“Thank you for your time, honored customer,” I said with a wide smile that was just as fake as my words were. “Please have a good day!”

“Fuck off.” Said customer responded, murmuring under his breath just loudly enough for me to hear. My smile, of course, remained firmly fixed in place.

I was used to this treatment by now, used to being the convenient scapegoat for the bottom of the barrel to take out their frustrations on. As much as it sucked, there wasn’t much to do about it except grin and bear it.

After all, it wasn’t like I had any other options.

As the customer left the store, I finally allowed myself to let out a sigh. I couldn’t even bother to glare at his retreating back as it vanished amidst the veritable river of people crowding the street outside.

With a slump to my shoulders, I forced myself to look down at the earnings from today, running my hands over the small pile of coins in front of me, feeling their smooth, metallic texture with my fingers.

Two silver coins and twelve copper ones. Just barely enough to keep the store afloat and myself fed for another day, but only barely.

Despite myself, I couldn’t help but let out another dejected sigh as I carefully gathered up the money before stashing it all away in my pockets.

Another day of no real profits. What a surprise, really. And here I’d been thinking that today would be the day that it would all change for the better.

… Oh, who was I kidding? I knew things wouldn’t change anytime soon, and if they did, they would not be for the better.

As I closed up shop for the day, I couldn’t help but let my thoughts drift off, a habit that had unfortunately become quite common for me as of late.I'd lived in this world for twenty-four years now, although saying ‘lived’ might not be the correct word. ‘Survived’ fits much better.

After all, living implies joy. It implies purpose, direction, community, family, and so much more.I didn’t have any of that. Not anymore. Not since my eighth birthday, when everything came crashing down.

Back then, I was still getting used to this new world, but there was a sense of hope, of ambition that had filled my every waking moment.

I’d wanted to become a cultivator so bad. I’d look at the sky and stare at the flying cultivators in complete awe and jealousy, and I’d tell myself that I would become one of them.

I’d spend long, long nights forcing myself to stay awake, trying desperately to sense my Qi within me, or conversely spend my free afternoons out and about, trying to find some sort of information about how to become a cultivator.

In hindsight… Well, it was all pointless, because when my eighth birthday came and I’d still had no luck whatsoever in finding my Qi or whatever else, one of the local small-time sects sent a few disciples into the city to look for new blood. I later learned it was something they did every decade or so in order to pick up some ‘outer sect members’, or more accurately, to find some schmucks they could con into becoming what were essentially serfs.

I didn’t know that at the time, of course, and even if I did, it really wouldn’t have mattered, because when my time came to be tested, when I stepped into that fateful pavilion… Well, I’d barely been in there for a moment before I was swiftly told to please leave and never come back.

Apparently, they had a formation that automatically detected whether you could cultivate at all, one that had been put there to turn away the 99% of mortals that would never be able to cultivate even the slightest amount of Qi, and as it turned out… Well, I wasn’t that lucky.

Never before had I experienced such a harsh reality check, and never before had I physically felt all of my hopes and dreams being burned to ash so thoroughly.

“Hey, watch where you’re going, dumbass!” Someone abruptly said, tearing me out from my reminiscing and forcing me to shoot out a quick apology to the man I’d accidentally bumped.

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I shook my head, forcing myself to focus on the present. I could bitch and moan all I wanted once I was back in my one-room shitty apartment, but for now, I needed to focus on actually getting back there.

And so, with a deftness born from plenty of experience, I focused on navigating through the massive crowd, shooting out almost constant apologies as I bumped and pushed people around so that I could move through them, in turn ignoring when people bumped and pushed me.

It was something I was familiar with by now. In my first life, I’d been a country boy, living in a small town with less than a few thousand people. Here, however, I’d lived my whole life inside this city, and from what I’d heard, around twelve million people were living here by the most recent estimate.

A crazy number, but then again, this was a Xianxia world. Crazy numbers were the norm.

