Chapter One: Transmigration and Killing

Pain!

Excruciating pain!

Edward Grant tossed and turned on the bed, like a fish out of water, struggling desperately to breathe, as memories surged into his mind, making his vision go black—he couldn’t see anything clearly.

The last thing Edward Grant remembered was just having closed a big deal, with a bonus enough to buy half a square meter of property locally. So he was strolling down the street, planning to find a nice restaurant to celebrate. But then, accompanied by a screech of brakes and the screams of a crowd, everything went black before his eyes.

But if he was hit by a car, why did his chest hurt so much? Was he alive or dead? Since he could feel pain, Edward Grant figured he might still have a chance.

When he finally managed to open his eyes, the scene before him nearly made him break down.

He saw, on his chest, a tiny figure about the size of a human head, clinging to his chest and gnawing through his skin and flesh.

To be precise, that thing wasn’t a little person at all—it was a monster!

Its body was only palm-sized, but its head was as big as a normal person’s. However, it looked like a bloody, mangled heart, with two bean-sized, pitch-black eyes and a mouth full of sharp fangs.

It was biting into Edward Grant’s chest, yet there wasn’t a single wound or drop of blood, but every bite sent waves of excruciating pain through his heart, as if it could devour his heart right through his flesh.

“Damn, damn, damn!”

Edward Grant cursed furiously, instinctively trying to pull the monster off his chest, but it seemed glued to him—no matter how he pulled, punched, or kicked, he couldn’t get it off.

The agony in his chest nearly made Edward Grant faint, and his sanity teetered on the edge of madness. In desperation, he opened his mouth and bit the monster.

As soon as Charles Grant bit down, a bloody, sticky sensation exploded in his mouth. Before he could even start to gag, a streak of pitch-black light burst from his chest, swallowing the monster whole.

Edward Grant struggled to sit up, gasping for breath.

The pain in his chest had vanished, but now his head throbbed with sharp pain. When the pain finally subsided, Edward Grant jerked his head up and looked around.

He seemed to be in an ancient bedroom—a wooden loft, decorated with antique carvings.

Staggering to his feet, Edward Grant looked into the bronze mirror on the table. The face reflected back was that of a handsome young man—both familiar and strange.

Edward Grant’s mind worked in odd ways. His first reaction at this moment was that he was fairer-skinned than in his previous life.

The memories flooding his mind had already told Edward Grant that he had transmigrated—not back to ancient times, but to a dynasty called Da Qian.

In this life, his name was also Edward Grant, courtesy name Chang’an, the eldest son of the Loyal and Brave Marquis’s household in Da Qian. It sounded like he was a noble scion, but in reality, he was from a fallen aristocratic family.

Five hundred years ago, ten kingdoms vied for supremacy, war raged everywhere, and the founding emperor of Da Qian, with the help of many talented individuals, swept across the land, unifying the realm and establishing the Da Qian dynasty.

Back then, Da Qian was full of heroes and prodigies. Edward Grant’s ancestor was one of them, but he wasn’t ennobled for military merit, but for loyalty.

The Gu family’s ancestor was one of the founding emperor’s bodyguards. Once, to protect the crown prince, he was shot with sixteen arrows—turned into a human sieve, yet he did not retreat. His loyalty and bravery moved the emperor deeply, so he granted his descendants the title of Loyal and Brave Marquis, to be inherited forever.

But a title earned through loyalty lacked a solid foundation. By the time it reached Edward Grant’s generation, the Loyal and Brave Marquis’s household had completely declined.

His father was said to be talented in his youth, but died young in battle. His mother, stricken with grief, soon fell ill and passed away.

So now, in the entire Loyal and Brave Marquis’s household, the highest-ranking official was his second uncle, who served as a deputy general in the western frontier.

In the capital of Da Qian, where you could hit a noble with a random brick, holding an empty title and with the family’s highest official being a minor general in a remote borderland, it was the epitome of decline.

Of course, none of that mattered. What mattered was—what was that thing just now? A ghost or a demon?

Edward Grant instinctively touched his chest and found a black jade pendant there, which made him freeze.

This was something from his previous life.

Edward Grant had bought this jade pendant while wandering a ghost market. The shopkeeper asked for eight hundred, claiming it was from the Zhou dynasty. Edward Grant immediately retorted, “Zhou dynasty? More like last week!”

After some haggling, he got it for eighty.

The whole thing was pitch black, carved with strange patterns, and had two seal characters. Charles Grant checked and found they seemed to be “Tong You.”

When he bit that ghostly thing just now, a black light swallowed it up—was it this thing’s doing?