"Patriarch Lin, according to the contract, since you're unable to pay the debt within this month, the three shops owned by the Lin family in Shanyang City will be transferred to the Sky Sparrow Merchant Guild to settle it. You have no objections, do you?"
"No objections!"
"Patriarch Lin, according to the contract signed by your father, since you're unable to pay the debt and interest within this month, the Lin family's shares in Crimson Thunder Realm will automatically be transferred to our firm. Please confirm."
"Very well."
"Patriarch Lin, according to the contract your father signed before disappearing, you must pay my Immortal Guest Merchant Guild a total of thirty-six million Spirit Coins by the end of this month. If you're unable to pay, the assets of the Lin family in Twin Wood Realm will be used as compensation."
An energetic old man in a blue brocade robe patterned with purple designs held a piece of cloud brocade embroidered with golden thread. It was covered in densely packed writing. After glancing at Lin Xiao, who sat at the head of the hall with vacant eyes, he continued:
"According to the agreement between both parties, you need to pay three hundred thousand head of cattle, one million sheep, and one hundred thousand horses. However, considering that the Lin family doesn't have that many livestock in Twin Wood Realm, the supplementary agreement allows other resources to be used as substitutes. We have already assessed the assets in Twin Wood Realm. You need to..."
"I agree."
Lin Xiao lowered his head in dejection and forced the words out with all his strength. The moment he said them, he knew he was bankrupt.
That was right. The moment he said those words, he had gone from a wealthy, handsome young man to a pauper—a pauper buried under mountains of debt, no less. Before he returned that morning, the Lin family had still possessed assets worth over a hundred million Spirit Coins. Now, not a single coin remained. Aside from the ancestral residence he currently lived in and Twin Wood Realm left behind by his ancestors, he had nothing.
The few creditors announced their claims and left. Lin Xiao walked through the empty estate. Everywhere he looked was cold and deserted. The ancestral residence was now nothing but an empty shell. Everything that could be sold had been sold, the servants had long since left, and even the precious flowers and plants had been dug up. Pits were scattered throughout the garden. In the enormous ancestral residence, only the ancestral tablets remained unsellable.
Well, there was also the Descent Array in the center of the ancestral residence, which could connect to Twin Wood Realm. That couldn't be sold either.
As for Twin Wood Realm, which spanned more than ten thousand square kilometers, it had originally been a vast ranch. It had raised hundreds of thousands of livestock, with tens of thousands of people working for the Lin family. Now, both the people and the ranch had been sold off as a package. Only an empty world remained inside.
Yet this still wasn't the worst of it, because his debts hadn't been fully repaid. What had just been settled was merely the first batch stipulated in the contracts. According to the debts left behind by his pitiful excuse for a father, he still needed to pay debts equivalent to three hundred and fifty million Spirit Coins. Each additional month would add a certain amount of interest.
The interest itself was normal. It wasn't the sort charged by loan sharks. But even low interest became frightening when applied to hundreds of millions in principal. Even one percent per month amounted to three and a half million, and it was more than one percent. The absurd mountain of debt made Lin Xiao seriously consider jumping off a building.
Of course, that was impossible. He had finally been reborn into this marvelous world, and not long ago he had even found himself a beautiful girlfriend with a large chest and a slender waist. He hadn't enjoyed himself yet—how could he possibly be willing to die?
Then again, that girlfriend had only gotten together with him because he used to be rich. Now that he had gone bankrupt, they would probably break up. It was a little regrettable when he thought about it. If only he had known, he would have enjoyed himself before returning.
After walking around the ancestral residence, he returned to the front hall and sat down in the only chair left for him. He raised his head and gazed into the distant void. Somewhere unimaginably far away, a gigantic portal towered through heaven and earth, filling his entire field of vision. It radiated a faint, mysterious light as it slowly drifted in the Void Sea. Boundless divine light gushed from the colossal gate and surged in all directions like a tide, reaching through hundreds of millions of miles of void. It was as though a primordial Chaos Demon God stood forever in the Void Sea, eternal and unmoving.
The Primordial Gate!
It was the cornerstone of the world he lived in—a miraculous gate capable of connecting to the countless times and spaces of the myriad heavens. It was also the place he might be heading to.
Because...
Lin Xiao stared expressionlessly at a beam of light descending from the roof of the main hall. It transformed into a middle-aged man who looked seventy to eighty percent like him. The man smiled at Lin Xiao and said:
"My dear son, by the time you see this message, our family should already be bankrupt. But don't worry. Your father has already thought of two paths for you. Consider them and choose one."
This was merely a projection and couldn't communicate. Lin Xiao said nothing, simply watching as his pitiful excuse for a father continued speaking to himself:
"Before our family went bankrupt, I arranged a marriage for you. Madam Kang of Shanyang City wants to find a young man to spend the rest of her life with. If you marry her, she'll repay our several hundred million in debt for you. At the same time, the assets worth over ten billion Spirit Coins under her name will all belong to you in the future."
A strange smile that made Lin Xiao's entire body break out in goosebumps appeared on his father's face. Lin Xiao couldn't help recalling Madam Kang, who was already over eight hundred years old yet remained as youthful and beautiful as a girl.
Of course, he knew Madam Kang. She was the richest woman in Shanyang City. She had married no fewer than twenty men, but every one of her husbands had died. The key point was that she hadn't killed them. They had all died in various accidents.
But Lin Xiao didn't care what had caused their deaths. In any case, he had no intention of becoming the next unlucky husband to die.
