Day was just breaking. The owner of the steamed bun shop and his wife were already fully prepared. They pushed open the main door, set up the tables, stoked the fire in the stove, and began steaming the meat buns and mantou for the morning sales.
This particular shop, Niu’s Steamed Bun Shop, was famous for miles around. It was said that their meat buns were rich without being greasy, with paper-thin wrappers, generous fillings, and a mouthwatering, savory broth that burst out with every bite.
“Stop.” Unable to bear it any longer, Cen Xianyun snapped in his mind to halt the promotional video that was looping in full surround sound.
The System obediently turned off the meat bun video. But after remaining quiet for only a brief moment, it started causing trouble again. This time, it projected the image of a filthy little beggar.
Cen Xianyun took a deep breath, suppressing an urge that was not entirely aligned with proper societal values: “Is it at all possible that I can actually see with my own eyes?”
Dressed in tattered rags, the little beggar was standing right across the street from the stall Niu’s Steamed Bun Shop had set up. The distance across the street was neither too far nor too close.
At this hour, the street was quiet and deserted, with only a handful of pedestrians passing by. Standing there, the little beggar was unusually eye-catching no matter how one looked at it.
As curls of steam drifted up, a tall, burly man lifted the lid off the steamer, and the rich aroma of meat instantly filled the air. The little beggar stared with a pair of large eyes that were utterly disproportionate to his emaciated cheeks. His chest and abdomen heaved as he greedily inhaled the wafting scent of meat.
With a thought from Cen Xianyun, a semi-transparent panel materialized before his eyes without obstructing his line of sight. It showed that out of the eighteen resets of this mini-world, the Child of Fortune had starved to death on this exact day four times.
What a terrifying ratio.
Gasping for breath every three steps, Cen Xianyun walked over to the front of the bun shop. The body he was currently controlling belonged to a child barely ten years old. Sickly and fragile since birth, he had suffered from an unyielding high fever last month and unfortunately passed away.
It just so happened that Cen Xianyun’s primordial spirit had descended to the lower realm at that time, so he borrowed the body.
The shop owner, whose face bore a rather fierce expression, silently threw a few pieces of firewood into the stove. Looking up, he caught sight of Cen Xianyun in front of the stall and immediately beamed, greeting warmly, “Young Master, would you like a meat bun?”
“Two meat buns, please.” Cen Xianyun extended a thin, bony wrist and dropped a piece of broken silver, no larger than a pea, onto the wooden tabletop.
Two meat buns were certainly not worth this much money, but this was already the smallest piece of silver in his purse.
Copper coins? Such cheap currency would never appear inside his purse.
After all, this body belonged to a young master from a top-tier wealthy family. Of course, had he not been born into a wealthy family, he would not have survived to ten years old and would have died of illness long ago.
Cen Xianyun accepted the two buns wrapped in greaseproof paper, waved his hand, and said, “Keep the change.”
He took a bite. Well, it could only be described as very mediocre.
Cen Xianyun complained internally, “A bun famous for miles around tastes like this?”
The System played dead and did not answer.
Cen Xianyun saw through the System’s little scheme but did not expose it. Holding a bun in one hand, he strolled leisurely from one side of the street to the other.
As he passed by the beggar, he heard a distinct growling sound from the boy’s stomach, a loud, severe rumbling.
Cen Xianyun did not stop his pace. Amid the System’s panicked wailing, he walked right past the little beggar.
【Host?!】
If the Child of Fortune dies, the mini-world will reset!
The System’s anxious scream hovered on the tip of its tongue before being swallowed right back down.
Cen Xianyun appeared to suddenly remember something; he took half a step backward and stopped directly in front of the little beggar.
His position was perfectly aligned, blocking the beggar’s view of the bun shop.
If those large, dark, round eyes were on an ordinary child’s face, they would surely make the child look endearing and adorable. But on the little beggar’s face, they appeared inexplicably creepy.
It was simply because the little beggar was far too thin.
Emaciated skin hung loosely over a skeletal frame, with high, protruding cheekbones and deeply sunken eye sockets, making those eyes look terrifyingly large.
