Bone Sculptor

Chapter 1 – The Living Skeleton

When she woke up and found that she had turned into a skeleton, An Yi did not know how to react.

She struggled to control her body, and managed to stand up albeit she was trembling a bit. She looked around at the unfamiliar forest, the unfamiliar plants, the unfamiliar world – it felt like she was dreaming. Just a moment ago, she was still in a prosperous metropolis. How was it possible that the whole world changed in the blink of an eye?

An Yi looked down at her own bony hands. She was unable to comprehend how she turned into a skeleton, and why she had appeared here.

She remembered that… right, it was an explosion. In the middle of her trip, the bus she took suddenly exploded. After a loud bang, she lost consciousness. When she woke up again, she was already in this strange place and had become a skeleton. Clad on her body was still the original outfit she had been wearing; a T-shirt, jacket and jeans – it was undeniable that this body was her own.

Could it be that she had crossed over into another realm like those characters from transmigration novels? But why would she become a skeleton? Moreover, it was too weird to be alive after becoming a skeleton! She didn’t know whether she was more scared or shocked now. In short, it was very chaotic.

An Yi tried to move her feet, but with a “snap”, her jeans slipped to the floor along with her belt. Thus leaving only a pair of underwear hanging on her pelvis.

She looked at her “waist” in silence. The thought that went through her mind was that nobody in the world was thinner than her. This waist was so thin that it was only the width of a vertebrae. It could definitely be held with a hand.

An Yi let herself calm down for three seconds, and then took off all her clothes, including her underwear. This body was just bones and nothing else anyway. Even people with a very twisted sense of aesthetics will not be interested in it.

She felt that she was rather optimistic dealing with the current situation. At the very least, she was still alive, and as long as she was alive there was always a chance to escape.

An Yi gathered her clothes together, then dug a hole and buried them. She marked the location and planned to come back for them later when she needed them. Then, with trembling steps, she began to carefully explore this new world.

First of all, this was definitely not Earth.

Although she had never conducted research on plants, she could still recognize the common plants in general. Yet, everything here was unfamiliar. The big trees that towered into the clouds, the clumps of vines that crisscrossed the ground, the pieces of grass that were strangely shaped – none of which An Yi could name. To top it off, the stems and leaves of these plants were vaguely shimmering with faint light. This was also not a characteristic of Earth vegetation.

She lifted her head and looked at the sky. She could see yellowish rays of light sporadically filtering through the dense foliage.

For the moment she would treat those rays of light as sunlight. The current her had no sense of touch, smell, nor taste, and also no voice. The only senses she had left were only hearing and sight, and she was unable to make a more accurate judgment from these. Moreover, her hearing and vision may not be normal either, since she only had a skeletal body, which lacked organs, muscle tissue and various nervous systems. It was perplexing how the body maintained its vitality.

She took a look at herself from the surface of the pool of water. The place where her eyes should be were replaced by two clusters of dark blue flames burning in the pair of eye sockets. All her energy seemed to have originated from these two clumps of fire. Could this be the legendary soul fire? Did she turn into a monster? Were there other creatures like her here?

In the midst of meditation, she suddenly felt something approaching from the bushes nearby. An Yi glanced at the direction where the sound came from, only to see an animal that looked like a wild boar trudging slowly out from the bushes. It walked past An Yi and drank from the pool with its head down.

It was obviously not interested in An Yi, for it had only thrown a casual glance at her and then no longer paid attention to her. Although An Yi had never seen this kind of animal, one thing was for sure: it had flesh and blood, and was a normal living creature – completely different from her.

Of course, just a single living creature cannot prove anything. She still needed to gather more information.

The boar – let’s call it a “wild boar” for now – finished drinking and headed deeper into the forest. An Yi hastily followed the boar and it did not care about the extra presence tailing after it, moving and stopping at its own pace, as if it was on a leisure walk, but also seemed to be searching for food. Under its leadership, An Yi found several more animals, all of which she had not seen before. However, it was still possible to classify them according to the Earth’s classification; aquatic and terrestrial, birds, beasts, insects and fish – together with this forest, built a complete biological chain.

Even so, she had not found any signs of human activity, nor had she found any skeletal creatures like her. All she had seen along the way were a number of scattered animal skeletons.

It was unknown how much time had passed, An Yi felt that the sky was getting darker so she decided to find a place to settle down for the night. Although she didn’t feel any tiredness now, the forest was definitely dangerous at night and she didn’t want to risk her all-bones body just yet.

The beasts here didn’t seem to have any appetite for her, probably because she was a skeletal frame that was clean enough to be a specimen kept in a museum. To them, she was about the same as a dead branch or leaf. So she didn’t bother looking for any hidden shelter, and just randomly found a shallow hole and nestled herself in.

As soon as she sat down, something horrible happened – she fell apart. She actually fell apart! Scattered into a pile of bones, and strewn over the ground in the shallow hole.

