Chapter 146: Destitute Young Master

On the System Panel, a long-absent orb of light flickered.

Yan Jing had originally planned to return to the Surface World for some rest after arriving at the new Domain.

His final expedition in Old Sin City had drained him. The mental exhaustion, in particular, would take time to recover from.

But for now, he still needed to gather information about the Old Man and Tiger.

"Give me a green."

Yan Jing fished out the Peach Wood Charm Shen Youran had given him, keeping his eyes locked on the panel's orb of light.

He felt just like he had the very first time he drew a role.

He asked for nothing else—just that it wasn't on the level of a Lesser Wandering Ghost.

Soon, the first result appeared.

Unsurprisingly, it was white.

But it truly wasn't a Lesser Wandering Ghost.

Instead, it was a man in a short-sleeved shirt with a massive belly. The rest of his body was quite thin, making his stomach look exceptionally large, as if he were pregnant.

[Role Name: Wang Dashan]

[Role Quality: White]

[Role Level: First Tier, according to Surface World standards]

[Role Abilities:]

[Heavy Eater: Appetite far exceeds that of a normal person. Able to convert consumed food into stamina and energy for storage.]

[Super Smell: Sense of smell far exceeds that of a normal person. Able to detect unusual scents.]

[Role Biography:]

[Originally ordinary, you have, for certain reasons, turned into this current state—neither fully human nor ghost.]

[In the end, you were disemboweled, leading to your death.]

[You have lost most of your memories. The method to retrieve them is to smell and see once again.]

Looking at this role, Yan Jing frowned. While it didn't seem very strong, it shouldn't be on the same level as a Lesser Wandering Ghost.

When things are unusual, demons are afoot.

But he still had two draws left anyway, so he could afford to test it.

[Wishing you a pleasant journey.]

[Loading role...]

This time, there was no reward mechanism. Yan Jing opened his eyes to pitch blackness.

He seemed to be in a pitch-dark room. The air was damp and cold, and a sliver of light leaked through a crack in the mud wall, illuminating a glint of brightness suspended right above his head.

Staring at that cold glint of light, Yan Jing's eyes narrowed. Instinctively, he tried to draw upon his Weird Energy.

But his movements quickly faltered.

Shockingly, there was absolutely no Weird Energy in this body.

It felt as though it had been completely hollowed out.

Right at that moment, the owner of that cold gleam noticed something amiss.

"Oh, here's one that isn't dead yet."

As the words fell, the cold light flashed down through the dim room.

Accompanied by a sharp, agonizing pain in his throat, Yan Jing's vision went black. He was instantly sent back to the Surface World.

"No wonder it's white."

Yan Jing exhaled deeply. His already exhausted nerves felt even heavier now.

He had no energy left to figure out why that had just occurred. The moment the half-hour cooldown ended, Yan Jing initiated the next draw.

"Give me a green."

Yan Jing clutched the Peach Wood Charm tightly.

This time, things still didn't go his way. A green orb of light flickered on the panel, only to vanish in the blink of an eye.

Just as Yan Jing was preparing for his next draw, a sudden burst of light erupted on the panel in front of him.

A shimmering yellow orb came to a halt right before his eyes.

The orb slowly fragmented.

An elegant young man in a long white gown appeared before his eyes. With red lips, white teeth, and sharp, distinct features, he looked incredibly refreshing, yet one could distinctly feel a cynical, worldly attitude radiating from him.

He wore a smile, his eyes narrowing into curved slits that made him seem highly approachable. In his hands, he held a pair of White Jade Walnuts.

[Role Name: Luo Sheng]

[Role Quality: Yellow]

[Role Level: Second Tier, according to Surface World standards]

[Role Abilities:]

[Sketching: You can quickly draw a scene you have briefly seen, capturing three parts of its spirit and four parts of its form to serve as a Painting Spirit.]

[Painting Spirit: You can summon a Painting Spirit from your own artwork and buff it through painting. Its duration depends on your Tier and Weird Energy.]

[Dotting the Eyes: You can inject Weird Energy into any painting to add the finishing touch, granting it a certain degree of vitality.]

[Line Drawing: When you draw someone using the Line Drawing technique, the target's Weird Energy and abilities will be reduced to a certain extent for a short period.]

[Role Biography: You have been to places in this city that no one else has ever visited, and you have seen landscapes that this remote backwater could never possess. Yet, for some reason, you ultimately returned here.]

[Due to certain reasons, you were killed. Fortunately, your memories are not entirely lost; you still retain common knowledge regarding this city and this Domain.]

