"According to the tropes of extreme-path novels..."
"Sure enough, I should join a martial arts school first and keep my head down, cementing my identity as the protagonist amid the sneers and jeers of my senior brothers!"
"The usual trope is that the protagonist's martial arts school gets into trouble with a gang, and then he demands to know, 'Why are you forcing me?' How did I skip straight to joining a gang?"
"In novels with tropes like mine, six out of ten protagonists study at a martial arts school, two come from fishing families, and one is a hunter..."
"Could I be the one in ten who joined a gang?"
With his life at stake, Ye Li gave the question some very serious thought.
When he was a child, Ye Li had often pondered topics that might have seemed utterly absurd.
For instance, whether someone could read his mind, whether the world he lived in was a fictional one, and whether he might be the protagonist.
But clearly, he couldn't arrive at a conclusion just by thinking about it.
Still, Ye Li had a very high opinion of himself.
That was because he had discovered that he possessed countless traits shared by the protagonists of various novels.
Or perhaps those protagonists possessed his traits.
While reading novels, he'd felt countless times that the book was describing me!
He had all the essential qualities of Naruto's origins! Zheng Zha's wisdom! Lu Mingfei's spirit! Fang Yuan's talent! Chu Xuan's social skills!
Each of the protagonists above possessed one of his six attributes!
When Ye Li first read those works, he'd thought he was reading an autobiography like My Struggle.
This was basically me!!!
It must have taken those authors ages of following him around to gather enough material for their bestselling works.
With so many protagonists' traits stitched together inside him, Ye Li had felt different from everyone around him from a young age.
Even the people around him had noticed the traits he couldn't hide. They'd praised him for being far beyond ordinary people and said he was practically a god!
All this time, Ye Li had believed that the only thing separating him from being a protagonist was a cheat!
After all, there were no useless protagonists, only useless cheats!
Even a pig could soar to success if it got a certain Lu's system.
And Ye Li was only a little godlike. He was still more or less human!
Now, this [World-Shocking Wisdom] had filled in the final piece of the puzzle!
With his few belongings in tow, he walked past several streets in the city.
Ye Li returned to the territory of the Azure Dragon Gang, which occupied the western part of the city.
The reason the gang members lived together was to prevent their core technique, Azure Dragon Force, from leaking out!
This wasn't to keep other martial arts schools and gangs in the city from learning it, but to stop ordinary people from doing so.
Guangming City lay on the border of the Xia Kingdom. The empire was now in decline, and the authorities had even less control over the area than the local strongmen did.
The city was nominally under Great Xia's control.
When you needed something done, going to a local gang could even be more efficient.
As long as the appropriate taxes were paid, no one cared about this remote corner of the empire.
So long as no trouble broke out, that was all that mattered.
The Azure Dragon Gang had hundreds of members who practiced martial arts! Its influence covered half of Guangming, and its might was overwhelming!
The gang's leader was an expert whose cultivation had reached the Half-Step Xiantian Realm.
There were so few experts like him throughout all of Guangming that you could count them on one hand, and every one of them was famous throughout the city!
With a force like this at his back, Ye Li didn't need to worry about his safety in the short term.
By the time Ye Li returned to the gang, night had already covered the sky.
The two suns that had shone brilliantly by day had set, and a chilly breeze rustled the hem of his clothes!
Following the directions in his memories, Ye Li headed to the shared dormitory he'd been assigned. As he approached, he heard voices inside.
As a newcomer to the gang, he obviously couldn't expect a private room. He had to share with the other disciples.
He pushed the door open. Inside, long beds about seven meters in length stood in a row.
There were three people in the room. Two young men were sitting cross-legged on the beds, chatting and laughing.
Ye Li gave them a glance, surprise flickering in his eyes!
All three wore the Azure Dragon Sect's classic black uniforms with red patterns, but a glimpse of the finely made clothes beneath showed that their outfits were nothing like Ye Li's patched shirt!
They all had fair, clean faces. One of the young men even wore a jade ring at his waist, clearly indicating that he came from a well-off family.
