Chapter 1: Desert-Edition Iced Tea

"Damn it all... I'll be damned..."

A young man, slumped beside the shredded remains of a cactus, cursed weakly into the shimmering air.

Three days. It had been three whole days since he'd been inexplicably dumped in this godforsaken desert. Water? There was none. Food? None of that either. He had been surviving entirely by gnawing on these prickly plants, squeezing out just enough bitter juice to keep himself from dying.

He didn't even dare to breathe too deeply, terrified of losing precious moisture from his lungs. Even his own piss had become a top-tier luxury, every golden, precious drop carefully saved for the most desperate of moments.

That was his goddamn "Desert-Edition Iced Tea."

He lifted his heavy eyelids, gazing out at the distorted heat waves dancing over the endless sand. In his mind's eye, the game character interface for Honkai: Star Rail—the very thing that had crossed over with him—remained stubbornly grayed out.

'Golden finger? What a joke,'he thought bitterly.'This piece of junk is as good as dead.'

It was nothing but eye candy, completely and utterly useless. He couldn't summon anything, couldn't retrieve items from some magical inventory, and there wasn't even a damn tutorial to guide him.

"Whoever sent me here..." Chen licked his cracked, peeling lips. "If I survive this... you're the first one I'm taking down..."

He could almost hear the blaring warning siren of his life bar hitting rock bottom. Just as his consciousness began to blur and he resigned himself to the fact that today might really be the end, a sound reached him.

A buzz.

Chen was certain he was hallucinating. Why else would he hear a buzzing noise, and one that was getting louder, damn it?

He struggled to force his eyes open. In his blurry vision, the sky was the same unforgiving canvas of blue and white, the heat distorting everything into a wavering mirage. But the buzzing didn't fade. Instead, it grew closer, more real, vibrating through the sand beneath him.

Straining to focus, he saw it: a small black dot on the horizon, rapidly enlarging. Its outline sharpened, resolving into a sleek, shuttle-like shape with the fiery trail of thrusters blazing behind it. It was a spaceship, and it was descending right toward him.

"Ha... haha..." Chen wanted to laugh, but only a dry, rasping croak escaped his throat. "Really... hallucinating from thirst now..."

He closed his eyes, shaking his muddled head. When he opened them again, the ship was even closer. He could see the glint of sunlight off the metal of its hull.

"Fuck! It's real! It's really real!"

A raw, hoarse roar tore from his lungs as he scrambled up from the sand on all fours. He yanked off his tattered shirt, a garment long stained beyond recognition by sweat and grime, and began to wave it frantically at the sky.

"Here! Look here!" he screamed, his voice cracking with desperation. "Help! Save me! Help me!!!"

The ragged cloth flapped noisily in the hot, dry wind. He jumped and waved, terrified they would miss the only sign of life in this dead, silent sea of sand.

The roar of the spaceship grew almost deafening as its massive shadow slowly enveloped him, kicking up a storm of sand that stung his face and filled his eyes. Chen ignored it all, waving his makeshift flag even more desperately, his gaze locked on the hatch that was beginning to lower.

'Alive... Damn it... I'm finally going to live!'

The hatch fully opened, revealing several figures silhouetted against the bright interior. He could just make out that they were all wearing matching uniforms. They seemed to be operating devices on their wrists, pointing and gesturing at the desert below as if recording environmental data. It was only when Chen's desperate cries finally reached them that they looked down, their professional calm shattering.

They stared in surprise at the wild man dancing below, a figure so caked in dust and grime he looked like a lump of black coal.

"Water! Water! Give me some water!" Seeing the figures, Chen almost burst into tears. "Bro! Sis! Have mercy! Just a sip of water! I'm dying! I'm really dying!"

The people on the spaceship were clearly stunned. They had been dispatched to this desert planet—marked as uninhabited in all official records—to collect baseline environmental data. They never expected to find a living person, let alone one who looked like he was seconds away from expiring from thirst.

A brief commotion, a flurry of indistinct chatter, drifted down from the ship. A moment later, one of the figures deftly tossed a small object from the hatch. It sailed through the air in a perfect arc, landing in the sand not far from Chen.

A water pouch.

His eyes instantly blazed with a terrifying, predatory green light. He lunged for it on all fours, a feral sound escaping his throat as his trembling hands closed around the pouch. Tearing the seal open with his teeth, he abandoned all semblance of dignity, tilting his head back and gulping down the contents with frantic, choking swallows.

Cool, clean liquid flooded his throat, soothing his raw, burning esophagus and stomach. In that moment, Chen felt this was ten thousand times more wonderful than any mythical nectar or divine drink.

He drank too fast, choking and coughing, but he clung to the pouch, refusing to let a single drop go to waste. Only after he had licked the inside clean did he finally slump back onto the sand, letting out a long, satisfied sigh as if he had been reborn.

He looked up at the team members, who were now cautiously approaching from the spaceship, ready to offer his deep thanks.

The leader of the team scrutinized him, their voice filled with confusion as they asked, "Who are you? How did you get here? According to our records, this planet shouldn't have any signs of life."

Chen opened his mouth, a bellyful of grievances stuck in his chest. In the end, it all coalesced into a single, overwhelming thought.

'Damn it, how the hell should I know?! But at least... I don't have to drink my own iced tea anymore!'