"Headache."  

The first sensation was a headache.  

The second sensation was... the ultimate philosophical question: "Who am I? Where am I? What am I supposed to do?"  

My brain felt like it was about to explode, as if something was holding something else back. I was in a daze, but the light in front of me grew brighter and brighter.  

I slowly opened my eyes and immediately understood what the bright light was—it was the sun about to rise on the distant horizon.  

"Ah..." I moved my head and realized that the back of my head hurt like hell. Then I noticed my strange posture. After taking a careful look around, I realized I was tied to a makeshift gallows made of broken tree stumps.  

The feeling of slowly waking up was not pleasant. It was as if my previous memories were locked away, and I couldn't remember who I was, where I was, or what I was supposed to do. Even my name had disappeared from my memory.  

It was quiet all around. No people or animals. Otherwise, I would have asked why I was in this situation. The sun was still on the verge of rising, but the light was getting stronger. My eyesight gradually returned, and I started to feel something different. It seemed... my body was recovering?  

I tried to struggle against the ropes binding my arms and realized they were tied pretty tight. Who did this?  

"Ah, who did this?" I desperately tried to dig through my memory for what had happened, but... nothing.  

Alone in the wilderness, it was indeed lonely. Not far away, I saw smoke rising, suggesting that there was a village nearby.  

"Hey, mister!" A child's voice suddenly came from behind me. Because I was tied up, I tried to turn my head, but it didn’t work well. However, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a nicely dressed little boy.  

"Call me big brother!" I was annoyed that he called me mister. Do I look that old?  

"Hehe, mister, you’re awake?" The boy was unfazed. Seeing my awkward, painful posture, he walked around to face me.  

Something felt off, but I couldn't put my finger on it.  

"You little brat, call me big brother." No matter what, I couldn’t let myself be called "mister" while tied up like this. I obviously have a young and handsome face. Being called "mister" by a kid was embarrassing.  

The boy was cute, about seven or eight years old, with fair skin and a round face. When he smiled, two dimples appeared. His clothes weren’t fancy, but they gave off a sense of quality. His eyes seemed familiar, but my damned memory couldn’t place them.  

He squatted in front of me, cupping his face in his hands, and stared at the small flame beneath my feet. "Mister, this little flame is interesting, huh? You should catch fire pretty soon."  

I sighed. Although the flame was small, I could sense it had some kind of magical power. I couldn’t explain it, but I could feel my body slowly recovering, and even the lump on my head didn’t hurt as much.  

But I still told the boy, "Call me big brother. By the way, what's your name? Where are we?"  

The boy looked surprised. "Mister, you don’t remember me? You treated me when I was little!"  

His words swirled in my mind, and though I didn’t pay attention to most of them, the part about treating him gave me an idea. My eyes shifted, and my expression turned a bit mischievous. I wondered if the boy would be scared seeing me like this.  

I tried to soften my voice, "So, what's your name? I do remember you a bit, you said I treated you when you were younger, right? I have a vague memory." After a pause, I added, "Where are your parents? Could you call them over for me?"  

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The boy’s eyes brightened for a moment, then dimmed. "I don’t know where my parents are. I haven’t seen them in a long time."  

"I'm sorry... I didn’t know..." I assumed his parents had passed away.  

"No, I just don’t know where they are, but they’re not dead." The boy’s mature tone surprised me.  

"My name is Steel." The boy stood up after saying this and walked away. I watched him head off, not in the direction of the smoke. Just as I was wondering about this, I heard the sound of hooves coming from the direction of the smoke. I turned my head to see an old brown horse galloping toward me, with a fairly clean-looking old man riding it.  

He wasn’t far away, and soon the horse brought the old man to me. The old man smirked and said, "Rang, still not willing to talk?"  

I was utterly baffled, but I had a feeling this old man was one of the main reasons for my current predicament. But I had to answer him; otherwise, I’d never get any answers, right?  