At this point, his father continued:
"If you don't want to choose the first path, then go on a descent. In the past, you had your brothers, so your father didn't force you. But now all your elder brothers are dead. Our Lin family has descended across the myriad heavens for generations. Twin Wood Realm was also seized from the void by our ancestors after they endured countless dangers. This inheritance cannot be severed. If you're willing to begin descending, then according to the contract between your father and the creditors, every time you descend once every three months, the debt will be deferred for one month. As long as you continue descending, the debt will continue to be deferred until a hundred years have passed. I believe that by then, you should be able to earn enough Spirit Coins to repay it."
"Oh, right. You can't sell the ancestral residence or Twin Wood Realm. Your father already had Twin Wood Realm notarized in Shanyang City. It cannot be traded for a hundred years."
What the hell!
This directly cut off Lin Xiao's little scheme. He had been planning to sell Twin Wood Realm if he truly couldn't get by.
The selling price of a semi-complete world would be no less than one billion Spirit Coins. Selling it would not only clear all his debts but also leave him with six or seven hundred million—enough to live a wealthy life for several lifetimes.
Yet his father's move of pulling the firewood from beneath the cauldron had wiped out all his calculations, forcing him to descend.
There was nothing he could do. His father had calculated everything down to the last detail. Lin Xiao was absolutely unwilling to marry Madam Kang, the woman whose husbands all died after marrying her. That left him with only one path: descent.
The world Lin Xiao currently lived in was a floating continent called Qingze Domain, suspended in the void. It lay beyond the Seventh Ring of the many floating continents surrounding the Primordial Gate. The Lin family he belonged to was a fairly renowned clan near Shanyang City in Xiangzhou, Qingze Domain.
It sounded complicated, and it truly was. Lin Xiao didn't know much either. He only knew that more than a million years had passed since the New Primordial Era began after the End of Era Cataclysm.
The so-called End of Era Cataclysm referred to a terrifying war that had spread across the countless times and spaces of the myriad heavens and involved numerous Great Universes more than a million years ago. In the words of the immortals, it was also called the Immeasurable Tribulation.
No one knew what had caused the calamity. They only knew that after the battle, the Immortal Realm shattered, the Heavenly Court fell, countless worlds across the myriad heavens collapsed, and even the web of rules forming the universe's deepest foundation developed cracks.
It was said that during the latter stages of the tribulation, the Dao Ancestor of the Purple Cloud Palace in the outer heavens had acted. Using the power of the Jade Disk of Creation, he connected with the Heavenly Dao of the Great Primordial Universe and borrowed the strength of the entire universe to slay a Chaos Demon God that had invaded the Great Primordial Universe.
But this also triggered terrifying consequences. Several Chaos Demon Gods who had created entire Great Universes, influenced by the tribulation energy permeating the entire Chaos Void Sea, summoned several Great Universes to collide with the Great Primordial Universe. The Immortal Realm at its center shattered on the spot, the Heavenly Court fell, the Dao Ancestor vanished, and the All Sages perished. An unimaginable destructive shockwave rapidly formed a great annihilation that swept across several Great Universes. The Immortal Realm, the underworld, the Buddhist Realm, the many Great Thousand Worlds, and countless worlds of every size scattered throughout the endless Void Sea around the Immortal Realm all shattered simultaneously, transforming into boundless fragments that scattered through the myriad Void Seas like pearls.
And within that brief span after the Great Primordial World shattered, the countless Immortals, Buddhas, Gods, and Demons that had depended on the Primordial Heavenly Dao all vanished.
Then came countless years of recovery. The Chaos Demon Gods who had survived by sheer luck gathered the shattered fragments of the Immortal Realm and Heavenly Court, reforging the New Immortal Realm at the center of the former Immortal Realm and rebuilding the New Heavenly Court.
Later, one day, a gigantic Immortal Gate appeared out of thin air at the very center of the former Immortal Realm. Through this gate, one could descend to any location in the myriad Void Seas. The New Heavenly Court used the gate to plunder resources from the void everywhere, strengthen the New Immortal Realm by drawing in fragments of shattered worlds, and continue the war left unfinished a million years ago against survivors of other shattered Great Universes.
This Immortal Gate, capable of connecting to the countless times and spaces of the myriad heavens, was called the Primordial Gate.
To this day, the New Immortal Realm had drawn an unknown number of world fragments from the void. These were the floating islands of the void, distributed throughout the void around the Primordial Gate according to the energy levels of their worlds. The higher a world's energy level, the closer it was to the Primordial Gate; the lower it was, the farther away. The Seventh Ring was already extremely far from the Primordial Gate. By Earth's standards, it was practically the suburbs.
Lin Xiao actually didn't know how he had transmigrated into this era. He even suspected that Earth might not be in the same spacetime. After all, the Primordial World came from ancient Chinese mythology. By rights, it should definitely have been the same world. If the Great Primordial Universe had shattered, there was no reason Earth would have escaped the fallout.
Of course, that was merely based on his own assumptions. With his level of insight, he definitely had no way of knowing the truth. Since he had come, he would make the best of it. The key now wasn't to figure out matters clearly beyond his level, but to make preparations and begin descending.
Speaking of which, he was truly an embarrassment to transmigrators. After being reborn for more than a decade, he had accomplished nothing, simply muddling through in a daze. If he hadn't gone bankrupt and nearly reached the point where he couldn't survive, with even his ancestral property about to be sold, he would never have thought of descending into the void to fight for his life.
Descending across the myriad heavens was dangerous, especially since after transmigrating more than a decade ago, he had never encountered the legendary transmigrator's standard Golden Finger. He hadn't had the courage to risk it.
Lin Xiao had originally had two elder brothers. He was the third son. But now, the Lin family had only him left as its sole heir.
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