Chapter 3#

Uncanny Luck#

Xi Ling stared at the display panel, his mind racing.

Another soul snatcher?

The quest instance was actually related to soul snatchers, and since the task system had already taken the form of a page… then just how many soul snatchers were there in total?

Xi Ling’s eyes deepened slightly, a thought suddenly flashing through his mind—Who exactly knew Yue Ku right now, respectively?

But the next moment, his gaze cleared again.

That previous soul snatcher had a golden finger—how could the other soul snatchers not have one?

Given Yue Ku’s identity, even if no one in this world recognized him, he probably couldn’t hide from certain golden fingers.

How would the soul snatchers… view the “Grand Villain”?

Yue Ku raised his hand and touched Xi Ling’s face.

Xi Ling snapped back to reality and said faintly, “Elder Ku Ge, I’ll have to stay hanging up in the sky from now on.”

Yue Ku froze for a moment, then understood: “…The Pure Moonlight?”

Xi Ling nodded mournfully.

Yue Ku said firmly, “If you don’t like it, don’t do it.”

Xi Ling said sadly, “It’s not about liking or disliking…” He sighed softly, “Soul snatchers are uncontrollable, after all.”

Yue Ku frowned.

Both of them understood that in a situation where the enemy was hidden and they were exposed, Xi Ling wearing the skin of the Pure Moonlight was necessary.

After all—if the butterfly effect allowed the Pure Moonlight to survive, then Yue Ku, who accompanied the great good guy Pure Moonlight, would only be “an ordinary youth with very good luck,” not “the walking calamity, the Half-Skeleton Evil Emperor.”

Yue Ku closed his eyes. A strange violence surged within him, difficult to contain.

Xi Ling turned over and pressed both hands against Yue Ku’s face, gently pulling.

Yue Ku’s violent energy dissipated once again. He opened his eyes and said sullenly, “I’m too weak.”

Xi Ling changed from pulling his face to rubbing it: “Turned into a little bitter melon again? Elder Ku Ge, don’t be so bitter.”

Yue Ku’s expression was completely messed up from the rubbing.

Xi Ling’s eyes curved like crescent moons as he coaxed softly, “Why blame yourself? Do you and I even count as separate people?”

Yue Ku immediately shook his head.

Xi Ling withdrew his hands, tilted his body, and collapsed onto Yue Ku’s lap.

Yue Ku quickly caught him.

Xi Ling’s voice was gentle: “Don’t worry, I’ve made other preparations.”

Yue Ku asked, “What?”

Xi Ling said slyly, “Return to the family early and find a backer!”

Yue Ku suddenly understood.

This was indeed a good method.

·

Xi Ling and Yue Ku’s connection actually came from a fateful fall through a spatial rift.

One day many years ago, Yue Lin, a hunter from Qingyang Village, walked out of his house and found a newborn baby boy lying on a pile of withered grass in the yard. He asked around the village, but no one knew where the child had come from, so he adopted him and named him Yue Ku—literally, the child Yue Lin had found on the withered grass.

Yue Lin treated Yue Ku well, but unfortunately, he was gravely injured and died just four years later.

Before dying, Yue Lin left all his inheritance to Yue Ku.

Yue Lin had some wealth. He lived in a sturdy, spacious stone house. Now that Yue Ku was young, he naturally became a target of greed.

Fortunately, only some shameless ordinary villagers had their eyes on him; martial artists looked down on such things. Yue Ku was born with divine strength, knew the fist and foot techniques Yue Lin had taught him, knew how to use the hidden weapons Yue Lin had left behind, and had set up dense layers of traps all around his house… After desperately killing a few thugs, Yue Ku managed to hold onto what was his.

However, because of this, Yue Ku—already isolated and cold by nature—became even more unwilling to interact with the villagers.

One day when he was five, Yue Ku went to a hillside outside the village to dig for wild vegetables. Suddenly sensing something, he looked up and saw a crack open in the sky. A child fell out of it, and Yue Ku quickly reached out to catch him.

The child lay in Yue Ku’s arms, still looking dazed.

That was Xi Ling.

Yue Ku looked at the child, then at the sky curtain that was closing, and suddenly recalled that when he first gained consciousness, he seemed to have fallen down in the same way.

Xi Ling had nowhere to go.

Yue Ku told Xi Ling to come home with him.

