Chapter 3: The Throat of Fate

Li Bing gloomily stared at his own body, gloomily observed the pale-faced beauty, and gloomily contemplated the last remaining black lace panties clinging to her figure.

A man could be unlucky, but not this unlucky. He'd died before even getting to see the beauty remove her final garment. If it had been the legendary "death during sex," at least he could've said he lived fully. But he hadn't even been granted that chance - just sudden cardiac arrest.

At least let me see all three points! Was my life only worth two?

Li Bing rarely complained in life, knowing it solved nothing. But now, staring at the ceiling, he finally roared: "Heavens! This is unjust!"

His lament echoed more tragically than Yang Bailao's cries, though being dead eliminated any chance of auditioning for The White-Haired Girl.

As consciousness faded, he felt himself floating upward. So this was death? Not entirely unpleasant...

"May my next incarnation bring better fortune..." formed his final thought.

"Hey kid, wake up." A voice pierced through. Li Bing opened eyes he shouldn't physically possess.

Two crimson orbs met his gaze - eyes brimming with resentment, sorrow, loneliness, and rage, their complex emotions threatening to bleed forth as literal blood.

Strangely unafraid, Li Bing felt kinship. These eyes mirrored emotions buried deep in his own soul.

Kindred spirits adrift in the world need no prior acquaintance when fate brings them together.

Li Bing finally glimpsed the entity clearly: six tattered black wings revealing exposed bones through their decay, a towering obsidian frame riddled with wounds oozing azure blood, a hauntingly beautiful face beneath elegant pointed horns, and twin crimson eyes that pierced reality like daggers.

The surroundings materialized - stone walls enclosing every direction, ceiling to floor, without even a window. An utterly sealed prison cell.

"Am I dead?" Li Bing uttered his first question.

The being nodded.

Li Bing sighed softly, observing the flicker of disappointment on the other's face before politely inquiring, "Who are you?"

"I am both the Demon God Chiyu and the Devil Satan. You may call me Chidan." The man's expression radiated smugness.

People these days are so damn pretentious, Li Bing thought. Making others ask for their name, then calling themselves "Egg Eater".

He chuckled, astonished this trashy novel plot was unfolding in his life.

"Uncle, why are you trapped in this godforsaken place?" Li Bing tactfully asked, anticipating the other's need to monologue.

Chidan preened, "When Chiyu and Satan merged to challenge divine realms, we were outnumbered! Those winged bastards imprisoned me here! Ah, the glory days—"

Three hours later, the demon cut off his nostalgia. "Brat! Want revenge on those winged pricks?"

"No," Li Bing replied bluntly. "I'm rushing to reincarnate. Early death, early rebirth."

"Ha! Think next life's luck improves?" Chidan roared with laughter. "Know why you're perpetually unlucky?"

Li Bing stiffened—the demon knew his name. This wasn't random chatter.

"Your past life was Beethoven. You declared 'I'll seize fate by the throat!' at your deathbed—before a crucifix! God heard, loathed your defiance, yet couldn't punish a dying man. So he colluded with Eastern deities to rig your reincarnation." Chidan's voice seethed with vicarious rage. "Zeus and Dragon King bet on your suicide timeline. You died because Taishang Laojun lost his wager and conspired with Yama to alter your Book of Life and Death. Understand now?"

Li Bing's mind detonated again. Yet tempered by life's hardships, his absurd optimism surfaced: "Did you bet too?" 

Chidan flushed. "Yes. Lost. Wagered you'd kill yourself at fifteen." 

The silence thickened until the demon growled, "Boy! Want vengeance? Want to throttle fate like your past self?!" 

Chaos erupted in Li Bing's heart - a beggar learning he's a deposed prince. Decades of anguish surged forth. 

I could've avoided this misery!

I deserved ordinary happiness! 

All heaven's fault! 

That bastard sky didn't even let me remove her panties! 

The lifelong coward found steel in his voice: "I do." 

"Good! I'm trapped here, but you're mortal." Chidan's hands glowed. "First, remold your flesh." A nude replica of Li Bing's body materialized. "Then my cultivation. Reborn, train in hell for centuries. Lead my legions to slaughter those feathered—" 

"Clothes!!" Li Bing eyed his naked doppelganger with distaste. Hesitating, he added, "Maybe... enhance the face? And..." His cheeks burned as he gestured downward. "Enlarge... the key areas?" 

Chidan's face darkened like storm clouds.

"Get in. Let me breathe..." Chidan panted over the newly formed body, yet conjured a gray robe through sheer spite. "You realize how hard pure energy vessels are? Clothes... Nearly died dragging your soul here."

Li Bing stared at his physical form, drawn into it like magnet meeting steel.

Darkness swallowed his vision mid-fusion, but ears caught the cell's new arrivals.

"CHIDAN! YOU DARE—" A thunderous roar shook the air. Clash of combat. Weightlessness. Wind howled as fighting faded beneath him.

Back in the Celestial Prison, the demon grinned at fourteen armored figures. "Evidence's tossed to the mortal realm now. Not your jurisdiction, eh?" Blood dripped from his claws onto divine armor shards. "Shall we continue?"

"Think we fear you? Even without evidence—" a Celestial Guard snarled.

"And do what?" Chidan's grin turned feral. "Hell's legions would've devoured this place years ago if I hadn't stayed."

The guards vanished with hate-etched glares.

"Damn brutish timing." Chidan slumped against obsidian walls as celestial light faded. "Centuries of power-building wasted." His claw tapped the prison stones. "Boredom's worse than execution."

Then his hand flashed upward – a crystal orb glowing in his palm. "Ah, but this mortal puppet show..."

Inside the sphere, a porcine man drooled toward a girl trapped in sacred/profane paradox: the white robe's holy radiance clashed obscenely with the curves beneath, chestnut curls framing tear-brimmed amber eyes. The silver collar around her throat gleamed brighter than any saint's relic.