Whale Rubber and Secret Manuals-Do Transmigrators Write Novels Too?

"Off you go!"

Ye Beixuan was theoretically dead, but Huo Yuhao still took the precaution of kicking his head into the pit he had dug earlier.

Transmigrators were notoriously hard to kill!

The novels Huo Yuhao had read in his previous life had made that clear long ago.

A severed head could be reattached. A shattered heart could be replaced with a cybernetic one.

Even if they were completely dead, someone could still pull a "rise again, my love"!

Protagonists who failed to finish off their enemies deserved graves overgrown with ten feet of weeds!

So Ye Beixuan's head and body had to be burned to ash and buried separately.

Unless he was Xingtian, that ought to eliminate any lingering danger.

Huo Yuhao removed the Storage Soul Guidance Ring from Ye Beixuan's foot.

The Fixed-Install Soul Tool Shell had already given the ring a round of high-temperature sterilization, so there was no need to feel squeamish about it.

He channeled his Soul Power into the ring. The space inside was roughly the size of a room.

The first things he found were two secret manuals.

Training diagrams for the Divine Illumination Scripture and the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms!

The Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms needed little introduction. In Old Master Jin's works, they were the pinnacle of fierce, yang-aligned martial arts.

The palm techniques were exquisite and unmatched in ferocity.

Huo Yuhao had seen their power with his own eyes.

Eight Soul Ancestor guards had been unable to get close to Ye Beixuan, a mere Soul Grandmaster.

If Huo Yuhao could master the techniques completely, his combat strength would surely rise by leaps and bounds.

As for the Divine Illumination Scripture, it was the greatest miraculous art in Old Master Jin's martial arts world!

"Divine illumination" meant that a master of the art could enter a state of spiritual contemplation, even bring the dead back to life!

As long as a practitioner's vital meridians remained intact, the Divine Illumination Scripture could keep them alive through injuries of any severity and swiftly heal their wounds.

That recovery had its limits, however.

A missing limb would not grow back.

That was precisely why Huo Yuhao had cut off Ye Beixuan's head, separating it from his body.

To Huo Yuhao's delight, cultivating the Divine Illumination Scripture could increase not only Soul Power but also mental strength.

As a mental-attribute Body Martial Soul, the Spirit Eyes likewise depended on Huo Yuhao's accumulated mental strength for their power.

Cultivating the Divine Illumination Scripture also produced balanced, enduring Soul Power that could strengthen one's foundations and nourish one's vitality.

It excelled at nurturing the body's foundations and making up for innate deficiencies.

Wasn't this technique tailor-made for him as he was now?

Next, Huo Yuhao took a wooden box from the ring.

Inside were two pale-gold pieces of Century Whale Rubber and one golden piece of Millennium Whale Rubber.

How could Huo Yuhao tell what they were?

The pharmacy labels were still stuck to them!

Every piece of Whale Rubber was as clear as crystal—premium goods at a glance.

Consuming Whale Rubber could greatly improve a soul master's physique, strengthening their muscles, bones, and meridians.

As their physique improved, so would the age of the soul rings they could withstand.

That made Whale Rubber a fixture in fan fiction.

For any transmigrator, the first order of business after crossing over was to buy Whale Rubber.

Huo Yuhao was not at all surprised that Ye Beixuan had stocked up on it.

Finally, Huo Yuhao fished a card out of the ring.

It was a purple stored-value card accepted throughout Douluo Continent.

Opening one required a deposit of at least three thousand Gold Soul Coins at the Ruijin Money House!

A servant at the White Tiger Duke's Estate earned, at most, a few dozen Gold Soul Coins a year.

Ye Beixuan had only been an estate guard for a few days, yet he had bought Whale Rubber and put money away.

Where had the money come from?

Huo Yuhao kept searching and soon found the answer.

He came across a thick stack of manuscripts and several stamped contracts.

The contracts were much the same: agreements commissioning "Master Ye" to write for major bookstores across the Star Luo Empire.

The fees were so generous that Huo Yuhao's eyelids twitched.

