Rain poured down in sheets, saturating the air with the mingled scents of dust and water.
The extended Bentley eased away from the hospital entrance, splashing through the puddles by the gate before gliding silently through the downpour.
The young man in the back seat was deathly pale, drained of any healthy color, his already delicate features made fragile by illness.
As he listened to the drumming rain outside, he idly drummed his slender, pale fingers on the leather seat, tapping out a rhythm that echoed the patter of the drops.
Up front, the driver in his black suit said nothing, preserving a fitting silence.
Inside the car, the faint whir of the air conditioning mingled with the rain’s steady roar.
Luo Shang, freshly discharged from the hospital, casually popped open the in-car refrigerator. His gaze swept over the array of juices inside, and he fell silent.
No—where was his liquor? What had happened to all the bottles he’d stashed in the cabinet before?
“Third Young Master, your wounds haven’t healed yet.”
Before Luo Shang could even voice the question, the driver up front supplied the answer.
A few days earlier, Luo Shang had driven off a cliff, barely escaping with his life. He’d spent days in intensive care, and only yesterday had his vitals stabilized enough to transfer to a regular room.
By all rights, he should have stayed longer to let his condition settle, but the Su Family needed him at a banquet thrown especially for one of the other young masters.
He’d checked out early, still far from recovered, so the family had cut off his booze.
“I feel great,” Luo Shang muttered, slumping lazily into the seat.
The driver made no reply.
Su Shang had always been a notorious playboy—his claims weren’t exactly trustworthy.
Luo Shang twisted the music knob, and strains of classical music that wove seamlessly into the rain began to fill the cabin.
A moment later, the driver heard a distinct crunch from the back seat.
A glance in the rearview mirror revealed the Su Family’s Third Young Master—fair-skinned and delicately handsome—chomping into a plump, rosy peach.
It looked ordinary at first glance, but the longer one looked, the more alluring it became. The faint fragrance it gave off seemed to warp the very air around it, leaving the driver momentarily entranced.
“Hey, you want some?”
Luo Shang’s voice snapped the driver back to the present. His heart jolted, and he wrenched his attention back to the road.
“…”
The driver stayed quiet, baffled inside by his reaction to the peach.
He had chauffeured for the Su Family for twenty years, with excellent pay. He’d savored peaches worth hundreds per catty before, and he prided himself on his ironclad professionalism—eyes on the road, mind on the drive, seldom sparing a thought for what his passengers got up to behind him. No peach, no matter how tempting, should have distracted him.
Yet this time, he hadn’t just wanted it—he’d been utterly lost in the urge. That wasn’t right.
What the hell had come over him? Too much fatigue lately? The driver dragged his eyes from the rearview to the windshield ahead, turning the question over in his mind.
“Good eye,” Luo Shang said approvingly.
At the same instant, a voice identical to Luo Shang’s echoed directly in the driver’s head.
[Not bad for a peach from the Queen Mother of the West’s Peach Garden—flowering once every three thousand years, bearing fruit once every three thousand more, ripening after another three thousand. Eat one, and you live as long as heaven and earth. Even after I masked its spiritual glow, it still instinctively stirs the hunger in any living thing.]
What was that? The voice ringing abruptly in his mind made the driver suspect a hallucination. He straightened up, stealing several glances at Luo Shang through the rearview.
Luo Shang, naturally, noticed the driver’s stares.
“Want a taste?”
In the mirror, the Third Young Master held up the half-eaten peach.
It was still enticing, but ultimately just a peach.
Peach of Immortality… The driver recalled the “hallucinated” words and pressed his lips together.
“No, you go ahead.”
The driver turned down Luo Shang’s offer and ducked his head to text the Head of the Su Family.
[It’s delicious, sure, but I didn’t bring much back from vacation. The rest are stashed in the Team Space—I didn’t grab them. Fingers crossed a couple get left for me on the return trip. Finishing them off means reapplying for garden access, and approvals from that world are a real hassle.]
Shock and uncertainty flickered across the driver’s face.
He must be hallucinating again.
Just moments ago, peeking in the rearview, the young master’s lips hadn’t moved an inch! He hadn’t spoken!
So what had he heard?
Queen Mother of the West? Peaches of Immortality? Wasn’t that stuff from Journey to the West—just a novel?
Had the stress finally gotten to him? the driver wondered.
After wrestling with it, he resolved not to put it off. Once this run was done, he’d take leave and get himself checked at the hospital.
It was too damn eerie.
By then, Luo Shang had polished off his peach and flicked the pit into the trash bin. He leaned back, eyes closed in repose.
[So damn boring…]
That voice—identical to Luo Shang’s—struck again, and the driver couldn’t help accelerating, eager to wrap up this errand.
[How did I kill time a few hundred years ago? Oh right, with a phone… Haven’t touched one of these ancient communication gadgets in forever. Where’d I leave it? Wait, I forgot—I had a personal assistant back then, so where would he usually stash it for me?]
[What’s with this feeling like I’m heading back to the old family home in the sticks? No connection there at all… Can’t even scroll the Spirit Net. Tsk.]
In the rearview mirror, the young master who had his eyes closed sat up again. He glanced around, as if searching for something.
