Outside, lightning flashed, and thunder rumbled as torrential rain poured down.

In the dim and damp hut, it rained heavily outside, but inside, there was a light drizzle.

However, Chen Li didn't care. He lay stiffly on the moldy and musty-smelling bed, his eyes dull as he watched the water drops endlessly falling.

His heart was like dead ashes.

Just three hours ago, he had lain on a soft bed, sipping cola, eating fruit, and leisurely playing games.

Unsurprisingly, for Chen Li, nearly thirty, working in another city, mortgaged a house, and without a girlfriend, it was going to be another boring and tedious weekend.

Just like always.

The passion for life was fading by the day, and he felt increasingly like a walking corpse in this noisy big city. No matter how lacking in passion, no matter how wildly he fantasized, Chen Li had never thought about being transported to another world.

"How did it come to this..." Chen Li sighed deeply.

Two lines of tears slowly slid down.

Even though he had absorbed some sporadic memories and knew that the original owner of this body shared his name, and was a legendary Cultivator,

Even though in this world, some could roam the skies, some could live for hundreds, even thousands of years, some could move mountains and overturn the seas...

But none of that was him.

Those were the waves that followed and the waves that came before,

And he was just an ant that could be crushed by even a single splash in the passionate clashing of the waves.

This body was already forty years old, and his cultivation was barely at the third level of Qi Cultivation. He wasn't a cultivation genius nor born to a noble family. What could he even hope for at this age?

In the memories of this body, what Chen Li felt most were humiliation and repression, fear and numbness.

If he could choose, he would rather have been transported to a world without supernatural powers, at least... the probability of dying a good, natural death would be a bit higher.

...

"Thump! Thump! Thump!"

Not knowing how long he had lain there, the wooden door was suddenly being pounded on rudely, interrupting Chen Li's thoughts.

"Is anyone there?"

"Open the door!"

"Hurry up and open the door!"

The voice carried a strange intonation.

Chen Li's eyes, which had been lifeless, instinctively moved as if coming to life. In the memories of the original owner, this seemed to be the voice of the overseer Wang from the market district. Hesitating for a moment, Chen Li hastily got up to open the door, calling out:

"Coming, coming..."

There was no escaping it.

The rain outside had stopped without him realizing it, and the fresh air after the rain was filled with the fragrance of the earth and a faint stench of urine.

"Why are you so slow?" Wang, his shoes covered in mud, stomped his feet impatiently.

"Wang... Wang, please forgive me, I've been too tired lately, and I just fell into a deep sleep. What brings Wang here? Is there something you need?" Chen Li forced a smile and tried to appear calm.

"Stop playing dumb with me, the rent for this month is already three days overdue, cough up the money or get out of here," Wang said, his face showing no pleasure.

"I have the money! I'll get it right now," Chen Li sighed internally and hurriedly replied before turning to get the money.

This place might be just a slum at the outskirts of the market district, and Chen Li might have built this very house himself, but paying rent to the market was undebatable, and those who paid it found it only natural.

Overbearing?

Perhaps!

In this world, houses weren't valuable, and neither was land.

But safety was valuable.

After all, this area fell under the jurisdiction of the market, which was established by the most powerful sect in the region, the Longevity Sect. Not many dared to cause trouble here, and compared to the outside where life was cheap and corpses lay in the streets, it was undoubtedly much safer.

Moreover, with the market nearby for ease of trade, it attracted a large settlement of Loose Cultivators.

The original owner was one of them.

Chen Li returned to the room, feeling powerless. Relying on the fuzzy memory, he groped deep within a pile of dry firewood about two meters tall in the corner, where he found a purse.

The purse was heavy when he picked it up. On opening it, he found a bunch of Gold and a single, lonely Spirit Stone. He had no desire to look any further, took the only Spirit Stone, and walked out the door.

"Hmph, be on time next month, or I won't be so nice," Wang said as he took the Spirit Stone, giving him a sidelong glance.

"Yes, yes, definitely next time, definitely."

