He Lu was a sad, broken man. He lived his life as a sad, broken man, and he died as one.
Fortunately for me, his soul vacated the premises right around the same time I achieved a heaven-defying death by Snu-Snu back on Earth. I went out like a champion, smothered under the glorious, suffocating weight of a Latina entrepreneur whose primary business model was selling her bodily fluids on the internet. Which, honestly, makes fantastic financial sense.
Waking up reincarnated in He Lu's malnourished body was absolutely not at the top of my to-do list. My actual bucket list consisted of three things: sniffing the post-workout armpits of Violet Myers, experiencing the legendary "Party Pack" at that one Soapland in Korea where you and your countrymen get serviced in a hallway together, and eating some overpriced brisket at Franklin BBQ.
Instead, I was here.
The original He Lu was chronically depressed mostly because he lacked the financial liquidity to procure primo, high-tier assets to sniff. He lived in a leaky, abandoned cottage high up on a mountain. And he lived with a goat.
I really, really hope the goat was just a roommate. Ever since I woke up screaming in this body, the scruffy brown bastard has been giving me these weird, expectant, cross-eyed looks. I swear to God, if this animal licks my toe one more time, I am going to lose my mind. I am not catching a bestiality charge on day one. I will never beat the goat-humper allegations.
To make matters worse, this was a cultivation world—a place where people shattered mountains and lived for centuries. He Lu had done none of that. He had never even ignited his Dantian. I should probably do a deep-dive exposition right now to explain the intricate, mystical inner workings of this world's power system, but to be perfectly honest, I am not done freaking out yet.
The room was a disaster. The roof was actively leaking from a recent storm, and my new body felt like it was made of wet paper. At least I still had hair, even if it was cut aggressively short.
The first port of call in any transmigration scenario is crucial. It establishes exactly what kind of protagonist you are going to be. Most people in my situation would immediately sit in the lotus position to gather ambient Qi, desperately search for a hidden martial arts manual, or head to the nearest village for information.
Me? I was going to jerk it.
I needed to run a full system diagnostic. I had to know if the bells and whistles on this new meat-suit were functional, or if I needed to find a sturdy rope and a rafter immediately.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and grabbed my newly acquired schlong at the base.
A few experimental strokes yielded zero results. Size-wise, it was acceptable. Standard-issue equipment, two balls attached. But sadly, no ignition.
Okay, I thought, trying not to panic. Maybe the hardware just needs some premium software to boot up.
I closed my eyes tighter and summoned my strongest earthly memories. I visualized that Korean baddie in the Macau casino hotel. I remembered the absolute, heaven-defying localized friction of her premium VIP service. The feeling of her wet fingers executing a flawless, practiced motion, her hot breath on the base, the sloppy, devastating technique she deployed...
Boom. Oh yes. We had Yang-Root ignition. The equipment was fully operational.
I opened my eyes, letting out a massive sigh of relief.
The goat was standing two inches from my face.
It was staring directly at me, its rectangular pupils completely unbothered, looking at me with an expression of mild, expectant curiosity.
Is this goat trained for moral support when He Lu jerks it?! "Get away from me!" I yelled, violently shoving the goat aside and scrambling off the miserable straw bed.
I walked toward the rotting wooden door and pushed it open. The storm had just passed. I looked around the muddy yard. There wasn't much of value—a small stone well, an empty chicken coop, and a run-down dirt path winding down the mountain.
But at the bottom of that mountain, sprawling out to the horizon, was a massive, densely populated ancient city.
A slow, degenerate smile spread across my face.
The hardware worked. The city was full of people. The next logical step was obvious: I needed to go down there, audit the local hooker economy, and figure out exactly how much money I needed to extort from this cultivation world to afford the premium tier.