What wasn’t the norm, however, was the fact that, all of a sudden, every single sound abruptly cut off, plunging me into absolute silence.

I paused, furrowing my brows in confusion as I looked around, meeting the equally confused gazes of the other city-folk as they too looked around weirdly, some of them trying to speak and yet failing to make any actual noise.

That was about as far as I got, because a moment after, a pressure like none I’d ever felt before in either of my lives fell upon me.

There was no resisting it. Hell, I might as well have tried to hold a mountain on my back, because that was what it felt like as I was driven to the ground, unable to even let out a cry of pain as I felt bones shatter and flesh tear.

“City Lord!” A voice thundered from the distance, and that was the last thing I heard as I felt my eardrums burst, and I shuddered as I felt blood pouring out from my ears.

I couldn’t even manage to push my head up to look at what was happening, but I didn’t need to. There were tales told of things like this happening, of fights between high-tier cultivators and their results.

They were whispered things, told only in hushed and fearful murmurs before people quickly moved on, unwilling or unable to accept the reality that their fragile lives meant nothing to those who might as well have been gods.

But said gods did not care for our unwillingness, something only further proven as I quite literally felt myself dying, unable to so much as scream out the terrible agony ravaging my body.

I couldn’t fight this. Couldn’t resist it. Couldn’t even try and get it to kill me faster, if only so that this torment would end.

I could do nothing but lay there and slowly die.

Something caught the edge of my eye, and it was a struggle to even merely move my trembling pupil in that direction.

Off in the distance and high up in the sky, I saw them. I saw the two people who would cause my second death.

I couldn’t make out their individual features from so far away. Couldn’t even really tell if they were two men or two women, or one of both.

All that I could tell was that they were beautiful beyond words, and that one of them wore a flowing purple robe, and the other wore a bright yellow one.

And that was the last thing I saw as my vision failed, causing me to go blind as I felt something slimy and warm dripping down my face.

I… I felt strangely numb. The pain had faded away, although it wasn’t hard to tell that I was still dying, and rather quickly at that. I couldn’t feel myself breathing anymore, and my thoughts were getting cloudier and harder to form.

But… Despite all of that, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief, as if a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

This new life of mine had been one of nothing but constant failure and disappointment. Ever since that fateful moment, each day had been nothing but a chore to get through, with little to no joy to be found anywhere.

Thus, it really didn’t surprise me that the thought of oblivion didn’t scare me. I’d faced death once already, after all.

Who knows, maybe I would get a third chance after all? I doubted it, but it would be… Funny… If I did…

Although, hopefully that… life would not be as… shitty as this one turned out to… be…

And with that final thought running through my mind, my second life came to an end.

----------------------------------------

Warmth.

“It’s done. I’ve fulfilled my part of the contract. Will you fulfill yours?” A voice said, hoarse and tired.

“Of course.” Another voice responded. “As we agreed, ten thousand high-grade spirit stones. They shall be given to you once you’ve recovered.”

Confusion.

“And… What about the rest?” The first voice asked, suspicion lacing their tone.

“That too shall be given, but only if she is worth it. If not, then we shall try until a better one comes along.”

“... Very well.”

Blurriness. Familiarity.

Two giants stand, one before him and the other behind. Slowly, cautiously, the giant behind him offers him to the other one, who picks him up with almost mechanical precision.

“Good. Then, if that is all, I shall take my leave.” The giant holding him says, and begins to turn away.

“Wait.” The other one says, stopping them in their tracks. “Her name. Can… May I name her?”

A short pause. Then, “Go ahead.”

“Thank you.” He can hear the second giant take a deep breath. “... Eri. Her name is Eri.”

“Hm… Short and unimpressive, but it will do. Very well, her name shall be Eri. Eri Winters”

“... Thank you.” The first whispers, and he feels her eyes land upon him. “Take care of her, please.”

“Of course.” The one holding him responds, and with that, he is swept out of the room and into a whole new world.

Realization. Dread. Hope.

Determination.