Pushing open the rickety little iron gate, he leaned his even more battered bicycle against the cramped courtyard, which was less than four square meters.

The small, dark room on the east side was probably the kitchen, and the room with the door facing south was his living space. He found the key, opened the door, and was immediately hit by a wave of damp, musty odor. The tiny room, less than fifteen square meters, was dimly lit.

David Bolton found a thin cord by the door, and absentmindedly gave it a tug. The incandescent bulb in the center of the room flickered on.

Staring blankly at the lamp, he thought of the Seven-Treasure Glazed Lamp in the Heavenly Palace, sparkling with seven-colored light—how unpredictable fate was, how suddenly everything had changed.

The three-meter-wide, five-meter-long room was furnished with old, simple furniture. By the entrance was a small round table, cluttered with a few unwashed bowls and plates, and two chairs beside it.

Further in stood a maroon three-door wardrobe, looming like a giant, serving as both storage and a room divider.

Outside the wardrobe was the living room; inside was the bedroom. In the bedroom stood a single bed, and the wall beside it was covered with many photos. Below the photos were several newspaper clippings, reporting on that car accident years ago.

David Bolton tossed his backpack onto the small table, then sprawled out on the single bed. The bedding clearly hadn’t been aired out in ages, exuding a deep, lingering mustiness that only years could produce.

His plump body made the little bed creak and groan, making one worry it might collapse at any moment.

David Bolton closed his eyes, his chubby hands crossed over his bulging belly. Fallen to the mortal world, I am now a mortal, he quietly reminded himself.

From now on, everything would be completely different from the past. In the vast world of three thousand realms, he had no idea where he had landed. Stripped of his immortal status for life, forever barred from the Celestial Court, he would never become an immortal again—even if there was reincarnation, it would be as a mortal. The thought left him inevitably dejected.

But since he was here, he might as well make peace with it. At least he hadn’t ended up as miserable as Zhu Wuneng, reincarnated into a pigsty. Thinking of this, David Bolton felt a bit better.

He decided to take a good look at himself. He picked up a mirror, cracked in two, from the head of the bed and examined his current appearance. After just a few glances, he lost the courage to keep looking.

He went to the kitchen to heat a basin of water, washed himself in the little room, and finally managed to find a set of old but relatively clean underwear from the wardrobe to change into.

After these simple tasks, David Bolton was already panting with exhaustion. He realized his physical strength was truly abysmal now.

He wasn’t completely useless, though. Even though he had fallen to the mortal world, he still retained some spiritual roots—probably because the Pool of Severing Immortality hadn’t fully cleansed them from him.

He could see his intelligence, emotional intelligence, strength, and defense, and could even quantify these stats in his mind—something ordinary mortals shouldn’t be able to do.

David Bolton could also see his own life value, but only for himself. What terrified him was that his life value was a pitiful three years, which had given him a pressing sense of crisis from the very first day he arrived in the mortal world.

To understand this brand-new world, he had to start by understanding himself. David Bolton decided to learn everything about himself in the shortest time possible.

The most direct way to understand himself was to start with this room. If you can’t clean your own house, how can you clean the world? David Bolton picked up a broom and began to tidy up the messy, dirty little room.

He didn’t realize how bad it was until he started cleaning—junk and trash were everywhere, but the most abundant were books. From first grade in elementary school to the third year of high school, all the textbooks were piled in cardboard boxes under the bed, most of them already moldy.

David Bolton flipped through them roughly and found that all the textbooks from high school onward were brand new. In fact, after the car accident, he hadn’t touched a single book or done any homework.

In one of the boxes, he found a stack of diaries. These diaries became the perfect material for David Bolton to learn about himself from birth to now.

He read through them all from beginning to end. As he flipped through the diaries, memories deep in his mind began to unlock. Opening each diary was like opening a new door, and before he knew it, he had awakened most of the body’s memories from before age fifteen.

But what awakened was only memory, not subjective consciousness. David Bolton had worried he might be possessed again, but soon realized the previous consciousness had likely been destroyed in the car accident. In other words, the old David Bolton was completely dead; the current him was essentially a new life.

David Bolton spent the whole night reading all the diaries. Exhausted, he climbed onto the little bed and began his first true sleep since arriving in the human world.

In his dreams, he returned to the Palace of Doushuai, where the Grand Supreme Elder Lord tottered over to him, grabbed him without a word, and stuffed him into the blazing alchemy furnace.

David Bolton was so frightened he struggled desperately, banging his head everywhere, but he could never break out of the furnace. He watched as his body was burned to ashes bit by bit, shrinking smaller and smaller, until finally it condensed into a pitch-black... donkey dropping... But why a donkey?

David Bolton felt his life as fleeting as a mayfly, wishing he could sleep for a thousand years, but in the end he was awakened by a loud knocking at the door. He rubbed his sleepy eyes. Outside, William Carter's concerned voice called, “David Bolton! David Bolton, are you there?”

Chapter Five: The Barbecue Life