Xi Ling grabbed the corner of Yue Ku’s clothes and really did follow him.

·

At that time, Xi Ling was four years old. He was a poor soul caught in the crossfire of two powerful fighters while traveling with his parents to visit his maternal grandparents. His original home was very far from Qingyang Village—so far that no one here had even heard of that city.

He remembered where he came from, but he couldn’t go back. It was naturally for the best that Yue Ku was willing to take him in.

Yue Ku took very good care of Xi Ling.

Xi Ling grew very fond of Yue Ku.

The two children ate and lived together, came and went together, and planned to live their lives side by side.

Xi Ling was born with a photographic memory and had already learned many things from his parents.

He had no aptitude for Qi Refining, but his parents loved him dearly. They had blended the essence blood of a demon beast into his body while he was still in the womb, successfully making him a Demon Martial Artist. He began formal training at the age of three and progressed rapidly.

By the time he met Yue Ku, he was already close to the strength of the first layer of Blood Refining.

Yue Ku, on the other hand, was illiterate.

Xi Ling taught Yue Ku to read, little by little, and also recited books to him.

Through these oral lessons, Yue Ku slowly began to understand what those vast swaths of information that had always existed in his mind actually meant.

It was bloodline inheritance.

——When Yue Ku was very young, he had once asked his adoptive father, Yue Lin. But Qingyang Village was too remote, and no one nearby had ever obtained a Demon Martial Artist’s bloodline inheritance. Yue Lin was just an ordinary hunter, so naturally, he couldn’t answer. However, he was very cautious, and on his instruction, Yue Ku kept his mouth shut, letting it remain a secret.

Thus, it wasn’t until now, when Xi Ling discovered it, that they realized Yue Ku had also been a Demon Martial Artist for a long time.

The hazy memories of his infancy, the growth over the following years, the contents of the bloodline inheritance… Yue Ku had hidden nothing from Xi Ling.

Xi Ling racked his brain and discussed it with Yue Ku many times in great detail before they could roughly form some conjectures.

Although Yue Ku had no memories of his birth, he must have come from a prominent family. He, too, had been infused with the essence blood of a Silver Moon White Wolf while in the womb. So, when he was parasitized by the essence blood of the Extreme Heaven Bone Demon, the Silver Moon White Wolf directly became his Mimicry Bloodline without any choice on Yue Ku’s part.

As for when the Extreme Heaven Bone Demon had parasitized him…

It was probably around the time of the high fever Yue Ku had when he was two years old.

Because before that, Yue Ku’s mind only contained the inheritance of the Silver Moon White Wolf. It was only afterward that the inheritance from the Extreme Heaven Bone Demon appeared.

Xi Ling and Yue Ku organized the inheritance contents together and learned together.

What they studied were Yue Ku’s inheritances.

After studying for a while, Xi Ling switched his cultivation method.

This was because Xi Ling had not obtained a bloodline inheritance.

Xi Ling only knew that the bloodline he had refined was that of a Demon Fox. The specific breed was unknown. However, after Yue Ku started cultivating, Xi Ling discovered that his and Yue Ku’s cultivation speed were on par. So, the grade of his Demon Fox bloodline should be no lower than that of the Silver Moon White Wolf—he had probably either refined a bloodline with too low a concentration to gain an inheritance, or he had refined some kind of mutated bloodline that hadn’t existed long enough to accumulate any substantial inheritance.

The family cultivation technique he had learned was the attribute-less Earth Origin Scripture, which could at most be cultivated to the Earth Origin Realm. In the Western Flame Region, it was considered a top-tier technique, but in reality, its grade was far inferior to the Saint Heavenly Wolf Divine Art inherited from the Silver Moon White Wolf.

Although the Demon Fox and the Demon Wolf were not of the same species, they shared many similarities. Discarding the parts closely tied to the wolf clan and only selecting the basic methods of Qi breathing, refining, and transformation was completely harmless.

As for higher pursuits… they could plan for those slowly in the future.

And so, the two supported each other, stumbling along until now.

Eight years had passed, and life had already become quite stable.

There was at most only one lingering question—

Why was Xi Ling’s luck always so ordinary, while Yue Ku’s luck was both very good and strangely eerie?

