“Sorry. We did everything we could. You’d better prepare yourself.”

The doctor’s voice outside the room was low, but Nathan Linwood lying in the hospital bed heard every word, clear as day.

Maybe hearing gets sharper right before death. Especially when it’s your mother’s sobbing—that sound cut through everything.

He didn’t regret stepping in to help someone, not even if it cost his life. What tore at him was the thought of his mom.

His father had died early. His mother had raised him alone, through god knows how much hardship. He'd finally gotten into Qinghai City Hospital with top scores. Their life was just starting to look up, and now this…

“Damn it.”

Good guys really don’t get good endings. Nathan cursed under his breath. His eyelids drooped, and this time, they didn’t lift again.

“My son!”

The piercing cry jolted Nathan awake.

He opened his eyes—and found himself standing at the end of the hospital bed. His mother was curled over his body, wailing uncontrollably.

“Mom, what are you crying for? I’m right here!”

His heart leapt. He thought he’d miraculously recovered. He reached out to touch her—but his hand passed right through.

She didn’t feel a thing. She just kept crying.

Nathan’s expression stiffened. On the bed—it was himself stretched out, pale and lifeless.

Dead?

He looked down at his own form—slightly glowing, faintly transparent.

Shock gripped him. So death really left the soul behind…

No matter what he said or did, his mother couldn’t see him.

With the nurse's help, she dressed his body in burial clothes. Then the attendants took him to the funeral van. She got in beside him, gripping his lifeless hand tight. Her eyes were red and leaking endless tears.

"Nathan… it’s alright… you go on first. I’ll finish up here and follow you right after."

To her, Nathan had been her whole world. With him gone, life meant nothing.

Hearing her say she wanted to join him pushed Nathan into panic. He copied what he’d seen in movies—trying to lie back into his corpse—but nothing worked. No matter how he tried, only his soul moved.

Soon they reached the crematorium. His mother paid the fee. The staff cleaned him up and handed her a number. Then they wheeled the body toward the furnace.

“No!”

Nathan broke down completely as his body was pushed into the flames.

As his flesh burned, he felt his soul weakening. Streams of glowing light peeled off his form and drifted away. His spirit grew fainter with each second.

A different world started coming into view—pure black, lit only by blazing flame and haunted by tormented screams.

Hell.

That was the first word that hit him. Fear rushed up like a flood.

He thrashed blindly through the air, glowing fragments still shedding from him, faster and faster.

The hellish world before him got clearer—he could hear a raspy voice in the dark calling his name.

Back inside the fire, his corpse had nearly burned to ash. Suddenly, from the cinders, a jade pendant burst into brilliant light.

His grandfather had given him that when he passed away. Nathan had worn it ever since. Even while dressing him for burial, his mother hadn’t taken it off.The pendant's glow flared brighter and brighter, then suddenly shattered with a loud crack. A streak of green light shot out and latched onto Nathan Linwood’s soul.

Then came an old, solemn voice in Nathan’s head. “I am your ancestor, a sage of old. From this day forward, you inherit my legacy. Master the arts of healing, save others and yourself...”

The voice faded, and a torrent of knowledge surged into his mind—healing mysticism, cultivation techniques, and generations of wandering experience.

As he processed the flood of information, Nathan's heart raced. It was like being handed the key to an entirely new world.

But his excitement quickly died down. So what if he got the legacy? He was still dead, about to be burned to ashes.

That thought had barely formed when a memory surfaced—something about soul revival.

The memory detailed a resurrection method: if the soul wasn’t scattered, one could return to life by possessing another body. Nathan’s body had already burned away, but luckily, there was a note for such cases: “Corpse destroyed, become ghost, seek living shell, then possess.”

Nathan gasped. That meant if he wanted to live again, he’d have to become a ghost and take over someone else’s body.

Problem was, ghosts weren’t exactly seen as righteous, and if he possessed someone... wasn’t that just stealing their life?

He hesitated, but his soul was fading fast—just a thin silhouette remained. The calls from the underworld grew louder and more urgent by the second.

Gritting his teeth, Nathan stared at the corpses rolling into the crematorium, and an idea sparked. The dead were no good... but what about the living dead?

Minutes later, he arrived at Qinghai City's largest care center for vegetative patients.

Most of them were fully unconscious, their minds lost forever—only the bodies still functioned. Nathan figured taking one of these wouldn’t count as killing.

At first, he checked room by room, trying to find a suitable host.

But his consciousness was getting weaker, the hellish call shriller. Time was running out. He couldn't afford to be picky anymore.

He locked on to a young man in his twenties, murmured an incantation of the soul ritual, and turned into a wisp of white smoke, plunging into the body headfirst.

“You won’t escape!”

A sharp, blood-curdling shriek echoed in his ears—then, silence.

When Nathan woke again, white light blazed into his eyes. It took him a moment to adjust. Looking down, he realized he was lying in a hospital ward.

Success.

Nathan almost cried out in joy, leapt up, yanked out the IV, and jumped off the bed—only to crash to the floor in a sorry heap.

Guess the guy’s muscles were too weak from lying too long.

Nathan scrambled up, spotted a calendar on the wall—it was the next day already. He ran his fingers across the walls and bed, feeling the cold surface. It was surreal—he had died yesterday, and here he was, alive again.

After stretching a bit and getting used to this new body, he sprinted out of the hospital. There was only one thing in his heart.

He had to see his mother.

Back at the bun shop, the place was swarmed. A gang of thugs were howling, demanding payment from Nathan’s mother.

