Tormented, dark, constrained, crowded, narrow, these were Ye Tianrui's first sensations after regaining consciousness, he felt as if he had been stuffed into a can filled with liquid.
Indeed, Ye Tianrui could not breathe in a bit of air now, he was wrapped in a sticky substance. When he first realized this, he was very terrified, but then he found that seemingly, the lack of air had no effect on him.
The slightly sticky fluid did not make Ye Tianrui feel uncomfortable. On the contrary, they made him feel as pleasant as soaking in a hot spring.
What truly made Ye Tianrui uncomfortable was the lack of light and the cramped tiny space. His body couldn't stretch out and was only able to curl up like an unborn infant.
An unborn child!
Ye Tianrui froze, he remembered what happened before he regained his consciousness, and then he correlated it with the strange liquid he was now soaked in and the fact that he did not need to breathe.
"Perhaps, maybe, it seems, I probably died! Dying for heroism." Ye Tianrui thought sadly, but he found himself not too upset about his death.
Because "I have been reborn!", Ye Tianrui happily thought, he had been given a new lease on life to start a new journey in life once again, with his past life's memories intact.
"In this life, I can pretend to be a prodigy, become an academic overlord, and hook up with pretty girls in school with excellent grades…" Ye Tianrui was happily contemplating his life after rebirth.
"Uh, wait, to hook up with girls, you need good physical conditions." Ye Tianrui thought lewdly, then struggled to reach down with his small short hands, to confirm his gender.
"Great, I still have the goods." After finding what he wanted, Ye Tianrui seemed even happier. After all, after reincarnation, there was a fifty percent chance he could have turned into a girl. Being reborn as a girl with the memories of a heterosexual male, this was something he could never accept.
Just as Ye Tianrui confirmed his male attributes, his hand accidentally touched a long whip-like thing.
"What is this?" Ye Tianrui started to panic. Everything he felt from his hand and body were all telling him that it was part of his body.
"Why are there scales?" Ye Tianrui was more panicked, his short little hand stroked back and forth on the long whip-like thing that grew from his rear.
Then, very unwillingly and helplessly, Ye Tianrui admitted: "This is my tail".
"I have been reborn, but I have become a tail-clad freak. I am no longer a human." Ye Tianrui started feeling down again, the scales on his tail shattered his last bit of hope.
If there were no scales, he could still deceive himself by saying that his body underwent atavism. But no matter how much humans could regress, they could not possibly grow scales, at least not normal humans.
"What have I become?" This was Ye Tianrui's current question. He was struggling to control his body within this cramped and narrow space, slightly swinging to see what new parts he had grown, in order to figure out his new identity.
Then, his little hand touched his back, just below his shoulder blades. "I have a pair of wings." This time, Ye Tianrui accepted the fact that he had a pair of wings on his back without any emotional ups and downs.
Since he was no longer human, he could accept any changes in his body. Besides, what if he doesn't accept it? Try to commit suicide and see if he could reincarnate again?
Ye Tianrui was not that stupid, only those who had died once knew the value of life, it's better to cling on to life rather than die, he always thought this made sense.
"I have hands and feet, I am definitely a humanoid creature. So, what have I become?" Ye Tianrui was very confused, knowing no matching creature from his memory.
"The only thing I can be certain of is that I am not on Earth anymore. A humanoid creature with wings and a tail is nothing but a fantasy creature." Ye Tianrui pondered to himself.
He was feeling bad again. Just now, he had been envisioning his life for the next twenty years after birth, pretending to be a prodigy, becoming an academic overlord, hooking up with rich and beautiful girls, and reaching the pinnacle of life.
All of his fantasies have now turned into castles in the air, with no chance of realization. He was no longer a human, and he was not even in the world he had once known.
Ye Tianrui's chubby hand touched the shell that was restricting his mobility. There was no feeling of flesh as he had suspected, but a slight curve with a metallic hardness.
"It's not the womb." Ye Tianrui sighed rather disappointedly, blowing a few bubbles in the process.
"This is an eggshell, I'm not a mammal but instead an oviparous creature." Ye Tianrui was puzzled. What had he reincarnated into? Humanoid creatures are supposed to be mammals, right? Why wasn't he inside a humanoid creature's womb, but instead enclosed within a hard eggshell?
"Hey!" When Ye Tianrui realized he was inside an egg, the desire to hatch filled his mind. All his limbs, including his wings and tail, strained at once, trying to break free from the eggshell imprisoning his body.
