When Countrymen Meet Countrymen, A Bullet In the Back

(ps: Dual-publishing. My other book is "Douluo Peerless: System Treasure-Swapping, Usurping Shrek". This one is nearing its completion; once finished, I'll wrap up "Douluo Peerless: Suffering Huo Yuhao Some More".)

Bamboo Ridge wasn't a mountain, just a village.

What's more, it was a terribly, terribly run-down village.

For dozens of li around, this was the only village.

It backed against a bamboo mountain and faced a great river.

Crossing that bamboo mountain took a long time, and getting across that river wasn't easy either.

Therefore, anyone in the village with even a bit of ability chose to move away, and as time passed, this mountain village grew more and more dilapidated.

Lin Yuan sat in the carriage with his parents, watching the familiar settlement gradually recede, and couldn't help letting out a soft sigh.

Deep in Lin Yuan's heart, there was a secret that only he knew.

That was that he was a transmigrator.

In his past life, he was just an ordinary corporate beast in society. Because of a certain Chongqing water-splashing festival, he was ambushed by a little fairy with a mineral-water bottle. In a fit of anger, he unscrewed the cap and splashed the water back.

He was intercepted by the fairy's simp and ultimately unable to bear the humiliation, he died of pent-up anger and a rush of blood to the heart.

After transmigrating to Douluo Continent, he was reincarnated into an ordinary family. His father was a Soul Master, and every month the family received a Soul Master subsidy of one Gold Soul Coin. Coupled with his father working as a guard at the Notting City lord's estate, their life was considered quite prosperous.

Now his father's Soul Power had broken through to level twenty, promoting him to a Soul Grandmaster, and the family of three was moving to settle in Notting City, fifty li away.

With a carriage, a house, and both parents alive—not to mention his father being a Soul Grandmaster pulling in a huge monthly subsidy of ten Gold Soul Coins, plus a massive increase in the lord's estate allowance—

one could say he had attained the moderately prosperous life that in his past life he could struggle a lifetime to achieve.

Originally, this should have been a joyous occasion.

Yet he simply couldn't bring himself to be happy.

On one hand,

it was because he didn't have any golden finger, and there was a high probability his martial soul would be just like his father's, inheriting his Lone Bamboo.

In this world that emphasized bloodline background, he was destined not to achieve any great success in the future.

Let alone completing the four essential tasks of a transmigrator: acting cool, flirting with girls, beating up Tang San, and abusing Yu Xiaogang.

On the other hand,

it was that he discovered he apparently wasn't the only transmigrator in this world.

Take their Bamboo Ridge, for instance.

From a very young age, Lin Yuan had noticed something abnormal about a peer in the village.

His name was Lin Tian, an orphan who had eaten food from a hundred families since he was little.

Ever since he was small, he neither liked talking to people nor enjoyed digging into bird nests or catching fish in the river with the village children.

He acted mysterious all day long. From the age of two or three, before the sky even brightened, he dared to run off alone to the back mountain, not returning until noon.

After eating a meal at a villager's home, he would head back out in the afternoon.

Then return at dusk.

At first, the villagers thought Lin Tian was still young and worried he might encounter danger.

However, after he brought back mountain chickens, wild rabbits, and similar game time and time again,

as time passed,

hardly anyone said anything to him anymore.

Yet this aroused Lin Yuan's vigilance.

Just ask, how could a child so young, capable of going into the mountains to hunt, fail to make Lin Yuan suspicious?

Recently, muffled sounds of rolling thunder would even faintly drift from the back mountain.

This only further solidified the speculation in Lin Yuan's heart.

After finishing his sigh, Lin Yuan began to ponder and make plans.

He figured that since there was a second transmigrator in this world, there might just be a third or a fourth.

After all, his father was merely a Lone Bamboo Soul Grandmaster with innate grade-two Soul Power, and his mother was an ordinary person.

He still had two and a half months until he turned six years old.

With neither bloodline nor a system golden finger,

in this world where countrymen met countrymen and got a bullet in the back,

it was better to keep a low profile and just survive.

