Secondchances 0: Prologue

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Prologue

Yijun woke with a sudden jerk, as if he was catching himself while falling.

No, it wasn’t just ‘as if’, that feeling of weightlessness was –

He now remembered the sensation of the guardrail breaking under his hands as impatient tourists crowded around him to see the sights over the canyon.

… As expected, for a healthy, young man like him to die, it could only be a violent death that ended his life.

Yijun put a hand to his forehead helplessly as he remembered the end of his life.

He wasn’t a very vengeful person by nature, and that kind of situation wasn’t really one he could blame on anything other than his own bad luck, so helpless was all he could feel about it.

Of course he wasn’t happy about dying at the tender age of 22, but there wasn’t really much he could do about it since he’s already dead.

He was somewhat relieved that he didn’t have parents or a girlfriend to cause grief to, but his good friends from college were going to be upset.

Hopefully the national state park would take this opportunity to re-study their safety measures; only then could he feel like his death had some meaning.

… Oh no! What about his vlog? He could only hope that someone would help him break the sad news to his viewers.

As for his assets… he always thought his money should go to his spouse or girlfriend if he had one, and if he didn’t it should go to charity, but it’s not like he had a will written up or anything.

Yijun felt depressed as he thought of the after effects of his death.

But he didn’t have long to wallow in his depression.

“So you’re ‘Yijun’ as well.”

Yijun looked up and almost had a not-heart-attack at the man who had suddenly appeared, sitting in front of him.

What a peerless beauty -! If this man showed up for a few seconds as a guest on one of his videos, the views would probably increase 3 or 4 times the normal amount!

Well, Yijun’s vlog channel was somewhat niche, and only popular among the people interested in that niche, so it’s only natural that face-con attracting methods would more than double his views. ╮(╯∀╰)╭
^{(face-con: being attracted to beautiful people)}

Recovering his senses, Yijun said, “Yes, my name is Yijun. You’re a Yijun as well?”

The handsome man opposite to him smiled gently.

“Yes, my name is Chen Yijun.”

“I see, it’s nice to meet you.” Yijun nodded, but he had some doubts about the situation where he, Yijun, was meeting another Yijun.

He pursed his lips while thinking about the situation.

There was no doubt in Yijun’s mind that he had certainly died, but it was strange that he was still able to sit here, thinking and remembering, and even conversing with another person.

Furthermore, where was this place they were sitting in?

It was misty and featureless, both ever-shifting and yet never-changing; all Yijun could be certain about was that this place wasn’t reality.

As he arranged this information in his head, Yijun began to feel even more helpless and could only cough before politely asking, “Ahem. What business might Chen Yijun have with me? And also, where might this be, please?”

Yijun’s manner seemed calm but also rather rather resigned, which seemed to amuse Chen Yijun.

“You seem to be a person who can adjust well to any sort of situation. I think I can understand why you were chosen to take my place.”

Yijun: Waitwhatnow?

As a young man with an active internet life, he had naturally come across novels with subjects like ‘transmigration’ or ‘rebirth’, but those were fictional, figments of the imaginations of millions of authors and readers.

But right now, although it wasn’t set in stone, Yijun had an unpleasant premonition.

Without caring for Yijun’s uneasiness, Chen Yijun carried the conversation forward.

“As you might have expected, you and I are both dead, but I received a second chance to start my life over from a certain point.”

Before Yujin could say anything, Chen Yujin continued on, saying, “But I’m tired.”

The heaviness of his words were displayed on Chen Yujin’s beautiful face, making Yujin’s ‘Congratulations’ die before it even reached his lips.

The figure of Chen Yijun looked extremely pitiful as he sat there like a broken man weary of life.

There was dead silence for a moment before Chen Yujin took a deep breath, seeming to come back to life.

“Out of all of those who died and still wished to live, you seem to have been the person most suitable to take my place.”

Yijun patted the top of his own head lightly as his brows wrinkled slightly.

He didn’t have anything against being given the chance to continue on living, but it was a little worrying that he’d be living the life that was able to wear down a man to the point that he’d rather remain dead.

Seeing Yijun’s hesitation, Chen Yijun didn’t rush to placate him and convince him that this was for the better.

To be honest, Chen Yijun had expected a lot more anger and panic from the person who had been plucked in to take his place, but Yijun seemed to be carefully analyzing the situation while trying to come to terms with it.

