Chapter Two: Zhang Shuang

Zhang Xiaoqiang believed he must have stolen God’s dog in a previous life, for in this one, fate toyed with him so cruelly.

His memories of his mother consisted only of a single photograph and the few phrases his father would repeat over and over: “Your mother was a very good person! Your mother was a virtuous woman.”

When Zhang Xiaoqiang was seven, his father fell from a roof while helping relatives build a house. He was taken to the local clinic; the doctor said they could do nothing and recommended transferring him to a big city hospital. However, Zhang Xiaoqiang’s uncle, Zhang Chengui, dragged his father home from the clinic instead.

Though he was young, Zhang Xiaoqiang still remembered several uncles whispering among themselves in the family hall. Later, his maternal uncle arrived, and Zhang saw his uncle Zhang Chengui patting his chest, vowing to raise him into adulthood. His usually fierce aunt sat on the floor, wailing, while Zhang Chengui’s older brother pulled the maternal uncle aside, slipped him a package, and whispered something. After that, Zhang Xiaoqiang never saw his uncle from his mother’s side again.

His father, Zhang Chengfu, lay on his own bed for three days before finally passing away, having neither eaten a grain of food nor drunk a drop of water. The young Zhang Xiaoqiang once tried to give his father some water, but his aunt slapped him to the ground. That woman glared at him, insisting his father’s illness forbade food or drink.

On his deathbed, his father clutched Zhang Xiaoqiang’s hand, lips moving as if to say something—but until the end, Zhang never understood what his father tried to tell him.

Zhang Xiaoqiang became an orphan and moved into his uncle Zhang Zhanggui’s house. His own home was turned into his uncle’s storeroom. From then on, he lived on leftovers, endured beatings and scoldings as a matter of course. His aunt spread rumors around the village, calling him a jinx, cursed to bring misfortune to mother and father, bad luck to anyone near. The superstitious villagers began avoiding him and forbade their children from playing with him.

When Zhang Xiaoqiang graduated from middle school, a contractor came to the village recruiting laborers for a job in the city. Zhang and a few bachelors from the village went along.

Before leaving, Zhang Xiaoqiang glanced back at his uncle’s house, eyes burning with a hidden fire.

He worked as a laborer, learned to help in kitchens, swept streets, delivered parcels. Hardship from childhood had forged him into a diligent and tenacious man. Even when looked down upon, he kept working, and over the years managed to save some money.

Just as he began to dream of building a future and repaying Zhang Chengui’s family in kind, disaster struck. A falling object from a high-rise hit his neck. The doctor’s diagnosis: high-level paralysis, irreversible.

Hospitalized, the high cost of treatment quickly depleted his savings. As for compensation, nearly four months had passed and the police still hadn’t found the culprit.

At the edge of despair, the hospital director informed him that a foreign medical institution was recruiting clinical trial volunteers for neural regeneration surgery. If he agreed, he would receive free treatment, a high chance of recovery, and a generous compensation package.

Zhang Xiaoqiang didn’t hesitate and signed immediately. Soon, he was taken abroad to the medical institute and began treatment.

Today was the day of the surgery.

“Mr. Zhang, you seem to be in good spirits,” said Dr. Morris, glancing at his tablet.

“Doctor, I’m a little nervous. Is there a chance the surgery might fail?” Zhang Xiaoqiang’s face was grave.

“No need to worry, Mr. Zhang. You’re already at your worst—things can’t get any worse,” Morris replied with a shrug.

“Oh, by the way, I have some bad news for you—perhaps it’ll scare you less,” Morris said, looking at Zhang Xiaoqiang with a meaningful expression.

“Your uncle Zhang Chengui was killed in an explosion caused by illegal manufacturing of explosives. All six members of his family died; there were no survivors.”

“Are... are you sure?” Zhang Xiaoqiang stammered, shaken.

Since he’d become aware of the world, Zhang Xiaoqiang had fantasized countless times about taking revenge on Zhang Chengui’s family, yet this sudden news left him at a loss.

Dr. Morris turned the tablet screen toward him. The display showed a photograph of that place he both feared and hated, now a scene of carnage after the explosion.

Morris patted Zhang Xiaoqiang on the shoulder and walked out, leaving him lying alone on the operating table, his mind blank.

Morris entered the surgery’s monitoring room and asked an assistant, who was observing the computer monitor, “Has the subject’s thought activity slowed?”

“It’s unbelievable! Without any medication or artificial hypnosis, the subject’s thought speed has dropped to its lowest! His brain is practically in a suspended state!” the assistant exclaimed.

“Quick, synchronize the human-machine interface wavelengths with the subject’s brainwaves and prepare to connect to the interactive system,” Morris said, a flash of excitement in his eyes. This was an excellent start.