When their eyes met, the contrast between the two of them was like night and day.
Inside, Cen Xianyun felt not a single ripple of emotion. He had seen far too many pitiable people; moreover, the person before him really did not evoke much of his sympathy.
He nudged the bun forward slightly: “It doesn’t taste good. You can have it.”
He loosened his grip, and the greaseproof paper wrapping the buns dropped straight to the ground.
Cen Xianyun turned around, the hem of his luxurious robe cutting a graceful arc through the air as he walked away without pausing.
The paper parcel hit the ground, and the bun that had been bitten slid out, rolling twice and getting coated in dust.
The little beggar did not care about any of that. He hurriedly snatched up the bun still inside the paper and stuffed it into his clothes, then jogged two steps to chase down the rolling one. He swiped at it loosely a couple of times and prepared to shove it into his mouth.
“Don’t you dare eat that!”
A booming, powerful voice shouted out. A filthy, dust-covered hand grabbed the little beggar by the collar from behind, easily throwing him off balance and knocking him onto his bottom.
A beggar who looked somewhat older gave a couple of meaningful looks to the lackeys beside him. They immediately stepped forward, grabbed the little beggar by the hair, and dragged him toward a dark alley nearby.
His back slammed heavily against the wall. The impact left the little beggar dizzy and disoriented, making him loosen his jaw unconsciously. The meat bun he had just retrieved rolled away once again.
He was nothing but skin and bones; a collision like this made him feel as though his whole frame was falling apart. Yet, his mind remained entirely set on his meat bun. Even though his vision was still blurry, he lunged forward like a wild dog and caught the fallen meat bun in his mouth.
Amid a chaotic blur of muffled curses and verbal abuse, he pushed with both hands, forcing the adult-fist-sized bun entirely into his mouth until his cheeks bulged completely.
He swallowed the meat bun whole, and his vision and hearing gradually returned to normal.
Realizing what these people were here for, he dodged while flailing his arms, simultaneously pulling the paper parcel from his chest and stuffing it into his mouth, paper and all.
The beggar chief’s eyes widened, jumping up and down in rage: “Beat him! Beat him to death!”
That was a meat bun!
Their group had occupied this territory for years. They had sweet tongues, knew how to play nice, and had sharp eyes. Naturally, they did not end up like this stupid creature who could not even speak properly, going hungry three times a day, or going nine meals without food over three days. However, meat was still an extremely rare luxury for them.
Receiving the order, the henchmen behind him swarmed forward, surrounding the little beggar and raining down kicks and punches.
At first, the little beggar could still use his hands, feet, and even his teeth to fight back, but eventually, he could only curl into a ball on the ground, shielding his head while enduring the group’s beatings.
Pain, it hurt so much.
Someone accidentally kicked him in the stomach. He gritted his teeth, swallowing down both the cry of pain and the urge to vomit.
The meat bun tasted wonderful; he did not want to throw it up.
On the other side, the System dutifully broadcasted the real-time scene inside the alley. It thoughtfully blurred the window so that Cen Xianyun could see it the moment he opened his eyes without affecting his vision.
Except this thoughtfulness was entirely unnecessary.
“Can you turn it off?” Cen Xianyun fiddled with the bracelet on his wrist, negotiating with the System in his mind.
If most of his authority had not been revoked by the Lord System, the System would probably be sitting in a dark room reflecting on its life right now.
Unfortunately, there were no “ifs.”
【Host, don’t you think he’s pitiful?】
Cen Xianyun’s hand paused slightly, his expression remaining completely unchanged. He glanced at the struggling little beggar and felt no inner emotion: “He is pitiful, but…”
The System was overjoyed, ignoring the second half of Cen Xianyun’s unsaid sentence: 【Shouldn’t you redeem him, help him, and support him?】
“…” Cen Xianyun stopped in his tracks, his brows furrowing slightly. After a moment of silence, he finally could not hold back: “Have you lost your mind?”
He clicked open his task panel. A bloody, gruesome skeleton graphic covered the real-time live stream: “Isn’t my task to play the vicious master?”