“… You said that I ‘seem’ to be. Does that mean you had no part in me being chosen?” Yijun asked.

Chen Yijun nodded.

“Does that also mean that I have no choice in the matter?”Yijun asked.

Chen Yijun hesitated for a moment before replying, “I’m not sure, but it doesn’t seem like it.”

It seems like Chen Yijun didn’t know everything there was to this situation, and Yijun put a hand to his forehead.

It didn’t seem like it would be worth asking Chen Yijun about what would happen if he refused, if Chen Yijun didn’t even know whether Yijun could refuse.

“… Can I hear about the world and your life?” Yijun finally settled on asking.

Chen Yijun smiled wryly.

“… If I were to explain it in a way you would understand, I suppose you could say it’s indeed something like being transmigrated into a novel.”

Since Chen Yijun said it like that, it seems like he had obtained at least sufficient knowledge about Yijun’s background in order to explain it to him a little more easily.

“I see. Is there a way for me to know more about the plotline? Other than having you tell it to me, I mean. This is like, a dreamscape, right? Am I supposed to be inheriting your memories here?”

It’s not that Yijun preferred an easier way than to listen to Chen Yijun tell him about things, but … he wanted an easier way than to listen to Chen Yijun tell him about everything.

Chen Yijun smiled and placed a delicate finger in the middle of Yijun’s forehead.

A flood of images, memories, and information blasted into Yijun’s head like a freight train.

There was just too much information to take in at the beginning, and Yijun’s eyes became glassy as he sorted through the bottomless swamp his brain had become.

“This… it’s an interstellar setting?” Yijun asked in disbelief.

This novel’s setting was a futuristic-scifi, futuristic enough that there was space travel, interplanetary alliances, and aliens – oops, macrocosmic races, but not futuristic enough for travel between star systems to be commonplace.

The ‘humans’ as Yijun understood them were no more, as they’ve become mixed with other macrocosmic races, altering the gene pool and becoming a race that was far stronger and lived far longer than the humans of the past.

These new humans could even develop an ability like some sort of super power if they were lucky enough.

It was truly unfortunate that Chen Yijun wasn’t one of these humans.

“A spirit beast?!” Yijun’s voice cracked a little as the information entered his mind.

Isn’t this crossing the genres a bit too much?!

This was an interstellar setting not a cultivation one, so why were there spirit beasts?

As if guessing his thoughts, Chen Yijun just gave a wry smile.

“It might be that this world was a cultivation world that developed into an interstellar one. I don’t know, there aren’t any cultivators anyway. Maybe there never were, or maybe the changes in the gene pool made cultivation impossible?”

Yijun held his forehead helplessly.

So Chen Yijun was a spirit beast.

Thanks to the Interplanetary Treaties, spirit beasts are recognized as an intelligent race of people, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t discrimination against them.

Spirit beasts are a race that seems wholly incapable of adding to their genetic foundation, unlike the human race that was capable of absorbing other races’ traits.

Spirit beasts were also a race that couldn’t add to another’s genetic foundation.

Furthermore, it was highly likely for the off-spring in a human-spirit beast copulation to be a spirit beast, especially if the mother is the spirit beast.

Spirit beasts were also distasteful to others since they were born weak, unable to undergo gene therapy, and lacking the capability to have abilities, as well as the whole turning-into-animals thing, but if that was all there was to it, it wouldn’t be such a big deal.

Spirit beasts would only be regarded as ‘people you wouldn’t want your kids to marry’.

The problem was, despite being ‘genetic deadends,’ spirit beasts themselves were … really useful to strengthen others.

Unfortunately, their usefulness to strengthen others were as ingredients.

It should have been illegal to hunt them down even before spirit beasts became recognized a people race in the Interplanetary Treaty Obcidarian Reform, but that never stopped malicious opportunists before.

Even now, although spirit beasts are a recognized, and therefore protected, race on an interplanetary scale, there were still many people lurking in the dark and hunting spirit beasts.

Still, there were ways for spirit beasts to hide themselves, and it was more than possible for many spirit beasts to live among humans without ever being detected.

If he lived normally, Chen Yijun would probably have lived his life while hiding his body’s secret without too much trouble, but unfortunately, Chen Yijun was the tragic male lead in one particular story.

