be unfathomable—surely beyond all legends of the martial world. I dare not refuse.

Yet, the danger in your divination is the greatest I have ever seen in my life... no, it’s beyond any divination for a mere person!

It resembles the fate of heaven and earth itself! Even with your godlike power, before such a fate, you are but a moth in a web—with no escape!

There is nothing more I can say. How can one as insignificant as I comment on the fate of heaven and earth?

But I see the land torn by war! The world a prison of flames!

Honored Senior, this is utterly at odds with all my previous readings of fate!

…I think I finally know where you come from. Perhaps, beyond the heavens?

I can only hope… we never meet again in this life.

Respectfully,
Mud Buddha”

Mud Buddha, the diviner from the world of “Storm Riders,” famed in a world where martial might ruled, for his terrifying powers of prophecy!

It is said that when Cangjie first created the written word, the first character was cursed by all gods and devils in the heavens and earth, imbuing it with boundless power. In the instant he saw that character, all secrets of the past and future, of the three realms and six paths, were revealed to him. Cangjie recorded that character and the truths he’d glimpsed in the “Heaven’s Lament Sutra.”

Mud Buddha’s prophetic abilities, so abhorrent to heaven and earth, were born from this.

The boy hunched over his desk, staring fixedly at the blood-red letter, the terror and sorrow so intense in the writing it nearly leapt from the page!

Reincarnation was not frightening, nor was it terrifying to cross over with a golden finger.

What was terrifying was that on the very first day, a master of fate from a high-martial world had seen through his origins and bluntly told him—I've divined it; prepare to die!

God only knew what kind of horrific future could frighten Mud Buddha, when in his world, entire cities were not uncommonly wiped out!

And so, he did not sleep that night.

His own future, the world’s future, all soaked in a blood-red omen of calamity!

When a scene straight out of a game or anime comes true in your life, it’s as if a cold, giant hand has seized your heart and lungs.

It is a suffocating, incomparable agony.

Before dawn, while the sun still hid below the horizon, Shirado Kagami remained at his desk, unmoving, eyes fixed on the blood-red letter.

At last, he stood and let out a long breath.

“Mud Buddha’s skill is evident from this letter—it can’t be a fake,” he said.

Watching the sun slowly climb into the sky, the boy, sentenced by fate to death with reprieve, clenched his fists.

That morning, elementary schooler Shirado Kagami did not go to class—for the first time in both his lives, he played truant.

Eyes bloodshot, he made his way to the nearest dojo.

“Please! Help me become stronger!”