1 He Who Was Banished

The practice of martial art was all the rage in Cloudveil Continent. Masters were able to cut mountains and shatter rocks with ease, while Mystic Masters were even able to walk in mid-air, overturn seas and rivers, and do almost everything!

It was a world that revered power—power was the ultimate deciding factor and the weak would be humiliated through bullying!

The bloodline determined the level of a person's power and the strength of their bloodsoul 1was what martial practitioners called 'the second soul'!

Everyone's bloodsoul was different. Undeniably, those who had stronger bloodsoul had the potential to reach greater heights. They were more likely to become Masters2 and perhaps even a Mystic Master3!

…

Jiangnan Circuit, Wu Prefecture City.

Li Ye scratched his head and gazed into the similar-looking sky. Everything else, however, was different.

The sky was the same shade of blue, but compared to his memory of things, it was much duskier throughout the day. It was stifling as if the entire day was enveloped in a thick fog.

"Okay then, looks like I've transmigrated."

A bitter smile crept across his face. He seemed to rejoice, but, it was an odd expression that he had. Like a scene from face-changing opera, Li Ye was unable to describe his feelings.

Transmigrating was such a bombastic and trendy term. Li Ye never expected himself to experience the occurrence that only appeared in novels and movies.

Indeed, Li Ye transmigrated and was now at a world that appeared foreign but incredibly familiar at the same time.

Silently, he rejoiced in that he had transmigrated instead of dying.

Li Ye was an orphan. In an era where many relied on their father's wealth to get ahead, Li Ye achieved nothing after he graduated. On the way home one night, he did not expect to run into an incredibly beautiful woman. With the help of some Dutch courage, he went up to flirt with her but was startled to see a pair of sharp fangs tucked inside her blood-red lips.

"Ah, a vampire. Well, since transmigrating is real, I suppose it's not weird at all that vampires exist."

He touched his own neck, but the bite mark would have disappeared by then. At that point, he had transmigrated into the body of a young lad who bore the same name and surname as he did.

In Wu Prefecture City's Jiangnan Circuit, he was inside a sixteen-year-old boy who was also named Li Ye.

In layman's terms, it was his soul that transmigrated.

With the amalgamation of his own memories and that of the new body's, Li Ye was more or less able to understand what happened.

Cloudveil Continent was the name of the world he was in. No one knew how big Cloudveil Continent was or how many countries even existed there. The only thing he knew was that Cloudveil Continent's people revered the Martial Way and were devoted to practicing it. Its customs were far more grueling than what Li Ye was familiar with on Earth.

The simplest comparison would be how the place resembled some worlds he once read in Wuxia novels. The Masters in that world were much more frightening if they reached a certain level through training. Leaping onto roofs and vaulting over walls were skills that every junior practitioner had, but some Masters could even break a mountain peak with their fists!

Legends of shattering the void and roaming the Nine Heavens were very much a reality there.

Nevertheless, the martial practitioners of that world were focused mainly on cultivating their bloodsoul. That so-called 'bloodsoul' originated from a person's blood and cultivating it to its zenith would bring about a change in the blood's color. According to some, one would be the equivalent of a divine being if the color of one's blood turned a bright gold color.

He bit down slightly on his fingertip and drew blood. Sadly for him, the liquid flowing out was an all-too-familiar blood-red color.

"Okay then. Looks like my fate isn't that of the main character's."

Just as Li Ye was about to continue questioning the bloodsoul, a soft voice was heard from outside the door. At exactly the same moment he looked up, someone pushed the door open and came in. It was a twenty or thirty-year-old beautiful woman. The woman, whose age was undeterminable, looked at him in a somewhat chastising manner.

"Aunt Yun."

Li Ye was mesmerized by the woman as soon as he laid eyes on her. The beauty before him was much more gorgeous than any of the movie stars of internet personalities found in his previous world. Compared to the excessive makeup on those female celebrities and the frequent photo-editing of photographs, the woman before him was beautifully elegant notwithstanding the lack of any cosmetics. Her beauty was innate, like a fairy that walked out of a dream.

The next second, however, he bit the tip of his tongue to snap himself back. The memories he had in his mind allowed him to know that the stunningly beautiful woman in front of her was not someone he could fantasize sexually. She was his maternal aunt, analogous to an adoptive mother.

"Child! Your body isn't well yet. Why are you up?"

The beautiful woman rolled her eyes in rebuke after seeing Li Ye sitting at the edge of the bed. She closed the door behind her and walked to the bed. Then, as if completely disregarding their difference in sex, she sat down. At the same time, she looked at him with a loving gaze and began massaging Li Ye's head.

"Ye'er, your father's not here and Aunt Yun didn't take care of you properly. You can't let emotions affect your decision-making like last time, you hear me? If that happens again, Aunt Yun will get angry for real!"

Li Ye rubbed his nose and chuckled bitterly. "I know, Aunt Yun. I'll be more careful next time."

As Li Ye lowered his head, his stilted gaze shifted across the woman's voluptuous physique. The burning passion within him made him almost unable to control himself but he still suppressed it.

