Outside Fuzhou City.
Within a mountain cave that even peerless experts could never find.
Lin Ruhai sat cross-legged on the ground. Before him lay a kasaya robe, covered in densely packed tiny characters. The first line at the beginning read: “To cultivate this divine art, swing the blade and castrate yourself.”
“I finally got my hands on it. The Bixie Sword Manual!”
Lin Ruhai sighed with emotion. The experiences of these years, the schemes he had laid during this time, flashed through his mind, and his expression grew ever more resolute.
“When I set my sights on it, I had already made my decision. What’s the point of acting so indecisive now?”
Swish!
He picked up the small knife that had already been sterilized at high temperature, undid his trousers, and made a precise slash.
Plop!
Blood flowed without stopping.
Lin Ruhai clenched his teeth and held on desperately. He took out the hemostatic medicine he had prepared long ago, sprinkled it over the wound, then wrapped it with gauze.
But...
It hurt!
It hurt!
It really hurt!
His face was as pale as gold paper, and large beads of sweat rolled down his cheeks.
Even his vision was dampened by sweat, turning blurry.
Mist appeared around him. Ahead, a sphere hovered in the air. Its surface was hollowed out, riddled with many holes, and the hole facing him was glowing faintly.
Lin Ruhai froze.
He discovered that he was actually standing upright, his trousers not undone at all, and the surroundings were no longer that mountain cave.
“What’s going on?”
The next moment, another hole on the sphere lit up as well.
The mist lingering all around suddenly began to flow. A man wearing clothes in a neither-Chinese-nor-Western style, marked with the words “Canghui,” walked out from the fog.
He was also very nervous, looking left and right. When he saw Lin Ruhai, his entire body froze.
Lin Ruhai froze as well.
Because their appearances were actually sixty to seventy percent similar.
Aside from that, a special kind of understanding also arose in his heart.
The misty space they were currently in originated from the True Spirit Orb, which was the hollow little sphere full of holes hovering in the air.
The True Spirit Orb’s effect was to lock onto a living being’s true spirit, use it as an anchor, and gradually gather together the scattered true-spirit counterparts across the myriad heavens and worlds.
This situation was...
“Simultaneous transmigration!?”
The two spoke in unison.
Lin Ruhai’s gaze was somewhat complicated. He had been only six years old when he transmigrated into the world of Xiao’ao Jianghu. He had suffered for more than ten years until now, finally found the Bixie Sword Manual, and right after castrating himself, his golden finger had arrived?
The man opposite him, however, was eager to try it. “I waited half a year, testing all sorts of things along the way, and I never expected my golden finger to only arrive now. Right, according to the information reflected by the True Spirit Orb just now, once we touch, we can communicate between true spirits, correct?”
Lin Ruhai nodded and ultimately decided to reach out his hand. So what if he had been castrated? Now that his golden finger had arrived, how could he not use it? What if some other world had the power to let him grow it back?
Smack!
Their palms touched, and memories from the other side surged forth.
Lin Ruhai instantly browsed through the other man’s memories.
The other man was also named Lin Ruhai. He had transmigrated into the world of Douluo Continent and become a student of Canghui Academy.
He had awakened his memories half a year ago, when he was already twenty-three. At present, he was preparing for the Continental Advanced Soul Master Elite Tournament more than half a year from now.
Douluo Lin Ruhai’s martial soul was a yellow gemstone.
His dean was Shi Nian.
At this moment, under Shi Nian’s guidance, he was cultivating a seven-in-one martial soul fusion technique together with six other teammates who likewise possessed gemstone martial souls.
“Brother, you’re miserable.” The corner of Lin Ruhai’s mouth twitched. “If I remember correctly, those seven students from Canghui Academy who used the seven-in-one martial soul fusion technique were eventually turned into idiots by Tang San, weren’t they?”
Douluo Lin Ruhai clutched his crotch, trembling.
“Brother, you seem even more miserable than me! It’s bad enough that you transmigrated into the world of The Smiling, Proud Wanderer, and even became Lin Pingzhi’s clansman, but more importantly... why did you practice Bixie?”
He wanted to cry but had no tears.
