Chapter One: Reborn on the Dragon Martial Continent

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Huaxia Nation, Jiangzhou City, Earth

Night had just fallen. It was the evening rush hour, and the roads were teeming with cars and streams of passersby, just like any other day.

In an inconspicuous bar by the roadside, in a shadowed corner, sat a young man who drew no attention.

His name was Lin Yanghao. If one looked closely, they would see the weariness etched across his face and a faint trace of sorrow between his brows.

He drank glass after glass, his mind sinking into a haze.

Head bowed, his eyes unfocused, he let the swirling colors of wine, the blaring music, and the wild, entranced dancers around him blur into a numbing oblivion. The alcohol dulled the pressure of life, washed away memories that once cut deep, and numbed the pain that lingered in the depths of his heart…

Lin Yanghao had just graduated from university. In only a month, he had tasted the harsh realities and cruelties of society. If that wasn’t enough, the woman he loved, He Fang, had also left him.

“Hey, kid, get out of the way for your betters!” A jarring voice broke through his stupor.

Lin Yanghao looked up. A few street thugs stood before him. He glanced at them indifferently and looked away.

“Are you deaf, you little punk? If you don’t move, we’ll teach you a lesson you won’t forget!” Their pride wounded by his disregard, the thugs grew irate.

Seeing Lin Yanghao unmoved, they surrounded him.

Tonight, they would make this reckless boy learn just who he was dealing with.

There were others in the bar who noticed the commotion, but none intervened. No one cared to stop the thugs.

Lin Yanghao gave a bitter laugh, sighing at the cold indifference of the world.

He faced his assailants without fear. What was left in this world that he couldn’t let go of?

As the saying goes, the weak fear the ruthless, and the ruthless fear those who fear nothing. Tonight, he would be the one with nothing to lose.

Perhaps there was truth in the saying: “Alcohol gives cowards courage.”

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Lin Yanghao stood at about one meter eighty, with a sturdy build, so he held his own against the thugs.

“Boss, this guy’s gone nuts!” One of them began to falter, shaken by Lin Yanghao’s reckless ferocity.

“What are you scared of? No matter how tough he is, he’s only one man! Haven’t you heard the saying, ‘two fists can’t beat four hands’?” At the boss’s words, the others pressed the attack.

But inevitably, Lin Yanghao was just one man. After several exchanges, his stamina began to fail.

“Don’t move! Police!” A thunderous voice rang out. The bartender had already called the authorities.

The thugs’ faces blanched, sweat pouring down. Their fear was palpable.

These weren’t ordinary street punks; each was already wanted for crimes. If caught, years—perhaps decades—behind bars awaited them. No wonder they panicked.

“Die, all of you!” Lin Yanghao, sobered somewhat by the brawl, was still too dazed to hear the police. Unaware, he charged the thugs again, heedless of the consequences.

With a sickening sound, one of the thugs drove a knife into Lin Yanghao’s chest.

Despairing, cornered, the thugs had chosen death over prison—and to take Lin Yanghao with them.

Blood spurted from his mouth. Only then did Lin Yanghao realize he’d gone too far—staked his very life. But it was already too late.

Soon, his consciousness faded, and he collapsed.

...

Dragon Martial Continent

Lin Yanghao opened his eyes and gazed at the antique, unfamiliar yet strangely familiar room around him. A wry, bitter smile crept onto his lips.

“So I survived after all,” he muttered inwardly, his bitterness giving way to a trace of joy.

“Getting drunk really does lead to disaster. In my past life, I actually died at the hands of a few thugs because of it!” He couldn’t help but feel wretched at his fate, dying so senselessly.

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“I, Lin Yanghao, since Heaven has granted me rebirth in this place, will live this life with thunderous grandeur. All that is past will remain in the past. I will never again live timidly as I once did. The old Lin Yanghao is dead. The new Lin Yanghao will make his mark in this world!”

He had crossed over—reborn into a world that defied all he once knew, the Dragon Martial Continent. When he first realized this, he was delighted, eager to use his knowledge to build something great.

But his joy was short-lived. Surveying the filthy thatched hut and feeling the itch of mosquito bites, it was clear this was no place of privilege.

In that moment, Lin Yanghao thought with bitter self-mockery: “There can’t be a transmigrator more miserable than me.”

The body’s previous owner had been born into poverty—anyone could see that from the house. Lin Yanghao might have accepted being poor, but why did he have to be an orphan too? How could someone start a new life under such conditions?

In his past life, Lin Yanghao had been an orphan as well. When he was five, his parents took him on a trip. On the way home, a truck crashed into their car. His parents died in that accident; only he survived.

From then on, he lived with his grandmother, the only family he had left, until she too passed away when he was fifteen. He became a true orphan.

Lin Yanghao had been a citizen of Huaxia Nation in the twenty-first century—a country where web novels flourished. He had read many of them.

He thought, “Why am I so unlucky? Other transmigrators become heirs to wealthy clans or at least minor noble houses. Even if I can’t have that, could I at least have parents? Yet here I am, once more an orphan! Am I fated to be forever alone?”

“Ah—ah—” Just as Lin Yanghao was lamenting his lot, fragments of memory flooded his mind, nearly splitting his head with pain until he lost consciousness.

When he awoke, it was already the next day. Through the memories of this body, he learned much: This land was called the Dragon Martial Continent, where martial artists existed, and where rumors spoke of even more mysterious and powerful cultivators, though none had ever seen one.

He reasoned that immortals were beings beyond the mortal realm; such people could not be encountered by ordinary folk.

He discovered that this body also belonged to someone named Lin Yanghao—but this Lin Yanghao was only twelve, while he had previously been twenty-four.

He gave a rueful laugh but soon let it go. He was alive—what more could he ask for?