Chapter 1: Please, Master, Hit the Road

"Cough cough! As your master, my time has come. Before I die, can my disciple answer me one question?"

"Please speak, Master."

"If I were to take possession of your body, would you kill me?"

"I would!" came a decisive answer.

"Oh, the sin, the sin... I am your master. I taught you the cultivation technique, allowed you to cultivate, and yet you won't let me take possession of your body?"

"Quit your grumbling and check if this urn is good enough. If not, I'll get another one." Yang Ji glanced at him sidelong, hoisting a palm-sized medicine bottle.

"You fiend! Should I stuff what's left of me down your mouth?"

The elder sat collapsed in the large chair, his life fading away, his aging muscles twitching, so angry that he coughed up blood.

"I never imagined that I, Luo Xiong, having schemed my whole life, would end up falling into the hands of a fledgling like you. I kidnapped you when you were young, didn't let you have contact with the outside world, and expected your life to be pure as a blank sheet of paper. How could you be even more cunning than me?"

The elder's face showed signs of illness, his hair white and sparse, his spirit extremely feeble. Coughing up blood, he spoke hatefully while clutching the longsword thrust into his chest.

"Do you have any last words, Master? If not, then please proceed on your way," Yang Ji said indifferently.

"My heart is filled with frustration. I fed you a Gu Insect; how is it that you remain unaffected?" The elder's suppressed resentment came gushing forth as old blood spilled from the corner of his mouth.

"Because... I never ate it," Yang Ji said with a smile.

"Impossible, absolutely impossible! I can sense that the Gu Insect is within you," Luo Xiong said hoarsely and vehemently.

"Oh, are you talking about this one? It sure helped me out by providing a cover."

Yang Ji smiled faintly, producing a green frog from his bosom.

At the moment, it was lying there with bulging, twisted eyes and its long tongue lolling out, its face awash with an unwillingness to die.

"The Gu Insect is inside it? How did you see through it? I fed you medicine pills to aid in your cultivation, and you guarded against me? What a fiend of a disciple you are," Luo Xiong said, beating his chest in despair and brimming with resentment.

All the while, he was also utterly perplexed,

"I've fed you so many medicine pills; how did you accurately identify the one containing the Gu Insect?"

"The medicine pill you gave me had the words 'Gu Insect' written in big letters floating above it. Only a fool would eat it."

Yang Ji gave him a sidelong glance, not hiding his annoyance.

"What did you say? There were words floating above the medicine pill?" Luo Xiong's pupils shrank with puzzlement.

"That's my Golden Finger," Yang Ji said casually.

"What is a Golden Finger?"

"Ah, even if I explained, you wouldn't understand," Yang Ji said, shaking his head.

In truth, he was quite dissatisfied with this Golden Finger. It wasn't like the little green bottle that could cultivate Spiritual Medicine, it didn't have features like lucky draws or daily check-ins, and it could only be used to see some informational displays with his eyes.

When he looked towards the nearby fire, the text "Ordinary fire, remaining burning time: two hours" would appear above it.

If he added some firewood, the informational display would change to "Ordinary fire, remaining burning time: six hours."

Looking at the medicine bottles and herbs on the table, with just a glance, he would see the informational display: "Grade-One Powder for Anesthesia, induces numbness," "Grade-One Hemostatic Powder, stops bleeding," "Thirty-Year Blood Vine, revitalizes blood and generates fluid."

The age, effect, and grade would all be displayed.

Looking up at the sky, "The sky is a bit dim, light rain will fall in two hours."

Gazing at the frog in his hand, "Dead for fifty breaths, death by Gu Insect."

Even when looking at people, similar information was displayed.

Over the past decade or so, the display above Luo Xiong's head kept changing.

"Damaged Foundation," "Despair," "Hope," "Nourishment," "Deception," "Cultivation Dropped, Fifth Layer of Qi Refining," and so on.

This is similar to statuses on WeChat like "Blissful", "Cracking Up", "Seeking Good Luck", "Exhausted", "Lying Flat", and so on.

