[Post-Death Sequence Initiated]
[You were fortunate. You died in your own home—shielded from sunlight, soaked in Yin, untouched by yang. Your soul remained.]
[Year 2 – Sensory Awareness][You began to hear faint sounds. You could distinguish shapes. Cracks in the walls. Footsteps in distant corridors. You had no thoughts—no self. But your senses returned.]
[Year 3 – Fleeting Memory][You started to remember. Just pieces—barley, oil, silver. The smell of ink. The taste of old tea. A name: Gao Lupeng. Not everything, but enough to remind you that you were once alive.]
[Year 4 – Infant Soul][Your thoughts matured to a toddler's level. You recognized the decay. Your soul was unraveling—slowly but surely. In desperation, you left your house, searching for a place where Yin was thicker.]
[You relocated to a burial field.][Dozens of graves. Rotten wood. Cold soil. Yin energy lingered here. The decay slowed—but didn't stop.]
[Year 5–6 – Wandering Echo][You drifted in the graveyard, trying to recall old methods, desperate to restore your soul. But you were still too weak. No real growth. Only survival.]
[Year 7 – First Sparks of Will][Your soul reached the level of a child. You created a crude soul technique—nothing elegant, but it allowed you to slowly draw ambient Yin. For the first time, you strengthened.]
[Year 8 – Contamination][A wandering shaman entered the graveyard. He chanted in an ancient tongue and carried a chicken.]
[He cut its throat.]
[Blood spilled on the soil—hot, alive, filled with Yang.]
[You screamed.]
[The Yang energy scorched your soul like fire. You fled deeper underground, trembling in fear. But… you endured.]
[Year 9 – Fear and Reflection][Afraid of being exorcised, you hid inside a coffin and refused to come out. You remained inside all year. But your mind grew clearer. You began to understand half of what humans said—and could even recall memories from your past life.]
[Year 10 – The Ghost Within][You still wandered the cemetery, but your soul no longer flickered like a candle in the wind. You had survived a decade as a ghost.]
[Age 18 Physique – Hardened by logistics and urban survival. High endurance, stealthy movements, and low-profile instincts. Trained reflexes from surviving assassination attempts.]
[Ghost-Survival Insights] – Instinctive method to absorb ambient Yin energy, basic resistance against blood and fire-based exorcisms, foundational understanding of hiding in shadow-heavy terrain]
[Enhanced Yin Soul – Your soul has stabilized and reached a juvenile state. You can now store Yin energy passively and sense hostility from living beings. You can hide from weak shamans and early stage cultivators.]
[Unknown Residue of Death] – A vial containing the same poison used to kill you. Extracted from within your body's decayed remains by your ghost self. Potent and nearly undetectable. Source unknown. Potential for alchemical study or assassination.
Shen Li once again chose the [Enhanced Yin Soul] reward.
The moment he confirmed it, a tidal surge of energy flooded into him.
It was too much.
His soul swelled like a balloon filled past its limits—bloated, pulsing, uncontainable. At first, he tried to control it. Breathe. Focus. Grip the edge of the table.
But then the doubt crept in.
"Can a human body even hold this much soul power…?"
Sweat dripped from his temples. His muscles trembled. His eyes rolled back slightly as his consciousness rocked between planes. The pressure in his chest was unbearable—like trying to hold back something that absolutely refused to stay in.
It felt just like that moment on the toilet when your body says, "It's coming out whether you want it or not."
Panic set in.
He shifted positions desperately—cross-legged, kneeling, even lying flat—but nothing worked.
POP.
A strange sound echoed inside him. Not in his ears—but in his heart.
It was as if something inside burst like an overinflated balloon.
And then—silence.
The next second, Shen Li realized something horrifying:
He was floating in the air.
Below him, his body slumped backward, eyes wide open, unmoving.
"…NIMA!!!" Shen Li cursed in a shrill, ghostly echo.
He had accidentally blasted his soul straight out of his own body.
Shen Li quickly tried to dive back into his body.
But there was one small problem.
He… didn't know how to fly.
