The headlights approached...
It was Truck-kun.
He was getting urged to hurry up by the author so they could get on with the story and not waste the reader's precious time...
An Old Man. It was his 101st birthday, and he was crossing the street in ragged clothing after ingesting his last packet of expired instant noodles. Raw. Dry. No water-based lubrication whatsoever.
Ok, I suppose we do need to provide some more context.
___
La Ji was trash. So trash… that the trash of the trash… would still consider him as utter trash.
___
Strength: -1 000 000 000 000...
Charm: -1 000 000 000 000...
Intelligence: -1 000 000 000 000...
Overall Rating: ZZZ-------
___
The numbers were so low that even a supercomputer could not calculate them to completion, since they were an infinite exponential.
No way! The esteemed readers, all of them extremely good looking and talented people, and who demonstrated their immaculate taste in choosing to read this novel, were finding it difficult to comprehend.
"Ok, ngl, that sounds pretty bad."
"ZZZ-------- ... bruh... 💀💀💀"
"But... how could someone be so trash?"
"Like, what would that even look like?"
These were all valid points, so the author of this novel, tasked with narrating the story of La Ji's rise to greatness, attempted to explain...
Ok, well it was really hard to explain, but we would still try.
Firstly, his face was... extremely punchable.
Like, really obnoxious. There are people who have punchable faces because they do bad things, but La Ji had such a face even when he was in his best condition, and not doing anything.
It was so bad that in the imaginary future adaptations, his actual face was pixelated, and when he turned around and just said "Hi", the air was filled with screaming of people who were throwing up and going into shock, with emergency sirens sounding and lights flashing, signalling a mass evacuation of the premises.
It was a face that just made people filled with loathing, they couldn't exactly describe or explain why, it was like finding a hair in your soup or a piece of yellow corn in your... well whatever rhymes with soup i guess 💀💀💀.
But whilst the latter at least possessed some kind of... fibre to their being, the same could not be said for La Ji, who did not have an ounce of moral fibre at all. In short, he was utterly shameless, and not in the good way.
For example, he loved to steal candy from babies.
It was a way to sweeten and sugarcoat his bitter life, venting his frustration about being trash on those that couldn't fight back.
Except that sometimes, he would even fail at that, since his strength was so low, sometimes the babies would have a stronger grip strength than him, and more often than not, he would be forced to make a tactical retreat.
It wasn't that he didn't want to succeed. He in fact had 4 goals. He wanted to be a rich CEO. He wanted to be a top professional gamer. He wanted to be a Rizzmaster. And he wanted to be an Aura-Farming Badass also known as AFB.
He was particularly inspired in fact after reading an extremely popular book, basically a cult classic at that point, by the name of Rizzmaster: The Adventures of Bob. Upon reading this, he became inspired. He too wanted to become successful like Bob!
Sadly, reality can be cruel. Despite his best efforts, his skills were same-same, his thoughts tame… and his results lame.
It got to the point that he became a liability just by being breathing and being around other people - he was basically a walking and talking stat decreaser, becoming known as a jinx or bad luck charm that lowered everyone's aura just by being within a 50m radius.
Understandably, it all compounded, and after several decades of failure. La Ji decided it would be best if he retired and didn't cause more problems, since he was shunned by society, to fill the wastepaper basket of his trashy existence with instant noodles and H*ntai.
___
It was now his 101st birthday. La Ji was of course this old man. Unbelievably, La Ji had managed to live to this incredible age, which maximised his Trash Aura on the standings of Trashiest existence ever.
"If this is my destiny... so be it!!! I will become... the King of Trash!!!" He shook his fist and declared to the Heavens.
___
Fortunately, this wasn't the kind of novel where you read about a guy collecting trash and becoming OP.
Truck-kun arrived, except that this time, he alone wasn't enough. He had finished off 10 000 000 000 000s of edgy heroes and beautiful heroines, MCs and NPCs alike, but in order to deal with La Ji, due to his exceptional trash quality… well this required him to bring in the big guns.
Lorry-kun, Car-kun, Bus-kun, Helicopter-kun, Plane-kun, you name it, the entire family showed up, and in a catastrophic collision, where he was aesthetically slammed from
vehicle to vehicle alongside poignant classical music and wearing somehow a look of relief, respite and bliss, La Ji was finally, mercifully, killed.
At last.
His Trashy existence was over.
___
It was a record.
In the Afterlife, The Divine Power was amazed as they stroked their beard.
They had never in their eons ever witnessed such a display of trash-ness.
La Ji had set a new all time record, living for 101 years as utter trash.
His Trash Index was No. 1 in all the lands of Anti-Cultivation.
"The King of Trash".
It was an ungodly talent, an ungodly title.
And, in fact, also a tragedy.
What Heaven takes away on one hand, Heaven also provides on the other.
In truth, La Ji's Trash-ness had in fact been a Heavenly Restriction, designed to nerf him from being too OP, because he had in fact been born with the legendary Trash-to-Treasure Gene.
That's right. All it would have taken was someone to give him a chance, to believe in him, and his road to immortality would have begun, for his potential, was in fact, limitless.
The Divine One shook their head. Unbelievable.
What an absolute waste.
What exactly are we to do with La Ji?! They thought to themselves.
Actions in life mattered.
Since he had performed so poorly in his life, he was currently relegated to reincarnating as a louse… in unwashed hair.
And no, not the hair on his head.
At the same time though, it really was a pity.
La Ji had definitely tried, but in the end, his hidden talent required others to also give him a chance, a Chance which never materialised due to the very nature of his talent itself. What to do?
The Divine One drummed their fingers thinking things through for a moment, before coming to a decision.
"All right… Let's see what he has to say for himself…"
"Bring him in!"