—

Chen Yijun loved photography, and one day he caught the figure of a pure, fresh beauty named Du Lingyu within his lens.

This miraculous photo was the trigger that launched both Chen Yijun and Du Lingyu’s careers in fashion photography and acting, respectively, and unfortunately it also launched them into the messy, messy world of the entertainment industry.

Du Lingyu was the true main character of this novel and had positive feelings about Chen Yijun, but as a naive girl who had not come of age, there was something that caused her to feel conflicted in giving her heart to Chen Yijun.

And that was because Chen Yijun had a child.

It wasn’t his own, but he was essentially a single-father to his little niece.

Du Lingyu never felt that Chen Yijun’s choice to raise his sister’s child was wrong, but in her heart she couldn’t be reconciled to a man who didn’t put her first, and she hated herself for it.

Loving Chen Yijun should mean accepting everything about him including his little niece, so didn’t that mean she wasn’t truly in love with him? Didn’t that mean she would only hurt them?

Even as she agonized over it she couldn’t bear to let him go, as she sometimes pushed and sometimes pulled in the relationship, her thoughts spun into chaos and confusion.

Chen Yijun wasn’t much better, and although the two supported each other in small ways as they grew their careers, at times he was hot and at times he was cold, unwilling to tie a young girl down with the baggage of his family problems, not to mention his hidden identity as a spirit beast.

He often avoided her for weeks, thinking to break off their relationship, only to be unable resist swooping in to see her in the end.

Thanks to this unstable romance, Du Lingyu only grew more and more confused, and her uncertainty over what love really was landed her in many messes, as sheconfused the motives of all sorts of men and women in the entertainment industry.

Some of the people she met were honestly interested in Du Lingyu and wanted to pursue her, but most wanted to take advantage of her naivety for their own purposes.

With such messiness in her life, Du Lingyu explored what love truly was, or at least what love truly meant to her, but as men pursued and betrayed her, the only constant in her life was the gentle photographer who didn’t ask her for anything but for her to be herself.

Du Lingyu experienced the evils of humanity for three years, and within those years she began to realize that what she expected a relationship to be like and what she wanted out of a lover were nothing more than the fantasies of a girl who didn’t know enough about the world.

But just when she was on the brink of accepting her love for Chen Yijun, she suddenly discovered his identity as a spirit beast!

Once again she sank into a mire of confusion, and in this state, Du Lingyu committed a grave mistake.

She confided in a man who had become a gentle father figure to her.

It was a mistake, but to this day, Chen Yijun didn’t blame her.

At least, not fully.

That man’s acting skills were good enough to become the next Movie Emperor, and it was simple enough for him to trick the young Du Lingyu.

Who would have thought the soft-spoken, elegant professor was actually a psychotic killer who was looking for Chen Yijun’s little niece?

Once she discovered that something was wrong, Du Lingyu called the police and rushed to Chen Yijun’s side, but it was too late.

The little niece and even her mother were killed, and Chen Yijun was mortally wounded.

Angry to the point of insanity, all the while blaming herself, Du Lingyu attacked the man crazily, but although she successfully detained him from fleeing the scene before the police arrived, the man nearly killed her.

As she stared wide-eyed at the light blade piercing through Chen Yijun’s chest after he blocked it for her, Du Lingyu felt her heart freeze cold.

“A’Ling, A’Ling… be happy.”

At Chen Yijun’s last words, Du Lingyu’s frozen heart broke into pieces.

She would never love again; Chen Yijun was the white moonlight in the broken remains of her heart.
^{(white moonlight: a person you once loved that remains a beautified memory you can’t forget)}

—

Yijun was momentarily speechless after he reviewed the ‘plot’.

“Is … is this Bad End … unavoidable?” he asked.

“I did say this would be like being transmigrated into a novel, but the world isn’t necessarily the world of a novel.”

Chen Yijun’s face twisted a little as he continued.

“The ‘novel’ exists due to the decisions and actions made by myself and the people who were around me, but of course if I, or you, made different decisions, such a plot may have turned out completely different. Not to mention, this ‘plot’ is only one part of the things that occurred in the world.”

After Chen Yijun said this, Yijun finally understood.