If he awakened Soul Power, he would become an ordinary Soul Master and take a few wives and concubines,

living out his life in peace.

If he didn't awaken Soul Power, he would do some small business, opening a sundry shop or a restaurant, and could still scrape together a pretty decent future compared to his past life.

Just as he had figured things out and felt immensely relieved in his mind, his father's voice suddenly came from beside his ear, "Yuntao..."

Lin Yuan looked toward the voice, and he saw a young man with quite a handsome appearance, dressed in the uniform of a Spirit Hall deacon and carrying a bundle in his hand, getting onto the carriage at his father's invitation.

Lin Yuan knew this young man, Su Yuntao, a deacon of the Notting City Spirit Hall.

He was known as the Blind Douluo, and he possessed the Single Dog Martial Soul.

Of course, this was just teasing.

The real Brother Tao had impeccable character; it was precisely because Spirit Hall had countless lower-tier soul masters like Brother Tao that it could become a place of yearning for soul masters across the entire continent, and even for numerous transmigrators.

Almost every year at this time, Su Yuntao would travel over mountains and rivers to awaken the martial souls of the children of appropriate age in Bamboo Ridge.

"A-Kun, come to think of it, I haven't had the chance to congratulate you on your promotion to Soul Grandmaster yet. Are you taking your wife and child back to Notting City?"

Su Yuntao glanced politely at Lin Yuan and Lin Mother inside the carriage, then sighed as he spoke.

"Yeah, I finally saved up enough money to buy a small courtyard in Notting City, so it's about time to bring them over."

Mentioning the small courtyard he bought in Notting City, Lin Father's lips curled into a trace of barely concealed pride.

Nowadays, he was also a man with a house in the city.

For any countryman born into hardship, this was something worth bragging about.

As he spoke, he didn't forget to have Lin Yuan greet Su Yuntao, "A-Yuan, hurry up and call him Uncle Tao."

"Uncle Tao!"

Lin Yuan called out obediently.

Su Yuntao nodded, uttered a single word of praise, and then began to sigh to himself.

Seeing Su Yuntao's extremely depressed appearance, Lin Father asked in surprise:

"Yuntao, did you fail to encounter any good seedlings during this martial soul awakening again?"

"If only that were the case." Mentioning the martial soul awakening, Su Yuntao couldn't help pouring out his bitter grievances, "I ran through dozens of villages today."

"I finally managed to encounter two people with Innate Full Soul Power, but as it turned out, one had the wasted martial soul Blue Silver Grass, and the other was unwilling to join Spirit Hall."

"Oh right, that one who was unwilling to join Spirit Hall is that Lin Tian from your village."

Blue Silver Grass? Lin Tian?

Lin Yuan's spirits stirred. The Innate Full Soul Power Blue Silver Grass went without saying—that was Tang San.

This Lin Tian was rather thought-provoking.

As a transmigrator, moreover, his parents' martial souls were bamboo and lotus flowers without any soul power.

To be able to awaken Innate Full Soul Power under such conditions, could it be that he held a cultivation technique manual similar to the Mysterious Heaven Treasure Record in his hands?

Should he find a way to snatch it over?

As soon as this thought arose, Lin Yuan dismissed it. Not to mention that his own father was only the most ordinary of Soul Grandmasters.

Whether he could even defeat the other party was an unknown.

And that was assuming he could win.

Given his own honest and kind personality, he would definitely not make a move against someone from the same village.

However, that did not mean there was completely no hope.

After all, when it came to liking to court death, it was often a common malady for the vast majority of transmigrators.

Even if Lin Tian didn't court death, Lin Yuan would create an opportunity for him to do so.

Amidst his thoughts, Lin Father and Su Yuntao were already chatting about other matters.

The two of them were soul masters within Notting City, and as people in the same circle, they naturally had endless topics to discuss.

Meanwhile, Lin Yuan's thoughts drifted to Lin Tian's cultivation technique.

The passion that had just been extinguished in his heart was ignited once again.