Prologue: Burial

Star Luo Empire, Star Luo City, public cemetery.

Empty, cold, desolate, sorrowful, lonely—this was the true face of the place.

The dim light of dawn was like the drapery of a mourning hall, softly shrouding the entire cemetery.

There were no evergreen pines, cypresses, or any other trees standing guard over the graveyard. There were only scattered gravestones, each one standing alone.

The bleak morning wind wailed past the bare mounds, sweeping up fallen leaves that had drifted here from some unknown distant place. They spun into a whirlwind, circling and rustling mournfully, as though grieving, remembering, weeping—sharing the sorrow of the little boy kneeling alone in silent vigil like an ash-gray statue.

The little boy's short black hair was somewhat disheveled, and his lowered eyelids concealed the light in his eyes. He knelt motionlessly before a fresh grave, silent and alone.

Beside him stood the brand-new gravestone keeping him company. Its weathered inscription read: "Grave of Beloved Mother, Huo Yun'er."

The boy had carved those words himself, one stroke at a time. He had been the only one to carve them.

His mother had died. Alone, he had prepared her body. Alone, he had dug the grave. Alone, he had buried his mother in this shallow tomb, as though he were burying most of his own world with her.

For the living, perhaps the death of family and friends was the gradual burial of one's own little world.

Especially for this little boy. Though the world was vast beyond measure, the world that belonged to him had always been tiny, only large enough to hold two or three people. With his mother's death, most of the world he possessed had been buried.

The little boy was called Huo Yuhao, but he was not the protagonist Huo Yuhao from Unrivaled Tang Sect.

He was a transmigrator.

In his previous life, he had eaten, drunk, played, and indulged in pleasure and vice. He had been a thoroughgoing hedonist, yet one day, he had somehow transmigrated.

Perhaps Meng Po Soup had been watered down. After his Martial Soul awakened at the age of six, memories of his past life had gradually begun to return.

Over more than two years, those memories slowly awakened and fused with him. By the time he was nearly nine, they had completely merged, and his temperament had gradually shifted from that of an innocent child back to that of his early twenties in his past life.

He had finally learned that he had been reborn as Huo Yuhao, the Child of Destiny from Unrivaled Tang Sect who had been collared by God King Tang, leashed like a dog, and trained into a loyal hound.

Without a doubt, he hated the choices and future of the original Huo Yuhao. Even if following that path step by step would guarantee his ascension to godhood, he still despised it utterly.

How could someone with his past life's love of pleasure be willing to become a loyal dog chained up without freedom?

Fortunately, he was not without a Golden Finger. There was a white Light Spot in his mind, though no matter how he stimulated it, it gave no response.

He did not know what it was, but it settled his heart somewhat. With a Golden Finger, he could more calmly break free from his original fate.

The future was far too distant. Right now, the situation of himself and his mother, Huo Yun'er, was anything but promising.

Ever since he was small, he and his mother had depended on each other for survival. Even after his memories awakened, his mother remained the most important person in his life.

Because she cared for him, his mother had endured every kind of harassment from the Duchess. The servants of the Duke's Mansion followed their mistress's example, bullying and insulting the mother and son to curry favor with the Duchess.

His mother was assigned a great deal of labor every day, yet the two of them received only one meal. Her body was gradually worn down by such hardship, and by the time his memories had awakened enough for him to do anything, she was already gravely ill.

Huo Yuhao knew that if this continued, his mother did not have long to live. He remembered that in the Original Work, she would pass away suddenly in the year he turned ten.

But what could he do? Given his mother's condition, only a powerful Medical Soul Master or rare heavenly treasures could save her, and how could the two of them possibly afford such things?

To save his mother, he could only seek out that man—his father, whom he had never met, the man who had abandoned his mother and him: the White Tiger Duke, Dai Hao.

Thus, after learning Dai Hao's whereabouts, Huo Yuhao quietly packed his belongings and crossed mountains and rivers alone to the military camp where the White Tiger Duke was stationed.

The greater the hope, the greater the disappointment!

He never saw that man.

After explaining to the soldiers that he was the White Tiger Duke's son and begging them to report his message, what arrived was the White Tiger Duke's adjutant. Then, he was sent back to the White Tiger Duke's Mansion.

