"Huh?"
"Where am I?"
With a low groan, Ye Mo sat up from the bed and began looking around.
Wooden roofs and wooden floors with ancient designs stretched into his view. The room was filled with finely crafted wooden furniture, simple yet elegant.
"I don't see anything modern here…"
"Did I… travel through?"
Just a few seconds ago, he had been lying in his room, reading a novel and cursing the author for his terrible writing.
"I guess this is retribution for all the cursing I did."
"No matter. Let's first see what kind of world I've landed in."
From what he could tell so far, this felt like a martial arts world—or perhaps a fantasy world filled with immortals.
"A world where cultivators can split mountains with a sword or shatter them with a single punch?"
"I just hope that even if it's an immortal world, it isn't too dangerous."
"I also hope I have a decent background here… something that can help me rise without too many problems."
But even before finishing that thought, Ye Mo laughed bitterly.
"But do I really have such good luck?"
"I don't think so."
Just as Ye Mo was murmuring to himself—
A sharp pain suddenly exploded in his head.
"Ahhh!"
"What's this?!"
"Why is everything happening to me today?!"
"Why do I have such bad luck?!"
Fragments of memories surged into his mind like a flood.
"Are these… the memories of this body?"
"Huh… so I really did travel into a cultivation world."
A few moments later—
After sorting through the memories, Ye Mo finally understood the situation.
This body didn't originally belong to him. It belonged to another Ye Mo, someone born in this world.
This world was called the Taixuan Realm, a vast cultivation world beyond imagination.
From the memories, Ye Mo learned that the realm was so enormous that even the original owner of this body had no idea how vast it truly was.
All he knew was that he currently lived in the Tianfeng Kingdom, a massive nation.
If compared to Ye Mo's original world, the Tianfeng Kingdom alone was larger than the entire Earth.
Within the Tianfeng Kingdom was Tianxuan City, the city Ye Mo was currently living in.
Just from these memories, Ye Mo could tell that this world was unbelievably vast—so vast that it would be impossible for an ordinary human to travel across the entire kingdom in their lifetime.
The memories also revealed that living immortals truly existed in this world—cultivators who pursued immortality.
However, these cultivators usually stayed away from ordinary people and only stepped in when absolutely necessary.
If someone wanted to meet cultivators, they would have to visit a cultivation sect.
The closest one was the Tianxuan Sect, located about five hundred miles away. It was the largest sect in the surrounding region, and Tianxuan City itself was named after it.
"If a sect is this close…"
"Then I might actually have a chance to cultivate."
"Destroy mountains… fly through the skies…"
Ye Mo felt a trace of excitement.
But that excitement quickly faded.
The Tianxuan Sect only held its assessment once a year.
The last assessment had already passed a few months ago. If Ye Mo wanted to participate, he would have to wait many more months.
"That's troublesome…"
And then—
The darker memories surfaced.
A few days ago, the original Ye Mo's parents had disappeared.
Soon after, the truth spread quietly through the city.
They had been killed by a cultivator.
Ye Mo's father had been a capable businessman, managing the Ye Chamber of Commerce in Tianxuan City.
It had once been one of the four great chambers of commerce in the city and the main source of income for the Ye family.
It was the family's lifeline.
And now—
That lifeline was gone.
After the deaths of Ye Mo's parents, the Ye Chamber of Commerce collapsed almost immediately.
Without its leaders and without any real backing, partners withdrew, suppliers cut ties, and shops were forced to close one after another.
Within days, the Ye Chamber of Commerce was reduced to an empty shell.
In Tianxuan City, there were four great merchant families: Wei, Xu, Cheng, and Ye.
These four families controlled nearly all the economic power of the city.
In the cultivation world, wealth without strength was meaningless.
The other three families all had deep foundations and long-standing ties with cultivators. Some of their members even worked within the Tianxuan Sect.
The Ye family, however, lacked such backing.
Ye Mo's father knew how to make money—but he didn't have the power to protect it.
Because of this, he had hired an external cultivator to act as an elder for the Ye Chamber of Commerce.
That cultivator was Ye Fei, a lone practitioner who had reached the fifth layer of the Qi Refining Realm through a cultivation manual he obtained by chance.
In exchange for generous offerings, Ye Fei agreed to protect the Ye Chamber of Commerce.
But when real trouble came—
Ye Fei didn't stay.
After Ye Mo's parents died, Ye Fei quietly took what he could and left Tianxuan City.
Some said he fled in fear.
Some said he went to seek shelter under another force.
To Ye Mo, it didn't matter.
A hired cultivator who chose survival over loyalty wasn't worth remembering.
At best, Ye Fei was nothing more than a minor obstacle on the road ahead.
What truly mattered was this—
With the Ye family fallen, the Wei, Xu, and Cheng families moved openly.
They seized shops, swallowed trade routes, and divided the remains of the Ye Chamber of Commerce among themselves.
In a short time, the Ye family fell from one of Tianxuan City's four great merchant powers to a complete nobody.
Ye Mo slowly clenched his fists.
"So this is the cultivation world…"
"Without power, wealth is just prey."
He took a deep breath, his gaze steady.
"If I want to survive…"
"If I want to rebuild the Ye Chamber of Commerce…"
"Then I must obtain power first."
And this—
Was only the beginning.
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