Xu Yang

Dongting Lake, Yunmeng Marsh, stretching eight hundred li, its misty waters vast and boundless.

It was late autumn. The wind howled bleakly, the fog thickened, and the first chill of winter was beginning to settle in.

Wisps of cooking smoke drifted from a reed marsh, rising from an old Black-awning Boat.

At the bow, before the cabin door, someone sat on a small stool beneath a bamboo hat and straw rain cape, tending the little stove before him.

He looked extremely old. Beneath the bamboo hat, his dry hair was gray-white. His face was deeply lined and mottled with age spots, every crease bearing the marks of time. His hunched body seemed even more gaunt beneath the oversized rain cape, and an air of decay seeped from him inside and out. He looked frail enough to topple over at any moment.

An old covered boat and a decrepit fisherman were nothing unusual on the eight hundred li of Dongting Lake.

The old man sat at the bow, tending the tiny stove. A small clay pot sat atop it, filled with pale-yellow unpolished rice porridge. Its enticing fragrance slowly spread through the air.

After a while, the porridge began to boil. The old man picked up a large bowl from beside him, filled to the brim with prepared shrimp and crabs, orange-yellow roe, and translucent fish flesh.

He poured it all into the pot. As the porridge churned, the bluish-black shrimp and crabs gradually turned red, while the jade-like fish flesh slowly became snowy white. A fresh, fishy sweetness mingled with the faint aroma of rice porridge and filled the air. A pinch of salt made it utterly mouthwatering.

In no time at all, a pot of River Delicacy Porridge was ready.

The old man took a small bowl and sat at the bow, eating at an unhurried pace.

River delicacies were truly fresh, but also truly fishy. They might have been a rare treat for farming folk on land, but to those who lived on the water, they were somewhat bland, even tiresome.

Xu Yang did not mind. He quietly savored the River Delicacy Porridge he had eaten for who knew how many years.

He ate as he reminisced.

How long had he been in this world?

Twenty years?

Thirty years?

No. Forty years. Forty-five years and three months!

Reincarnation and rebirth, the mystery within the womb, memories of his former life...

He had come to this world exactly forty-five years ago!

"Forty-five years..."

Xu Yang sighed faintly and tipped the shrimp and crabs from his bowl into his mouth, shells and all, then began chewing.

He was a transmigrator, the reincarnated kind. Reborn into this world as an ordinary fisherman's son, he had uncovered the mystery of his time in the womb at eighteen and regained the memories of his previous life, confirming that he had been reincarnated and reborn in another world.

Ignoring the years before his memories had awakened, he had been in this world as a transmigrator for exactly twenty-seven years.

Twenty-seven years—if it had been any other transmigrator, even if they had not founded a sect or clan and shaken the world, they should at least have achieved some success and dominated a region.

But Xu Yang... was still a fisherman.

It was not that he had failed to work hard. This world was simply far more dangerous than he had imagined. A transmigrator's knowledge, experience, and broader perspective might bring many advantages—even wealth, power, and beautiful women—but they could also bring all manner of dangers and hidden threats, even fatal disaster.

This was a feudal dynasty, an ancient world. The social classes had long been completely fixed, and the paths upward were essentially sealed off. As a fisherman's son with no one to rely on, revealing the advantages of being a transmigrator would be no different from a child carrying gold through a bustling market. There was no need to say what his fate would be.

So, after more than twenty years, Xu Yang was still a fisherman... at least on the surface.

Yet during those long twenty-odd years, Xu Yang had not done nothing. On the contrary, he had accumulated a great deal.

Xu Yang

Lifespan: 45/145

Cultivation: None

Skills:

Eating (Chewing, Digestion, Essence, Body Strengthening, Smooth Flow)

Sleep (Calming, Health Preservation, Body Strengthening, Disease Prevention, Longevity)

Breathing (Turtle's Breath, Robustness, Vigor, Life Extension, Longevity)

Culinary Arts (Deliciousness, Dissection, Essence, River Delicacies)

Fishing (Guaranteed Catch, Freshness, Rarity)

Boating (Speed, Waves, Composure)

Aquaculture (Domestication, Growth, Exotic Fish, Cormorant)

Disguise (Camouflage, Voice Alteration, Bone Shrinking, Breath Concealment)

Sharpening Knife (Sharpness)

Hacking (Power)

Flying Stone (Precision)

Swimming (Like a Fish in Water)

...

These days, transmigrators more or less all had some kind of cheat. Xu Yang was naturally no exception.

He had an Attribute Panel!

Although this Attribute Panel had no point-allocation function and offered neither experience nor quests, it could grant—or rather, solidify—Xu Yang's abilities.

The method of solidification was simple. As long as Xu Yang persisted at something year after year, even something as insignificant as eating, drinking, sleeping, or breathing, the Attribute Panel could solidify it into a skill and generate various traits.

