Zhuling wasn’t a mountain.
It was just a village.
And a very, very run-down village at that.
For dozens of miles in every direction, it was the only village around.
The village backed against a bamboo mountain and faced a great river.
Crossing the bamboo mountain took a long time, and crossing the river wasn’t easy either.
So anyone in the village with even a little ability eventually left.
Over the years, Zhuling grew increasingly dilapidated.
Lin Yuan sat in the carriage with his parents, watching the familiar village slowly disappear into the distance.
He couldn’t help letting out a soft sigh.
There was a secret in Lin Yuan’s heart that only he knew.
He was a transmigrator.
In his previous life, he had been nothing more than an ordinary wage slave.
During a certain city’s Water-Splashing Festival, he was attacked with a mineral water bottle by a “fairy.”
In a fit of anger, he opened the bottle and splashed the water right back.
He was then chased down by one of the fairy’s simps.
Unable to endure the humiliation, he died from sheer anger.
After transmigrating to Douluo Dalu, he was reborn into an ordinary family.
His father was a soul master.
The family received a monthly subsidy of ten gold soul coins, and his father also worked as a guard at the City Lord’s residence in Nuoding City.
As a result, their life was actually quite comfortable.
Now, his father’s soul power had broken through rank 20, allowing him to advance to the Soul Grandmaster rank.
The family of three was moving to Nuoding City, fifty miles away, to settle down.
They had a carriage and a house.
His parents were both alive.
His father was even a Soul Grandmaster, receiving the enormous subsidy of ten gold soul coins every month.
The city lord’s residence had also increased his allowance considerably.
In other words, they were now living the kind of modestly comfortable life that he had struggled his entire previous life to obtain.
Originally, this should have been something worth celebrating.
Yet Lin Yuan couldn’t feel happy about it.
For one thing…
He didn’t have any cheat ability.
And there was a high chance that his martial soul would be the same as his father’s—Lone Bamboo.
In a world where bloodlines and backgrounds mattered so much, he was destined to accomplish very little in the future.
Forget about fulfilling the four essential goals of a transmigrator:
Showing off, picking up girls, beating Tang San, and trampling Yu Xiaogang.
For another thing…
Lin Yuan had discovered that he might not be the only transmigrator in this world.
Take Zhuling, for example.
From a very young age, Lin Yuan had noticed something strange about one of the children around his age.
His name was Lin Tian.
He was an orphan who had grown up eating whatever food the villagers were willing to give him.
Ever since he was little, he neither liked talking to people nor joining the other village children in raiding bird nests and catching fish.
He was mysterious all day long.
Starting from the age of two or three, he would dare to sneak off to the back mountain alone before dawn and wouldn’t return until noon.
After eating at one of the villagers’ homes, he would head back into the mountains again in the afternoon.
Then he would return in the evening.
At first, the villagers were worried because Lin Tian was still so young.
They feared that something might happen to him.
But after he repeatedly returned with prey such as pheasants and wild rabbits, people gradually stopped saying anything.
Yet this had made Lin Yuan wary.
How could a child that young possibly hunt alone in the mountains?
How could that not make Lin Yuan suspicious?
Recently, faint sounds like rolling thunder had even begun coming from the back mountain.
This made Lin Yuan increasingly certain of his suspicions.
After sighing, Lin Yuan began making plans.
Since there was a second transmigrator in this world, there might very well be a third.
Or a fourth.
After all, his father was merely a Soul Grandmaster with innate rank two soul power, while his mother was an ordinary person.
And Lin Yuan still had another two and a half months before turning six.
He had neither a powerful bloodline nor a cheat ability.
In a world where meeting a fellow transmigrator could mean getting stabbed in the back…
It was better to keep a low profile.
If he awakened soul power, he would become an ordinary soul master, marry a few wives and concubines, and live out his life in peace.
If he failed to awaken soul power, he could start a small business, perhaps opening a grocery store or restaurant.
Compared to his previous life, that would still be a pretty decent future.
