Pain, bone-deep pain!
As if his body were being torn apart, his internal organs were devoured clean by invisible insects!
This intense agony was almost equivalent to the cruelest punishments in human history.
Being drawn and quartered or death by a thousand cuts could not have tormented the human pain threshold more than this!
But normal people in such pain would inevitably trigger the brain’s protective mechanism and faint or go into shock on the spot.
Yet no matter how Ye Cang rolled on the ground or slammed into the wall, he could not lose consciousness.
Instead, as the pain deepened, he became more and more awake, more and more hysterical!
“Aah—”
He let out a scream.
His entire body suddenly tensed, arched into the air, then slammed heavily onto the ground.
It was precisely at this moment that the pain stopped abruptly, vanishing without a trace in an instant, as if the earlier torment of a thousand cuts had been a baseless illusion, and the unforgettable pain merely a fleeting dream.
Just as he could not help but let out a long breath, he vaguely seemed to hear some ancient, ancient existence whispering in his ear.
That voice was long and deep, striking directly into the depths of his soul.
It was impossible to identify which era or region of human civilization the language belonged to.
It sounded like prayer, like narration, and even more like the whisper of a hellish demon, hoarse and malevolent, imposing the most vicious curse upon him!
Ye Cang felt his hair stand on end, cold sweat pouring down his body.
The feeling of being stared at made him feel as if needles were pricking his back.
But after turning his head and looking around, he could not see anyone else in the room besides himself.
What met his eyes was only a simple, narrow room.
Against the wall on the right was a metal single bed fixed to the floor.
In front of him was a rectangular metal desk fixed to the floor.
On the left was an embedded metal wardrobe fixed to the wall…
Obviously, all the furniture in this room was metal, and all of it was well-secured, seemingly to prevent the furniture from shifting or flying out.
Ye Cang had only seen this design in university dormitories and train sleeper cars, which indirectly proved that his current location was not simple.
“Where…
is this?”
He looked around blankly at everything, until his gaze landed on the only window in the room.
Then, through the thick glass porthole, he saw an entire starry sky!
Yes, an entire starry sky spread out before him like a scroll.
He could not help but step forward, leaning his body forward, almost pressing his entire body against the glass window, eyes wide as he looked at that brilliant, profound, magnificent, mysterious, and beautiful universe.
The stars converged into a vortex at the end of his vision.
Two enormous spiral arms were like the grand tentacles of an ancient god spanning the stars.
And where the light of the stars converged was a shining mass of light, flickering on and off, as if breathing.
If at this moment, in that place where the brilliant light gathered, an eye suddenly opened, without a doubt, Ye Cang would be scared straight to zero SAN by this horrifying sight.
Fortunately, although his situation was awkward, such an uncanny thing did not happen.
Then, connecting it with the familiar furniture style and design around him, Ye Cang took a deep breath and already understood his current situation.
I remember, after spending a thousand bucks at a scalper’s to buy a Star Rail third closed beta activation code, I downloaded the test server from the URL the scalper provided, entered the activation code…
A strange black light emitted from the computer screen, and then I passed out?
So, did I…
transmigrate into the world of Honkai: Star Rail?
Transmigration.
This term was not unfamiliar to Ye Cang, a ten-year veteran reader.
After all, due to certain irresistible reasons, nine out of ten cultivation novels written by Chinese authors involved transmigration, either body transmigration or soul transmigration.
The remaining one had to be a completely alternate world.
No way around it.
If you criticize society in the real world…
Do you want your book taken down, or do you want to have to change your pen name?
How did that saying go?
The pull of reality is simply too heavy.
It bends the spines of writers early on.
And the few who get ahead early without bending?
Others still rush up to step on them.
Ahem, my thoughts have wandered…
Ye Cang looked down at his hands.
They were not much different from usual.
He could not tell if it was body transmigration or soul transmigration.
But it didn’t matter.
At least based on his visible physique, he was still male, equipped with the goods, and the rest was not so important.
“Oh, and abs?
Tsk tsk tsk, this V-line, I’m honestly jealous.”
He lifted his shirt and desperately ran his hands over his stomach a few times.
The feel was unbelievably good.
This was something he completely lacked before transmigrating.
It seemed it was soul transmigration after all.
He just didn’t know where the original owner of this body had gone.
If he were dead, he would kindly help him erect a grave.
If they had swapped bodies, then he could only wish him good luck.
Of course, there was also the most unbearable possibility: the other party was neither dead nor swapped bodies with him, but still sleeping within this body.
That was somewhat horrifying.
Ye Cang felt that with his gacha luck, although he always hit hard pity on pulls, never won beta qualifications, and even got scammed out of a thousand bucks buying an activation code from a scalper…
such an unlucky thing should not happen to him, right?
“Whatever, who cares.
Things will work out somehow.
Mirror, where’s the mirror?
Let me admire my own stunning beauty!”
Naturally optimistic, Ye Cang quickly tossed all his worries to the back of his mind and began searching the room for an object that could reflect his absolutely beautiful face, such as a mirror or other reflective surface.
After looking around again and again, he helplessly gave up.
Although it was a pity not to catch a glimpse of his stunning beauty, Ye Cang’s attention was quickly drawn to something else.
A pitch-black book, about two fingers thick, neatly placed on the empty metal desk.
No matter how you looked at it, it seemed too out of place.
“What’s this?
A diary?”
Ye Cang curiously leaned in and reached out to touch the book cover, which seemed to be made of animal hide.
Because the cover was pitch-black without a single word, it was ruled out as any kind of published reading material.
Instead, it looked like one of those common high-end business notebooks.
In this room full of technological feel, such a “retro” object was indeed somewhat out of place.
And, he didn’t know if it was an illusion…
Ye Cang always felt that when he touched this animal-hide book, a pair of invisible eyes were staring at him from behind.
But when he instinctively turned his head in terror, he could not see even the slightest abnormality.
“What’s going on?”
Ye Cang took a deep breath, feeling his heartbeat seemed to quicken.
He forced down his inexplicable fear and opened the black animal-hide book.
What came into view were four large dark red characters on the title page:
Death Diary
They were not simplified Chinese, but a twisted, strange script.
Yet the instant Ye Cang saw them, he understood the meaning of those four twisted characters, as if that meaning had originally existed in his mind.
Or rather, this script itself was a kind of ultimate “pictogram.”
So it really was a diary.
But the prefix “Death” and that red, like coagulated blood…
Ye Cang swallowed.
The unease and abnormality in his heart grew heavier and heavier.
Whether out of curiosity or to explain his current situation, he had no choice but to force down the urge to close the diary, wet his finger with saliva, and open the first page of the diary.