To pay for his treatment, she’d taken out massive high-interest loans. Now that news of his death had spread, the vultures had shown up, ready to pounce."Just give me a few days. I’ll sell the shop and pay you back, please, just leave," Nathan Linwood’s mother pleaded, eyes swollen from crying. Her son was gone, and she didn’t want his spirit disturbed.

"Sell that dump? Hah. Won’t even fetch a few coins. Your son’s dead. If we leave, who’s gonna pay?" sneered Yellowhair, the leader of the thugs.

"I promise I won’t run. I’ll get the money and return it. Just give me a little time."

"No way. We’re not leaving without cash today." Yellowhair wasn’t backing down.

"I don’t have any money now... I spent everything trying to save my son..." Her voice cracked with grief, every word stabbing through her chest.

“No money? Fine. Sign the deed of that old house over to us. We’ll call it even,” Yellowhair said, eyes gleaming.

She froze. That house was left by Nathan’s grandfather. A little run-down maybe, but sitting on prime land in Qinghai—it’d easily fetch a couple million. It was daylight robbery.

But now... her son was gone. So was the family. What good was a house anyway? Maybe paying the debt meant she could follow him in peace.

She nodded numbly, ready to give in.

Then a voice thundered from outside, “No way! That house's worth millions. You bunch of thieves!”

The door burst open, and Nathan charged in like a gust of wind in his new body.

"The hell are you? Where’d this nut come from?!" Yellowhair snapped, eyeing Nathan’s hospital gown. Thinking he was some escaped lunatic, he raised his hand to strike.

Nathan dodged instinctively, then shoved. Yellowhair flew five, six meters back, slammed into a table, and crashed to the ground with a thud.

“Kill him!” Yellowhair roared through gritted teeth, cradling his chest.

His gang of more than ten rushed forward and surrounded Nathan, fists flying. But Nathan lashed back fast and fierce.

Screams filled the bun shop. One after another, the thugs dropped to the floor, groaning.

They couldn’t even touch him.

Nathan’s punches hit like wagons slamming into flesh—each one folding a man in pain.

He was stunned himself—so the stories were true. Spirits had strength beyond reason, and every strike landed heavy. The thugs' movements looked slow to him, like molasses. Dodging them was effortless.

“Call the constables! Quick!”

Yellowhair panicked. He’d seen fighters, but not monsters.

Hearing that, Nathan’s mother rushed over and grabbed his arm. “Run, quick! Let me deal with this.”

"Mom… how could I leave you here?"

Tears welled up in Nathan’s eyes. He was alive. She was alive. He could still hold her hand.

She blinked, confused by the word he called her. Her eyes clouded with uncertainty.

That's when it hit him—he wasn’t in his old body anymore. She didn't recognize him.

“Sorry, ma'am. You just reminded me of my mom… kind of blurted it out. Hope you don’t mind.”

Fearing the truth would scare her, Nathan threw out the lie without hesitation.“It’s fine, young man. Just go. Don’t get dragged into our mess,” Pamela Quinn said, pushing him gently toward the door.

Nathan Linwood didn’t respond. He grabbed a chopstick from the table and flung it. With a sharp crack, it pinned Yellowhair’s phone to the wall right before he could dial 110.

Yellowhair turned pale. That chopstick missed his ear by less than an inch. A slight miss, and he’d be the one stuck to the wall.

“Help! Someone’s trying to kill me! Murder!” he shrieked, voice trembling with fear and a tinge of injustice. After all, these people owed him money!

“Quiet,” Nathan said coldly. “I’ll pay Aunt Quinn’s debt.”

Pamela stared at him, confused. “But why would you do that? We don’t even know each other.”

There was something familiar about this young man, though. His aura…those eyes. She couldn’t place it, but it tugged at her heart.

It didn’t surprise her that he knew her name. Ever since news spread of her son’s death, dozens of strangers had been reaching out to show support. Her personal details were all over the web. She had turned everyone away—including those who just wanted to say goodbye.

Yellowhair didn’t care why this stranger was stepping in. “Great. You said it. Hand over the money.”

“Give me three days,” Nathan said.

“…” Yellowhair looked unimpressed. With that much confidence, he thought the guy would pull out cash on the spot.

“What, you don’t believe me?” Nathan narrowed his eyes; the chill in his voice dropped the room’s temperature.

“I believe you, sure… but can I get your name, man?” Yellowhair asked, shivering as Nathan’s stare bore into him.

Name?

Right. He’d rushed over this morning and never checked the guy’s name.

“You’ll get your money. Come back here in three days. I’ll pay principal and interest,” Nathan promised without a doubt.

He was counting on Osric Rhodes’s background. If this kid had lived at a care center, his family should at least be able to cough up twenty grand or so. That’d buy him time. When he made his own money, he’d pay it back clean.

Yellowhair wasn’t about to argue after that display with the chopstick. He opened his mouth to agree—but paused, eyes locked on something outside.

Nathan followed his gaze just in time to see a red BMW X5 pull up.

The car door opened. A long, smooth leg stepped out, followed by a tall woman in a flowing white Bohemian dress.

She brushed her black hair aside and took off her sunglasses. Her fair skin and flawless features stunned the room. Yellowhair and his crew all gawked, frozen.

Even Nathan was caught off guard. She really was the kind of woman who’d turn heads in any crowd.

The woman glanced up at the humble bun shop and frowned a little, then strode inside.

“Hey, beauty, looking for buns? What filling you want?” Nathan asked reflexively. Years of helping his mom sell buns had conditioned him to greet like this.

She shot him a sharp look. “What did you just call me?”

“Beauty?” Nathan blinked, confused. What else was he supposed to say?

The woman gave him a cold once-over and said flatly, “Wow. Two months in a coma and now you don’t even recognize your own wife, Osric Rhodes.”