Chapter 1: Black Boxing's Demise, Hell's Opening

The fist hit flesh, a muffled thud with moisture. The smell of sweat, disinfectant, and the thick, fishy scent of blood rushed into Li Ping'an's nose, making his brain ache. Every breath felt like swallowing a knife. The broken lamp in the underground arena flickered, making eyes spin, casting the faces of the mad crowd below like a devilish drawing. They waved tickets, stretched their necks and howled, their spittle almost splattering onto his split brow bone.

"Ye Lang! Tear him apart! Rip this clueless one to shreds for me!"

The howls were piercing. Li Ping'an ignored them, channeling all his strength into the opposite Ye Lang. The guy was as massive as a hairless bear, his eyes fierce enough to devour a person. Another heavy punch, whistling with wind, slammed toward his temple! Li Ping'an suddenly lowered his body, pushing off his feet, nearly sliding along the ground, the fist grazing his scalp. In the split‑second clash, he twisted his waist and hips and delivered a short, ferocious "top‑heart elbow" that hammered Ye Lang's rib cage.

"Ugh—!"

"Ye Lang" let out a strange cry, clutching his ribs and staggering back, his fierce face showing fear for the first time. Li Ping'an panted heavily, assuming a stance as steady as a stone. Sweat mixed with blood ran down his chin, dripping onto the filthy floor. The crowd's clamor beyond seemed filtered through frosted glass; only his own thudding heartbeat and the opponent's labored breathing were crystal clear. The round ended. At the side, the skinny henchman nicknamed "Haozi" swiftly handed over a bottle of mineral water.

"Brother Wolf, calm down! Ease the panic! That last hit was fatal!" Haozi piled on the flattery with a grin.

Li Ping'an's throat felt dry enough to smoke; without thinking, he twisted off the cap and gulped several big swallows. The water tasted odd, like rusted iron. He frowned, shoved the remaining half‑bottle back into Haozi's hand. Haozi took the bottle, his eyes flickered, and he quickly slipped back into the crowd.

As the referee's hand came down, a lethal numbing sensation exploded from Li Ping'an's gut! It was as if countless ice needles instantly pierced his five organs. His heart felt clamped by iron tongs, halted for a moment, then galloped wildly like a unbridled stallion, pounding his chest with excruciating pain! Darkness flooded his vision, countless stars flashing, and the edges of his sight were quickly devoured by dense ink.

"Ho… ho…" He tried to inhale, but only a rasping wail like a broken bellows escaped his throat.

"Ye Lang's" fear‑filled expression instantly turned into a maniacal grin! The massive fist, whistling with wind, slammed solidly onto Li Ping'an's unguarded face!

Bang!

Li Ping'an felt like a torn sack blasted by a high‑speed truck! The world spun, his body slammed into the cold ropes, then flopped and slid onto the ground. His consciousness drained away like receding tide. The crowd's howls, the referee's countdown, the opponent's triumphant roar… all merged into a muffled hum that finally became a dead silence.

The last thought, tinged with blood and resentment: Haozi… that bottle of water… was drugged… damn it…

Darkness completely engulfed him.

Cold.

Bone‑piercing cold.

Not the dry chill of winter, but a penetrating cold that seeps into bone cracks, wrapped in an indescribable, nauseating stench of decay.

Li Ping'an's consciousness felt like it was sinking in icy water, struggling to rise. His eyelids were as heavy as lead. He forced open a crack. His vision blurred into a mass, only a chaotic gray‑yellow. Above… straw? A few withered, yellow‑moldy stalks dangled, about to poke his eyes. He moved his finger and felt not the canvas of the ring, but cold, damp, gritty mud.

Where is this?

Hell?

Hell has a thatched hut?

"Uh…" He tried to speak, but only a weak, hoarse gasp escaped his throat, like sandpaper on wood. The sound startled even himself—high‑pitched, childish, like a kid!