The only reason the concept of ‘The Plot’ existed was because it was a story in Chen Yijun’s history.

Now that time was resetting, just changing Chen Yijun with Yijun would probably destroy the ‘inevitable future’ unless Yijun purposefully attempted to make it come true; Yijun was a different person who would likely make different decisions from Chen Yijun, after all.

The knot in Yijun’s heart was finally untied and he felt much better about the fact that he wouldn’t be bound to some rigid plotline that could only end in tragedy, but he couldn’t help but say, “I wonder why me?”

There couldn’t be a shortage of people who died while wishing they could continue living, and he couldn’t imagine it to simply be because he had the same given name as Chen Yijun.

Although he was happy to get the chance, Yijun was still curious; what made him more suitable than anyone else?

Chen Yijun pursed his lips, thinking a moment before saying, “It’s most likely because you are the person most willing to solve my regrets while living your second life.”

So there really was a catch … but Yijun didn’t feel like Chen Yijun would ask him to do anything unreasonable.

Although Yijun was more lively and energetic and Chen Yijun more withdrawn and quiet, Yijun sensed that their basic temperaments and sensibilities were very similar.

Even if Chen Yijun’s request might seem unreasonable to others, Yijun suspected that he would find them to be quite trivial, or at the least think that it was something he should naturally do once he took on the responsibility of Chen Yijun’s life.

Sure enough, when he asked what Chen Yijun’s regrets were, the beauty in front of him stared off into the distance for a moment before sighing.

“My greatest regret is letting my feelings destroy the lives of my sister and my niece. The only thing I’d wish to do in a second life would be to do my duty and avoid putting love before family. And also…”

Chen Yijun hesitated for a moment.

“Also, I … I don’t want Du Lingyu to have such a meaningless love.”

He spoke in a low, depressed voice, which made Yijun’s heart feel a little sour.
^{(sour can mean jealous, but in cln it can also mean bittersweet, or feeling like crying)}

It turns out that Chen Yijun really loved the female lead deeply, but he regretted all of it.

Can’t stop regretting, yet can’t stop loving; who wouldn’t feel too tired to live through it all again with this kind of burden in his heart?

If it was him, Yijun was sure he’d offer to lay down and let someone else take his place too.

Yijun looked Chen Yijun in the eye and said, “To cherish my family is something I should naturally do. As for Du Lingyu…”

Who was he to say what could happen in the future?

“… I can’t say I will be able to fulfill your love, but I can at least watch out for her,” Yijun said slowly.

There were all sorts of messy second and third male leads, as well as female rivals, that threatened Du Lingyu’s peaceful life, and even he felt uneasy about the young and tender underaged girl getting embroiled in that kind of situation again.

Chen Yijun shook his head, realizing Yijun had misunderstood him.

“No, there’s no need for you to watch over Du Lingyu. Rather…”

Chen Yijun couldn’t bring himself to say it, but Yijun now knew what he meant.

Chen Yijun wanted him to stay away, far away from Du Lingyu. Far enough that she could never love, agonize, or regret over him again.

Yijun was an orphan and never had a girlfriend; he suspected that the love Chen Yunjin had was of a depth he wouldn’t understand.

For a moment, Yijun was silent before he ran a hand through his hair.

“Alright,” he said. He wasn’t insensitive enough to argue with a dead man’s last wishes. “Alright, I understand.”

Chen Yijun smiled.

“Thank you…”

As these last words floated in the mist, Yijun’s vision began to blur, distorting the scenery in front of him.

His body was wrapped up in a familiar falling sensation before he jerked awake.

Yijun, now Chen Yijun, opened his eyes slowly, his lips tracing a helpless smile as he found himself lying on a bed in a dark room.

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[Index] [Next Chapter>

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<a/n: And there’s the romantic bits! Done in the prologue!
J/k. There’s supposed to romance in here at some point, but I’m a little worried since I’m me.

I have mixed feelings about the story title. I won’t change the title, but I have mixed feelings about it.

Also, sorry for the next few chapters of exposition. I suspect a portion of my readers haven’t read Chinese interstellar novels before, so I can’t just use the typical settings and props without some explanation. But fk zergs, they’re not in here; we have way too many interstellar cln that throw a zerg war arc in out of flipping nowhere since there’s apparently some sort of rule that interstellar=zerg attack or something.>