"Honorable sir, may I ask your name?" I really wanted to call him "old man" and ask if he was the one who tied me up here, but given my current situation, I decided to be polite. "I don’t know what you want to know, but I’m willing to answer any of your questions."  

"You don’t know what I want to ask?" The old man’s eyes widened in anger. "Are you messing with me?"  

Looking at him helplessly, I said, "Sorry, I seem to have lost my memory."  

The old man got even angrier, "You are messing with me! You’re saying you lost your memory? You expect me to believe you forgot everything you said last night at Mark’s house after drinking too much? I don’t believe it."  

I had no choice but to answer politely again, "I really lost my memory. There’s even a huge lump on my head. My head hurts a lot, and I can’t remember anything."  

Muttering to himself, the old man rode his horse behind me. Although there was a pile of firewood beneath my feet, his position on the horse gave him a clear view of the lump on my head. "Could he really have been hit so hard he lost his memory? This never happened before..."  

Hearing this, I wanted to jump down and punch this old man. So, he was the one who put me in this state! But then I wondered, why would he do this?

The old man circled back around on his horse. It was clear he had seen the lump on my head, but that didn’t seem to ease his anger. "Last night at Mark’s house, you said you knew of a place nearby where there’s a huge treasure. When we asked you where, you claimed the treasure was cursed and shouldn’t be dug up. So, we had no choice but to knock you out and tie you up here, hoping you’d remember. If you don’t talk, I’ll have no choice but to make the fire bigger. I believe that when facing the threat of death, your memory will come back."

A cursed treasure? Did I really say something like that? I tried again to dig into my memory, and surprisingly, this time I seemed to find some useful information.

"I think I remember something about the treasure you're talking about." Right now, my main goal was to get untied and get far away from this cursed place. I didn’t know where I needed to go, but I was sure this wasn’t my destination.

Upon hearing this, the old man laughed gleefully. "Honorable Sorcerer, I knew it! When a person faces death, they’ll always fulfill someone else’s wish. Now, please tell me where it is."

"I can tell you, because I don’t want the treasure myself, and I really do believe it’s cursed." I actually did recall the general location of the treasure, though why I still considered it cursed eluded me. There was just a nagging sense of familiarity. "But I’d like you to untie me first."

The old man smirked again. "Of course. Once you tell us where it is, we’ll send someone to check it out, and if it’s there, we’ll release you immediately."

I thought it over. Since I planned on telling him anyway, whatever happened afterward—whether they suffered from digging up the cursed treasure—wasn’t my concern.

"By the way, could you tell me my full name? I really can’t remember it."

The old man looked at me curiously. "It seems you truly have lost your memory. You never told us your full name, only that we should call you Rang. You said you were a traveling doctor, but we could all tell you’re actually a sorcerer."

"Alright then." I told him the location of the treasure. It wasn’t far from the village, perhaps just over an hour’s ride on horseback. It was hidden in a cave beneath a towering mountain.

After hearing this, the old man said, "You’d better not be lying to us, or we’ll burn you alive."

I sighed. "I’ve told you. Now, can you untie me?"

The old man replied, "Wait here. We’ll send someone to check it out now. If we find the treasure, we’ll release you at once."

"Wait." For the sake of my fragmented memory, I had to ask him, "Do you know where I was planning to go?"

The old man answered confidently, "You said you were heading to the Cloud Kingdom, to meet a friend who had invited you there." Then, with a puzzled look, he added, "But the Cloud Kingdom is at least 10,000 kilometers from here. You’re planning to walk there alone? I think you’re just talking nonsense."

"Thank you." Though I felt an increasing urge to throttle this old man, I knew I should remain polite. "But I’d like to remind you, even though I’ve lost my memory, I still believe the treasure is cursed. You might want to consider that."

The old man scoffed and galloped back toward the village.

Sigh... I really hope I can get out of this situation soon.  

(To be continued...)