Having studied these information displays for eighteen years, Yang Ji found that aside from some conveniences, they seemed to offer no other benefits.

But today, his view of his Golden Finger dramatically changed as it helped him to seek good fortune and avoid disasters, turning peril into safety and counteracting Luo Xiong's move.

"You treacherous disciple, as your master, I have always been amiable towards you and hid my emotions very well. How did you know I was planning to seize your body? You actually guarded against me." Luo Xiong said bitterly.

He couldn't fathom how a "blank slate" who'd been "confined" by him for eighteen years and was ignorant of the world's ways could see through his scheme.

"Your head has been bearing the word 'Body Seizing' every day, and I'm not blind. Cheap master, I must say, these years you've truly scared me to death. Just think about it, you've been flaunting the word 'Body Seizing' before me every day, isn't it creepy? Even in broad daylight, it makes me break out in cold sweats."

Yang Ji grinded his teeth as he said this, clearly still frightened.

"The word 'Body Seizing' above my head? Did your damned Golden Finger reveal that too?" Luo Xiong couldn't help but cough up old blood, somewhat angrily.

"Now that things are clear, let's be on our way!" Yang Ji declared with a steady gaze.

"Ah, you treacherous disciple, couldn't you let your master die on his own?"

Seemingly accepting his fate, Luo Xiong sighed deeply, "Ah, I thought I captured a white sheep, but it turned out to be a wolf. It was my misjudgment."

"I have one more question, master. Even if you knew I was aware of your plan to seize my body, how did you know that I was going to act today, after so many years?"

"Your preemptive thrust with your sword really caught me off guard. The timing was just perfect."

Yang Ji glanced at him sidelong and said, "The moment you came in, I saw 'Countdown till doom: Half a stick of incense' floating above your head. If I didn't act first, would I not be a fool?"

"Pfft!"

"It's your Golden Finger again? It really is the enemy of my entire life." Luo Xiong was extremely frustrated, feeling a real surge of blood bursting forth and splattering all over the ground.

He thought his plan was flawless, yet in another's eyes, it appeared as obvious as a maiden running naked.

Not only was he fully exposed, but he was also thoroughly trampled.

A total loss, both wife and soldiers, a real disaster.

"Ah!"

With a deep sigh, Luo Xiong looked up mournfully at his seemingly harmless and handsome disciple and said,

"One last question, master. I never taught you any techniques, so why was your stab at me so fast and accurate? So deadly and fierce?"

Yang Ji chuckled inwardly and casually replied, "Swordsmanship, huh? Where I come from, everyone knows it!"

Before crossing over, he was the man who bought a shark tooth sword in a TikTok live stream.

After leveling three patches of rapeseed fields and hacking through two small woods, he had refined the eighteen basic sword moves to perfection.

Having been in the Cultivation World for eighteen years, spurred on by the word "Body Seizing" above his head, he practiced madly day after day. It wasn't a technique, but it was as good as one.

Now that he had cultivated the way of the immortals and with the aid of spiritual energy, the sword strike he delivered was enormously powerful, breaking through Luo Xiong's protective spiritual energy in one strike.

Of course, the most important reason was that Luo Xiong was already decrepit.

His foundation was severely damaged, and his previous Eighth Layer of Qi Refining had plummeted to the Fifth Layer.

Now, as a fellow Fifth Layer of Qi Refining, Yang Ji naturally wasn't afraid of him.

At this moment, watching the "Countdown till doom: Ten breaths" floating above Luo Xiong's head, memories flashed through his mind, and Yang Ji couldn't help but sigh,

"No matter what, we were master and disciple. If you have any last words, say them quickly."

"Burn a few of your paper figures for your master so I won't be lonely down below," Luo Xiong requested with bulging eyes before lowering his head.

"Humph! That's a request I cannot fulfill, master. But my dao companion might burn a few more for you."

Yang Ji shrugged helplessly and looked at the corpse before him, finally relaxing both in spirit and body.