Chapter 1: No Prey
It was getting darker by the minute, and night would soon fall, blanketing the land in total darkness.
Chen Fan stood in the crowd, rising on his toes like everyone else to peer at the distant horizon.
From the depths of the wilderness, the roars of savage beasts echoed intermittently.
If the hunting team failed to return to the earthen fort before full nightfall, they would be left in endless darkness, vulnerable to attacks from beasts at every turn.
Suddenly, Chen Fan felt a tight grip on his arm. He looked down to see his mother, pale and trembling, clutching him with eyes full of helplessness.
“Mom, don’t worry,” he murmured softly. “Dad and the others will be back any moment now.”
She nodded, lifting her head to scan the horizon with urgent intensity.
Chen Fan glanced around. The faces of over a hundred people were etched with fear and desperation.
He sighed inwardly. Somehow, after dozing off on the subway, he’d woken up in this unfamiliar world. Today was his second day here.
This world resembled his past life—except that a decade ago, everything had changed. Birds, beasts, and even plants had mutated, growing larger and turning viciously aggressive.
Among humans, “Awakened” had emerged. Their mental powers far surpassed ordinary people, enabling them to command wind, rain, thunder, and lightning. The most powerful Awakened could withstand firearms and obliterate entire towns with a single strike.
These rare individuals became the nuclei of new cities, drawing survivors with rumors of restored electricity, internet, clean water, and even subway-commuting office workers living nine-to-five lives—just like before the collapse.
But resources were limited. Most ordinary people couldn’t enter these cities, not even the smaller ones. They huddled in fortified settlements, struggling to survive.
Electricity was a fantasy here. Basic safety, food, medicine, and supplies were scarce, leaving everyone teetering on the edge of survival.
The original owner of this body, for instance, had died after sneaking into the wild to eat unknown berries in a desperate bid to stave off hunger. Three days of raging fever had claimed his life, allowing Chen Fan to take over.
“Could something have gone wrong?” he wondered, fists clenching.
Just then, an excited shout rang out from the nearby wooden watchtower, seven or eight meters high: “They’re here! They’re back!”
“Really?”
“Where? I don’t see them!”
“They’ve got the high ground—we’ll spot them soon!”
“Thank goodness… they made it.”
The crowd erupted in relief. Squinting, they saw distant specks on the horizon growing larger. Smiles blossomed across anxious faces.
But as the group neared, those smiles stiffened.
A dozen hunters approached, battered and bloodied, carrying bows and spears. Some limped with support; others were carried. Even the able-bodied bore wounds.
No prey was in sight.
The sharpest observers noticed missing faces.
The procession halted before the drawbridge. Their leader—a square-jawed man with a stern expression and bloody gashes on his right arm—wore a look of profound guilt.
Time seemed to freeze.
The man licked his cracked lips. “I’m sorry,” he rasped. “We were ambushed by two mid-level beasts. We lost our prey, and Zhu Zi, Ah Hua, Xiao Gao… they…”
Before he could finish, several people in the crowd collapsed.
Chaos erupted as neighbors scrambled to carry the unconscious back to their homes.
The other members of the hunting team lowered their heads in shame, unable to meet the eyes of the elderly, women, and children. Chen Fan's body trembled slightly.
People died? Three at once?
From the original owner's memories, this appeared to be their heaviest casualties yet.
The square-faced man leading them was the biological father of the body's original occupant—the leader who had spearheaded the construction of this earthen fortress.
Sporadic sounds drifted through the air—muffled sobs, despairing sighs, and murmured words of comfort.
As the hunting party filed in, the entrance drawbridge creaked upward. Encircled by walls over three meters tall, the entire settlement appeared impregnable, offering its inhabitants a rare sense of security.
The wives and children of injured men stared at their bloodied husbands and fathers, hearts wrung with anguish. Yet a grim relief lingered beneath their grief—they couldn't help counting their blessings when remembering those who'd marched out at dawn but would never return.
Those with minor wounds departed with their families. Night fell swiftly, plunging the compound into darkness save for the moon's pallid glow.
"Guodong, your arm."
A woman gripped the square-faced man's right limb, twin trails glistening on her cheeks.
Chen Fan approached, still adjusting to his transmigrated existence after mere days in this foreign flesh.
"I'm fine."
Chen Guodong shook his head, voice thick with self-reproach. "This is my fault. Had I spotted those two beasts sooner, Zhu Zi and the others... they wouldn't have—"
Thwack!
A calloused palm struck his shoulder. A bald mountain of a man rumbled, "Enough, Guodong. Blame the cursed times, not yourself. We survivors all walk the same path to the grave."
"Get some rest."
Another clap on the shoulder, then the bald man flashed a gap-toothed grin at stone-faced Chen Fan before lumbering off with his kin.
"Let's go home, Dad." Chen Fan interjected. "Little Brother's waiting."
Chen Guodong stiffened, then nodded.
An oppressive silence blanketed the fortress. Nearby huts flickered with firelight, their crackling flames punctuated by exhausted murmurs.
"Mom... I'm hungry. Can I have more?"
"Sleep, child. Hunger fades in dreams."
"But my tummy hurts..."
"Hush now. If we eat tonight, there'll be nothing tomorrow."
The voices dwindled.
Chen Guodong's features tightened with fresh guilt.
Observing peripherally, Chen Fan sighed inwardly. This body's father—a man of few words but unshakable integrity—insisted on equal food distribution regardless of contribution, keeping the fortress' vulnerable fed even as his own family scraped by. Lately, their hunting failures had strained this fragile equity.
With winter's approach and game vanishing, starvation loomed. Should this continue, even the taboo of cannibalism might fracture their humanity.