For example, Xi Ling had survived the spatial rift only because he was wearing a protective elemental tool, which had been completely destroyed in the process. Yue Ku, on the other hand, had come out safely completely naked.

Or take the difference in their bloodline inheritances.

Another example: when Xi Ling went up the mountain alone, he could only dig up some wild vegetables. But when he went with Yue Ku, they unexpectedly found the fallen place of an Evil Martial Artist.

Its inheritance was as follows:

A skeleton that was green all over and corroded until it was tattered—the corpse of the inheritance owner, who had died a miserable death.

A tattered little booklet that recorded many methods of making incense, ninety percent of which were poison incense—Xi Ling quickly learned it.

A tattered, three-foot-square piece of black cloth—Xi Ling took it as a refining material.

A tattered piece of animal skin with a blurry phantom imprinted on it—after looking at it a few times, Xi Ling comprehended the Soul Devouring Technique from it.

A tattered handbook—Xi Ling quickly memorized it.

——This combination of poison incense, soul-devouring techniques, and green bones… no matter how you looked at it, it was all heretical ways!

Now, the answer was clear as day.

A top-tier Grand Villain, naturally, would have very good luck… and naturally, it would all be uncanny.

·

Under the pressure of the situation, Xi Ling acknowledged that his and Yue Ku’s strength was far from sufficient, and it was natural for them to think about whether they could borrow external forces.

Still, it was only natural for him to think of his distant family.

Xi Ling’s birth family was very powerful, and his branch was highly valued. If the two of them wanted a better future, returning to the family sooner or later was inevitable.

It was just that it was originally a plan for the distant future—at least until the two of them were strong enough to have the means to gather information and travel.

Now, however, they would have to start preparing early.

The Xi family was very suitable as a backer.

As long as the backer was strong enough, even if the soul snatchers were wary of Yue Ku and wanted to deal with him as the Grand Villain, they would be powerless.

Of course, during the period of planning to return home, if they could also find other backers, the more the merrier.

·

Xi Ling lay there, thinking: “Besides a backer, we need to use the system more and pay attention to the quests…” Speaking of which, he suddenly remembered something, “Wait, since it’s a nearby quest, the Qingshui Village in the quest is the one where we bought the spirit field, right? And the Sun Su is the one we know?”

Yue Ku responded, “It should be.” He added, “The Red Iris Flower will bloom in a few days.”

Xi Ling rolled into the circle of Yue Ku’s arms and said, “So it’s familiar people and familiar places. Let’s go tomorrow, then.”

Yue Ku gently placed his hand on Xi Ling’s back: “Tomorrow is the day we deliver goods to the Luo Family Trading Company.”

Xi Ling let out an “ah”: “I forgot about that… You go deliver the goods first, and we’ll go to Qingshui Village together the day after.”

Yue Ku reminded him again: “You’ve run out of Gold Sickle Grass.”

Xi Ling thought for a moment: “I need to replenish thirty stalks. I’ll buy them tomorrow.”

The two discussed things and continued to explore the system, gradually figuring it all out.

After a while, Xi Ling got a bit tired and yawned.

Yue Ku, still in that position, gently patted his back.

Xi Ling’s eyelids were getting heavy, but he seemed to still be thinking about something.

Yue Ku looked down and suddenly said, “Very similar.”

Xi Ling didn’t catch on at first and asked casually, “Similar to what?”

Yue Ku said, “The Pure Moonlight.”

Xi Ling froze for a moment, then perked up a little. Immediately after, his brows and eyes softened, as warm as a spring breeze.

Indeed, it was very similar.

To Yue Ku, whether Xi Ling was pretending or not, he was always the Pure Moonlight.

He raised his hand and covered Xi Ling’s eyes, saying softly, “Sleep for a while first.”

Xi Ling let out a soft laugh and closed his eyes: “Elder Ku Ge, you sleep too.”

Yue Ku responded, “Alright.”

Xi Ling was swept away by drowsiness. In the haze, he mumbled vaguely, “Don’t… don’t want bitter melon gege…”

Yue Ku agreed again, “Alright.”

The room fell quiet.

The previous day, one of them had been cultivating while the other had been possessed—neither had rested.

Before they knew it, Xi Ling had fallen asleep, his breathing light and long.

Yue Ku also closed his eyes, listening to the sound of Xi Ling’s breathing, and sank into a deep slumber.