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(Professional translation,not a trash one!)
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Ji Heping was an ordinary young man living in the twenty-first century.
His parents had named him Heping—Peace—with three specific intentions in mind: a nation devoid of war, a harmonious society, and a life of personal tranquility. The first two concepts had technically been achieved, but the third had absolutely nothing to do with him.
His father was an alcoholic and a chronic gambler, highly prone to violent outbursts. As a child, Heping observed the domestic abuse with clinical detachment. He registered the violence, cataloged it in his memory, yet his heart remained utterly devoid of emotion.
When he was three, his mother left under the guise of finding work. A year later, the divorce was finalized, and custody of the four-year-old boy defaulted to his father. Heping never saw his mother again. Yet, her face and the precise details of her departure remained photographically etched into his mind, pristine even two decades later.
Dumped in the countryside with his grandparents while his father sought work, Heping became a textbook "left-behind child." The old couple were stubborn and volatile, their home a battleground of daily screaming matches. Heping merely existed in the crossfire, entirely unfazed. It was as if he had been born cold-blooded—a creature lacking the fundamental capacity for empathy.
Death eventually silenced the house. His grandfather passed away when Heping was twelve, forcing his father to make a rare trip back to arrange the funeral. His grandmother's mind deteriorated into dementia soon after; she lasted three more years before expiring. His father's annual visits grew increasingly brief, until they became little more than perfunctory check-ins.
From the age of twelve, Heping lived entirely on his own. He ate alone, watched television alone, and slept alone in an empty house. He didn't mind. To him, this was simply the natural order of existence. He was perfectly adapted to the isolation.
Two decades vanished in the blink of an eye.
What a garbage existence, Heping thought.
Dressed in a crisp, tailored suit, he stood motionless on the subway platform. His half-lidded eyes swept over the mindless drones around him, every single one of them hypnotized by the glowing screens of their smartphones.
The train roared into the station. Before the departing passengers could even step out, a dozen commuters surged forward, shoving their way inside like desperate animals terrified of being left behind. Heping didn't move a muscle. He waited patiently for the chaotic scramble to end before taking a slow, deliberate step toward the open doors.
"Agh—!"
A pained cry echoed just as Heping crossed the threshold. He glanced over his shoulder. A white-haired elderly woman had collapsed onto the platform tiles. Her face was twisted in genuine agony, her hands clutching weakly at her chest.
"What happened to her?"
"Looks like a heart attack..."
The morning commuters clustered near the train doors, craning their necks to watch. People on the platform stared, murmuring among themselves, completely paralyzed by the bystander effect.
Heping watched the scene unfold with cold, apathetic eyes. The doors hissed shut. As the train accelerated out of the station, not a single person had stepped forward to help the dying woman.
What a garbage society.
His own life was a clockwork loop of monotony. Wake up at 7:10 AM. Wash up. Leave the apartment at 7:40 AM. A ten-minute walk to the station, a five-minute wait on the platform, a thirty-minute commute, and a final five-minute walk to his office building. Fifteen minutes allotted for breakfast at the cafe downstairs.
By the time he entered the corporate lobby, six long lines would already be snaking away from the elevators. He factored in a ten-minute wait to board one. His schedule was ruthlessly optimized; he habitually crossed the threshold of his company's front doors between 9:00 and 9:01 AM every single day.
[Beep. Clock-in successful.]
Right on cue, the administrative assistant shot him a look of profound resentment. He was always precisely on time—never early, never late enough to penalize.
Between 9:00 and 10:00 AM, he efficiently cleared his daily task queue. Afterward, he slid into the passenger seat of his supervisor's car, bound for the corporate headquarters to attend the mandatory monthly managerial summit.
Leaning against the car window, Heping gazed up at the sky. It was a disgustingly pristine day—brilliant sunlight, utterly cloudless.
Hm? A tiny, solitary black dot marred the perfect expanse of blue. It caught his eye instantly.
