Cracked mud walls. The dim flicker of an oil lamp.

A small bed draped in faded red cloth, reeking of rotting wood.

Shen Yi stared at his surroundings in a daze. No matter how long he stood there, he couldn’t accept the reality — he had transmigrated into the body of a lowly constable in Baiyun County.

But everything around him was undeniably real.

And the fragmented memories in his head were growing clearer by the second.

A world thrown into chaos by demons and evil spirits. A world crawling with malevolent creatures.

His predecessor had been a street thug — a man who’d clawed his way up from the very bottom until he finally managed to get himself a constable’s uniform. Food on the table, a roof over his head. Inspiring, on paper.

So why had he suddenly ended up dead?

The moment that thought crossed his mind, a dull, inexplicable pain bloomed at the back of Shen Yi’s skull.

He reached back to touch it — and his hand came away soaked in blood.

The glaring crimson seeping between his fingers was like a switch being thrown. In an instant, the foggy, hungover haze lifted, and a wave of sharp, overwhelming pain crashed over him.

“Hnngh—!”

His eyes flew open. Ragged, rapid breaths tore from his throat.

He looked down.

Crouched at the foot of the bed was a scrawny young girl, her face white with terror, fingers knotted into the fabric of her underclothes.

Beside her stood a hunched old man in a coat more patch than cloth, his frail body trembling violently. In his shaking hands was a wooden club — and from its tip, blood dripped steadily onto the floor.

The two of them stared at him with the wide, hollow eyes of people looking at something monstrous. Desperate. Terrified.

“I was just going to say—”

Shen Yi clenched his jaw. The throbbing pain was cranking his irritation to dangerous levels, and it was all he could do to keep from snapping.

He locked eyes with the old man, about to tell him to put the damn stick down.

Then the girl moved.

Without warning, she started frantically yanking at what little remained of her underclothes. She threw herself at his legs, wrapping around them like a cornered animal, and wailed through ugly, heaving sobs: “Sir! I’ll give you anything — everything! Please, just let my father go back to the countryside! Please!”

The old man’s grip went slack. The club hit the dirt floor with a dull clap.

His face had gone completely blank. His eyes were glassy and distant — as if that one swing of the club had drained every last drop of strength from him.

He knew full well what Shen Yi’s reputation in Baiyun County meant. The moment that man opened his eyes again, there was no future left for him or his daughter.

“Will you please be quiet.”

Shen Yi’s eye twitched. The pain was already unbearable — the last thing he needed was this girl screaming her lungs out.

He’d pieced it together. The previous owner of this body had come here tonight to forcibly take the Liu girl as his woman. The old man bashing him over the head was honestly a public service. Commendable, even.

The problem was that he hadn’t done anything wrong. So why was he the one with a cracked skull?

He fumed silently — but he couldn’t exactly say any of that out loud. As far as these two were concerned, Constable Shen had simply been knocked dizzy for a moment and was now awake again. They had no idea a completely different person was now behind those eyes.

Shen Yi grabbed a piece of clothing off the bed and dropped it over the Liu girl like he was shooing away a fly. He waved a limp, exhausted hand. “Get out. Go on. Get.”

Back in my old life, I could’ve squeezed at least half a house out of you two for this.

He rubbed his temple — and that’s when the haze in front of his eyes sharpened into something unmistakably clear.

【Current Martial Arts】

Bone-Crushing Grapple — Master Level

Demon-Subduing Bladework — Novice Level

【You may channel Lifespan into your martial arts to advance their progression.】

【Channeling is unavailable when remaining Lifespan falls below one year.】

【Current Remaining Lifespan: Thirty-Four Years】

Shen Yi read through it carefully, turning the words over in his mind.

Well. Based on what the previous body’s memories had left behind, the man really had known these two techniques.

The Bone-Crushing Grapple was standard issue — every constable in the yamen was required to train it. It was bread-and-butter stuff. The predecessor had gotten good enough at it to earn a promotion, making him a minor head among the constables.

The Demon-Subduing Bladework was different. After Baiyun County started suffering demon attacks, a Commander from the Demon Suppression Division had come personally to teach the local constables. It was a legitimate demon-slaying art.

By that point, though, the predecessor had already carved out a comfortable little position for himself. Worn down by drink and women, he’d been far less interested in learning to fight and far more interested in his own particular method of staying alive in a world full of demons.

So the panel is real. Not a hallucination.

But… it’s kind of useless, isn’t it?

Channel Lifespan, gain martial progress — that was basically the same as his old world’s idea of “how many years off your life is a salary worth?” The difference was, back in his old life, he’d already been a hollow shell of a person. No hope, no attachments, just going through the motions. At least a paycheck bought a few decent years before the end.

But the whole point of learning to fight was to stay alive. If you spent your life to do it — what exactly were you protecting?

Can’t I just… train normally?

“Hss.”

Shen Yi turned his head, trying to dismiss the panel.

His eyes landed on the father and daughter again.

They stood there like a pair of fence posts, looking completely hollowed out.

“I told you two to get out already—”

He was grimacing, pressing his palm to the back of his head, about to say something — when a thought stopped him cold.

The predecessor had come here in the middle of the night to take the Liu girl by force. So this was the Liu family’s home.

Which meant the one who should be leaving was…

…oh.

An awkward silence settled over Shen Yi’s expression.

Fine. He’d leave.

He rolled his eyes, hauled himself to his feet, grabbed his saber from where it hung, and walked out of the room in a state of considerable dishevelment, heading for the courtyard gate.