Instead of smoothly drifting down, he swung helplessly left and right like a torn paper caught in a breeze. His ghostly form spun in slow arcs, bumping against furniture, rolling in midair like a confused chicken.
"Okay. No problem. No problem…" Shen Li mumbled to himself, trying to stay calm.
"I just need to… get back in. It's my body. I own it. Right?"
He tried pushing forward, but only ended up drifting backward into the ceiling, legs kicking uselessly like a flipped beetle. He flipped over again and spun headfirst into the opposite wall.
Shen Li groaned. Or… at least he tried to.
The ghostly moan came out more like a cold whisper. His own voice sounded distant, eerie—even to himself.
"...This is bad."
He floated there, arms crossed in midair, glancing down at his own motionless body on the floor. Face pale. Chest still. Mouth half-open.
It looked… pretty dead.
"Oi… come on, get up already! I'm not done using you!"
But his body didn't respond.
Shen Li sucked in a breath out of habit—then remembered ghosts didn't breathe.
Now officially panicking, he twisted around wildly, scanning the room for ideas. Anything.
"…There's gotta be a way to plug myself back in, right!?"
After what felt like the most humiliating half-hour of his second life, Shen Li finally managed the basics of ghostly movement.
It wasn't graceful.
It wasn't fast.
But at least now, when he wanted to go left
He could glide. Slowly. Awkwardly. Like a drunk feather.
"...Progress," he muttered.
But learning came at a cost.
Twice—no, three times—he'd nearly drifted through the walls. One time, he even poked his head halfway outside before instinct yanked him back. The sunlight beyond had made his soul sizzle—the sharp sting like plunging a hand into boiling oil.
If he hadn't pulled back in time…
Shen Li shivered.
"…I was really about to become the first transmigrator to die from ordinary daylight."
He hovered in place, staring at the paper-thin edge of shadow that had saved his existence. His temple twitched.
"What kind of damn cultivation world is this?!"
He spun back toward his lifeless body lying on the ground, determination returning to his eyes.
"Alright. I can float. I can dodge sunlight. Now…"
He pointed a finger at his body like a man accusing a thief.
"…Give me back my body, you damn meat puppet!"
Shen Li floated down toward his body.
Carefully.
Cautiously.
He aligned himself like a man trying to squeeze through a keyhole with his eyes closed.
And—
Whoosh.
He passed straight through.
Again.
"…What the hell?!"
He tried once more, concentrating harder this time. Maybe if he angled his head a bit, curled his legs inward—
Whoosh.
Straight through again.
It was like trying to hug smoke.
"Am I seriously going to become a lonely ghost…?"
If he still had a face, it would've been on the verge of tears. But he didn't.
His current form had no features. Just a faintly glowing wisp, flickering like candlelight in a storm. A soul that had broken its shell too early.
More than half of his spiritual essence was pitch black—like smoldering charcoal wrapped in fog. The rest was pale white, thin and fragile, like silk threads stretched over emptiness.
He glanced down at his own body lying on the floor like discarded clothing.
Still. Warm. Technically alive.
"Come on… this isn't how transmigration novels go. I'm not supposed to die by leveling up too fast!"
He hovered over himself again and took a deep breath—well, the ghostly equivalent of one.
"…Third time's the charm?"
After hours of spiraling, crashing, ramming, diving, spinning, and even pleading…
Shen Li hovered above his body, exhausted.
Not physically, of course—he didn't have a body. But mentally? Spiritually?
He was drained.
"No matter what I try… it just rejects me."
Each time he attempted to phase in, his soul simply slipped through—as if his own body had become an exclusive club with a bouncer at the door.
Worse, he could feel it.
His body hadn't died. Not fully.
But it had kicked him out.
Like it had tasted too much of his Yin-powered soul and decided it wasn't on the menu.
"…Tch. Even my own body betrayed me," Shen Li muttered, floating in slow circles.
After another long moment, he finally came to a cold, bitter conclusion:
He had been forcibly expelled.
If he wanted back in, he'd need to possess his own body.
It wasn't just slipping back anymore.
It was war.
He floated downward, eyes narrowing (figuratively).
"Alright then…" he muttered with a crooked grin, hovering just above his chest.