"Something wrong?" his supervisor asked from behind the wheel, noticing his sudden focus.
Heping kept his gaze locked on the descending speck in the sky. He shook his head slightly. "Nothing."
"Nothing." Propping his chin against his hand, Heping rested his right arm on the car door. He kept his eyes locked on the sky, his brow slowly furrowing. "Is it just me... or is that black dot getting larger?"
It wasn't just getting larger; it was plummeting toward the city at a terrifying velocity.
"Don't tell me it's a meteor," Heping muttered. A rare, unsettling premonition flared in his chest as the object rapidly expanded in his field of vision.
Heping had always possessed an uncanny sixth sense for danger. It was an instinct that had once saved him from a catastrophic earthquake during his university years. He had planned a summer trip to a famous tourist trap, but a sudden, inexplicable sense of dread two days before departure prompted him to cancel his plans. He opted for a mundane staycation in a neighboring province instead. Four days later, the news reported a magnitude 7.0 earthquake at his original destination—dozens dead, hundreds injured, and over a hundred thousand displaced.
That memory flashed through his mind in a fraction of a second. By the time his focus snapped back to the present, the plummeting mass had entirely eclipsed his view.
What a garbage world. That was the final, cynical thought to cross Ji Heping's mind.
CRASH! With a deafening roar, the pitch-black mass tore through the car's roof and completely pulverized his skull.
Ten minutes later, breaking news hijacked the global internet. On April 1, 2018, at approximately 10:23 AM, a meteorite struck a moving vehicle on Huaisha City's Tianfu Avenue. The impact caused a multi-car pileup, resulting in four injuries and one fatality.
But the public's morbid fascination wasn't focused on the crash itself; it was fixated on the victim. Ji Heping achieved a uniquely absurd sort of immortality: he became the first and only human being in recorded history to be directly struck and killed by a meteorite.
The Hunter World. Year 1978.
Padokea Republic, Dentora Region. Kukuroo Mountain.
Situated at an elevation of 3,722 meters, the sprawling, heavily fortified estate of the Zoldyck family dominated the landscape.
Deep within the estate's dense, private forests, a small figure navigated the underbrush, gripping a stripped branch in his hand. He had pitch-black eyes, short hair with blunt bangs, and wore a pristine, miniature black suit.
This was the reincarnation of Ji Heping.
His name was now Irumi. At three years old, he was an official member of the Zoldyck Family, the most infamous syndicate of elite assassins in the world.
Rustle. Parting the tall grass, Irumi ducked out of the treeline and spotted his twin brother, Illumi, sitting inside a fenced-off private playground, listlessly sifting through a sandbox.
"Master Irumi!" A curly-haired female butler, assigned to supervise the grounds, scrambled over in a panic. She dropped to her knees, her hands frantically checking the toddler for injuries. "You must not enter the forest alone."
Illumi paused his mechanical digging, his blank gaze shifting toward the treeline.
At three years old, Illumi still kept his hair short, styled with the exact same blunt bangs as his twin. As brothers, their physical resemblance was uncanny, but their dispositions were night and day. Illumi was already developing a haunting, mask-like apathy. His facial muscles rarely twitched, masking any internal thoughts, and his eyes were vast, hollow voids. Yet, beneath that unnerving exterior, his speech and logic were still demonstrably those of a toddler.
Irumi, by contrast, was equally stoic but exuded a quiet, clinical gravity. His movements were precise, his demeanor overly disciplined. There was an eerie maturity to him—the distinct, unsettling presence of a fully grown adult trapped inside a child's body.
"Where did you go, Irumi?" Illumi asked, his voice entirely devoid of inflection.
"Nowhere. Just taking a walk," Irumi replied dismissively.
Ignoring the fretting butler, he effortlessly vaulted the low playground fence. He walked over to the sandbox, crouched opposite his twin, and calmly picked up a discarded toy.
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