Transmigration / Supernatural Revival / Urban Cultivation / System / Overworked Office Worker Protagonist / Longhu Mountain / Lighthearted Banter / Horror and Suspense
Chen Yuan, twenty-seven, a former overworked internet-company employee, died after a late-night shift when an electric scooter riding against traffic sent him flying as he went to buy a midnight snack.
When he opened his eyes again, he had transmigrated into the body of a menial disciple who had been kicked out of Longhu Mountain. After three years of Qi refinement, he had accomplished nothing, and had just fallen to his death in a ravine after coming down the mountain. The good news was that he had taken over this body just in time. The bad news was that supernatural phenomena were beginning to run rampant in this world.
One notification after another popped up on his phone: knocking at the door in the dead of night, an unexplained figure in an underground parking garage, and the authorities officially acknowledging “unexplained phenomena” for the first time. He also found an old camphorwood plaque in his pocket, carved with the character “Pardon,” with a walkie-talkie pictured on the back. System notification: Interdimensional Walkie-Talkie bound. New user guide activated.
Supernatural threats ahead, the apocalypse behind. Other cultivators relied on hard training; he cultivated by going to work. He joined the Supernatural Management Bureau as an information-department clerk and trainee on the action team. By day, he dug through files and wrote reports. By night, he went down into wells to fight puppet bones. Other cultivators recited one mantra a day; he drank three cups of instant coffee.
Chen Yuan was best at two things in this life: staying alive and pretending he was doing fine.
Then he discovered that the wells beneath the city could move, and that the things inside them recognized people. First came the heat source in the north of the city, then the dye-house alley in the west, and then the square well beneath the old waterworks, sealed shut with concrete. The puppet bones were growing, and the Yin leyline was awakening. And at some point, a character had appeared on his ankle. The exact same character as on the wooden plaque:
Pardon.
System, supernatural phenomena, transmigration, cultivation, the Interdimensional Walkie-Talkie: one label after another came crashing down. All Chen Yuan wanted to say was, “Can I please stop showing up for this lousy job?”