After crossing over, Ye Beixuan had realized that cultivating his techniques would require vast resources.

So he had found himself another way to make money.

Writing books!

What he wrote was not toxic self-help drivel promising to make you a Titled Douluo in three sentences, but material unsuitable for children.

And the stories Ye Beixuan wrote were surprisingly popular on Douluo Continent.

Readers finished them red-eyed and breathing like bulls.

Bookstores across the Star Luo Empire had lined up to commission him, driving his fees higher and higher.

Huo Yuhao could not help marveling. Even being a fat, shut-in anime nerd in one's previous life had its uses.

At the very least, it meant plenty of exposure to different stories and a head full of ideas!

Plots about a kind aunt, a friend's mother, or a tutor were like a weapon from another dimension to the primitives of Douluo Continent!

But when Huo Yuhao spotted several books with pink covers, his face instantly darkened.

The protagonist of those books was "Little Huo Girl."

Expressionless, Huo Yuhao threw them all into the pit to keep Ye Beixuan's head company.

Then he stacked firewood and burned Ye Beixuan's body to ash.

After that, he filled in the pit, head and all, packing it tight before hauling over a large rock to weigh down the grave.

Only when everything was done did Huo Yuhao clap the dust from his hands in relief.

He had successfully looted Ye Beixuan. Time to make his getaway with the haul!

By the time he returned to the White Tiger Duke's Estate, night had fallen.

Huo Yun'er was waiting for Huo Yuhao at home.

The moment she saw him, she hurried over.

But the first words out of Huo Yuhao's mouth were:

"Mom, we have to leave!"

Huo Yun'er froze, then shook her head hard.

"Yuhao, what nonsense are you talking about?"

"I'm not going anywhere. I have to wait here for your father to come back."

"He'll return to the estate one day, and then our family can..."

Huo Yuhao sighed softly, took Huo Yun'er's cold hand, and spoke one word at a time.

"Mom, I saw the look Dai Huabin gave us before he left. He won't let this go!"

"If we stay at the White Tiger Duke's Estate, that vicious old woman will find a way to get rid of us!"

"Staying here means certain death!"

"Brother Ye saw this coming long before he died. He told me that if things ever came to the worst, I should take you away."

"He also left me some money. It's in this ring."

"It's enough for the two of us to live peacefully. We can't let Brother Ye's kindness go to waste!"

Just as he had expected, the moment Huo Yuhao's safety was at stake, Huo Yun'er hesitated.

Tears welled in her eyes as she took a long look around the woodshed where she had endured so much cruelty.

At last, she nodded gently.

"Yuhao, let's go together."

Mother and son packed their belongings that night.

Calling them belongings was generous. They had only a few changes of coarse clothes.

There was also a small bundle Huo Yun'er had treasured for years, containing a few things Dai Hao had left her back then.

At first light, the guards were dozing.

Huo Yuhao and Huo Yun'er slipped through the gates of the White Tiger Duke's Estate, one behind the other.

One year later.

Eastsea City, Star Luo Empire.

"Boss, I'm here to deliver Master Ye's manuscript!"

The familiar voice came from outside A Bin Bookstore early that morning. The owner hurried to open the door, beaming.

A handsome young man in close-fitting black clothes walked into the store.

The muscle visible beneath his clothes and the keen light in his eyes made it impossible to underestimate him.

The young man was Huo Yuhao.

A year earlier, he had taken his mother, Huo Yun'er, away from the White Tiger Duke's Estate.

After a long journey, they had returned to Huo Yun'er's hometown of Eastsea City and settled in Huo Family Village, a small village outside the city.

Over that year, Huo Yuhao had undergone a complete transformation.

The Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms had tempered his muscles and bones, while the Divine Illumination Scripture had nourished his mind.

Together with the two pieces of Century Whale Rubber Ye Beixuan had left behind, they had completely made up for Huo Yuhao's innate physical deficiencies.

His once beanpole-thin frame now bore lean, powerful muscle.

His Soul Power had also soared, reaching level ten.