What was this situation? Could it be that she couldn’t even be a skeleton anymore?

An Yi panicked at this moment, and the ghostly fire in her eyes flickered non-stop. Soon a strange energy spread throughout her body, and the bones scattered on the ground seemed to be pulled by some invisible force. Slowly, they connected and combined and finally formed a complete skeleton.

An Yi looked at herself in amazement, and with a quick thought, the bones once again scattered, piled up, and then reunited. An Yi repeated this process multiple times and finally ascertained that she could disassemble her body at will, whether it was all of it or partially. She could even take off her arms and use them as weapons, or take her head off and use it as a ball to kick…

She had turned into such an unscientific being!

When she initially found out that she turned into a skeleton, An Yi wasn’t as scared as she thought she would be. This was because she was originally a bone carver, specializing in using various animal bones as a carrier for sculpting creations. To her, bones were as indispensable to life as food and clothing.

Nevertheless, she couldn’t believe that she would one day become a skeleton, even more so, a skeleton that could run and jump and disassemble itself. Was it possible that the pinnacle of bone carving skills was to use your own body and sculpt yourself into a masterpiece work of art?

An Yi laid dejectedly at the edge of the hole, and stared at the already darkening sky while letting her mind wander. She wondered how her parents and sisters were doing. They must be very worried about her sudden disappearance. After thinking about it for a long time, An Yi remained restless. She then realized that a skeleton did not need to sleep at all. With the exception of physical movement, she basically had no other biological needs.

She thought, even if there was a chance to return to where she was from in the future, she was afraid that she would not be able to return with her current appearance. She should be fearful, distressed and disoriented to be like this, but strangely enough, she felt okay – maybe just a little uncomfortable with an empty body.

In the midst of letting her imagination run wild, she caught a glimpse of a green glow flashing through the trees on her left.

An Yi stood up and hesitated for a moment, but eventually decided to go over to check it out.

Plucking away the leaves, the green light appeared clearly ahead of her. It seemed as if countless fireflies were gathered together, glittering and flickering in a very beautiful way.

In the next moment however, she did not think it was beautiful anymore.

She could only see the cluster of green light moving like a gust of wind, rapidly closing in on a small beast that was climbing the trunk of a tree, and then swallowed it whole. After three or four seconds, the green light disappeared, and the small beast was only left with its skeleton, falling to the ground with a snap and scattering into pieces.

An Yi simply could not believe her own eyes. What was that green light? It took only a few seconds to turn a living animal into a bare skeleton.

She looked around to make sure that the green light had disappeared before she carefully went to check on the skeletal remains of the small beast.

It was clean, without a trace of flesh and blood left behind, just like, just like her… An Yi came to realize that the culprit that turned her into a skeleton was probably that sort of thing.

In that case, she should still have been a complete human being when she first arrived in this world. She was probably devoured by that green light when she was unconscious, and became what she was at present.

Except, why didn’t she die? Could it be that all the creatures that were turned into skeletons by that green light don’t die?

An Yi’s line of sight fell back on the bones of the beast and found that its bones were faintly shining with a white light. It was full of vitality and made one feel very comfortable.

An Yi couldn’t help but reach out and touch it. In the instant she made contact, a strange sensation was formed between the two. She abruptly withdrew her hand, and the sensation immediately disappeared.

What was going on? There seemed to be an impulse to… an urge to do something.

An Yi once again stretched her hand towards the skeletal remains of the small beast. This time, she was mentally prepared, and in addition to that wonderful feeling, a circulating stream of light appeared and danced between her fingers. At the same time, her eyes seemed to be able to see through the bone quality and structure of each bone. Not only that, she even felt like she was able to change the quality of the bones.

This… was simply an ability that every bone sculptor dreams of!

However, An Yi suppressed her desire to start sculpting immediately. She chose to wait on the sidelines to verify her suspicions and see if the pile of bones could be “revived”.

The time spent waiting was always agonizingly slow, so the idle An Yi began to count the bones of the beast silently, 1, 2, 5 …7 … a total of 112. From a visage point of view, the only parts suitable for carving were the leg bones and skull. The size of this beast was not large, so pre-processing was more troublesome, and the sculpting difficulty also increased.

After An Yi sifted through all the various sculpting procedures and creative ideas, it was already dawn. The pile of bones still had no sign of “resurrection”. Moreover, it was uncertain if it was An Yi’s misperception, the light on the bones seemed to have dimmed a lot.

She felt it with her hand – it was not an optical illusion. Not only did the light fade, even the aura of life became weaker.

Could it be that she had guessed wrongly? The creatures that were devoured by that green light and become skeletons will not “resurrect”?

An Yi waited until the daylight was shining brightly, until the light on the bones completely disappeared, and yet there were still no changes that she expected. When she touched the pile of bones again, the wonderful sensation no longer existed.