Chapter 2: A Pace Faster Than a Movie Opening

"……Damn!"

After a bout of vertigo, when Gu Zhao opened his eyes again, he no longer saw his own balcony or the Young Lady in the building opposite who often opened her window to practice yoga.

The sunlight was still warm, but the air carried a hint of salt and dampness, and the sounds of insects and birds echoed through the forest.

The green trees still formed a canopy of shade; not far away stood a few farmhouses, and faint human voices could be heard.

Under his feet was a rough, abrasive sensation. Gu Zhao looked down and saw that he was barefoot on rough earth, still wearing light and comfortable loungewear.

As his gaze lifted, he knew he had transmigrated.

Although there were farmhouses and human voices nearby, the sun would never be the size of a millstone anywhere on Blue Star!

Gu Zhao was stunned; he instinctively reached for the Five Thunder Token at his chest, but grasped nothing.

"Where's my token!?" Gu Zhao's eyes bulged with rage.

He looked down and found that only a lone red string hung around his neck, swaying in the wind; the Five Thunder Token that had been tied to it was gone.

That Five Thunder Token was the very cause of his transmigration; how could it suddenly disappear?

"This can't be a one-way ticket, can it!?"

Gu Zhao's pupils dilated, cold sweat broke out, and he felt a wave of dizziness in his brain, followed by another bout of disorientation, as if his head had been filled with paste.

But in the next instant, he "saw" the Five Thunder Token.

A black-and-red token, half the size of a palm, floated in the void of his sea of consciousness, surrounded by flickering purple lightning, accompanied by the faint sound of thunder echoing deep within Gu Zhao's mind.

The Five Thunder Token!

Gu Zhao stood with his mouth agape; the Five Thunder Token had actually flown into his brain!

He saw lightning flickering around the Five Thunder Token, and what appeared to be a seed-like object orbiting and dancing around it.

Just as Gu Zhao "saw" the Five Thunder Token, bolts of lightning suddenly shot out from it, plunging from the crown down directly into his chest.

Seeing the lightning coursing through his body, Gu Zhao felt a tingling numbness; then it seemed a fissure opened in his chest, and a breath of energy surged out, rapidly expanding as it merged with the lightning.

He Moming suddenly knew that this energy was his innate Qi, cultivated and refined since childhood over ten years of Daoist practice.

In an instant...

The spirit moved the Qi, the Qi filled the body, and essence, Qi, and spirit erupted; Gu Zhao's body, based on his innate Qi, began to greedily absorb some substance from the surrounding air, and magic power filled with spiritual energy gradually filled Gu Zhao's desiccated body.

Gu Zhao stood dumbfounded right where he was; this change was so astonishingly real that he could not immediately find words to describe his current feelings.

One second he was in a comfortable three-bedroom apartment preparing for a nap, and the next he was almost completely naked, appearing in the countryside of another world.

One second he thought he had begun a one-way journey, and the next his golden finger suddenly appeared and bestowed power upon him.

Even a movie opening wouldn't be this fast!

Gu Zhao felt the Five Thunder Token in his mind, the innate Qi in his chest, and the magic power gradually filling his dantian and meridians; he was completely bewildered.

"Who am I?"

"Where am I?"

"What should I do?"

Gu Zhao was bewildered for a moment before he finally reacted.

His first reaction was to gaze inward into his sea of consciousness again, focusing all his attention to sense the Five Thunder Token.

The Five Thunder Token emitted a faint suction force, but it also carried a hint of exhaustion.

Gu Zhao sensed that the Five Thunder Token could take him back, but it seemed to have been weak for a long time; now that it had been suddenly activated, it needed to rest before it could take him across again.

"Haa—" Gu Zhao let out a long breath. "As long as I can go back, that's good!"

Although transmigrating here had suddenly granted him the magic power he had long dreamed of, if he couldn't return...

As a young second-generation rich kid living in a peaceful country, with abundant material goods, rich entertainment, a harmonious family, good health, and many comfortable days ahead waiting for him...

Sudden transmigration is something no one can bear!

"But, if I can travel between two worlds..."

Gu Zhao's eyes grew brighter and brighter; as a new-era model youth who spent all day on the internet, he had already recalled several two-world novels he had read.

"Boss, there's another person here!"

Just as he began to daydream about the future, a hoarse voice called him back to reality.

Gu Zhao looked up and saw two men in hemp clothes, with fierce eyes and holding knives and spears, emerge from behind and approach him.

"What's going on?" Gu Zhao was startled.

The two men sized Gu Zhao up and down; the one on the left looked puzzled. "Your skin is so smooth and tender; are you from the village?"

The man on the right sneered, "Does it matter if he's from the village or not? This kid is fair and clean; we can take him back to the Shanzhai to play with."

Gu Zhao:???

Transmigrating to a world resembling ancient times was easy to understand, but "smooth and tender skin," "fair and clean," and "take him back to the Shanzhai to play"—what the hell was that?

Damn it...

Seeing the long blade flashing with cold light sweep past his face, Gu Zhao, not yet accustomed to his own strength, hurriedly retreated in fright, moving away from the two men and circling around the house; then he understood what the noisy human voices he had just heard were about.

On the small open space at the village entrance, over a hundred people had already gathered.

The villagers, supporting the elderly and leading the young, huddled together in trembling fear, surrounded by more than a dozen men wielding cold weapons, while another dozen men were freely looting the surrounding houses.

Gu Zhao was the stray fish they had discovered.

After driving Gu Zhao to the open space at the village entrance, the two men laughed heartily, did not press further, but continued to break into other places to search.

Gu Zhao stood alone on the side, watching as the gazes of both the villagers and the bandits focused on him.

Gu Zhao then looked with some trepidation at a large man surrounded by the bandits at the very center.

He was a burly giant nearly two meters tall, solid as an iron tower, with dark skin, a broad back and powerful frame, thick eyebrows and a tangled beard; in his left hand he held a nine-ring blade that looked as light as nothing, fitting the domineering image of a Shanzhai chief perfectly.

However, the Bandit Chief merely glanced at Gu Zhao before shifting his gaze away.

He clearly did not care for Gu Zhao's type; what interested him was the target before him.

Just ahead of him stood a slender woman in a green dress.

Gu Zhao glanced from the side and saw that the woman's expression was calm, showing no sign of fear.

The Bandit Chief looked at the woman as if she were prey, grinned, and said lightly, "Miss has arrived here to seek lodging; is this not fate ordained by heaven for us?"

He reached out to touch the woman's chin. "Why not come back to the mountain with me and be my Lady of the Bandit Camp?"

The woman turned her head to avoid the Bandit Chief, let out a disdainful snort, and said, "You are too ugly."