For ten years I practiced Gu poison in Southeast Asia; all living beings revered me as a deity.

Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Mid-May.

The rainy season has not yet arrived, and the outdoor temperature is still very high.

Luo Feng yawned several times while blowing on the electric fan, glancing at the deserted street outside the antique shop, and sighed silently in his heart.

"My uncle hasn't answered my calls for most of the day. Could something have really happened to him?"

Two years ago, Luo Feng, who had just graduated from university, was too lazy to apply for a job and become a corporate slave, so he simply went to stay with his uncle Lao Xu, who owned a shop in Thailand.

Old Xu runs an antique shop in a flea market in Chiang Mai, specializing in antique business with customers in mainland China and wealthy businessmen in Hong Kong and Taiwan. He also occasionally supplies some local old customers with a wide variety of items.

This shop is an antique and cultural artifact store, with huanghuali wood furniture and Western porcelain tea sets collected from local overseas Chinese.

In addition to local Thai Songkhlao ceramics, exquisite temple carvings, folk pottery, lacquerware, and rattan ware, the selection is truly dazzling.

The shelves by the wall displayed decorative crafts, wooden ornaments from ancient palaces, local folk masks, and many other items whose names he couldn't even recall.

These items come from various sources; some are brought in by collectors and clients for sale, while others were collected from rural areas and temples throughout Thailand.

A few days ago, Lao Xu told Luo Feng that he was going to the countryside of Surin Province to collect a batch of goods and might not be back for a week.

A few days ago, after arriving in Surin Province, Lao Xu had been in regular contact with him, but this time, after more than half a day, his uncle lost contact with him. His phone calls and text messages went unanswered.

"Could it be that they've gone to some very remote rural area... where there's no cell phone signal?"

Luo Feng frowned slightly.

You can report someone missing for 24 hours to the police, but right now it's only been about ten hours...

Just then, the glass door of the shop was pushed open, and a couple who looked like domestic tourists walked in, chatting and laughing.

"Sawadika".

The female tourist wearing a sun hat put her hands together in greeting to him.

"สวัสดีครับ…"

Luo Feng also put on a professional smile and replied, "You must be tourists from China. I'm Chinese too, so just speak your native dialect."

"Ah~ So you're Chinese."

Another young man next to him laughed.

"It seems like I've traveled all over the world and found shops run by Chinese people everywhere... By the way, is this a 'real' antique shop, not one of those scams?"

"An antique shop is an antique shop."

Luo Feng nodded: "But the real goods are not in the store. Our kind of store usually only does business with some regular customers."

As for the items displayed in this shop, some of them aren't antiques at all; it's obvious at a glance that they're all modern handicrafts.

He coughed lightly.

"Of course, some of the rare items are from Thai temples and the countryside. I don't know if they are antiques or not... However, all the items in the shop are clearly priced and not expensive. You can buy them as souvenirs. Take a look and see if there's anything that interests you."

"OK."

The female tourist nodded, picked up the eagle god figurine with her right hand, and asked her boyfriend, "What do you think of this? I want to buy some souvenirs and gifts..."

"Aren't there those specialized gift shops?"

The boyfriend frowned.

"Wouldn't it be better to buy some common cosmetics, Thai handmade soap flowers, or herbal balm?"

"That's too cliché."

His girlfriend shook her head.

"Do you have any recommendations, sir?"

The two began to discuss it.

While listening to the conversation between the two, Luo Feng looked down at his phone and sent another message to his uncle, hoping he could let him know he was safe.

Just then, he caught a glimpse of a Honda Wave motorcycle parked outside the shop.

The rider on the vehicle was wearing a yellow helmet; he was clearly a deliveryman.

"A package is coming in?"

Suddenly, I heard the female tourist's voice.

"Could you recommend some handicrafts that I can give as gifts?"

"If you are interested in Thai culture, you can take a look at the wooden carvings of Yaksha door gods over there."

Luo Feng quickly offered his recommendation.

"Doesn't the Temple of the Emerald Buddha in Bangkok have several door gods? Those are the Yaksha Kings from the Ramakien story, a localized version of the Ramayana in Thailand. We have a set of lacquered wood carvings in our shop that are made in imitation of those. The six pieces can be given as gifts individually or set together as decorations in your home."

Luo Feng started talking non-stop, and for a moment he forgot that there was a deliveryman outside the door.

After some time, once the two tourists had left, he picked up his teacup, his mouth dry, and was about to take a sip when he suddenly noticed a thick envelope on the counter.

"envelope……"

He picked it up and saw that the address on it was the store's address, and the recipient's name was "Luo Feng".

"The package sent to me?"

Luo Feng was filled with doubts.

His parents had passed away long ago, and he only had a few distant relatives in China. Few of his former friends or colleagues probably knew he would be coming to Thailand.

"Who exactly sent me this invitation...?"

He checked and found that the sender's address was actually his hometown address.

"Wait a minute... speaking of which, the delivery guy didn't even ask me to sign for it? That's so unprofessional!"

Luo Feng muttered to himself as he casually opened the envelope.

After opening the thick package, he found newspapers bound with tape inside, and something seemed to be stuffed inside the newspapers.

Luo Feng picked up a pair of scissors, cut the tape, and with a "clang," a piece of iron fell out.

"Is this... a knife?"

It should be a short knife, with a rather unique design, clearly a knife forged in the Thai countryside.

"I remember... my uncle said that this should be a demon-slaying sword."