But what surprised him most was the boy wearing the jade ring. He looked fifteen or sixteen, still a child, and clearly wasn't an adult yet!
When Ye Li entered, the calm-looking young man smiled. "A new face! Welcome, welcome! My name's Zhao Yan."
"I'm Ye Li. I just joined the Azure Dragon Sect today. I hope you'll all show me the ropes!" Ye Li cupped his hands politely, only to be met with a disdainful snort!
The boy who still looked like a child sneered:
"You reek of sweat, your clothes are covered in dust, and you look like a pauper. When you come back, make sure you wash that poor-person smell off."
With that, the boy put on his shoes and walked straight out of the dormitory. It seemed he wanted to escape Ye Li's sour stench and enjoy some fresh air outside!
Frowning as he watched the boy's haughty figure disappear, Ye Li hadn't expected to run into this sort of thing!
What sweat stink? He'd already washed up after training. The brat was probably just looking down on him because his clothes were shabby.
"Here we go, here we go! Now this is more like it! The classic brainless little villain has come hopping right out on his own! This pretty boy's one of them!"
Ye Li couldn't help shaking his head inwardly:
"You've upset my peace of mind! This boy has earned his death! I'll put up with him for a few days! He'll soon be trapped by my Blue Silver Entanglement!"
Oh, there was one thing he'd forgotten to mention.
Besides inheriting all those protagonists' admirable traits, Ye Li had also inherited Tang San's magnanimity!
After seeing Ye Li, Tang San's author had stayed up all night writing the bestselling Douluo series!
"Brother Ye, don't take it to heart!" After the boy had gone, Zhao Yan broke the awkward silence and spoke up. "That kid's a direct descendant of the Li Family. His name's Li Xi, and he's been spoiled by his pride since childhood. He doesn't get along with us either, so it's best to keep your distance. Just let him have his way when you see him."
"The fellow beside me is Wang Xian!"
"The Li Family?" As soon as he heard the surname Li, Ye Li thought of the Li Family in East City. No wonder they were so arrogant.
"From the looks of it, Li Xi isn't even eighteen yet, is he?"
Ye Li was curious too. "Did he join the gang before his trait awakened?"
"Ah, their Li Family is large and wealthy. They've produced a few Post-Heaven Realm martial artists, so of course they want to cultivate their younger generation!"
Wang Xian explained, "The Li Family spent a fortune to buy an Age-Deceiving Pill, which can awaken a trait ahead of time. That's why Li Xi manifested his trait years earlier than most people."
As they spoke, Zhao Yan and Wang Xian looked utterly envious.
Their families were merely modestly wealthy. They couldn't compare to the Li Family, which could afford an Age-Deceiving Pill.
"An Age-Deceiving Pill?"
Ye Li mused that it must be an extremely precious item. A lowly nobody like him had never even heard of one:
"Rich people really are something. They get a head start of several years over everyone else. Those years they save are a huge advantage, aren't they?"
Seeing Ye Li lost in thought, Wang Xian smiled. "But don't be discouraged. The Li Family has probably given up on Li Xi. Otherwise, they wouldn't have sent him to the gang to practice martial arts."
"Given up on him?"
"Of course! If Li Xi had awakened a good trait, the Li Family would have secretly cultivated him themselves. Why would they send him out? Unlike you, Brother Ye, he doesn't have much talent." Wang Xian grinned.
"Me? I have talent?"
Ye Li was stunned!
These two had such sharp eyes that they'd seen how exceptional he was after barely meeting him! His whole bearing gave him away!
He couldn't help wondering whether his kingly aura was just too impossible to conceal.
As Ye Li was questioning himself, Wang Xian explained:
"Of course. We paid to avoid having to squeeze in with more than ten other people in that huge dormitory, which reeks of sweat. Given your means, Brother Ye..."
"...Haha, clearly the instructor assigned you here because of your talent!"
After all, anyone who could live here either had money or potential!
Ye Li: So they'd noticed I was a pauper...