Chapter  1

【Mind Deposit】

In the pitch-black darkness, Ding Yi lay stiffly on the bed, eyes locked on the empty void above.

He strained to control his breathing, pretending to be fast asleep.

But his body, tensed from prolonged anxiety, had begun to ache. His muscles throbbed with a dull soreness that warned him—if he so much as shifted a little, the creaky wooden bed beneath him would groan out a sharp, betraying “creak… creak…”

And yet, Ding Yi didn’t dare relax—not even a little. Because just three steps away, behind that old wooden door, stood two hunched silhouettes.

“Hoo… hoo…”

Even with the door separating them, Ding Yi could still clearly make out the wheezing breaths—deep, rattling, with a faint whistling edge. That sound belonged to the sickly old man with the waxy yellow face. As for the softer, almost imperceptible breathing beside it—he didn’t even have to guess. That had to be the old woman.

“Damn it! What the hell is going on?!”

Panic flared in Ding Yi’s eyes. But more than panic, it was fear that clutched at his chest.

It all started seven days ago. Back then, he was still on Blue Star—his home world. One night, after drinking himself unconscious, he woke up…

…and realized he had transmigrated.

But this wasn’t some soul-swap like in the novels.

This was a full-blown physical transmigration.

His entire body had been hurled into this world.

That meant he had zero inherited memories. No guidance, no prior knowledge. And worse—he’d arrived lying face-down in a muddy pit, his body racked with pain as if every bone had been dislocated. Some parts were even bleeding, which meant the internal injuries could be worse than they looked.

Thankfully, his cries of agony had drawn the attention of an elderly couple. They spotted him in the pit, and something lit up in their eyes the moment they saw him.

They carried him back to their house and placed him in the farthest room at the corner of the house.

To Ding Yi’s surprise, despite being in a new world, he could understand their language perfectly. Even the worn-out charm on the doorframe—he could read the characters on it just fine.

That… was good news. The only good news so far.

The couple invited him to stay and heal. And so he did.

But it wasn’t long before he realized… something wasn’t right.

The first strange thing: everyone here was deathly afraid of the night. As soon as the sun went down, every household locked themselves in, lit an oil lamp—and never put it out until sunrise.

Ding Yi had asked about this, but the elderly couple just smiled and said it was a local custom. Something foreigners like him wouldn’t understand.

He didn’t think too much of it at first.

Until the second anomaly.

One night, he was abruptly jolted awake by a nightmare. Just as he turned over to go back to sleep… he heard breathing. Right outside the old wooden door.

“Haa… haa…”

That wheezing rasp. That unmistakable asthmatic rhythm.

The image of the old man flashed into his mind immediately. The man had asthma. Even a little excitement or exertion made his breathing sound just like that.

And the second sound—quieter, but still there—was the woman’s.

There were only three people in this house. Himself, the old man, and the old woman.

So why were they both standing outside his door in the middle of the night?

Chills crawled over Ding Yi’s body. Cold sweat spread down his spine.

What… the hell were they doing?

Why were they up at this hour, standing silently behind the door… watching him?

The fear dug into his bones.

He imagined them hunched, peering through the cracks in the door, staring at him as if he were some kind of rare treasure. Something precious.

“Damn it! DAMN IT!!”

“Getting transmigrated was bad enough! Being injured was bad enough! But THIS?!”

The sheer dread scrambled his thoughts. It took him a long time to calm down, to regain some clarity.

At first, he’d hoped maybe it was just a one-time thing.

But tonight—he purposely faked sleep. And again, in the middle of the night, he heard the same breathing.

This time, Ding Yi completely lost it inside.

“No. This isn’t normal. I just got here. I have no money. I’m injured. What could they possibly want from me?”

He forced himself to stay calm. Pinched his own arm hard enough to drive out the drowsiness.

Then he started piecing things together. Searching through his memories from the past few days for anything that might explain it.

“This place… it must be a village. From what I saw on the first day, people here are distant, cold. Even when they saw the couple dragging me back, no one asked a thing.”

“The architecture here—kind of like ancient Blue Star, but the language, though I understand it, definitely isn’t from Blue Star. That probably means I’m in some kind of parallel world.”

“They’re poor. Dirt poor. The couple’s house is falling apart—cracked walls, broken beams. We’ve been eating bitter dried meat and drinking muddy water.”

“As soon as the sun sets, the old man rushes to shut every door and window. Even installs thick planks behind them, like he’s trying to fend something off.”

“And my injuries? They’ve only been getting worse. These people… didn’t bring me here to save me.”

“This is a terrible start. Damn it! Why is it that other people transmigrate and become warlords or princes… and I end up in this cursed mess?!”

Gritting his teeth, Ding Yi swallowed his resentment and fury. His eyes blazed as he glared at the door just three steps away—as if he could kill the peeping duo just by staring hard enough.