Just before Xiao’ao Lin Ruhai entered this space, he had happened to be castrating himself. The relevant memories were profound and clear. With the sharing of memories, that profound and clear pain was also transmitted to Douluo Lin Ruhai.
Douluo Lin Ruhai continued, “And right after you cut it off, our golden finger arrived. Your luck is truly rotten beyond compare.”
“Sigh!” Xiao’ao Lin Ruhai sighed. “Who could have known? You also shared my past, so you know what I went through.
“In your memories, for the first twenty-two years, you were a native of Douluo. Then you suddenly transmigrated over, so naturally your thoughts and logic are still mainly based on our previous life.
“But my memories awakened when I was six. To me, the experiences of this life in Xiao’ao Jianghu are far more profound and real.
“Lin Zhennan showed me kindness. He taught me martial arts and raised me. Knowing full well that he is going to die, how could I stand by and do nothing?
“Besides, after transmigrating all this way and arriving in a martial world, if I can’t cultivate powerful martial arts and roam the jianghu freely, wouldn’t I have come here for nothing?”
Xiao’ao Lin Ruhai was now twenty-one. He had trained bitterly in martial arts since childhood, and though he had only obtained the 108 Forms of Heaven-Turning Palm taught by Lin Zhennan, he had still cultivated it to consummate mastery, already reaching the level where external arts gave rise to internal energy. Even so, he was still inferior to Lin Zhennan.
The number of martial arts the other party cultivated, and the internal energy ground out through age, were both above his.
But Lin Zhennan could not even defeat the Four Beasts of Qingcheng. By that measure, Xiao’ao Lin Ruhai was merely at the level of an ordinary Qingcheng Sect disciple.
As for warning him in advance...
Although Lin Zhennan had taken him in on account of their shared clan, taught him martial arts, and allowed him to become an escort, in the end, there was still a difference between close and distant kin.
Furthermore, Lin Zhennan had grown the Fuwei Escort Agency’s business so large and had long since made his own decisions regarding its affairs. A few words from Lin Ruhai could not change his mind at all.
Some time ago, when Lin Ruhai had gone out on an escort mission, Lin Zhennan had already sent gifts and a formal visiting card to the Qingcheng Sect. By the time Lin Ruhai returned from that escort job, everything was too late.
Very soon, the Qingcheng Sect would come out in full force, Yu Canghai would destroy the Fuwei Escort Agency, and the story of Xiao’ao Jianghu would begin.
And he...
He was merely an insignificant escort, a small fry that Yu Canghai could casually kill.
Douluo Lin Ruhai also shook his head. “The two of us are both gods of bad luck. To avoid ending up an idiot, I’ve been trying to find a way to run away from Canghui Academy for the past half year, but seven mutually compatible gemstone martial souls are too hard to find. Canghui Academy has been watching me very closely. Next, I can only obediently participate in the Soul Master Tournament, become small fry not even worthy of leaving behind a name, and get instantly defeated by Tang San.”
The two looked at each other and actually felt as though they had found a kindred spirit.
No!
They were originally the same person.
The same transmigration, the same misfortune, and the same fate of being small fry in the original plot.
“Wait!”
Xiao’ao Lin Ruhai furrowed his brows tightly.
“Although our cheat is called the True Spirit Orb, its manifestation is more or less like those ninety-nine-simultaneous-transmigration stories. But Douluo brother, did you feel it?”
“Feel what?” Douluo Lin Ruhai did not understand.
Xiao’ao Lin Ruhai said, “In other simultaneous-transmigration stories, people can share strength and talents without any cost, even stacking talents together. Even in the inferior ones, they can transform the powers of different worlds into basic values, such as physical strength, soul power, total energy, and so on...
“But...
“Aside from sharing memories, we don’t seem to have anything at all.
“Judging from Tang San’s cultivation of the Mysterious Heaven Skill, soul power and internal energy should possess a certain degree of common nature.
“No matter how bottom-of-the-barrel Douluo may be, it’s still a fantasy world.
“Your cultivation as a Soul Elder should at least make my low-level internal energy surge by a bit. But... I didn’t feel anything at all.
“Not only did we transmigrate into all sorts of small fry, even our cheat is small fry too!”