He did not know whether Dai Hao had learned of him. Perhaps he had not; perhaps he had. In the end, it made little difference. He had no time left to resent his father by blood.

His mother's condition worsened by the day, so Huo Yuhao began doing business to improve their lives. The meticulous perception of his Spirit Eye Martial Soul, combined with the cooking skills he had dabbled in during his past life, allowed him to earn a fairly considerable sum and improve the living conditions of himself and his mother. But when he tried to expand the business, the Star Luo Empire Ministry of Industry and Commerce prohibited him from conducting business.

The White Tiger Duke's Duchess was a princess of the Star Luo Empire. A single word from her was enough to ruin his livelihood.

He wanted to hire a Medical Soul Master to treat his mother, but not a single Soul Master in the Star Luo Empire dared come to treat her.

At the same time, his mother was confined by the Duchess and forbidden from leaving the Duke's Mansion. From the Duchess's mocking, cruel smile, Huo Yuhao saw the amusement she took in tormenting him.

No matter how you struggle, you cannot save your mother! the Duchess seemed to be saying.

Huo Yuhao decided to travel to other countries in search of a way to save his mother. At last, after spending nearly all his savings to buy a Pill that could improve his mother's health and strengthen her foundation, his mother's condition finally improved.

Everything seemed to be getting better.

According to the Original Work, his mother, who should have died of illness in the year he turned ten, lived until he was eleven, and her health had even gradually recovered.

Yet misfortune struck without warning. His mother still died.

It was said that she had offended Dai Huabin and had accidentally been beaten to death by the guards of the Duke's Mansion. He did not even get to see his mother one last time.

He had accomplished nothing!

Huo Yuhao quietly stared at his mother's gravestone, his icy gaze fixed on the distant White Tiger Duke's Mansion and Star Luo City.

The death of his only family in this world filled his heart with hatred for the entire White Tiger Duke's Mansion and the Star Luo Empire.

He would make these people pay! The Duchess, Dai Hao, Dai Huabin, every single person in the White Tiger Duke's Mansion—and the entire Star Luo Empire!

Although Huo Yuhao knew that his mother had never resented Dai Hao, he was different. Every hardship she had suffered, every humiliation, and even her final death—he laid every last one of them at Dai Hao's feet.

From the time his mother became pregnant until her death, more than a decade had passed. Was it truly so difficult for Dai Hao, as the White Tiger Duke, to send someone to take a look? Would providing basic living expenses for one of his women and his own child truly cost him so much? In the Original Work, Dai Hao had said that Huo Yun'er was the only woman he loved. The very thought made Huo Yuhao laugh. Most likely, he had merely been trying to deceive Huo Yuhao after seeing his heaven-defying talent.

Most laughable of all, the Huo Yuhao in the Original Work had actually brought him to the God Realm!

Heh, hahahaha—

With his back to the rising sun, Huo Yuhao suddenly burst into laughter, a laugh uglier than crying.

He continued staring at the gravestone before him.

He was sorrowful and hateful. He hated the Duchess, hated Dai Hao, and hated his own weakness and helplessness.

Huo Yuhao clenched his fists. The rising sun shone upon him, stretching out a long shadow that overlapped with the shadow of the gravestone.

Before him lay the desolate, disorderly cemetery, its burial mounds scattered everywhere, some with gravestones and some without, silent and barren. Behind him stood prosperous Star Luo City and the White Tiger Duke's Mansion, which sprawled across three thousand mu of land, filled with song, dance, and revelry.

After a long while, Huo Yuhao bowed deeply once, then staggered to his feet.

Having knelt for so long, his legs had long since gone numb. He fell to the ground, then struggled back up.

His expression was resolute, his bright eyes like a pitch-black abyss. Step by step, he made his way out of the cemetery without once looking back at the gravestone.

Beneath the sunlight, the shadows of light and darkness crisscrossed his face, leaving one half bathed in sunshine and the other shrouded in shadow.

"Mother, watch me. I will return. I will return to avenge you, to seek justice for us mother and son!"

"I will become a god, then revive you. I know you never resented Dai Hao, but everything you suffered all these years was because of him."

"He is unworthy of being a husband, and unworthy of being a father. I will not let him go, nor will I let go of those who bullied us!"

"I will settle accounts with them one by one, and when everything is done, I will revive you! I will never be like Another Me!"