"I'm not strong enough yet! It's not time for me to be born." When Ye Tianrui exerted all his strength and still couldn't shake the hard shell binding him, he knew that he wasn't yet fully developed.
"I'm so tired, so sleepy. I'll take a nap first and then try again when I wake up!" Exhausted, Ye Tianrui yawned and began to feel drowsy. His intense mental activity and efforts to hatch had consumed a lot of his energy, causing him to fall into a deep sleep.
Ye Tianrui's hatching attempt failed, not causing the slightest crack in his egg. However, the once quiet egg was now swaying, successfully attracting the attention of the Golden Colossal Beast guarding near his egg.
The beast lifted its slender neck. Its head, covered in a multitude of golden fine scales, stared down, the beast's vertical pupils of a dark gold color fixated on the now still egg.
"My child, are you finally ready to come into the world? I have been waiting for a long time." The giant and majestic creature spoke, amazingly with a gentle and warm feminine voice.
If you listened to the voice alone, it would only remind you of a dignified and virtuous noble lady, utterly incongruous with this terrifyingly powerful Golden Colossal Beast.
Of course, the sleeping Ye Tianrui didn't know that his 'Mother' had been keeping watch over his egg, anxiously waiting for him to hatch.
… In a drowsy state, Ye Tianrui woke up again. As usual, darkness filled his vision. During his sleep, his body had grown, making the space inside the eggshell even more cramped and confined, tightly constraining his body.
Previously, he could still wriggle a bit; now, he couldn't move at all. His body had grown to this extent, Ye Tianrui knew, it was time for him to hatch.
"I must do this in one go. My eggshell may be unusually sturdy, but it should be within my ability to break."
Ye Tianrui habitually took a deep breath, ended up filling his belly with egg fluid. The fluid blocked his nasal passages and he tugged at the corner of his mouth. Without any more hesitation, he gathered the strength in his familiar limbs, while his wings and tail stayed motionless.
Instead of struggling using his unfamiliar body parts, it was better for him to use his well-acquainted limbs to hatch, focusing his power.
"Ugh!!!" Ye Tianrui's limbs pushed against the eggshell, and with his exertion, his meaty body contracted, each muscle straining, revealing a raw strength.
His mouth firmly clamped shut, Ye Tianrui felt like he had exhausted all his strength, even the strength he had from his previous life, yet, the shell remained as robust as before, showing no signs of shattering.
With Ye Tianrui's persistent efforts, he gradually started to feel powerless. He was quickly becoming exhausted, but Ye Tianrui was still holding on, unwilling to give up.
He didn't know what the consequences of failing to hatch would be, but Ye Tianrui knew his body had grown to the limit that the egg could accommodate. He couldn't grow any more.
Besides, Ye Tianrui remembered the documentaries he had watched -- no matter the species, not every egg laid by oviparous creatures had a hundred percent hatch rate. Some were called 'dead eggs'. Of these, some were failures who couldn't hatch, and those who couldn't, would only die.
"Live or die, I choose one." Ye Tianrui growled in frustration: "I came back to life, not to experience life within an eggshell."
Perhaps due to Ye Tianrui's anger, or perhaps to his persistence, "Crack!" A crisp sound echoed, heavenly music to Ye Tianrui's ears. The eggshell shattered.
Under the gaze of two dark gold and two dazzling gold eyes, the pale golden egg began to shake. Soon after, a fine crack appeared on the surface of the shell. Then, this fine crack began to spread and split, and quickly covered the entire Golden Giant Egg.
A "small" figure catapulted out with the transparent egg fluid. Without considering the light golden scales on this "small" baby's plump, white body, the tail of gold on his rear, and the pair of tiny horns traceable within the wet black hair on the head, this newly born baby was not so different from a human baby.
"This look, not bad." Looking at this unusual baby, standing next to the Golden Colossal Beast, the black-haired "man" with dazzling gold eyes showed a radiant smile.
"Hmm, indeed not bad, this form, should perfectly combine both your and my bloodline." The Golden Beast showed off its white sharp teeth, emitting a gentle feminine voice that was an astounding contrast to its appearance.
Ye Tianrui was lying on blue-purple crystal stone with a depression at its center, surrounded by shattered golden eggshells, sticky egg fluid constantly dripping from his body.
He blankly raised his head, locking eyes with the Golden Colossal Beast that was softly looking down at him. Then he turned his head absent-mindedly towards the black-haired golden-eyed "man" standing next to the beast. The man's height and physique were in no way less imposing than the colossal beast.