Chapter One: Fish or Hamster — You Can’t Have Both (1/2)

When Xiao Yu realized that the brakes had malfunctioned, it was all too late. This brand-new car that he just received for less than two months sped forward without a care and crashed into the incoming recreational vehicle ahead.

The car tires streaked across the surface, creating a very sharp screech. After a loud bang, the recreational vehicle that received that dreadful impact came to a gradual stop at the side of the bridge. As for Xiao Yu’s car, it flew straight off the bridge after the fierce collision.

Boom!

River water flooded into the car from all directions, blocking out all noises from the outside world.

Although Xiao Yu’s name was homophonous to ‘little fish’, on the contrary, Xiao Yu was definitely not a swimmer. As the shadows of death started to overwhelm him, just before Xiao Yu lost his consciousness, he thought regretfully — if there was a next life, he really wished to be a fish that had complete freedom – the type that wouldn’t drown to death even if he were thrown into water.

As the suffocation became more intense, Xiao Yu closed his eyes and waited for death. He slowly felt his body becoming lighter and lighter, lighter and lighter as if he was floating on clouds.

Then ––

And of course, he was reborn! Otherwise, how would this story have been written?

…

“Huihui, Huihui, stop sleeping, wake up, I have something to say.”

Amidst the confusion, Xiao Yu felt something sharp poking his forehead. As he painstakingly opened his eyes, what came into his view was a finger painted with nail polish.

Xiao Yu’s eyes traced the finger and then saw a very huge face.

That’s right, a very huge face. From Xiao Yu’s angle, he could clearly see the person’s gigantic mouth and a pair of nostrils that looked like two bottomless pits.

At this very moment, Xiao Yu recalled the fear of domination by the giants that humanity had long forgotten, buried deep in their souls.

“Huihui, I’m sorry, but we’re moving soon. I can’t keep you anymore. I hope someone will adopt you soon.”

The owner of the voice stood up and headed outside. At this point, Xiao Yu realized that it was a woman.

Who was she? Did he know her?

Xiao Yu instantly went through the list of names in his mind – there was no such woman.

Wasn’t he in an accident? Wasn’t he dead already? Where was this place, heaven?

There were so many questions that it almost drowned Xiao Yu. First, he looked around at his surroundings. Then he realized that he was surrounded by a type of soft, strange thing that resembled pencil shavings.

He tried to move his limbs to confirm that he had not become disabled.

It’s just that… why were his hands covered with grey fur?

Xiao Yu stared closely at his own paws and sunk into a magnified dazed look until he saw that woman carrying a bag of items and as she walked back. She poured a bunch of things before him.

“These will last you awhile if you eat sparingly. I’m leaving, Huihui.”

Along with the words said by the woman, in his line of sight were some colorful and interestingly shaped objects.

But that was not the main point. The main point was that Xiao Yu could see very clearly from the woman’s eyes an object that might be him.

A gray-colored fur… hamster?

Thump, thump.

He died in the car accident and was reborn as a hamster?

Thump, thump.

Xiao Yu’s little heart pounded hard for few times before he closed his eyes and fainted from the joy (shock) of rebirth.

Two days later.

Xiao Yu split open a pink-colored snack: this is too sweet — nope.

This is too soft, sticks to the teeth — nope.

This is too bitter, tastes bad — nope.

After picking around for quite some time, he finally found a few pieces of melon seeds.

Xiao Yu happily stuffed them into his cheek pouch making his small face instantly bloated.

Although the fact that he had been reborn into a hamster made Xiao Yu puzzled for a long time, he was not a greedy person; to be able to live another life was already an accidental surprise — he shouldn’t ask for more.

In fact, for the past two days, Xiao Yu had been pondering about the philosophical question of whether or not he was a fish dreaming about a hamster or the other way around. However, he very quickly gave up on those thoughts.

(T/N: Fish = Xiao Yu)

Instead of entertaining himself with such thoughts, he figured he might as well think about what he was going to do next.

Xiao Yu’s luck was obviously not so good: the hamster that he’d possessed was originally kept by a woman as a pet. However, because the woman was going to relocate, she gave up Xiao Yu. Although she had left behind quite a lot of food for Xiao Yu, due to the recent hot weather, the food easily turned bad. Plus, it was not good a long-term plan to just sit here and do nothing.