Lu Yuanming awoke.
Ever since he'd become a vegetative patient, he actually lost the function of sleeping.
In this state as a vegetative patient, he couldn't feel anything, only darkness lay before him. It was fortunate he could still hear sounds from the outside world; otherwise, he might have been driven insane by the situation long ago.
Lu Yuanming was very grateful that he could still travel back, which was simply incredible.
To know that the body of the drug addict he traveled to in the past had definitely died, he should now be something like a soul in the afterlife.
(But since I myself am a soul that traveled here, my body lies in the hospital, so even if the one I traveled to in the past had died, it's not unacceptable for the soul to travel back. Now the question is, if I travel to another world again, will I appear as a soul in the afterworld, or will I possess another living person's body?)
After waking up, Lu Yuanming gradually began to ponder about the world he traveled to in the past.
The other world was the future of 2028, and it seemed that there was some serious illness there.
In the afterlife, he had some communication with a white police officer and a black homeless man, and from what they told him, the supernatural event he encountered in the slum apartment was not an isolated incident. It seemed that similar situations were happening everywhere, with monsters, spectres, curses, and such rampaging around to the point where both the government and the public were fully aware of it.
But the afterlife… was that really the afterlife?
There were too many puzzles without answers, at least Lu Yuanming couldn't understand what he had experienced.
Compared to ghosts, monsters, curses, and the world of the dead, his original world was at least safe. Although he is now in a vegetative state, what if he could control his body and wake up tomorrow?
That would certainly be better than being torn apart and devoured by a monster after crossing over, wouldn't it?
That intense pain of having his leg smashed, the agony of having chunks of muscle torn off his thigh, and the despair when the monster cornered him—all these experiences were engraved deeply in Lu Yuanming's memory. As an ordinary youth who grew up in a peaceful age and world, he never dreamed he would encounter such horrors.
This made him dare not cross over again.
Even if it meant living in the present darkness, only able to listen to the few sounds from the outside.
Thus, Lu Yuanming stayed in his original body for quite a long time. Although he could not sense the specific time, judging from the sounds he heard, such as louder and more mixed noises during the day and mostly quiet at night, he figured he'd been in his original body for at least ten days, or maybe a couple of weeks, when he noticed something unusual.
He seemed to be able to faintly, very faintly feel physical sensations again.
It was a very faint sense of being pricked on the back of his hand, not painful, just a slight sensation. At that moment, he just happened to hear the sounds of a nurse giving him an injection, and he also heard his parents' voices.
"...Yuanmin is about to take the college entrance exams, but she still comes over..."
"How about we take Mingming home, have a reunion for the festival..."
"There's a lot of compensation money left, but..."
Lu Yuanming couldn't hear clearly. His only connection to the outside world was through sound, but this sound was often muffled. Since becoming a vegetative patient, that prick on the back of the hand, which was just a tingling sensation, had been his only experience of touch.
Lu Yuanming became a vegetative patient from a car accident in the summer right after graduating, and he felt that about half a year had passed by now, so it was probably around the time of the Spring Festival.
His sister's name was Lu Yuanmin. Judging from the accent, especially the Chongqing accent, it was very much like his own, Lu Yuanming. This was the very thing he and his sister often complained to their parents about, believing that the parents had been lazy when naming them.
Lu Yuanmin was 18 years old that year, just in her senior year of high school. She was five years younger than him and unlike him, his sister was a hardworking top student. Although not a prodigy, her grades were much better than his, and she had the potential to enter a top university. Even a place at Peking University or Tsinghua University seemed possible with a good performance on the day. Lu Yuanming, hearing bits and pieces from his parents, felt genuinely distressed.
And furthermore... the Spring Festival, the time for reunion, yet he had already become a vegetative patient...
It wasn't until his parents left that Lu Yuanming slowly calmed down from his emotional turmoil.
Then he immediately began to carefully recall the sensation on the back of his hand that resembled a needle prick.
This was clearly a symbol of his recovery.
But it was merely a symbol.
Moreover, Lu Yuanming himself had a feeling, which was that after traversing back this time, he felt a sense of fullness in his consciousness.
This was actually very difficult to understand; after his traversal, everything he experienced, with one leg broken, the lower half of his body a bloody mess, his entire body covered in wounds, saying he was gravely injured was an understatement. Under such circumstances, returning would mean immediately falling into a coma, but after more than ten days, he felt his consciousness become full and strong.
Then, Lu Yuanming thought back to when he killed that monster, and the light particles that emerged from the monster's corpse. A few of the particles fell into his mouth, but with the emergency at the time, he didn't have time to think about it. After returning to his original body, he had already recalled the entire ordeal, naturally not missing out on the detail of the light particles.
(Could it be, my soul has become stronger?)
Lu Yuanming was a young man; aside from gaming, his biggest entertainment was reading online novels, and with rational conjecture at this moment, he had some guesses about his current situation.
(Could it be that in that after-death world, killing monsters grants 'Ling'? Essence? Or something else? And after absorbing these things, my soul's essence also became stronger? Moreover, the three aspects of the body, qi, and spirit are inherently interrelated, so my soul becoming stronger naturally also affects my physical body to some extent, such as the connection with the body, the deeper perception of it? So, does that mean...)
(As long as my soul is strong enough, can I wake up from the vegetative state!?)
This thought greatly excited Lu Yuanming.
In the six months he spent in a vegetative state, he had heard many conversations between the doctors and his parents and knew roughly that he might never wake up in his lifetime. Of course, he might also wake up in a few months or a year if he was lucky, but if not, a lifelong vegetative state was most common.
He didn't want that!
To decay in such darkness, never again to see this world, unable to fulfill filial duties to his parents, losing family, friends, classmates, everything...
He refused!!
Now, he saw a possibility of waking up, no matter how slim, no matter the enormity of the dangers he might face, he wanted to try!
(Every time I traverse to another world, I must wait seventy-two hours to return. Based on my previous experiences, I should return to the same place I came from. If nothing changes, then when I traverse back, I should still be in that cavity, and after more than ten days, those monsters should all have left.)
(In this case, I should hide as much as possible in this abandoned building, and also search for information about this after-death world, surviving until close to the seventy-two-hour mark. That way, when I explore a larger area, if I encounter monsters or life-threatening dangers, I might be able to traverse back to safety.)
Lu Yuanming pondered many possibilities in his heart, such as what if he encountered a monster right after traversing?
What if the monsters killed him instantly?
Or what if he encountered something even more terrifying, like Curses or spectres like those from horror movies?
Moreover, upon traversing again, would he still be disabled? With essentially no legs and probably half a crippled arm!
All of these were possibilities!
But... but...
Parents, my sister, friends, classmates...
This imperfect, but so vivid world...
The Lunar New Year, the reunion...
That was his home...
The day Lu Yuanming's parents decided to take him home to spend Lunar New Year with the family, he lunged into the only light in the darkness.
When Lu Yuanming came to his senses, he found himself lying unharmed on the concrete floor, and at his feet, the rotten corpse of the monster still blockaded the entrance to the cavity.