The Demon-Slaying Blade, also known as the Demon-Subduing Blade (Meed Mor), the Magic Blade, and the Healing Blade.

Those who make exorcising knives are mostly high-ranking monks and sorcerers with magical powers. In Thailand, these knives are also regarded as protective and warding off evil spirits.

"...Could it be that someone is planning to send their collectibles to my uncle, and then send them to me instead?"

Luo Feng picked up the short knife.

He noticed that the demon-slaying blade in his hand was probably quite old.

Having spent two years in the antique shop, he was able to recognize some things to some extent.

"It's hard to tell if it's real or fake, but if it's an artificially aged look, the technique is quite impressive."

Luo Feng began to ponder this in his heart.

Could this be something sent by my uncle's clients in mainland China? I just don't know if it's consignment or something else... Oh well, I'll leave it to my uncle to handle.

"Oh right, it's getting late. Let's order takeout for dinner, but what should we get? The nearest Chinese restaurant just closed... Should we get basil rice today, or go for Japanese food?"

Luo Feng picked up the crumpled pile of newspapers, and his fingertips suddenly felt a sharp pain, as if pricked by something.

"What is it?"

He flicked his hand, and a brooch fell out.

It was a golden cicada-shaped brooch, triangular in shape with drooping leaves, and the needle that pierced his fingertip was on the cicada's abdomen.

"How come this is in the newspaper...?"

Luo Feng picked it up with a puzzled look in his eyes. He didn't notice that the brooch was already stained with a few drops of his blood.

The golden cicada-shaped brooch seemed to have absorbed blood; it wriggled a few times and, in the instant he reached out to take the brooch, it slipped into his palm.

"……pain!"

He instinctively shook his hand, and then the pain crept in from his fingertips and moved to his palm.

Luo Feng looked at his palm, and in an instant, a blood-red line appeared on his palm, like a red vortex. It was a symbol, a mark.

At the center of the swirling blood-red symbol is the Arabic numeral "10".

"What the hell is that?"

Suddenly, a message popped into his mind.

— Karmic retribution accumulated over lifetimes.

—Reincarnation is the means of offering.

As these eight blood-red characters appeared, Luo Feng's vision blurred, and a strong sense of dizziness surged into his heart.

The scenery in Luo Feng's vision began to distort, rotate, change color, and blur.

He immediately went black and lost consciousness.

……

……

After an unknown amount of time, Luo Feng seemed to hear a voice, as if someone was speaking in his ear.

However, the sound was muffled and unclear because of the thin membrane, and the language used was not the familiar Chinese, but rather a mixture of Thai and local dialects, chattering noisily.

"Hey... Panupong, are you still thinking straight?!"

A deep, husky male voice snapped him out of his daze.

"I!"

Luo Feng felt a jolt of energy, as if someone had slapped his back hard, and he straightened up immediately.

Suddenly, he realized something was wrong; he felt like he was in an unfamiliar environment.

"Is this... a forest?"

Ahead lay a gloomy, dark forest, where the sharp, slender trees huddled together, their intertwined shadows blending with the night, and faint starlight flickering through the layered canopy.

"Where...am I?"

Luo Feng looked at his right hand; his dark, rough hand was gripping an old kerosene lamp. The artificial light from this lamp was not bright in the dense darkness of the night.

To be frank, this light can only illuminate the ground beneath our feet; it seems to be of little use in the pitch-black forest.

call……

A gust of wind swept through the treetops. The orange light inside the oil lamp's glass shade flickered, as if it might go out at any moment.

"Panupong, are you still half asleep?"

A somewhat sinister face was illuminated by the light.

Luo Feng was startled by the face that suddenly loomed close to him.

"I told you to prepare during the day, so don't mess things up tonight..."

The man who spoke was a man with a high nose bridge, deep-set features, and dark skin. He spoke Thai with a strong local accent throughout.

Luo Feng sized up the other person and noticed that he was wearing red jogger pants, was not tall, had a straight back, and had various tattoos on his body.

Who is he?

Wait a minute... what exactly is my situation right now?

As Luo Feng was wondering, suddenly, another person's memories surfaced in his mind—memories belonging to the owner of this body.

"Phanupong...a villager from Idao village in Chiang Mai province. Is this...this my current identity?"

A thought struck him, and he understood what had happened to him.

—That brooch.

Okay! It seems that the power of that thing made me intervene in another person's life, as if possessing them and taking on their identity.

—His current identity is a young man named "Panupong".

Panupong's father died early, leaving only his elderly mother at home. He was notorious for being idle, addicted to gambling, and heavily in debt.

Yesterday, Panupong, driven to desperation by his creditors, agreed to do something with a fellow villager named Wuchai at the cemetery, hoping to make a fortune.

"This is... a memory from my mind."

In addition to the memories in his brain, some information was also imprinted deep in his consciousness.

Luo Feng looked at the palm of his right hand, where a blood-red vortex mark reappeared, and the bright red number "10" was clearly visible.

"This is the 'Reincarnation Gu'."

At the same time, a piece of information naturally entered his mind.

The insect that burrowed into the palm of the hand was a Gu worm called "Reincarnation Gu".

He himself became the host of the Reincarnation Gu.

Immediately afterwards, a new message appeared.

[Mass burial grounds, corpse oil refined at night; cause and effect are real, retribution is inevitable... Now recorded in 'Fragments of Panupong's Reincarnation']