Li Fan walked down the familiar street of his university town, earphones tucked in, head bobbing lightly to the rhythm of a mellow tune. The sun was just setting, casting long golden streaks across the pavement. His casual gait, the spring in his steps—it all painted a picture of a carefree twenty-one-year-old enjoying the tail end of another ordinary day. There was a lightness to his mood, something only known to those who'd just finished exams and had nothing left on their minds except the luxury of freedom.
People milled about—the usual crowd: students with backpacks slung over one shoulder, old couples out for an evening stroll, and food stall owners preparing for the bustling night ahead. The scent of fried dumplings and skewered meat floated through the air, mingling with the distant honks of traffic.
Li Fan skipped a step and spun lightly on his heel before continuing forward, grinning to himself. A particularly energetic song had just started playing in his ears. In that brief second, he felt invincible—as though the world was, for once, perfectly aligned with his joy.
Then it happened.
A sound—foreign, guttural, violent—cut through the harmony. His body lurched forward, and his feet no longer touched the ground. The music still played in his ears, but it was distant now, like a fading memory. He was flying—or more accurately, he had been thrown.
Time slowed. Mid-air, he turned his head and saw it: a monstrous red truck, its front dented and its wheels skidding, smoke and metal screeching in unison. It had torn through the street like a blade through paper. People lay scattered like ragdolls, blood already soaking into the concrete.
His eyes darted ahead and spotted a black BMW, its nose buried in a telephone pole, smoke hissing from under its hood. It had come from the wrong side of the road, head-on. In that instant of mid-air clarity, Li Fan's mind pieced it all together—the BMW had swerved into oncoming traffic, the truck had veered to avoid it, and in doing so, had plowed through him and the others.
"That car…" he thought, his breath catching. "Wrong side… drunk?"
Before he could complete the thought, gravity claimed him. He hit the ground like a rag doll, bones crunching beneath the weight of reality. Pain unlike anything he had ever known exploded through his limbs, his back, his skull. The warm, coppery taste of blood filled his mouth. He gasped, but air wouldn't come.
His vision blurred.
He felt cold—frighteningly cold. Then warmth… sticky warmth pooling around his hand. His blood.
Noises—too many, too loud—sirens, shouts, someone crying. Someone screaming his name? No, that was impossible. He didn't even know anyone nearby. Were they calling for someone else?
He blinked. Time slowed again.
He saw it—his life—flashing not like a reel, but like memories torn loose from their bindings. His first bicycle ride, the time his mother cried during his graduation, that one stray cat he secretly fed for weeks, the girl he liked but never confessed to. Meaningless fragments that suddenly felt sacred.
He wanted to live.
But then everything began to fade. The sounds dulled. The pain dulled. The cold stopped biting. He was numb.
And then—
Silence.
Stillness.
Nothing.
A yawning void opened beneath him, and something began to pull. It wasn't physical—it was existential. It felt as though something inside him was being peeled away, like skin from muscle, soul from body. He couldn't scream. He couldn't cry. He could only feel the unraveling.
There was an old saying: When one dies, their soul travels to Reincarnation, stripped of all consciousness, drifting in the void until rebirth. He used to scoff at such things. Not now.
His very essence was tearing apart. He tried to resist, but what could one do against a force that operated beyond time and space?
Panic consumed him.
He clawed at the darkness with mental fingers, screamed through a mouth that no longer existed. His being was shattering, drifting like ash in an endless wind.
Just when the last fragments of his self were beginning to dissolve, something… strange happened. A force, subtle yet overpowering, wrapped around him like a cocoon. It pulled him together, halted the disintegration.
A warmth.
A light.
Not external—but within.
It was as though some unknown power had chosen to preserve him.
The tearing stopped. The agony faded. And he was… whole. He gasped—not with lungs, but with essence. He could think again. He was still Li Fan.
He floated.
Darkness still surrounded him, but it felt different now. Not like oblivion—more like a tunnel. He was moving. Or drifting. It was hard to tell.
There was no time here. No light. No sound.
Only motion.
He journeyed. For how long, he didn't know. Years? Centuries? It felt like eons. But also moments. Reality had no anchor here.
Eventually—
A light. Distant, faint, but real.
He surged toward it, hope blooming in the void of his mind. That single speck of brightness was a miracle after countless ages of nothingness.
As he approached, the light grew. It consumed his senses, bathing him in warmth. He felt… joy. Anticipation. A raw, unfiltered hope he hadn't felt since childhood.
And then—
Blankness.
Followed by sensation.
Real, physical sensation.
A body. His body. He could feel.
Not dreams. Not thoughts. Touch.
The warmth around him was gentle, cradling. His limbs felt small, weak. His movements limited. He couldn't open his eyes, but he didn't need to. He could feel everything.
He was enclosed. Soft. Suspended.
He could hear faint sounds—muffled, rhythmic. A heartbeat. No, two.
He realized something monumental then.
This was a womb.
His body—tiny, fetal, forming—curled instinctively.
He had been reincarnated.
Not as a man. Not even as a child. But as an unborn baby.
Li Fan, the university student, the ordinary boy who died in an extraordinary accident, had been reborn.
He didn't know where. He didn't know to whom.
But he knew one thing for sure—his journey wasn't over.
It had just begun.