Perhaps, as a result of two souls merging, deep down in his heart, he had feelings of dependence toward the woman before him due to all the care she showered onto him for so many years. He thus ceased all thoughts of profaning her.

Seeing Li Ye hanging his head low in silence, the beautiful woman seemed to have thought of something. A bitter smile appeared on her beautiful face.

"Ye'er, Aunt Yun knows of your discontent. You've been waiting to go back all these years, but you know how your body is. Don't go anymore because it'll only cause you more injury."

Once she completed her sentence, she added on with some resentfulness, "And that person as well! He just left you here and there has been no news about him for so many years! Shameful for a father!"

The 'he' mentioned by the beautiful woman was known immediately after Li Ye pondered for a brief moment.

It was Li Kainian, the father of Li Ye's current body. In the same vein, Li Ye himself was a member of one of Jiangnan Circuit's Three Great Clans. He was the Li clan's direct descendent, so much so that he should hierarchically be known as the Li clan's Third Young Master!

His father, Li Kainian, was the Li clan's patriarch!

Li Ye could even be said to be fully deserving of being Wu Prefecture City's playboy and local tyrant but he knew that he was not. He was also entirely aware that the Li clan's Third Young Master would have been dead for good if not for his transmigrating!

Strictly speaking, that Third Young Master was already dead since the present inhabitant of that person's body was a different soul altogether.

At that precise moment, the room he was at indicated nothing remotely like that of a great clan's luxuriance. In fact, the bareness of the room reached a poverty-like degree.

"Aunt Yun, I know what I should do."

His memories told him that the supposed 'Li clan's Third Young Master' did not have the grandiosity of a young master. On the contrary, it was dire straits through and through. As to why it turned out that way, the starting point of everything was in his father.

The Li clan was one of the Three Great Clans in Wu Prefecture City and had nearly a thousand years of history to them. Rumor had it that the Li clan's founding forefather was one of the high-ranked Masters in Cloudveil Continent, although it was unclear as to how powerful he really was. To put it bluntly, he was an all-powerful person.

For nearly a hundred years, Li Kainian was one of the most gifted people to appear in the Li clan. It was a pity that he disappeared under mysterious circumstances, leaving behind only a child—Li Ye.

It would not have been a big deal if things were as simple as that since a great clan like theirs had ample means of caring for someone. On account of Li Kainian's position as the head of the household, no one would want to make things difficult for him.

The problem was in Li Ye—he was a weak-bodied and illness-prone boy ever since he was little. Even when he reached thirteen years of age, he failed to awaken the bloodline within him and subsequently allow his bloodsoul to manifest. It was concluded that he would be unable to cultivate for the entirety of his life—he could only be an ordinary person.

Li Ye was chased out of the clan when he was thirteen. If it was not for Aunt Yun's fostering and nurturing, he would have died of starvation on the streets.

As one of Wu Prefecture City's great clans, millenniums of continued tradition produced an innumerable amount of clan members—too many to count. Along the way, those who were not gifted or had limited talent were chased out from the clan to safeguard the clan's continued development.

People in Cloudveil Continent valued the passing on of bloodlines. If the earlier generation had a strong bloodline, their descendants would be able to begin cultivation at a much earlier age. The level of one's innate talent had a direct correlation with the strength of their bloodline and the quality of their bloodsoul.

For someone like Li Ye—a useless being incapable of cultivation—no clan would keep him even if he was the son of their patriarch!

The disowned Li Ye did not simply give up, of course. Cloudveil Continent's populace respected the Martial Way, with everyone knowing full well that strength was king in that world. Unfortunately, three years passed and he was still unable to manifest his bloodsoul. Every single time he went back to the Li clan, other clan members would deride him, even to the extent of humiliating him by beating him as they pleased.

It was the same on the most recent occasion. Since he was naturally weak, the brutal beating made him breathe his last breath and that was certainly the best position that they could put him in.

"Ye'er, Aunt Yun understands you. You're a person who wouldn't turn around even if you hit a brick wall. Aunt Yun just hopes that you can be safe and sound without asking for more. Even if the Li clan doesn't want you, Aunt Yun will never abandon you."

It was evident that the beautiful woman, despite not being his birth mother, loved and cared for him much more than a mother would.

Was Li Ye content with being a normal person? He was unsuccessful in his former world because it was the norm to rely on one's own father to get ahead, so was he still going to be a total failure after transmigrating?

"Aunt Yun, I understand."

Some brief exchanges later, the beautiful woman left Li Ye to continue recuperating in peace.

Once she left, however, Li Ye crawled up spiritedly from the bed.

"Logically speaking, I've already transmigrated, so the least that should've been given is some amazing gift or superpower, right?"

Li Ye was particularly concerned about the state of his current body because it would be a real bummer if it was actually useless.

He touched his neck but there were no bite marks. Laughing at himself, he wondered whether people in that world would crucify him if he became a vampire.

Disappointment was just about to sink in when a sudden surge appeared from within his body. Feeling dry in his mouth and tongue, a parched heat rushed forth instantly from his core.

Coincidentally, Li Ye's gaze shifted unwittingly to the mirror in his room. What he saw was a red-eyed face that had two sharp fangs protruding out from the mouth.

…