[The method to retrieve memories outside of this city is to experience them anew. Good luck.]

After reading the biography, Yan Jing nodded. This starting point looked much better than the Cameraman's.

[Entering the Inner World]

Upon making his selection, the familiar reward mechanism finally rang in his ears.

[The Inner World journey is about to begin. The reward mechanisms for this journey are:]

[1. Find the murderer who killed the taken-over role. The reward allows you to switch the identity of the taken-over role when officially entering a Dungeon.]

[2. Fulfill the taken-over role's unfulfilled wish. The reward completely unlocks this role; the host can choose to gain one of the role's abilities and draw the next role.]

[3. Since this role is of excellent quality, the "Safety Officer" option is unlocked. The Safety Officer holds an initial Loyalty Level toward you and is trustworthy; please make good use of this. When the Safety Officer's Loyalty Level reaches its maximum, the host may choose to acquire one of the Safety Officer's abilities.]

Compared to last time, the only change was that Favorability had become Loyalty Level.

Following a violent tremor, the chaotic clamor of hawkers faintly reached Yan Jing's ears.

"Candied haws! Candied haws! Freshly made..."

"Clear broth noodles, two gui yuan for a small bowl, three gui yuan for a large bowl! Made with home-ground sesame oil..."

"..."

Yan Jing opened his eyes, feeling a slight bumpiness beneath him.

At this moment, he was sitting in a rickshaw.

"Sir, you're awake?"

The rickshaw puller, wearing a short jacket, glanced back at Yan Jing with an eager smile.

"East Main Street is terribly noisy. If you can sleep through this, you must have been dead tired."

"How much longer until we arrive?"

Yan Jing asked slowly.

"We're almost there. Look, we've already reached White Cloth Alley."

The driver pointed to the side.

Yan Jing looked over. Along the roadside, bolts of fabric hung at the entrance of almost every shop.

Unlike normal fabric stores, however, all these bolts were pure white cloth. Swaying gently in the wind, they looked inexplicably eerie.

The shop owners sitting behind the hanging cloths noticed Yan Jing's gaze. One by one, they stared back at him, their expressions cold and their eyes gloomy.

"Do you need cloth?"

Suddenly, one of the owners spoke up.

Then, as if they had all agreed beforehand, every owner called out in unison:

"Do you want white cloth?" "Top-quality white cloth!" "Need any white cloth?" "..."

Their voices blended together. It didn't sound like they were soliciting customers; it sounded like they were calling out to souls.

"No, no! Can't you see the boss here is perfectly alive?"

Seeing this, the driver spat angrily, "You blind fools! No wonder your business has been terrible lately!"

With that, he quickened his pace, pulling Yan Jing swiftly out of the densely packed fabric store area.

The entire layout of Bianliu County surfaced in Yan Jing's mind.

Bianliu County was shaped like a square and situated in a low-lying area where six streams converged.

One couldn't underestimate these six streams. In a place like Minhu, water meant resources; it was practically the origin of all things here.

The six streams meant that Bianliu County bordered six Domains and served as the common ground connecting them, placing it in a vital transportation hub.

Further out from Bianliu County was the abyss-like Unstable Domain. It was the border of Minhu, and crossing it was not something ordinary people could achieve.

This was also the origin of Bianliu County's name:

Located at the very edge of Minhu, where the six streams flowed together.

This naming convention fit perfectly with the local customs of this Domain:

Straightforward.

Of course, aside from this, the name also held another layer of meaning...

While Yan Jing was deep in thought, the driver whispered, "We've arrived at the Luo Family Courtyard, sir."

"Mm."

Yan Jing nodded. He fished a few gui yuan bills out of his pocket and paid the fare.

This Domain maintained two currency systems, eerie silver and gui yuan, both of which could be exchanged for Surface World currency.

This was because there were also players in this place.

As he watched Yan Jing step off the rickshaw, a flash of envy crossed the driver's eyes.

Although the Luo Family Courtyard was no longer the Luo Family Courtyard of the past, anyone who lived inside was at least considered respectable in the city.

If it were someone like him, pulling a rickshaw for a living...

He would have to be the type pulling a large cart, and he'd need to actually own the cart himself.

He wondered if he'd ever have the chance in this life to break into the Eighth Grade; if that day came, he'd definitely rent a courtyard of his own to live in.

With these thoughts in mind, he watched Yan Jing take a turn and walk right into the adjacent Mud Alley.