Of all the lives to wake up in — I get smacked over the head and then have to walk myself home. What did I do to deserve this? Pathetic.

The Liu girl clutched her father’s hand, her thin body trembling beneath her clothes.

She didn’t understand why Constable Shen had changed so completely — he hadn’t laid a hand on her, hadn’t beaten her father, had just walked away looking strangely miserable.

But there was no relief in her eyes.

Instead, the closer Shen Yi got to the courtyard gate, the more her pupils contracted — as if she had been frightened so far past the point of hope that her body could only brace for the worst.

Creak.

The battered gate was shoved open.

Shen Yi stepped outside and drew in a long breath of the dry night air, hoping to clear his head.

It didn’t work. A thick, metallic stench hit his nose, and he instinctively wrinkled it.

Was there something I was forgetting?

“Done already? My turn then.”

A rough, gravelly voice sounded right beside his ear. The stench intensified tenfold.

Shen Yi went rigid.

He turned his head slowly.

Crouched at the entrance to the courtyard was a hulking, man-shaped figure the size of a small hill.

Muscles packed dense as stone beneath sleek black fur. Shoulders thrown high. Long neck craned forward — topped by the unmistakable head of a dog.

It turned to look at him with slow, unhurried ease, one enormous paw digging absently into the waistband of its shorts.

Then it stood.

It had a full head of height on Shen Yi. Its shoulders were more than twice as broad. Its shadow swallowed the ground around them whole.

“Be quicker next time. Hunger makes me disagreeable.”

Shen Yi looked down. His expression was complicated.

The predecessor’s survival strategy had just snapped into full, terrible clarity.

The man had been in league with demons. A supplier of human livestock. With his connections in the yamen, he’d engineered false charges, manufactured disappearances — all so the demons could feed without drawing the attention of the Demon Suppression Division.

Tonight, for instance, he had already set everything in motion for the Liu family. Once the Dog Demon was done and the evidence cleaned up, Baiyun County would wake tomorrow morning and not even notice a ripple.

He understood it all now.

A beat passed. Shen Yi forced a grin and bumped the creature’s arm with his shoulder.

“You know how I am, brother. Never been quick about anything.” He started nudging the creature forward. “Come on, drinks are on me tonight — call it my apology.”

The hulking figure didn’t move.

The Dog Demon’s eyes drifted down, regarding him with flat contempt. “You think I’m stupid?”

It turned, ripped the shed roof clean off its frame, and stepped into the courtyard.

Shen Yi’s hand shot out before he’d even processed what he was doing.

What the hell am I doing—

He tried to pull back. Too late.

A thick, fur-covered paw had already closed around his arm.

The Dog Demon wheeled on him. Its massive muzzle pressed close to Shen Yi’s face — a gaping jaw full of knife-like teeth, ropes of viscous saliva hanging like threads from its lips.

“Shen. You’ve really started thinking you matter.”

“Did you forget what kind of demon I am? I heard every sound in that room. You think you can betray me?!“

Two predators arriving together — and one of them walking away empty-handed. The implication needed no explanation.

The Dog Demon’s tree-trunk leg drove forward like a battering ram.

“Are you— what kind of demon turns on someone this fast—”

The impact hit Shen Yi’s gut like a millstone. His vision exploded white. The veins in his neck stood out like cords, and he was launched off his feet — hurled backward through the air, through the courtyard, through the door of the house in a splintering crash.

He would swear on his life that this was the closest he had ever come to dying.

“Ungrateful wretch. I should’ve just counted you as part of tonight’s meal.”

The cold, indifferent words drifted in from the courtyard.

Shen Yi lay crumpled on the floor, one hand clamped over his abdomen. He looked up at the father and daughter shaking beside him like leaves in a storm.

He turned away. Gasping. “You two couldn’t have… warned me… there was a back gate?”

The old man and the girl stared at him, furiously swallowing the screams clawing up their throats. Their faces were full of pure bewilderment — because the man who was supposed to be this demon’s willing accomplice had just been kicked through a door.

“Forget it. The saber.”

Shen Yi raised a limp hand. When neither of them moved, he added, “Pick up the saber. Hand it to me.”

The Liu girl snatched it up and held it out, though she still couldn’t make sense of things — who exactly was he planning to cut? Surely not the demon outside?

Shen Yi swallowed the copper taste of blood pooling in the back of his throat. His hand closed around the hilt.

With both of them watching, he let out a short, disgusted sound.

“Revolting.”

The world he’d inherited. The way his predecessor had chosen to survive in it. The fact that he was going to have to do the same thing, just to scrape by.

Revolting. And boring as hell.

He watched the Dog Demon shoulder through the collapsed wall, lower its head to step into the courtyard, and run a fat pink tongue lazily across its palm, savoring the anticipation.

He pictured it — his skull between those filthy jaws, crushed slow, chewed to pulp, and swallowed down through a throat slick with saliva.

Shen Yi’s breathing grew faster. Something unhinged and reckless flickered to life behind his eyes.

Fine. If this is how it’s going to be.

My life was already borrowed time. But yours? Yours is your own. And you’re betting it against me — on what grounds, exactly?

The panel snapped open before him.

Channel Lifespan into martial arts. Gain corresponding advancement.

“Right. The Demon-Subduing Bladework.” He almost sounded polite. “Fill it up for me.”

“Thanks.”

(End of Chapter)