Cangnan Continent, An Kingdom, Southern Capital City.

It was deep in the night, yet the sky was far from peaceful.

Thick black clouds churned and rolled, while gusts of fierce wind swept unrestrained from the heavens toward the earth. Through gaps in the dense cloud cover, serpentine lightning writhed with sharp hissing sounds, occasionally illuminating the edges of dark clouds with white flashes—as if gathering violent energy, waiting at any moment to deliver a strike of terrifying power.

Suddenly, a point of golden light appeared from a gap in the center of the clouds, shooting straight down toward the ground.

That golden light—more accurately, a golden ray—was incredibly fine and astonishingly fast.

In the blink of an eye, the golden ray tore through the night sky and fell into the densely packed residential buildings of An Kingdom’s Southern Capital City, then vanished without another trace.

The wind blew. That massive dense cloud layer dissolved and dispersed at a visible rate, revealing a night sky like black curtain and an extraordinarily large bright moon.

“Boom!”

After drifting in chaos for who knows how long, Ye Kong felt a thunderclap explode in the depths of his soul. In an instant, he regained consciousness.

He’d been unconscious too long. His mind still wasn’t quite clear, his thoughts still flickering with that little girl’s face, then transforming into the gang boss’s face…

Careful! Danger!

Ye Kong’s heart suddenly tensed—a sense of danger washed over him.

He saw a white sphere of light. Ye Kong didn’t know what this was, but he could clearly sense the sphere’s fury. It harbored intense hatred toward him, aggressive and reckless.

How could a sphere of light have emotions?

Ye Kong had no time to think. Seeing that sphere viciously lunging at him, fear still rose in his heart. In his haste, he only wanted to flee.

Wait a minute—I’m a damn hooligan! I’m a hooligan, who should I be afraid of? Ye Kong stopped abruptly.

When he examined himself again, he couldn’t help but laugh. It turned out he too had become a white sphere of light, except… he was several times larger than the attacking sphere.

That opposing sphere was not only small, but gave off a very weak impression. The sphere’s brightness was quite dim too.

“Damn it, what are you being fierce about? I’m several times bigger than you—you think I’m scared?” Ye Kong instinctively charged at the small sphere too.

That small sphere was just bluffing. Originally it only wanted to drive out the foreign invader, but now seeing Ye Kong counterattack with full force, its momentum instantly weakened. It turned to flee while transmitting a pleading consciousness.

Ye Kong couldn’t care about the other’s pleading. In his consciousness there was only one voice from instinct.

“It’s you or me—only by destroying him can I survive!” Ye Kong lunged forward without [noodles]hesitation. The large sphere easily enveloped the small sphere. The small sphere struggled twice, then was slowly dissolved by the large sphere…

Soon, only the large sphere representing Ye Kong remained in that space, floating freely about.

“So this is the legendary soul seizure?”

About an hour later, Ye Kong finally truly awoke. He had a body—a new body. And the original owner of this body had been completely devoured by Ye Kong in the battle of the spheres.

The small sphere he’d seen during the soul seizure process—that was the original owner of this body, the soul of a twelve-year-old boy.

“Only twelve years old—what a sin.” Ye Kong couldn’t help but sigh. Though the blade drew no blood, in truth, he’d done the same as killing a young boy.

Though he was a hooligan, he wasn’t a murderer. Who’d have thought that upon arriving in this world, he’d killed an innocent soul with no grievance or enmity… But even if he could do it over, he wouldn’t change his actions. After all, he was just a hooligan—not noble enough to sacrifice himself for a strange boy from another world.

Ye Kong hadn’t just eaten the boy’s soul clean—he’d also digested some residual memories from within the boy’s soul.

The boy’s memories were somewhat fragmented, but through those scattered memory fragments, Ye Kong gained some understanding of the world he’d arrived in.

This continent was called Cangnan Continent. He was in one of countless nations on the continent: An Kingdom. The civilization of this continent… was roughly equivalent to ancient China on Earth.