Boom! A massive, chaotic flood of memory fragments surged into his mind like a burst dam! Hunger! Hunger gnawing his innards! Cold! Cold enough that his blood seemed about to freeze! Despair! Like a soaked rag pressed tightly over his mouth and nose! Two blurred yet indelible faces—father's gaunt, wax‑yellow visage, mother's eyes sunk, the last faint glimmer within. The memory's climax was mother's icy, rigid hand, clutching his wrist, breath like a wisp, repeatedly murmuring: "... Ping Le… Lin's Cloth Store… find… sister… live… live on…"

Li Ping'an jolted awake, fully conscious! He tried to sit up, but a wave of intense weakness slammed him back, his limbs limp as noodles. He looked down at himself—what met his eyes were a pair of twig‑thin black hands, skin over bone, riddled with frostbite and grime, so frail they seemed ready to snap. He wore a tattered, thin jacket so worn its original color was gone; a gust of wind made it see‑through, utterly useless.

He… turned into a little brat?

Or a little brat on the brink of starving to death?

The lingering memory in this body told him: winter 1941, Henan. Severe drought, locusts, the fields stripped bare. He was called Li Ping'an, ten years old. Father and mother… were right beside him.

He strained, inch by inch, to twist his stiff neck. To his left, a man curled up right next to him. Withered, emaciated, like a skull sheathed in skin. Cheeks sunken, cheekbones jutting like knives, eye sockets two black pits, lips gray‑white and cracked, open, long devoid of breath. That was "father."

On his right, an equally gaunt woman lay on her side, her face turned toward him. In her sunken eye sockets, that faint light, like a dying lamp, flared sharply the instant his eyelid moved! Her twig‑like hand, using its last ounce of strength, clutched Li Ping'an's icy little hand tightly. The hand was as cold as an ice lump, yet carried a heart‑breaking force.

"Ping… An…" the woman's lips trembled, her voice as weak as a mosquito's hum, "... live… on…"

Her gaze was fixed on Li Ping'an's face, burning with an almost maddening resolve, like a mother wolf protecting her cubs.

"... Ping Le… county… Lin's Cloth Store… seven years old… find… her… live… live…"

Her breath grew weaker, each syllable lighter than the last. While clutching Li Ping'an's hand, her strength intensified, her nails nearly digging into his flesh.

"Remember… find… back… sister… sister… live… on…"

The final "go" drifted away lightly. The glimmer in her eyes puffed out. Void, dead silence. The hand that had gripped him so tightly finally loosened, slipping down heavily, crashing onto the cold ground and scattering a speck of dust.

Dead.

He died right beneath his eyelids, his breath ceased.

All to save that uncertain "ration," he starved to death.

All so that he—or rather, the original owner of this body—could "live" on.

An indescribable, baffling taste surged to Li Ping'an's forehead! Grief? Anger? And a ridiculous feeling of being toyed with by the heavens! He, a modern black‑boxing fighter, just poisoned to death, opened his eyes only to be thrown into this living hell, becoming a ten‑year‑old brat whose parents were dead and he himself on the brink of choking out, and on top of that, a cheap sister sold off, whose fate he never knew?

"Fuck!" A hoarse, childlike curse, yet laced with fierce grit, burst from his throat. In this dead‑silent broken hut, it rang sharply.

A wicked fire flickered upward, yet his body's extreme emptiness and cold felt like a bucket of ice water poured over his head. The dual torment of ice and fire, his vision blackening in waves, his stomach clenched by an invisible hand twisting mercilessly, a pain that drilled into his core—what he felt wasn't a stomach but an empty, mashed‑up sack. He could no longer hold on; his body went limp, crashing heavily onto the icy, hard ground, his forehead striking a protruding clod of earth, throbbing with pain.

Consciousness blurred again, sinking into darkness. Just a second before he completely "lost it," his chest suddenly flared with heat!

It was that jade!

He vaguely recalled that the original owner wore a dull, inconspicuous round jade pendant around the neck, said to be ancestral. Now the pendant pressed against his equally icy chest, scorching like a red‑hot branding iron! A burst of searing airflow shot out from the jade!

