Chapter 1: Waking to a Death Notice

2 a.m., and the rain over the urban village was falling like it was trying to drown the place. Shen Luming jolted awake from the surgical table, his forehead pressed against the cold metal surface, the faint sensation of suture thread still clinging to his fingertips. He opened his eyes, expecting the white walls of the familiar township clinic he knew. Instead, he was staring into a dim, mold-scented examination room. A yellowed business license hung on the wall, reading “Luming Clinic,” and the calendar in the corner was stopped three months in the past. Before he could even process the absurdity of his sudden transmigration, a frantic pounding exploded through the front door, shaking the overhead pendant light until it swung wildly.

“Doc Shen! Shen Luming! Are you dead in there?”

The door was kicked open with a brutal clang. A man with a flamboyant perm and a loud, floral shirt planted himself in the doorway, hands on his hips. Rainwater dripped from his hair, pooling on the floor. Shen Luming recognized him: Wang Fatty, the landlord who demanded rent every three days and treated the clinic like his personal ATM machine—the ultimate nightmare.

“You're two months behind on rent. Stop playing dead.” Wang Fatty jingled a set of keys, his gaze sweeping over the empty operating table with open contempt. “Your partner ran off last week. Even hauled away the ultrasound machine and left a trail of debts in his wake. Let me make this clear: if you can't pay up by tomorrow, I’m throwing all those bottles and jars out the window to feed the cats.”

Shen Luming stood up, his knees buckling slightly. He looked down at himself, wearing a white coat stained with dried blood, the metallic scent of it clogging his brain. Fragments of the original host's memories rushed in like a tide. The original was a stubborn idiot. Too poor to afford a single extra for his pets, he refused to engage in unnecessary medical procedures, which earned him the hatred of every colleague who wanted a quick buck. In the end, they teamed up to crush him, and he fled the scene.

“Wang bro, yeah, the equipment got taken,” Shen Luming said, his voice hoarse as he braced himself against the counter to steady his wobbly legs. “But the meds are still here. I can pay next month.”

“Next month?” Wang Fatty let out a cold scoff, slamming the keys down on the counter. “No money means no money. I’m waiting outside. Best think this through before I walk in there.”

The door slammed shut with a bang, leaving the room heavy with oppressive silence. Shen Luming took a deep breath and walked to the window. The sound of the rain masked everything else, except for a fuzzy shadow trembling in the corner of the wall.

“Meow...”

A weak, barely audible cry, like blood bubbles forced up from the depths of a throat. Shen Luming’s heart clenched. He grabbed a stethoscope and the emergency kit and rushed over. An orange tabby lay sprawled in the corner, its abdomen heaving violently. Its ribs were clearly visible, as if they were about to break through the skin. Its left hind leg was twisted at an unnatural angle, the jagged end of the bone piercing through the flesh, surrounded by a spreading patch of dark red.

“Hit by a car?” Shen Luming crouched down, pressing his fingers against the cat’s belly. Hard as stone. A ruptured spleen with massive internal bleeding, organ prolapse. Half an hour later, even a god couldn’t have saved it.

The original host was a vet, but also a weirdo who held onto his principles too tightly. Injuries this severe would have been candidates for euthanasia or treatment abandonment at any other hospital, given the high surgical risk and cost, and the fact that the owners of stray animals were usually broke. But Shen Luming looked into the cat’s cloudy eyes and didn’t see the resignation of death. He saw a stubborn, fierce light of the will to survive.

“Want to live?” he asked. The cat didn’t answer, just wheezed like a broken fan in its throat.

Shen Luming gritted his teeth: “Then let’s give it a shot.”

He yanked open the drawer. It was empty. All that was left were a few rolls of gauze and a pair of hemostats. With the instruments gone, he’d have to save this life with his bare hands and these scraps. It was basically self-torture. But as he watched the cat’s nose turn a bruised purple, his anger somehow calmed into a cold, focused stillness.

“Stay still, you little thing.”

Shen Luming moved with blinding speed. He pinned the cat to the carpet with the gauze and clamped the bleeding point at the abdominal opening with the hemostats. No anesthesia, so he could only rely on physical pressure. The cat let out a piercing, agonized cry, arching its body and nearly thrashing free. Shen Luming held its limbs down with iron grip, cold sweat beading on his forehead, but his hands remained steady as stone.

“Hold on, it’s almost done.”

He cut into the abdomen, the view a blur. No surgical lights, just that swaying, hanging pendant light overhead, casting a murky, flickering yellow. His fingertips reached into the abdominal cavity and touched the ruptured spleen. Blood was still gushing out, like a breached dam. He stitched and tied knots with rapid, precise movements, as if he’d drilled them a thousand times. The original host’s muscle memory took over in that split second, every needle falling exactly where it needed to.

Twenty minutes. A long twenty minutes.

The moment he tied off the last knot, Shen Luming slumped onto the floor, drenched in cold sweat. The orange tabby’s breathing smoothed out, its abdomen no longer rigid. It opened its eyes weakly, looking at Shen Luming, its tail tip giving a single, gentle flick.

“It’s alive,” Shen Luming muttered.

Just as the orange tabby began to lick the blood off his fingertip, a crisp “ding” echoed in his mind.

[The Echo Ledger of Ten Thousand Beasts has been activated.]

[Host: Shen Luming.]

[First Cure: Stray Orange Tabby.]

[Echo Collected: 1/10.]