"Take care on your way, Wang!"

As Wang walked away, Chen Li turned to head back to his room, when the door of the neighboring room opened. A female cultivator came out with a chamber pot in hand, skillfully dumping the contents by the roadside, instantly intensifying the foul stench in the air. She then turned with a smile to make small talk,

"Fellow Daoist Chen, you've only just paid your room rent today?"

'Seems like someone I should know.' Chen Li didn't want to interact but now had to stop, forcing a smile on his face.

Maybe it was the impact of the fragmented memories he had obtained, they were incomplete and disjointed.

The female cultivator looked to be in her twenties, dressed as a Daoist nun with smiling lips. Although her looks were just above average, her amply endowed chest and slender waist drew out the allure of a mature woman.

"Yes, yes, money's been a bit tight lately," Chen Li carefully responded, keeping his wits about him.

Being unfamiliar with the people here, and with each one skilled in lethal arts, he felt quite insecure outside his room.

"Given your skill in symbol making, you shouldn't be short on money. Visit those brothels less often; those women practice unorthodox secret techniques that can drain the marrow out of your bones. Better watch out or you'll be sucked dry. If you ask me, you should find a decent woman and settle down," the female cultivator teased.

Chen Li's face turned red with embarrassment.

How could the original owner's affairs be blamed on him?

"Ahahaha, I don't go there anymore," Chen Li replied awkwardly but politely, wishing he could scratch his head in frustration.

But the female cultivator was not willing to let him off so easily, jeering,

"You must be out of money, right? I bet if you had it, you would still run after that foul scent," she said with a laugh.

"Truly… can't hide anything from you, Fellow Daoist, haha," a dry Chen Li said, thinking of quickly ending the conversation, he simply lay down and took the teasing.

The female cultivator, satisfied with her gossip, strutted back to her room with the chamber pot, hips swaying contentedly.

Chen Li sighed with relief, glad that was over.

But before he could close the door, he paused, overhearing the female cultivator's laughter and conversation with her man… all concerning the things he supposedly had to discuss with the brothel.

"This damn woman, truly not a good person!"

Chen Li, resigned, closed the door and settled back onto the bed. These two encounters helped alleviate the gloom in his heart.

After all, he was still alive, and no matter what, life had to go on.

"I just wonder what it felt like with those brothel cultivators who practiced those marrow-draining techniques… Why don't I have any memory of that?" Chen Li's thoughts flickered before he quickly reined them in.

Now was not the time for such thoughts.

Because of the pressure of monthly mortgage payments, Chen Li was especially sensitive about his savings.

Without enough in the bank to cover more than a year of mortgage payments, he felt insecure.

After all, one could lose their job or fall sick at any time; any unexpected event could destroy a seemingly stable life.

And though he no longer had a mortgage, there was still the monthly rent of one Spirit Stone, a fixed expense. If he didn't start making money, he wouldn't last till next month and would be booted out of here.

As for the pile of gold left in his purse, it might be a fortune in the modern world, but here, it wasn't worth much, or at least not among Cultivators.

Here, Spirit Stones were the true currency.

One Low-grade Spirit Stone could be exchanged for approximately one hundred taels of gold.

Yet, one hundred taels of gold could hardly be exchanged for one Low-grade Spirit Stone.

"Right, I still have the 'skill of symbol making,'" Chen Li remembered the female cultivator's words.

As the saying goes, with a skill at hand, you won't worry about sustenance. With such a skill, life could still go on, maybe even comfortably. At the very least, his previous self had the extra cash to frequently visit the brothels.

And he would pick female cultivators whose worth was extraordinary.

Stop right there!

Why did his thoughts keep drifting there unconsciously?

That was definitely the influence of the original owner's memories.

Chen Li thought to himself, after all, before his transmigration, he never frequented such places, not even in his thoughts.

He focused his mind and began to carefully recall the memories about symbol making.

However, the more he thought about it, the more serious his expression became; soon enough, cold sweat appeared, soaking his back.

His memories about symbol making were scant at best.