"Buzz—!"

A buzz that only he could hear exploded in his mind! His view was no longer pitch black but a swirling gray mist. At the mist's center, a faint yet stubborn emerald glow, like a newborn star, suddenly flared! The light quickly pushed the mist aside, revealing a space roughly ten square meters in outline, like an empty little room. In the center lay a basin‑sized spring, clear enough to see the bottom. The bottom held a patch of damp, faintly glimmering mud.

An indescribable cool aura, brimming with vitality, surged through his body along the hot flow! It was like parched land suddenly watered by a fresh spring. The excruciating pain that had nearly killed him was oddly eased by half after the cooling rush! His limbs, once as heavy as lead and numb with cold, now seemed infused with a faint warm current and strength!

Spiritual Spring Space?

Blood‑dripping identification?

Transcendence Grand Gift Pack?

Li Ping'an's consciousness, shocked and stimulated by the vitality, snapped back to life! He jerked his eyes open; the scorching sensation from the jade pendant at his chest had faded, leaving only warmth. Yet the cool aura within his body continued to flow slowly, faint but a genuine lifeline.

He struggled, using the little strength he could muster, rolled over, and propped his upper body up from the cold mud. His gaze swept the two silent bodies beside him—father, withered like firewood, mother's frantic stare from her death still lingering. The air smelled of death‑cold dust and the foul sweat‑soaked mud clinging to him.

Live on?

Find the sister Li Ping Le he's never even seen?

In this war‑torn, famine‑ravaged 1941 Henan?

"Ha…" Li Ping'an twitched his mouth corner, a dry, self‑mocking sound issuing from his throat. This opening truly was a damn luxurious Hell‑level 18 suite, forcibly tied to a family‑search quest!

He laboriously lifted that twig‑thin black hand, wiping the mixture of cold sweat, tear stains (perhaps the original's?) and grime from his face. His fingertips brushed the warm jade pendant on his neck. Beneath the chill, a trace of the earlier scorching still lingered.

Live on.

Find sister.

Live in one's own way.

And… those scum who plotted to kill "Wild Wolf" Li Ping'an… If I could go back… this thought flashed coldly in his heart like the seed of a Poison Snake.

He took a deep breath; the cold air, tinged with the smell of death and decay, choked him into a violent cough. He coughed so hard his lungs felt like they might burst out. After coughing, the oppressive pressure in his chest eased a bit. He struggled, swaying, propping himself up with his thin arms and pulled himself off the ground. His legs trembled like a sieve, ready to collapse again at any moment.

Looking around, the broken grass shed was drafty on all sides, empty as a shell, not even a decent broken bowl could be found. In the corner lay some blackened, unidentified roots, exuding a bitter taste—probably Guanyin soil? That stuff, if eaten, would surely turn one into a clay figurine.

His gaze finally rested on his parents' cold bodies. His eyes were complex. There was bewilderment at the lingering sorrow of the original owner of these bodies, shock and a hint of respect for his parents' final choice, and more than that, a heavy weight of responsibility and a seething, unvented evil fire forced upon him by fate.

He shuffled, as if stepping on cotton, moving to his mother's side. He slowly crouched, extended his dirty, still trembling little hands, and gently closed his mother's eyes, which had never shut in death. His fingertips brushed the cold, rigid skin, causing his hand to tremble.

"Dad… Mom…" he opened his mouth, his throat so dry he could barely produce a proper sound, only a hiss of airflow. This address, for him an "outsider", felt both unfamiliar and heavy. He paused, his voice hoarse yet carrying a strange, childless coldness and iron‑cutting resolve, echoing in the dead‑silent broken shed like a promise, more like a declaration of war against this fucked‑up fate:

Walk away peacefully.

I, Li Ping'an, cannot die.

Sister Li Pingle…

Even if I have to crawl, I'll crawl to get her back!