These skill traits possessed the power to turn the ordinary into the miraculous.

Take Eating, for example. Xu Yang's Eating Skill currently had five traits: Chewing, Digestion, Essence, Body Strengthening, and Smooth Flow.

Chewing made him more efficient at chewing food and gave him an exceptionally powerful set of teeth. Forget the shells of shrimp and crabs—even pork bones and beef bones could be easily crushed between Xu Yang's teeth. Then, with the trait of Digestion, he could rapidly digest them, absorb their nutrients, and strengthen himself.

Essence and Body Strengthening allowed him to obtain more essence and nourishment from food, enhancing the effects of dietary supplementation and making his body stronger.

When others ate one jin of meat, they could only absorb thirty or forty percent of its nutrients. He, however, could absorb fifty or sixty percent, perhaps even seventy or eighty percent. He could then bring the body-strengthening effect of those nutrients to one hundred or even one hundred twenty percent, effectively making one jin serve as two.

As for Smooth Flow... it meant that everything flowed smoothly, both above and below. He would never have to worry about constipation.

Fine, that one was a bit useless, but setting it aside, the other four skill traits were extremely powerful.

Combined with his other skills, such as Sleep, Breathing, Culinary Arts, Fishing, and Aquaculture, Xu Yang might still appear to be an old fisherman living at the very bottom of society, but his physical condition far surpassed that of vigorous young men. He could even compare to the Martial Artists of legend.

Yes, legend. To commoners like him, every Martial Artist was a legendary figure, someone they could only look up to from afar.

Beyond a strong physique, these skills had also granted Xu Yang a long lifespan and all manner of moneymaking techniques. Even without drawing upon a transmigrator's knowledge, he could become a wealthy man on the eight hundred li of Dongting Lake through his current fishing skills alone.

But he had not done so, because that would be dangerous as well. There might be hope of rising to the heavens in a single step, but there was also the possibility of ending up as a corpse at the bottom of the water.

With the Attribute Panel's help, he could accumulate strength in secret and steadily grow more powerful. There was no need to take such risks, invite disaster, and endanger himself.

Thus, after all these years, Xu Yang was still a fisherman—a fisherman on the verge of old age.

Because of living conditions, medical treatment, and other factors, ancient people generally did not live long. Boat-dwelling families even more so. Reaching forty or fifty was already considered old age, while those who reached sixty or seventy were few indeed. The hardship of laboring through wind and rain drained one's life too severely. How could ordinary people endure to such an age?

At Xu Yang's age, ordinary people believed he had only a few years left. It would not be surprising if he died any day.

But in truth, Xu Yang had not yet lived even a third of his life. He was in the prime of adulthood. Even if his lifespan did not increase further, he could still live another hundred years free of sickness and disaster.

Unfortunately, that was only theory. A fisherman over a hundred years old would never be regarded as a venerable elder. He would only be treated as a monster. He would not even need to reach a hundred—within a few more years, he would draw all sorts of suspicion and scrutiny.

Time is running out...

Xu Yang sighed inwardly and put the last river shrimp into his mouth, chewing it into paste before swallowing it.

Soon, warmth rose from his abdomen and spread through his limbs and bones, nourishing his body.

A whole pot of River Delicacy Porridge—enough for two or three burly men—had been completely devoured by him alone.

Even so, he was only half full.

Still unsatisfied, Xu Yang rose and picked up a medium-sized fish basket from beside him. He turned and returned to the cabin, where he lifted a wooden board from the floor in the middle of the cabin, revealing a hidden net cage.

The net cage was full of swimming fish, along with several turtles and soft-shelled turtles. Xu Yang used a dip net to pick through them and filled his fish basket more than halfway. He opened the cage and released all the rest before leaving the cabin and poling the Black-awning Boat toward shore.

He did not move quickly, but he was steady. The battered Black-awning Boat drifted leisurely across the water and soon reached a dock.

Standing at the bow, Xu Yang glanced at his reflection in the water. An old fisherman with a hunched body, bamboo hat, straw rain cape, and a face full of spots and deep wrinkles stared back at him, looking utterly decrepit.

No problem.

Xu Yang nodded to himself, moored the boat, hoisted the fish basket onto his back, and laboriously made his way ashore.

A minor official in black clothes sat on shore, dozing in a recliner and lazily waving a palm-leaf fan. Only when Xu Yang approached did he lift his drooping eyelids and glance at him. "Well, Old Xu Tou, you're not dead yet?"

"Thanks to your blessings."

Still hunched over, Xu Yang smiled and carefully took several copper coins from his robes. He counted them back and forth several times before placing them on a small table nearby.

"Hmm!"

The minor official nodded, swept the coins into a bucket with his fan, and ignored Xu Yang afterward.

Xu Yang said nothing more and carried his fish basket toward the Fish Market.