If, before closing my eyes, you could choose your life over again...

Would you rather first do ninety-nine good deeds and then one bad deed?

Or would you prefer to first commit ninety-nine bad deeds and then one good deed?

In the past, Hou Yuxiao would have resolutely chosen the first answer.

Now, he didn't even need to think, he would directly choose the second.

...

Name: Hou Yuxiao

Status: Orphan

Nickname: Hou Lao Da.

Don't misunderstand, he was a legitimate successor of a new era, not a gangster.

Due to his bad luck, he stayed in the orphanage until he was eighteen without anyone adopting him. Dominating the title of the oldest orphan, he became the boss of all the orphans, and because his surname was Hou, everyone called him Hou Lao Da.

Without parents from a young age and raised in the orphanage, Hou Yuxiao knew all too well the hardships of the world. He was so kind-hearted that, by some people's standards, he could even be considered saintly.

No need to add the "Lotus" label, after all, he was a genuine man!

Picking up lost money without taking it, helping the fallen and the weak, saving the endangered and the poor, being generous with money and resources... Hou Yuxiao often got beaten down by society for being too much of a goodie-two-shoes and having such bad luck.

He himself did not feel at a loss and always enjoyed it.

Helping others is the source of happiness, after all, assisting others also brought joy to himself.

Doing good deeds is not embarrassing!

According to his past self, he would definitely have chosen the first answer.

But now, he would choose the second, it's just too bad that he only realized this truth before he was about to die!

Just now, at the pond near the orphanage in the urban village, he was helping a blind old lady he didn't know to dig up lotus roots, and for the first time in his life, he had a bad idea.

Don't misunderstand, it's not the kind of bad idea you might be thinking of.

He was single, but an almost blind old lady in her seventies or eighties... that was still off-limits.

It was a black and white lotus flower, with six black and six white petals, hiding among a large swath of blush lotus flowers. If you didn't look carefully, you would really miss it.

Luckily, he saw the old lady living alone and felt it was not easy, so he worked hard to help her dig up lotus roots, with care and effort. Otherwise, he wouldn't have discovered the black and white Lotus.

When Hou Yuxiao came closer for a look, he was stunned...

The black and white Lotus had no stem; it was actually floating in mid-air.

This was definitely a great treasure!

Therefore, Hou Yuxiao, looking at the blind old lady smiling beside him, had the first bad thought of his life.

It was not until the afternoon that Hou Yuxiao, feeling a bit guilty, went to the old lady with the hundred or so pounds of tied-up lotus roots, and said, "Old Grandma, these should be enough for you for a month. If you need more, I'll come again tomorrow!"

Hou Yuxiao was still a little guilty, and so he took the initiative to offer to come help again the next day.

"That's enough, that's enough, it's too hard to find such a good young man like you nowadays!"

As he was leaving, Hou Yuxiao kept looking back three steps at a time, and when he finally crossed the road and the smiling old lady was about to disappear from his sight, he couldn't stop the guilt in his heart and decisively turned back, ready to return the lotus flower to the old lady.

Bang...

As fate would have it, a speeding sports car came into intimate contact with him.

He was sent flying across the road, right in front of the old lady.

"Damn it, you cruel fate, the good die young, eh? I committed such a wrongdoing for the first time in my life, and even regretted it, but you didn't even think twice before sending me away," Hou Yuxiao thought as he was hit, opening his eyes in severe pain only to see the old lady still not realizing what had happened, her face beaming with a smile, almost making him curse out loud.

Whether he ran out of strength or was relieved at the end of his life,

Hou Yuxiao sighed again, took out the lotus from his arms intending to return it to the old lady, but unexpectedly, when the lotus touched the blood on his hands, it turned into black and white beams of light and shot into his body.

"The old lady is lucky today, encountering such a reliable young man!"

......

Tongling County, Zhaoyang County

Twenty Li east of Zhaoyang County on the Official Road, the willows were lush and green, the sun was shining brightly, and a breeze brushed past the woods on both sides of the road, stirring up ripples of green.

As if even the heavens were reluctant to waste such scenery, suddenly, the sound of horse hooves approached from the east side of the Official Road, one in the front and two behind, three riders moving slowly westward.

The girl leading in the center wore a red dress with gold mountain patterns embroidered on the sleeves, seemingly around seventeen or eighteen years old, her big, curious eyes taking in the beautiful surroundings with an innocence that spoke of a person unacquainted with the ways of the world.

The girl held a water-blue Longsword, adorned with seven or eight green gems, truly an extraordinary sight.

The sword she held was extraordinary, and the horse she rode...was even more so, for it was a Ji-state ferocious-maned horse.

These ferocious-maned horses were not ordinary; they were unique to Ji-state with their whole bodies covered in flame-like chestnut-red hair. Once grown, their height at the shoulder could reach half a Zhang (approximately 5 feet), with a body length ranging between 1.2 to 1.4 Zhang (approximately 13 to 15 feet), and their majestic appearance was far superior to many horse breeds.

Not to mention, they could travel 3,000 Li (approximately 1,188 miles) in a day. Such terrifying speed and endurance were the main reasons they were selected as one of the nine finest breeds in Shenzhou.

Zhaoyang County was situated to the east of Tongling County in Yongzhou, bordering Tianling County of Wanyang County at the westernmost part of Xuzhou, both places no less than hundreds of thousands of Li (tens of thousands of miles) from Ji-state in the north.

In their homeland of Ji-state, these ferocious-maned horses had a market price of Five Thousand Taels of silver.

In a small place like Zhaoyang County, devoid of even third-rate forces, you could forget about the high price; most people would not even have seen such horses in their lifetimes.