Just as Lin Yuan figured everything out and felt much more at ease, his father’s voice suddenly came from beside him.
“Yuntao…”
Lin Yuan followed his father’s gaze.
A young man with rather handsome features was standing outside the carriage.
He wore the uniform of a Spirit Hall Deacon and carried a package in his hand.
At his father’s invitation, the young man climbed into the carriage.
Lin Yuan knew him.
He was Su Yuntao, a Spirit Hall Deacon from Nuoding City.
He was known as the Blind Douluo and possessed the Single Dog Martial Soul.
Of course, that was only a joke.
The real Su Yuntao was an upright and decent man.
It was precisely because Spirit Hall had countless grassroots soul masters like Su Yuntao that it became a place admired by soul masters across the continent and by countless transmigrators.
Almost every year around this time, Su Yuntao would travel through the mountains and rivers to Zhuling to awaken the martial souls of the village’s eligible children.
“Ah kun, speaking of which, I haven’t even had the chance to congratulate you on becoming a Soul Grandmaster.”
Su Yuntao politely glanced at Lin Yuan and his mother inside the carriage before sighing.
“You’re taking your wife and child back to Nuoding City, aren’t you?”
“That’s right.
I’ve finally saved enough money to buy a small courtyard in Nuoding City.
It’s time to bring them over.”
Whenever Lin Yuan’s father mentioned the small courtyard he had bought in Nuoding City, an unmistakable look of pride appeared at the corner of his mouth.
He was now a man who owned a house in the city.
For someone born into poverty in the countryside, that was certainly something worth bragging about.
As he spoke, he didn’t forget to have Lin Yuan greet Su Yuntao.
“Ah Yuan, hurry up and call him Uncle Tao.”
“Uncle Tao!”
Lin Yuan obediently greeted him.
Su Yuntao nodded and praised him for being a good boy.
Then he began sighing to himself.
Seeing how utterly depressed Su Yuntao looked, Lin Yuan’s father asked in surprise,
“Yuntao, did you fail to find any good prospects during the martial soul awakenings again?”
“If only that were the problem.”
The moment martial soul awakenings were mentioned, Su Yuntao couldn’t help pouring out his grievances.
“I’ve traveled to dozens of villages today.”
“After all that effort, I finally encountered two children with innate full soul power.”
“One had the useless Martial Soul Blue Silver Grass, while the other refused to join Spirit Hall.”
“Oh, right.
That child who refused to join Spirit Hall is Lin Tian from your village.”
Blue Silver Grass?
Lin Tian?
Lin Yuan’s spirits immediately lifted.
There was no need to explain what innate full soul power with a Blue Silver Grass martial soul meant.
That was Tang San.
But Lin Tian was much more interesting.
He was a transmigrator, and both of his parents possessed martial souls that couldn’t produce soul power—Bamboo and Lotus.
Yet despite that, he had awakened innate full soul power.
Could he have obtained a cultivation technique similar to the Mysterious Heaven Treasure Record?
Should Lin Yuan find a way to take it from him?
The thought had barely appeared before Lin Yuan abandoned it.
Not to mention that his father was nothing more than an ordinary Soul Grandmaster.
Whether he could even defeat Lin Tian was still unknown.
Even if he could win…
Given Lin Tian’s honest and straightforward personality, Lin Yuan absolutely couldn’t bring himself to attack someone from his own village.
But that didn’t mean there was no hope.
After all, having a tendency to court death was practically a common disease among transmigrators.
Even if Lin Tian didn’t court death on his own…
Lin Yuan could always create an opportunity for him to do so.
While Lin Yuan was lost in thought, his father and Su Yuntao had already moved on to other topics.
The two were both soul masters from Nuoding City.
As people from the same circle, naturally, they had countless things to talk about.
Meanwhile, Lin Yuan’s thoughts had already drifted toward Lin Tian’s cultivation technique.
The excitement that had just died down inside him was once again burning brightly.
End of Chapter