Once connected, the interactive device would take over most of the subject’s brain functions and, following a pre-set program, generate and activate a new functional region in the brain’s idle zones. This region would possess pre-programmed abilities—assisting memory, enhancing perception, importing skills, even projecting a digital interface into the visual field. This was the true X-3 chip: a new function area in the human brain.

Next, under the interface’s control, this newly generated region would activate the memory center, reading all the subject’s memories, emotions, cognition, and sensations from the womb to the present, and writing them in sequence into the blank brain of the clone.

Finally, the subject would be reborn in the clone’s body.

Meanwhile, Zhang Xiaoqiang seemed to be dreaming, his memories replaying like a film.

He saw a woman, weak and dying, yet still smiling at him with affection, surrounded by masked, green-clad surgeons fighting to save her—his mother. So, he had seen his mother, right after he was born.

He saw his father holding him as a baby, weeping bitterly. This man, newly a father, had just lost his wife.

He watched himself growing up, from infancy to toddlerhood, learning to walk, his father always by his side.

He saw himself taken to the hospital by his teacher to see his mortally injured father, his own fear, grief, confusion—shaking his father’s arm, crying, “Daddy, what’s wrong?”

He saw himself trying to give his paralyzed father water, only to be struck to the ground by that vicious woman.

He saw, before his father died, his father struggling to say something. Though the words were inaudible, now Zhang could make out the shape of his lips: “Live well—live as a real person!”

He saw himself mistreated by his uncle’s family, vowing in secret to take revenge, to make them kneel at his parents’ grave and beg forgiveness.

He saw himself earning his first paycheck, leaping for joy.

He saw himself injured, waking in the hospital to be told he was paralyzed from the neck down, terror and despair clutching him so tightly he broke down sobbing.

“The subject’s memories are being extracted. The emotional fluctuations are severe. Sir, should we administer a sedative?” a monitor technician asked, uneasy at the erratic readouts.

“No. These emotions are crucial for the transfer. We cannot interfere,” Morris replied, severe but indifferent.

“Warning! Warning! Massive cellular death in the clone brain! Massive cellular death!” A shrill alarm blared from the speakers.

“How could the problem be with the clone? How is this possible? Check! What’s going on?” Morris shouted at the panicked research staff.

“Dr. Morris, I found something! The clone not only received the subject’s memories and emotions but also countless sensory data—taste, hearing, touch, vision. There are over four million taste data points alone...” The assistant monitoring the clone’s systems trembled as he opened the dashboard.

“Clone brain death! Experiment failed!” The cold electronic voice echoed in the control room.

“How could this happen? Wasn’t all redundant data supposed to be filtered out by the interface?” Morris felt on the verge of madness—how could such a basic mistake have been made?

“Dr. Morris, one second before the experiment began, two codes were injected into the interface—one blocked the data-cleaning protocol and sent all information, as it was written into the clone brain, directly to the central server! The other code was written straight into the X-3: it’s the operating core for the headquarters’ main AI, King!” The assistant responsible for code inspection looked up in terror. “The King? The central AI! Does it want to become human?!”

Morris gasped.

“Clone brain death. All subject memories have been extracted. Restoration impossible. Subject is now in a vegetative state. Experiment failed. Self-destruct sequence initiated!” The icy, frenzied electronic voice resounded through the monitoring room.

“Three seconds remaining—three, two, one—initiating!”

A tremendous explosion wiped out everything, leaving no one in the base a chance to send out a single message.

Where am I? Why is it all darkness? Did the treatment fail? Were my nerves not repaired, and my brain damaged too—no light, no sound, no smell, no sense of temperature? No! My whole body is gone! What do I do?

Zhang Xiaoqiang wanted to cry—if only he could.

“I want to live! I want to live as a real person!” Zhang Xiaoqiang screamed silently. The force of this desire seemed to make him drift upward. He didn’t know how long he floated, until he saw a point of light above. Excited, he moved toward it, trying to get closer, to see more clearly.

Why is it so slow? Zhang Xiaoqiang wanted to go faster—anything to escape the endless blackness, even if that point of light was a demon waiting to devour him. In that moment, he finally understood what it meant for a moth to fly into the flame.

How to go faster? Zhang Xiaoqiang thought of letting go of things. And truly, something fell away from him: clusters of data, bundles of information he abandoned. He grew lighter. The white light drew him in, closer and closer.

Suddenly, color flared before his eyes. Air filled his nose and mouth. Sounds reached his ears.

“My lord Baron, you are awake!”

Zhang Xiaoqiang tried to see, to listen, but a torrent of fragmented images and chaotic voices overwhelmed his consciousness.

Holy—! I’ve transmigrated! That was Zhang Xiaoqiang’s final thought before he lost consciousness.