"Ah... My head...Hurts..."
Zhou Zaizhi woke up with a splitting headache, his mind reeling from the pain and hazy dream.
In the dream, he was a demonic flood dragon that killed people like ants, committing atrocities everywhere.
Until one day, retribution came as powerful cultivators surrounded him in four directions, each one stronger than the last, eight in total.
But to the flood dragon, these cultivators were merely above average, just mid stage Golden Core cultivators. Compared to the flood dragon that was in late stage Golden Core, they were merely bigger ants.
The flood dragon fought with complacency, falling into a trap.
It turns out that these cultivators had brought with them many treasures, ones that he could never acquire even if he worked himself to the bones in ten lifetimes.
It managed to kill three of the cultivators, wounded the rest before escaping with its life, heavily injured.
Its days were numbered.
To recover, the flood dragon ransacked every treasured panaceas it had, every spiritual item it could extort.
But it was not enough. With its life hanging by a thread, the flood dragon resolutely discarded its reputation and commuted wanton slaughter.
The useless ones would be eaten on the spot, the talented and strong ones would be refined into pills for better efficiency.
But alas, people reaped what they sowed. The flood dragon collapsed and died because of pill poisoning.
Zhou Zaizhi, who was the owner of the dream, was naturally aware of the details. Although in the dream he was the flood dragon, he was aware of many things and changed many details on impulse just like his average dreams.
The cause of death was pill poisoning, one of the "ingredients" intentionally cultivated wrongly while consuming many treasured pills for greater backlash, all for the day this flood dragon would refine him into a pill!
"Absurd!" Zhou Zaizhi roared before he died and woke up from the dream.
When he woke up, clarity seemed to set in as he realized that it was all a dream.
"Phew, I thought I really died out there, shouldn't have drank those five cans of energy drinks and ten cups of coffee..." Zhou Zaizhi sighed with great relief after waking up.
"... Huh? Where is this place?" Zhou Zaizhi spoke lightly with puzzlement.
He remembered collapsing on his bed with exhaustion, he didn't even take a bath and wash up before going to bed like usual.
But the sight before him was that of a cave mansion, furniture carved in or integrated with the gigantic cave as a whole. It was vast and extravagant.
Clenching his fists and moving his feet, he felt something was wrong. The feeling of his body was different from usual. Zhou Zaizhi looked down at his body and was instantly horrified.
What greeted him was a pale grey body resembling a giant snake.
He moved his hands to slap the snake away on reflex with all his might in panic, but was hit with an excruciating pain around his thighs.
"Ouch!" Zhou Zaizhi took a sharp breath while crying out in pain.
In his panic, he didn't notice that the snake body was full of wounds. It had many missing scales and patches of red skin, some wounds were so deep one could see muscle and bones underneath.
It was truly a gruesome sight.
It took a long while for the pain to die down, so was his mind.
After looking at the snake body full of wounds for a long time, he came to a horrifying realization:
"This snake body is actually mine..."
It wasn't the gruesome wounds that had frightened him, but the fact that he has become a snake.
As a surgeon in training, Zhou Zaizhi was naturally used to this kind of thing, these gruesome wounds were not that frightening to him. He had seen worse in his days training at the hospitals and internship for his bachelor degree.
To him, this is actually mild.
It was not because the injuries were light, but because it was a snake body. In his life, he naturally had seen people slaughtering cows and chickens, including snakes. He even had the chance to cook one for dinner himself.
But this situation is different.
This snake body was truly his, the pain was very real he can still feel it to this moment.
Zhou Zaizhi has concluded that he had died from overworking, chronic caffeine overdose and lack of sleep.
"What am I going to do..." Zhou Zaizhi muttered in despair.
'Have I... Became a ghost and possessed this body? Or was I reborn in a next life?'
Contrary to his despair, his wounds were healing rapidly visible to the naked eyes. Before long, he was fully healed.
'Is this a perk that came with possession?' Zhou Zaizhi thought to himself in amazement.
Wounds that would take months or years were healed just like that. Broken bones repaired themselves, muscles tissues and skins regrowth at an unbelievable rate as if the wounds were nothing at all.
Looking at all the blood and filth pooling around, Zhou Zaizhi couldn't help but feel disgusted. As a doctor, he had always kept his body sterile according to protocol when dealing with injuries.
"I better clean myself first..."
Zhou Zaizhi tried to slithered away but failed. He had to use his hands and feet to crawl around like when he was a baby.
That was when he finally noticed a detail he had overlooked.
'These are no hands or feet, these are beast's claws!' Zhou Zaizhi thought with alarm looking at his "hands".
Throughout his life, Zhou Zaizhi could confidently say that he was more familiar with his hands than his face. As a doctor and a person who loves drawing, he had spent countless days training and practicing, staring at his hands for countless hours.
But at this moment, his hands were no hands at all.
'Im not a snake... Then what am I?' Zhou Zaizhi pondered with doubt. He actually had a guess in mind already, but he wouldn't believe it, 'Don't tell me...'
With that thought, he crawled his way to the cave mansion's entrance where white light came from.
When he finally got out, he was greeted by a beautiful sight, one that he had rarely seen in his life.
'What is this...'
The sky was clear with no cloud.The air was fresh with a smell of ginkgo trees, the weather slightly cold just as he liked it.
It was afternoon with the sun high in the sky, shining light and giving warmth to all living beings.
Due to the emptiness of the surrounding eighty meters radius, Zhou Zaizhi realized he was on a mountain.
At the center of the mountain, there was a clear pool with azure flowers surrounding it. A lone ginko tree stood there beside the pool, providing shade to the stone table and stools beneath it.
Zhou Zaizhi crawled over to examine. He found that the stone stools were empty, save for a tea set on top and three cups of tea.
One was two were empty while one was full, the person it was meant for seemed to have not taken a single sip.
He looked at the tea thoughtfully, rising emotions filled his heart. He felt joy, anger, but most of all, sorrows.
'It must be the original owner...' Zhou Zaizhi thought with complex emotions. As a person from the modern world, he felt like possession and taking over body of the dead was a great taboo. But he also needed this body to survive, it was a complicated feeling.
Dust were everywhere signifying that it must have been a considerable time since the three people met.
Just as he was pondering the clues, a voice interrupted his train of thought.
"Master... Is that... Is that you?"
It was the trembling voice of a young man, sounded so scared as if it had seen a ghost.