Chapter One: The Bucket List
Splash!
The sea breeze was gentle, the water clear and blue, seabirds circling in search of food. Liang Zhi, his body weighted with cement blocks, was thrown into the ocean…
As the surface grew ever dimmer, darkness engulfing his entire vision, Liang Zhi screamed in his heart: “I don’t want to die! It shouldn’t be me! I’m a good person—where is my reward?”
“Yes, good people are rewarded—what a lie for children. So… why not become a villain?” A voice suddenly appeared in Liang Zhi’s ear.
In his agony, Liang Zhi thought, “I must be hallucinating now.”
The voice continued, “You don’t want to die, and I cannot die yet. Let’s make a deal. Live on in my place and complete my wishes. After that, my power, my wealth… everything in this world will be yours!”
…
“Ow! Damn crab, get out of my pants! Stop crawling up!” Liang Zhi shouted, running around like a headless chicken before landing hard on the ground.
The pain brought him abruptly to his senses. “I should have already become fish food. How am I still alive and kicking?”
He took in his surroundings. Night had fallen; a round moon hung in the sky, its shadows twisting into a mocking grin. Around him, sinister and eerie thickets stood silent. In the distance, faint lights flickered—perhaps a small town.
He found himself standing on a circular platform, over ten meters in diameter, its edge lined with burning white candles.
“Where… is this?” Liang Zhi muttered in confusion.
Two black feathers drifted past his eyes, and then a fat raven landed nearby.
The raven cocked its head, studying him with beady eyes, then began cawing, “Caw! Looks like the ritual worked. Listen closely to what I say next.”
“A… a talking raven!” Liang Zhi flailed his hands and scooted backward on the ground.
The raven hopped over and slapped Liang Zhi with a wing. “You’re the raven! Your whole family’s ravens! I’m a crow, thank you very much!”
“Never mind these trifles. First, you aren’t dead. This isn’t your original world. Your soul now inhabits another body. That’s your reality.”
With a talking crow before him, Liang Zhi found the fact of his transmigration less astonishing than he might have. He quickly skipped the confusion every transmigrant faced and recognized the situation.
The crow waited for him to process, then gave a flap of its wings. A mirror appeared in front of Liang Zhi.
By candlelight, Liang Zhi examined his new reflection. Black hair, black clothes, a handsome face—resembling his old self, but with subtle differences, and a sickly pallor.
Looking more closely, he noticed each eye bore a symbol, a pair of chained rings entwined together.
At this, Liang Zhi believed everything the crow had said.
The crow ruffled its feathers. “Since you grasp the situation, I’ll be brief.
“First, you are a counterpart of my master in another world—at least, that’s what he claimed.
“Second, the body you occupy was my master’s. He just kicked the bucket, died of soul exhaustion.
“Third, you must fulfill my master’s wishes to inherit his power, knowledge, and wealth, and I’ll be supervising you through the process!”
Suppressing the strangeness in his heart, Liang Zhi looked down at the big crow. “Crow Lord, was your master powerful?”
He was, after all, set to inherit the original owner’s legacy; he ought to know what that entailed.
The crow considered. “Before he died… in theory, there were at most seven humans stronger than him.”
A gleam lit Liang Zhi’s eyes. In his old world, the strongest individuals were no more formidable than a martial arts master, but now—if crows could talk, anything was possible.
“And his wealth?”
“Rich enough to rival a nation!”
Hearing this, Liang Zhi was so elated he wanted to dance. To survive a certain death was already a miracle—let alone transmigrating into a character at the pinnacle of power.
Though his identity as a transmigrant was exposed from the start, unlike other transmigrators who had to struggle from the bottom, he was max level the moment he stepped out the door.
Seeing Liang Zhi’s delight, the crow’s tone turned sardonic. “Don’t be so happy yet. You only get all that if you fulfill the dead man’s last wishes. If you refuse, you won’t even have a place to sleep tonight.”
Liang Zhi waved his hand carelessly. “No worries. How hard can a few last wishes be?”
The crow reached behind itself and produced, from who-knows-where, a thick black journal bound in hard leather, etched with silver patterns, and bearing the words: Wish List.
“That’s quite a hefty wish list…” Liang Zhi hesitated, a vague sense of dread rising.
He didn’t have the original owner’s memories, but he could read the text. Opening to the first page, he saw: [Eat the finest food, drink the finest wine.]
Liang Zhi nodded. That was a good wish. He’d like to try it himself.
[Marry the woman you love most.]
This one troubled Liang Zhi. What if she wasn’t willing?
[Abduct a princess.]
Liang Zhi’s heart skipped. Wasn’t kidnapping princesses usually the job of Western dragons?
From here, things took a turn. He quickly flipped through the pages, his face growing darker by the line.
[Massacre a city], [Burn a city], [Commit one hundred robberies], [Destroy the Grand Vault of Da Dong], [Obtain official recognition from Da Dong as the world’s most evil person], [Regicide]…
Liang Zhi’s breath grew labored. He slammed the wish list shut and shouted, “You call this a wish list? Why not just add ‘destroy the world’ while you’re at it?”
The crow flapped into the air, cackling wildly. “Destroy the world? Then where would we live? What would we eat? Who would serve us?”
Well, that actually made some sense.
At first, Liang Zhi thought the crow was joking. But as it hovered, a sheet of paper fluttered down from its wing.
He glanced at it and nearly blacked out.
It was a wanted poster, bearing the image of a face shown only by the eyes, with a pair of interlocked symbols between them.
Name: Liang Zhi
Aliases: Forbidden Doctor, Monster Maker, Dread Demon King…
Crime: Da Dong Code
Reward: Forty million copper coins!
Though the face was indistinct, the interlocked symbols proved the wanted man was him.
Liang Zhi struggled to accept reality. “Since when is ‘the law code’ a crime? This must be some kind of joke…”
The crow cocked its head, its beady black eyes blinking twice, as if in pity.
“The crime is ‘Da Dong Code’… because there are too many charges to list on the poster.”
It patted the back of Liang Zhi’s head with its wing in consolation. “Don’t worry, with me to assist you, you’ll be the world’s number one villain in no time.”