[What a pain. Should I just disassemble the car and look?]
“Assistant Liang got you a new phone,” the driver said out of nowhere, as if possessed. “All your usual apps are downloaded, data transferred over—it’s in the drawer under your seat.”
The driver froze after speaking, then clamped his mouth shut tight.
Why talk to his own hallucination? The kid hadn’t even asked. Wouldn’t that just make him look like an idiot?
“Oh, right. Forgot about that.”
Luo Shang in the back seat picked up the conversation naturally. He reached down, popped open the hidden drawer beneath his seat, and pulled out his phone.
Seeing this, the driver broke out in a cold sweat.
So he really had been looking for the phone?
Coincidence. Yeah, had to be a coincidence.
He couldn’t believe he was hearing Su Shang’s heart voice.
The secrets spilling from that voice were just too shocking.
Queen Mother of the West. Peaches of Immortality. Hundreds of years. Divine sense…
Either he was losing it, or Su Shang was. And honestly, Su Shang seemed more likely—he’d gone off the Panshan Highway in a rainstorm, smashed his head, and come out a bit loopy. Totally normal.
After a moment’s thought, the driver ditched his lifelong rule of never touching his phone while driving. He glanced down and fired off a message to the current head of the Su Family.
~~~
Su Shang—now Luo Shang, really. The soul in his body hadn’t changed, but his mind and abilities were worlds apart.
That day tumbling off the Panshan Highway, Luo Shang had figured he was done for.
But not only did he survive, the Reincarnation Game took notice of his soul and yanked him into the Reincarnation Space.
There, he learned the world he was in was a danmei novel. He was the vicious male side character, destined to pay dearly for screwing over the true young master—and end up in tragedy.
Without a second thought, Su Shang renamed himself Luo Shang. Under his new name, he joined the Reincarnation Game and broke free from the native world. The sky was the limit.
He clawed his way up in the Reincarnation Game, from faceless cannon fodder to a big shot whose name echoed through the Myriad Heavens.
Countless planes begged for his protection, showering him with tribute.
Just days ago, after clashing with his squad’s captain, Luo Shang decided to head back to his native world for a vacation. Time to unwind.
So when he dropped in, the timeline slotted right into the moment he was discharged from the hospital and heading home.
He was still himself… but not the him from before.
The twenty-odd years he’d spent as “Su Shang” had been diluted over centuries as “Luo Shang”—like a drop of ink vanishing into the ocean, silent and gone.
The river of time spanned the Myriad Heavens and countless planes. It had left its mark on him all the same.
Luo Shang lowered his gaze and powered on the phone. He fumbled through it, guided by scraps of memory.
Yeah, back in the Reincarnation Game, he’d always used implanted chips for communication. A phone that required manual tapping? Way too primitive for him now.
Luo Shang mused idly to himself, oblivious to the driver up front, who was trembling like a leaf.
My… my auditory hallucinations are out of control! I need to get to a hospital—now!
The driver’s heart pounded in terror.
~~~
The driver sped to the Su Family Villa faster than usual.
Someone pulled open the car door from outside. Luo Shang stepped out, thanked the man, then turned and spotted a young guy in a sharp suit, maybe two or three years older than him.
[Hmm, looks familiar. Who is he again?]
Luo Shang paused to think.
It wasn’t poor memory on his part. He’d been gone too long. Twenty years was nothing compared to centuries of life—a distant memory from hundreds of years back. Recognizing the guy as “familiar” was already pretty good.
[The one up front should be Big Bro. The guy who opened the door is my personal assistant, Little Liang…]
With the true young master slotted in as the second son now, Su Shang had two older brothers. “Bro” wasn’t enough anymore—he’d have to go with Big Bro and Second Bro to tell them apart.
He remembered the plot of that novel even more clearly than the memories of his more than twenty years of life.
The former had been pinned to his System Panel from the very start as motivation, only removed later on.
Luo Shang looked up and saw that his brother’s expression wasn’t good.
Luo Shang: ?
What was up with his bro?
He slipped his phone into his pocket and drawled, “Hello, Big Bro.”
The man across from him looked even more displeased.
Luo Shang said nothing, just staring at him.
Then a voice laced with anger came from behind him.
“Su Shang, did you really bash your head in or something?”
“I’m your brother!”
Luo Shang: “Huh?”
What? The guy who’d opened the car door for him was actually Big Bro???
By all logic, shouldn’t the door-opener be the life assistant, and the one facing him be Big Bro??
The impeccably suited life assistant facing Luo Shang gave an awkward smile. “Third Young Master, I’m Little Liang.”
“Oh, got it.” Luo Shang switched gears smoothly, turning around obediently to face Big Bro Su Bingyao—whose scowl was even darker than the assistant’s—and said, “Hello, Big Bro.”
[It’s been centuries since we last met, and here I am mistaking him for someone else.]
Su Bingyao opened his mouth to speak but paused at the sound of a voice in his ear, identical to Su Shang’s timbre.
He didn’t dwell on it, figuring it was just the kid muttering under his breath.
Centuries since they’d last met?
What the hell was Su Shang talking about?
Was it him who was off, or was it Su Shang?
