"So... Hog, Hogwarts?... Pah! What kind of ridiculous name is that? It's a damn tongue twister!"
"...It's Hogwarts, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in England." Li Mu looked speechlessly at the old man before him.
The old man sat across from Li Mu, with an entire square stone table between them. Nineteen deep grooves ran both horizontally and vertically across its surface, forming a standard Go board.
Li Mu was playing Go with the old man. The lousy old fellow was not much of a player, yet he loved the game. He had started teaching Li Mu when he was "one year old." Li Mu had originally known nothing about Go, but after all that instruction and influence, he had already been evenly matched with the old man by the time he was "six." Now, he won more often than he lost.
The old man's eyes roamed intently over the board as he frowned in search of an opening. His grizzled beard had been casually braided into several thick plaits that nearly dragged across the stone table, making Li Mu worry that it might "accidentally" sweep away a piece.
Over the years, the old man had cheated with that long beard more times than Li Mu could count.
"Tsk, but... England... You little brat who grew up in the middle of nowhere, do you even know a foreign language?" After a while, apparently unable to find an opening, the old man kept rolling a stone between his fingers without placing it and returned to their previous topic.
"You think I wanted to stay in the middle of nowhere forever? You're the one who never took me out!" Li Mu slammed his palm onto the stone table, fuming.
Then his eyes flickered, and he suddenly cleared his throat. "Ahem, listen... You're not me. Why do you know I can't speak English?"
A stream of fluent English suddenly burst from his mouth. His pure British accent immediately made the old man's eyes widen.
"This... isn't bad." The old man stared blankly, narrowing his eyes slightly.
"Of course!" Li Mu patted his chest. "This young master is the reincarnation of the God of Literature, proficient in music, chess, calligraphy, and painting, and skilled in medicine, physiognomy, astrology, and divination! ..."
Unexpectedly, instead of kicking him as usual in response to his bragging, the old man began pondering seriously. Seeing his solemn expression, Li Mu could no longer continue boasting and awkwardly shut his mouth.
Then he heard the old man mutter thoughtfully—
"That's right. Among the younger generation I've seen... you truly are one of the most gifted."
Li Mu's eyes widened. Praise like that was rare coming from the old man.
But... what did he mean, "one of"? I'm obviously the chosen one! "Born divine, able to speak while weak"—that's talking about me! Take out the 'one of,' damn it!
Before Li Mu could think further, the old man suddenly seemed to make up his mind. Stroking his white beard, he nodded.
"When a piece that should not exist joins the game, the fate of the entire board changes abruptly... Sometimes, we need such a piece. If you want to go to England, then go."
He actually agreed?
Just like that?!
Ever since he could remember, Li Mu had exhausted every possible means to leave the mountains and explore the colorful world outside. He had begged and pleaded, but never succeeded.
A piece that should not exist...?
The fate of the entire board had changed?
He stood there for a long while, studying the old man's expression. Then he suddenly leaped to his feet, pointed at the crisscrossing board before him, and roared, "Li Jianmin! You cheated again!!!"
At some point, an extra white stone had appeared on the board, blocking the vital liberty of Li Mu's black army.
"Damn it, I cheated using my own skills. What are you gonna do about it, you little brat?" Caught red-handed, the old man, Li Jianmin, was somehow even more self-righteous than Li Mu, his voice booming with conviction.
"I..."
"Are you still going to England or not?"
"...Fine. Whatever makes you happy, sir."
"Damn that old bastard with no respect for his age..."
Even as he returned to his room to pack, Li Mu continued muttering under his breath.
By all rights, he should have gotten used to it after all these years. Yet whenever he saw Li Jianmin's appearance and behavior, he still could not help inwardly spitting out, Vulgar, while a sense of superiority from his once higher education rose naturally in his heart.
Still, that "once" was so long ago that it was almost impossible to trace.
Li Jianmin was Li Mu's master, or more accurately, his adoptive father in this life. Li Mu had long grown accustomed to calling him the old man.
According to Li Jianmin, around ten years ago, strange fire had suddenly descended from the heavens, and a meteor had fallen into the forest at the foot of the mountain. He had gone to investigate personally but found nothing. Amid scattered stones and gravel, he saw only an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes. The baby appeared not even a month old, yet it was fair and clean, neither crying nor fussing, merely sleeping soundly.
The old man had then calculated with his fingers and concluded that the child shared an immortal affinity with him, so he brought him back up the mountain to raise.
Later, whenever Li Jianmin was exposed for cheating after losing at Go, he would tell this story with tears and snot streaming down his face. Li Mu would look grateful on the surface, but countless wild horses would stampede through his mind: What immortal affinity? I'm a top student who graduated from a prestigious university in the twenty-first century! Why the hell did I have to spend so many years in the middle of nowhere with a grandpa who picked at his feet?!
Li Mu was naturally that infant in swaddling clothes, and he knew the old man's story was true. Because he could already remember things at the time—not only that, but he also knew much information about the past and the future.
He was a transmigrator.
The original Li Mu had been an ordinary nobody. After struggling his way through university, he had finally squeezed his way into a mundane clerical job. Then, after working overtime until four in the morning one night, he had fallen asleep from exhaustion. When he woke, he found that he had transmigrated into an infant in another world.
From then on, he lived with this lousy old man whose robes were always stained with grease, whose white hair was always tied up in a messy bun, whose face always wore a foolishly cheerful grin, whose mouth constantly spat out phrases like "damn it" and "his damn mother," and whose very name, "Li Jianmin," was enough to invite ridicule.
Nearly eleven years had passed like this, and Li Mu had long given up the thought of returning to his original world. On one hand, humans were highly adaptable creatures. Having stayed here for so long, his attachment to that former world had long faded. On the other hand, this world... was just too damn amazing!
This was not an ordinary world. Although every aspect of it resembled the Earth where he had once lived, supernatural abilities existed here!
At first, Li Mu had not noticed that.
He and the old man lived on the mountain, but they were not completely cut off from the world. They lived in a small farmhouse courtyard with three large rooms arranged left, center, and right. In the main hall stood an old, bulky black-and-white television and an old rotary telephone, while a green-painted mailbox sat outside the courtyard gate. The old man often watched television when he had nothing else to do, and calls occasionally came in. Newspapers and letters also mysteriously appeared in the mailbox from time to time.
At first, Li Mu thought the old man was simply a poor mountain dweller, which was why his household equipment was so outdated. Then, shortly before his first birthday, he secretly flipped through a newspaper the old man had tossed onto the table... On the upper right corner of a brand-new China Daily, he saw the conspicuous date "January 4, 1981," and beneath it, the large headline: "Gezhouba Water Conservancy Project Successfully Closed Off"...
He finally figured out the era he was in. So he had traveled back to the 1980s. Then he realized...
Damn it, I got played hard! Li Jianmin wasn't poor at all. In this era, owning a black-and-white television absolutely made you rich, okay?
After more than two months of preparation, the new book is finally out! During the new release period, there will be one update a day. I hope everyone will support it! Please bookmark and recommend it~~~ Thank you!
(End of Chapter)
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