[Permission Unlocked: Initial Rank Legacy Echo. Can replay the animal’s memories from the past seven days.]

An ancient-looking, small black-bound booklet materialized out of thin air, floating in front of him. Shen Luming blinked in surprise, reaching out to touch the phantom image. The booklet dissolved, replaced by a stream of light projected directly onto his retina.

The scene shifted. A dim alley entrance, wet asphalt. The viewpoint dropped low, close to the ground. This was the orange tabby’s perspective.

Shen Luming held his breath, watching the memory replay.

In the footage, the orange tabby was chasing a moth. Suddenly, a figure in a gray hoodie was squatting by the roadside. The person didn’t touch the cat directly, but instead pulled a small plastic bag from his pocket, flicked his wrist, and sprinkled the powder inside onto the ground.

Pink granules.

Under the streetlamp, the granules emitted a faint, weirdly sweet scent. The orange tabby stopped, its nose twitching twice, seemingly drawn in by the smell, and took a step forward.

Just then, the image shook violently. A black sedan sped by, its tires rolling over the area where the orange tabby was standing. The memory didn’t capture the pain of the impact—only the wind and the screech of tires braking hard—but Shen Luming saw a single pink granule roll and stop right by the cat’s paw.

The memory ended.

Shen Luming snapped his eyes open, cold sweat sliding down his temple.

Pink granules?

He looked at the orange tabby, which was now fast asleep. A fine trace of pink powder lingered at the corner of its mouth where it had just been licking. Shen Luming crouched down to inspect it closely. It was a synthetic fragrance component, typically used in attractants or... some kind of illegal repellant.

Why were they spraying this in the alley? To drive away stray animals, or to cover their tracks?

If it was for driving them away, why choose this specific time? And in the memory, that person in the gray hoodie... the way they walked looked eerily familiar. Like someone deliberately hiding their face under the brim of a cap.

Shen Luming stood up and looked out the window. The rain had stopped, the alley empty, the air thick and damp. The Echo Ledger vibrated gently deep in his mind, as if to remind him that this was only the beginning.

He patted his pockets. Empty. He didn’t even have enough money for a cup of coffee. But a cold, hard smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“Doc, you awake?”

A light chuckle came from the doorway.

Shen Luming turned to see a tall man standing under the eaves, holding a black umbrella. Rainwater streamed off the canopy. The man was dressed in a sharply tailored dark gray suit, his expression cold and sharp, radiating an aura of detached chill.

Fu Shiyuan. Head of R&D at Fu Bio-Science.

Shen Luming frowned. How was this guy here? And yet, he was notoriously allergic to animal fur. He was standing right there, in a doorway filled with cat musk and the smell of blood, his brow furrowed, his face pale to the point of looking sick.

“I smelled the blood,” Fu Shiyuan’s voice was low, tinged with suppressed discomfort. “And... some kind of fragrance I dislike. Is that your way of treating guests at the clinic?”

“Mr. Fu?” Shen Luming took a half-step back, wary. “Your grandmother’s guide dog, A-Fu, got his vaccines yesterday. No need for a follow-up.”

“I’m not here for A-Fu.” Fu Shiyuan took off his glasses and rubbed his temples, his gaze briefly dropping to the sleeping orange tabby on the floor before quickly darting away, clearly repulsed by the cat hair. “I’m here to tell you that several of the stray animal nests in this area had a number of dead strays this morning. The police are investigating.”

Shen Luming’s heart skipped a beat: “Killed with poison? What kind?”

“Police say the ingredients are unidentified.” Fu Shiyuan put his glasses back on, his eyes locking onto Shen Luming sharply. “But I know about a new compound, ‘Sweet Bone Powder.’ It looks like pink granules, smells sweet, the lethal dose is extremely low, and it’s hard to fully detect in a standard autopsy. Doc Shen, your clinic is in a remote spot. Has anyone been tampering with things around your door lately?”

Shen Luming fell silent. The memory from the Echo Ledger fit perfectly with what Fu Shiyuan was saying.

“No,” he said flatly. “Just rent notices and a cat trying to survive.”

Fu Shiyuan stared at him for three seconds, seemingly calculating the probability of him lying. Finally, he pulled a business card from his inner suit pocket and placed it gently on the counter, his fingers lingering on the edge of the card for a moment.

“If you find any leads, call me. Fu Bio-Science is willing to sponsor a repair fund for Luming Clinic’s equipment.” His tone was strictly professional, yet carried an unshakeable, commanding edge. “On the condition that you keep the clinic clean. Don’t let me smell anything that triggers my allergy.”

With that, he turned and walked into the rainy night. The water dripping from his umbrella vanished into the depths of the alley.

Shen Luming picked up the business card, his fingertips brushing against the cold surface.

Fu Shiyuan? The head of R&D, personally trudging into this dump just to offer a grant for equipment?

He turned to look at the orange tabby. The cat was rolling over, showing its belly, purring contentedly, as if mocking his innocence.

Shen Luming tucked the card into his lab coat pocket, picked up the surgical scissors, and walked toward the orange tabby.

“If someone’s spreading poison,” he said quietly, “then let’s see how long this cat can live. And just how much trouble we can cause the ones who spread it.”

Outside, the city’s neon lights blurred into a soft glow through the rain. Shen Luming knew that the water in this urban village was deeper than he had imagined. And the first Echo left by the orange tabby had sunk into his memory like a nail, pointing toward that mysterious alley entrance and the unknown poisoner.