Chapter 1

To carry on the family line, my parents forced me to marry a village widow who had already doomed three husbands to their deaths.

I escaped with everything I had and hid in the unmarked graveyard.

It was only thanks to the shelter of a badly decomposed man's corpse that I barely avoided being dragged back.

After daybreak, I planned to head back to the city to continue my studies.

Before leaving, I wanted to bury the man's body to repay him for saving my life.

But when I finished digging the grave and was about to lay the corpse inside,

I discovered that the college acceptance letter clutched in his hand had the very same name as mine written on it.

Even the university and major he'd been admitted to were exactly the same as mine!

I froze on the spot.

If he was me,

then who was I?

...

I tried to pull the acceptance letter out of the corpse's hand.

But his fingers gripped that acceptance letter so tightly, as if he were clutching his own lifeline.

Left with no choice, I crouched down and leaned in to look.

The corpse had already rotted, and even getting slightly closer brought a foul stench of decay.

Combined with the badly decomposed face, every inch closer made me tremble with fear.

But to confirm the acceptance letter in his hand, I gritted my teeth, forced down the terror in my heart, and lay flat on the ground.

Finally, I could make out the words on the acceptance letter clearly.

In that instant, my mind felt like it had been struck by lightning, and I collapsed to the ground.

My name is Earl Delgado.

A month ago, I was admitted to Kingsbay University as the top state exam scorer.

When I filled out my application, I put down my favorite major, archaeology, full of hope.

But the teacher in charge of admissions said, "Archaeology is too obscure."

"Earl, I know your family isn't well-off. You'd be better off studying finance."

Back then I was moved to tears, and I even gave that teacher a bag of dried sweet potatoes I'd brought from home.

He wouldn't take them, and only told me to study hard, get out of the mountains as soon as I could, and live the life I wanted.

There's no way I could ever forget any of this!

But now my acceptance letter was in this corpse's hand.

So who was I?

An almost terrifying thought took shape in my mind.

My home is in a remote mountain region.

The only narrow path leading out of the mountains runs right along the edge of a cliff.

It was so dark that night, and in my ill-fitting groom's suit, I stumbled and staggered along the road.

One wrong step and you'd fall off the cliff and be smashed to pieces!

When I was a child, I saw with my own eyes an old woman lose her footing and fall off a cliff, leaving no trace of her body!

To this day, only an empty memorial tomb stands for her at her home.

My heart was pounding wildly, but I quickly forced the thought down.

It couldn't be.

I grew up in these mountains, and I've walked this road countless times.

I could find my way out with my eyes closed.

I remember the year I was in ninth grade, I ran a fever during an exam and didn't do well.

My parents broke one of my legs with a rattan cane, burned my schoolbag, and forbade me from going to school again.

Even dragging my broken leg, I managed to feel my way safely back to school.

The name and the university on this acceptance letter were exactly the same as mine, but I couldn't make out the year.

Maybe it was just a coincidence.

My gaze fell again on the corpse in front of me.

Seeing the groom's suit on him, almost identical to mine, bitter tears streamed down my face.

It seemed he was just like me, another poor soul forced into marriage.

The thick fear I'd felt suddenly turned into heartache.

Wiping away my tears, I struggled to drag the corpse into the grave I'd dug, meaning to bury him.

A thick layer of dirt covered his body.

I knelt down too, ready to kowtow to him a few times.

But when I saw the bone jutting out at his wrist, I was nailed to the spot!