However, the language was different. Fortunately, Ye Kong had inherited the language from the boy’s thoughts, so he didn’t need to worry about communication problems. Only the written language—the boy didn’t recognize a single character, so Ye Kong would have to learn it himself later. Honestly, the information obtained was rather scant. What was strange was that a twelve-year-old child should know quite a bit. On Earth, that would be a fourth-grade elementary student—even if hopeless, he wouldn’t fail to recognize a single character, right?

Could this be a child from a poor family who couldn’t afford school?

When Ye Kong searched the boy’s memories for identity information, he discovered it wasn’t like that at all. In fact, it was quite the opposite—the boy’s family wasn’t just ordinarily powerful and influential.

This was actually the Manor of the General Who Pacifies the South, and the boy’s father was An Kingdom’s General Who Pacifies the South. As for his name, the boy didn’t know that either.

“What a confused little brat—doesn’t even know what his old man’s name is.” Ye Kong smiled and continued.

Though the boy didn’t know his father’s given name, the surname Ye was certain, because this boy was also called Ye Kong. They shared the exact same name! This made Ye Kong marvel—it seemed his arrival at this strange place was arranged by fate. Otherwise, how could it be such a coincidence?

As for more information, the boy couldn’t provide any. However, deep in the boy’s consciousness were three thoughts—three extremely strong thoughts. Calling them obsessions wouldn’t be excessive.

First: In this world, only Mother treats me best. When I grow up, I must let her eat well and dress well.

“A filial son indeed.” Ye Kong nodded with a smile. In his previous life he’d been an orphan, never experiencing the warmth of family or a mother. Now having gained a mother gave him some comfort. However, he soon couldn’t smile anymore.

The boy’s second obsession: Why don’t Father and those half-brothers like me?

“Hmm, seems his popularity wasn’t great.”

Third obsession: I’m not an idiot!!!

“Are you kidding me! If you’re not an idiot, how come you don’t even know your father’s name?” Ye Kong was going crazy. As if transmigration wasn’t bad enough, as if transmigrating to another world wasn’t bad enough—how did he end visit our site up seizing an idiot’s body? Heavens! You don’t play with people like this!

But instantly, another thought occurred to Ye Kong—could an idiot’s memories be trusted? Who knows if this idiot just read too many fantasy novels? Supposedly, crazy people all love making up stories in their heads.

Ye Kong’s spirits lifted, but immediately he rejected this notion, because he sensed this place was different from Earth. How different?

The air was different!

On Earth, could you feel the existence of air? No. At most you could only experience and distinguish whether air was fresh or polluted.

But here, Ye Kong could sense the air so clearly. The air here was very dense and thick—countless times more than Earth’s. That feeling was indescribable, not quite comfortable, not quite used to it—like someone accustomed to drinking plain boiled water suddenly switching to sesame paste.

More importantly, he could actually sense several different auras from the air he breathed into his nose.

“Could this be spiritual energy?” Ye Kong had read a few cultivation novels, and his heart leaped with joy.

Everyone on Earth knew—if there’s spiritual energy, you can cultivate immortality!

“Never mind, let’s go out and look—see if this really is another world.” At this moment, Ye Kong still didn’t dare confirm he’d reached another world. He stumbled off the bed, passed through a room furnished with worn furniture, and pulled open the mottled double-leaf latticed door…

“Wow! What a huge moon!” The moment Ye Kong opened the door, he was scared half to death by the moon hanging in the sky like a giant round table.

“It’s over, it’s over—looks like I really did come to another world.” Ye Kong gazed up at the extraordinarily large and bright moon in the sky, slowly walking to the center of the small courtyard stolen content , bathing his thin body in the brilliant silver radiance.

“That girl surnamed Zhao—I only collected three hundred yuan in protection money from you! One palm strike sends me to another world… Did you really need to be so vicious?!” In the quiet little courtyard, a heart-wrenching howl suddenly rang out.