The System fell silent.
The main plot of this world was a classic Long Aotian script.
The Long Aotian, who possessed a tragic past, would endure countless hardships and ultimately achieve ascension.
And he, Cen Xianyun, played the role of Immortal Venerable Ling Heng, a high-cultivation immortal on the sacred mountain.
According to the plot, after the Long Aotian finished his lower-realm storyline, he would enter the immortal mountain through a “coincidental opportunity” and take Cen Xianyun as his master.
Yet Cen Xianyun would give this cheap disciple no pleasant treatment, frequently berating and punishing him. Furthermore, upon discovering the Long Aotian’s half-demon lineage, he would attempt to kill him to eliminate future trouble.
Naturally, the Long Aotian would not die; instead, he would flee to the Demon Realm.
Many years later, the Long Aotian would lead an army of minions back to the immortal mountain. The very first person he would seek revenge upon was naturally this master of his.
Day after day, the Long Aotian would slice his flesh and drain his blood, refusing to let him die easily by keeping him barely alive. He would force Cen Xianyun to watch his own flesh sliced off piece by piece until nothing remained but an isolated head and white bones.
The skeleton graphic currently blocking the scene of the Long Aotian being beaten was precisely his future end.
Facing such a horrific outcome, even Cen Xianyun, who had completed tasks across hundreds of mini-worlds, could not help feeling a trace of dread.
However, his gaze rested on the reward column right beneath the task description.
As long as he completed this task, he could retire and put an end to this endless career of quick-transmigration roleplay.
Thinking of this, Cen Xianyun let out a faint sigh.
Logically speaking, he only needed to wait on the immortal mountain for the Long Aotian to come take him as master, treat him cold-heartedly according to the plot, drive him into the Demon Realm, and then wait to die.
Initially, he believed that as long as he was not afraid of dying a gruesome death, this task presented no difficulty at all, so much so that he forgot the Lord System had mentioned this mini-world was on the verge of collapsing.
The result was that instead of waiting for the Long Aotian to climb the mountain, he waited through eighteen resets of the mini-world.
The Long Aotian, who was supposed to face an ill-fated life yet turn danger into safety every time, had somehow died eighteen times wandering around the lower realm.
Considering his distant and seemingly hopeless retirement, he ultimately could not wait any longer and decided to help the Long Aotian resolve his fatal ordeal.
However, a barrier existed between the lower realm and the immortal mountain. Regardless of an immortal master’s cultivation, upon descending to the lower realm, their power would be suppressed below the Golden Core stage.
Immortal Venerable Ling Heng, whom Cen Xianyun was playing, had already reached the Tribulation Transcending stage. Even with suppressed cultivation, he could not descend to the lower realm in his true body. Therefore, he simply projected his primordial spirit to borrow a mortal’s body.
Conveniently, this reduced the likelihood of exposing his true identity, preventing unnecessary complications later on.
The System clearly remembered this as well, speaking up hesitantly: 【But he really is very pitiful…】
“Will he die?”
Cen Xianyun closed the task panel and walked in the direction of the young master’s household. He prepared to leave this place, so he naturally had to return this physical body.
The System went quiet.
Even without an answer, Cen Xianyun knew the beggar would not die.
Starving to death was a near-death checkpoint in the early stage of the Long Aotian’s journey. Because the world was collapsing, the Long Aotian’s protection mechanism had failed, causing near-death situations to convert into actual death with a certain probability.
However, as long as he survived this checkpoint, the mini-world’s luck would naturally protect the Long Aotian’s life; at most, he would just suffer a few more injuries.
Besides, what did any of this have to do with him?
The System persistently continued to broadcast the footage of the little beggar being beaten, attempting to awaken the host’s microscopic, near-nonexistent sympathy.
Unfortunately, years of roleplaying had long hardened his heart to stone; he remained entirely unmoved.
Given how gruesomely he would die at the Long Aotian’s hands in the future, the fact that he had not kicked him while he was down was already kind enough. What more could anyone ask of him?