His face instantly stiffened. After staring blankly for a long moment, he awkwardly lifted the handles of his rickshaw and muttered a curse, "If you were coming to Mud Alley, just say Mud Alley! Insisting on saying 'to the Luo Family Courtyard'... I've never seen such a poser."

"If I'd known, I would've dragged him to the pork butcher's to trade for a few coppers..."

Yan Jing walked into Mud Alley.

The neighboring Luo Family Courtyard had indeed been this body's former home.

But not anymore.

After the family's decline, the original owner had sold the courtyard to pay off the gambling debts his father owed.

As for his father, he still possessed the pride of a noble scion; after losing the entire family estate, he directly bashed his head against the doorframe and died.

Mud Alley was always quiet during the day. The unlicensed prostitutes and Beggars' Sect drunks usually didn't emerge until late at night.

Number 19, Mud Alley.

Staring at the dusty doorplate, Yan Jing came to a halt.

He knocked on the door.

Soon, the door opened from the inside.

The one greeting Yan Jing was his maid, Fei Yu.

The name had been given by the original owner.

She wore her hair in two round buns and dressed in ordinary coarse clothes. Though exceptionally beautiful and spirited, she was the quintessential Minhu girl.

And when she opened her mouth, her words were incredibly venomous.

"Have you been out scrounging for handouts all day again?"

As Fei Yu took the walnuts from Yan Jing's hands, she patted the dust off his clothes from top to bottom, saying, "Or did you squat in front of some young lady's door all morning? Did you catch a glimpse of her thighs and ass? If not, keep at it tomorrow morning. If you did, exactly how deep of a look did you get?"

Yan Jing ignored her. In the Young Master of the Luo Family's memories, the girl before him actually had a kind heart; she just had a sharp tongue.

Though she lacked a filter when she spoke, she never failed to listen to every single word the Young Master of the Luo Family told her to do.

He walked over to a recliner inside the house and lay down, staring up at the ceiling. Amidst Fei Yu's nagging, he spoke, "I saw something amusing on East Main Street today."

"Oh?"

Fei Yu planted her hands on her hips and sneered, "Did some lady fail to tie her clothes properly and get them blown away by the wind?"

"I saw a person with a bizarre contraption on his neck suddenly appear on the street. He didn't seem like a Minhu local."

Yan Jing said slowly.

"How novel."

Fei Yu gave a tight smile. "I thought you'd actually caught the guy."

"It would've been nice to trade him in to buy some rice for the house."

"How about I tell you something amusing instead?"

"Go ahead."

Yan Jing said, looking upward.

Sure enough, just as the Young Master of the Luo Family remembered, once this maid opened her mouth, she couldn't shut it. It was incredibly easy to fish for information from her.

"Today, someone spotted a tiger on North Main Street."

"A tiger?"

Yan Jing sat up.

"Yeah."

The maid chuckled.

"Word is that someone caught the guy later, only to discover it was just a man wearing a tiger skin."

"Who caught him?"

Yan Jing asked.

"Who else could it be?"

Fei Yu snorted coldly. "Our great landlord of North Street, of course."

"He's claimed that even if a single drop of rain falls from the sky there, it belongs to him."

"Any other news?"

Yan Jing asked.

"One more thing."

Fei Yu's voice dropped, and her mood visibly dampened.

"When I was buying groceries just now, I ran into an old man. He looked a bit like Master Liu."

"Where is he?"

Yan Jing stood up from his seat.

"Right by the vegetable market next to North Street."

"Don't get anxious. He only looked like him."

Fei Yu pursed her lips.

"I got closer for a better look, and he was a far cry from Master Liu."

"His beard wasn't as long as Master Liu's, his arms weren't as thick, he didn't have a Smoking Pipe on him, and his eyes were red. He seemed to be blind and was wearing ragged clothes."

"He even tried to get close and chat me up."

"And then? What did you do?"

Yan Jing blinked.

"Heh, I had no time to entertain him."

Having finished her gossip, Fei Yu slowly stood up. "Are you having the Pearl Emerald White Jade Soup today, or would you prefer the Essence of Heaven and Earth Stew with a hint of meat?"

Cabbage and tofu soup, or white porridge with a few bits of pork lard.

"Both together."

Yan Jing stood up. "I'm heading out."

Knock knock! Knock!

Right at that moment, someone suddenly knocked on the door.

A voice incredibly familiar to both of them rang out from the doorway, its tone bleak and sorrowful.

"Young Master! It's me!"

"Liu Fu!"

"I've returned, Young Master!"