The moon here was so round, the night here so still. Yet this helpless cry startled quite a few people still awake.

Chen Jiuniang had just finished her sewing work and blown out the lamp, about to lift the bed curtain to sleep, when she heard her son’s cry. Not knowing what had happened, she quickly walked with mincing steps to the door and pulled it open.

However, she didn’t run out. In the moonlight, her son’s thin body appeared even more frail, and that sorrowful lament to the heavens—an inexplicable bitterness welled up from the bottom of her heart. She half-leaned against the door, and in the darkness, two glistening teardrops rolled down.

“If I committed sins in my past life, then punish me, Heavenly Lord—why must you treat Kong’er this way…” Chen Jiuniang thought to herself, wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes, and went back into her room to fetch a slightly thicker garment.

When she walked to the door again, she wiped her face once more, afraid of letting her son see her tears. Though her son was foolish, he was very filial.

“Kong’er, did you have a nightmare? Shouting randomly in the middle of the night disturbs others—that’s not good. Kong’er is a good child, come back inside and sleep.” Chen Jiuniang walked behind Ye Kong and draped a garment over her son’s thin body.

Ye Kong let out a breath and smiled bitterly. On Earth he was already in his twenties—this kind of coaxing tone used for children made him extremely uncomfortable.

“Mom—oh, wait, I mean Mother…” Ye Kong had thought this word “mother” would be hard to say, but actually saying it aloud didn’t seem so difficult.

However, when he turned his head, he was still stunned into shock.

Good heavens! This is my mother? Person or ghost? Chen Jiuniang’s face was very strange—one ​stolen content​could even say horrifying.

In Earth terms, it was a yin-yang face. Looking from the right side of her face, she was still a delicate and graceful beauty. But if you looked from her left side…

That face would absolutely scare you into sleepless nights. Half the face was covered by a large black scar, black with hints of red, red with a few hairs—in short, like a yaksha demon or evil ghost.

And Ye Kong happened to be standing on Chen Jiuniang’s left side.

Good heavens! No wonder they said Father and others didn’t like this Ye Kong!

Being an idiot was bad enough! But to also have a two-faced mother!

Heavens oh heavens! Who did I offend to be transmigrated into such a family! Excuse me, where can I buy a return ticket?

Discovering her son staring rudely at her face, Chen Jiuniang hastily covered her face with her hand, lowering her head to dodge. “Kong’er, Mother… Mother… scared you…”

Chen Jiuniang didn’t blame her son for finding her ugly. She was a very insecure person. Even her own son was scared by her—she wished she could dig a hole and bury herself.

“Oh, no, no.” Ye Kong came to his senses and quickly waved his hands.

Though he had no real feelings for this convenient mother, after all he’d just extinguished her son—to cruelly crush this pitiful woman’s meager remaining self-respect was something Ye Kong couldn’t do.

He quickly withdrew his horrified gaze, his expression returning to normal, and said with a grin: “Mother, don’t mind it. I… didn’t mean anything else. A son doesn’t despise his mother’s looks, just as a dog doesn’t despise its home’s poverty. Besides, what’s this compared to others—there are plenty uglier than you…” After Ye Kong finished speaking, he felt it was visit our sitewrong and quickly corrected himself. “No! I mean Mother, you’re not ugly—you’re actually quite beautiful…”

Thinking again, this didn’t seem right either. How could this appearance be called beautiful? Wasn’t this clearly mocking someone?

“Mother, this… being a bit ugly doesn’t matter. As they say, an ugly wife is a household treasure, while a beautiful wife runs off with others. Others get to play around a lot, you get to play very little…”

Chen Jiuniang felt ready to faint hearing these words. Was this really her son? Her foolish son usually couldn’t even speak smoothly—how did he become so fluent today?

One saying after another—good heavens, he even knows about “others playing around a lot, you playing very little”?

Could it be… he’s not foolish anymore?