"A soulless body, how hard can it be?"
He cracked his ghostly knuckles—purely for morale. Then began focusing all his spiritual power toward a single point—
Preparing to reclaim the vessel that once belonged to him.
Shen Li floated above his body like a wilted ghost-kite caught in a breeze of despair.
He had tried everything. Slammed into his chest like a diving hawk. Slipped through the ears. Curled into the navel. Even tried entering through the toes. Nothing worked.
His body remained cold and inert.
Unwelcoming.
Unforgiving.
Unfair.
Finally, with the dignity of a man who had spent the last hour headbutting his own corpse, Shen Li sighed.
He looked up at the air above him, though he knew the System didn't reside in any specific space.
Still, with spiritual reverence and a touch of desperation, he muttered:
"System daddy… I trust you."
Then—
Name: Shen Li
Race: Human (Soul Displaced)
Age: 17Lifespan: 17 / 159
[Enter Simulation Duration: Choose how many years to simulate]
"Ten years!" he roared into the still air, voice echoing across the spirit realm."I will enter for ten years! Show me my damn path!"
Shen Li didn't hesitate. His spiritual flame flared with grim determination.
[Post-Death Sequence: Initialized]
[At the one-year mark since your arrival in this world, you have somehow crossed a line that few even approach — you are no longer human. You exist now as a soul form, detached from flesh, floating silently above your own motionless body.]
[On the first day, you felt urgency. Your body was still alive, but without water, it wouldn't survive more than three days. Desperately, you tried everything—entering through the mouth, the nose, even the rear. No matter the method, your soul passed through as if the body were no more than mist.]
[On the second day, anxiety turned into madness. You twisted your soul into shapes it wasn't meant to take, clawing at yourself, screaming internally. You wrapped yourself around the corpse, trying to fuse. You screamed at the heavens, cursed the world, but nothing responded.]
[On the third day, the signs of death became evident. Your body's lips cracked. The skin dried and tightened over your frame. Organs began to fail. That's when the terror struck: not just that you might be a ghost—but that you might be one forever. You even considered drifting outside into the sun just to end it.]
[On the fourth day, your body officially died. The last moisture evaporated. Still, no one entered the house. No neighbor knocked. No rescuer arrived. You watched your own corpse decay alone.]
[On the fifth day, there was only stillness. You hovered in the room like a lifeless cloud. You didn't cry. Ghosts couldn't cry. But something inside you—something close to a soul's heart—ached deeply. You waited. You watched. You despaired.]
[One week later, your employees finally came, expecting their overdue payments. Instead, they found your lifeless body slumped within the house. Panic turned to greed. They looted your corpse, stripped the cabinets, and vanished.]
[Later that same day, city officials arrived. Finding your body, they gave it a token inspection, then seized the property under bureaucratic pretense. When they found little of value, they cursed your name, laughing bitterly: "Died like a rat. Must've been a poor ghost in life too." These words stung. You took offense, even as your form hovered invisible in the corner.]
[Still, you didn't dare to leave the house. The outside world felt dangerous to your formless, fledgling soul. The memory of sunlight's threat lingered like a blade at your neck.]
[Fifteen days passed. You began to notice something worse than fear — forgetting. Pieces of memory slipped like grains of sand through your grasp. A creeping dullness settled into your thoughts. Your soul felt unstable, its shape fraying at the edges. You remembered from your previous simulation: if you allowed this to continue, you would regress into a mind no more developed than a child's.]
[Determined not to lose yourself, you fled to the graveyard — the only place in town soaked with enough Yin energy to nurture spirits. There, you began crafting a crude but effective method of self-strengthening: absorbing ambient Yin qi into your fragmented form.]
[This realization came to you slowly but clearly. You were not like the others. Ordinary ghosts were mere echoes of emotion. Even here, in a graveyard filled with the dead, you found none who had retained their awareness. They wandered aimlessly, shadows clinging to the bones of habit.]
[But you… you were different.]
[You were not truly a ghost. Nor were you fully a soul. Because of the system's interference, your essence had blended — half ghost, half living soul. You had died… but not really. Your body was dead. But your fate still hung in the balance.]