Xinghai City.
On the athletic field of Third Middle School.
Students in school uniforms formed a long line at the registration booth for the Martial Arts Exam.
A noisy clamor filled the entire field.
They were all holding forms, their faces beaming with youthful smiles.
Eager and enthusiastic...
Not far from them, on a bench by a flowerbed in the middle of the field,
Lin Yi, also in a school uniform, watched them quietly,
a flicker of envy occasionally showing in his eyes.
The Martial Arts Exam.
It was a contest that decided one's fate—the only way to change it.
Passing the exam granted you the right to apply to a Martial Arts University.
This in turn gave you the chance to enter the New District and leave your current life behind.
Otherwise, you could only take the regular college entrance exam.
You'd get into a normal university, graduate, and find a normal job.
You'd live a mediocre life, just like most ordinary people.
Work, get married, raise a family... have kids.
"Lin Yi..."
Suddenly, someone ran toward him.
It was Wei Nan, Lin Yi's classmate, a brawny, well-built guy.
He was over 1.8 meters tall.
He had thick eyebrows, large eyes, bronze skin, and short hair that gave him a masculine, energetic look.
When he reached Lin Yi, he handed him a form.
"Here!"
"Is this... a registration form for the Martial Arts Exam?"
Lin Yi glanced down, his brow furrowing slightly.
Wei Nan sat down beside him and said with a smile, "I just got an extra one from the teacher. Take it home and fill it out!"
Staring at the form, Lin Yi felt a powerful urge to take it.
But he quickly restrained himself.
He shook his head with a smile. "Forget it. You know my situation. I can't afford the 30,000 yuan registration fee."
Wei Nan gave Lin Yi a long, hard look.
This was the main reason Lin Yi hadn't even tried, instead sitting here and waiting forlornly for Wei Nan to finish registering.
The first major hurdle for the Martial Arts Exam was the 30,000 yuan registration fee.
In other words, once you paid, the money was non-refundable, regardless of whether you passed the exam.
For many families, 30,000 yuan might not be a huge sum.
But for Lin Yi... it was an impossible amount.
He thought back to a month ago, when he'd woken up in front of his mother's tombstone.
After absorbing the memories of the body's previous owner, he finally understood his tragic background.
When the original owner was ten, his mother passed away.
Less than three months later, his father, Lin Zhixiong, brought home a strange woman and a boy just two years younger than him. From then on, the warmth in their home vanished.
The original Lin Yi became an outcast in his own family.
In the previous owner's memories, that cold house had never offered a shred of warmth.
Later, Lin Zhixiong began to neglect his biological son completely.
He poured all his resources and money into his other son instead.
Meanwhile, he grew increasingly distant and cold toward Lin Yi.
And pursuing Martial Arts was a money pit.
It didn't just require talent; it required huge sums of money to be poured into it.
Even though Lin Yi had awakened with the ability to see other people's talent traits,
he could see their innate talents through these traits.
He could even plunder them.
But without the backing of money,
he didn't even have the chance to register for the Martial Arts Exam.
At first, he had naively thought he could use the memories from his past life
to take an unconventional path to make money.
Write songs, become a big star?
Or maybe direct movies? Write novels...
He slowly came to realize that none of that would work here.
Making money was harder than eating shit.
Zone 7, Zone 8, and Zone 9 were collectively called the Old District by the people of the New District.
And the people who lived there were known as denizens of the Old District.
This place was once an ancient battlefield between humans and demonic beasts.
It was a residential area built upon the ruins of war.
A great war hundreds of years ago had severely damaged the environment, and resources had gradually become scarce.
Slowly, it devolved into the abandoned Old District.
Violence, crime, bloodshed, and demonic beasts were everywhere.
Death and slaughter shrouded the entire Old District.
Therefore, to escape the terrifying Old District, many families
would sell everything they owned to support their children's way out.
This was the only shortcut to escaping their fate:
passing the Martial Arts Exam to earn the right to enter the New District.
"Don't give up, Lin Yi. Your Martial Arts talent is higher than mine, and your comprehension is better.
Coach Chu himself once said that as long as you work hard, you can definitely get into a Martial Arts University!"
"Do you remember what you told me back when we both got into high school?"
Wei Nan clearly didn't want Lin Yi to give up so easily.
Lin Yi paused for a moment. "What did I say? I forgot."
"Holy shit... you forgot that? You said you were going to leave the Old District, go to a Martial Arts University by yourself, escape your current home, and get away from your own father!"
"What's wrong with you? It's only been two years, and you've forgotten it all? Have you lost all your ambition? What happened to your goals? Your dreams?" Wei Nan said, growing more and more agitated.
Lin Yi shot him a glance and grabbed his backpack from the bench.
He slung it over his shoulder and stood up.
"Without money, ambition and dreams are bullshit!"
"Let's go. It's getting cloudy. It'll probably rain soon."
With that, Lin Yi headed straight for the school gate.
As he passed by other students,
he saw that every one of them was beaming with a happy smile.
Clearly, like Wei Nan, they had just finished registering for the Martial Arts Exam.
Although registering for the exam didn't guarantee entry into the New District,
at least they had cleared the first hurdle.
With a month left before the exam, as long as they had enough talent and worked hard,
getting into a Martial Arts University wasn't an impossible feat.
But 30,000 yuan... that was no small sum in the Old District.
Life here was hard.
Wages were generally low, and unemployment was rampant.
The scarcity of resources in the Old District made it extremely difficult to find a job.
Even if you took the regular college entrance exam and went to a normal university,
it was still hard to find work after graduation.
That's why many people joked that
to survive in the Old District, you had to be like a rat or a cockroach.
Even being able to get by picking through scraps was considered a decent job.
"Lin Yi, there's still a week until registration for the Martial Arts Exam closes!"
"What if I told you about a job that could earn you 30,000 yuan? ...It's just a bit life-threatening. Would you dare?"
Wei Nan said, catching up to him again, his expression growing serious.
Lin Yi froze, a sharp glint in his eyes.
'Life-threatening?'
For people living in the Old District, life was the cheapest thing there was.
If he couldn't escape his current fate and could only resign himself to it,
then what was the difference between living and being dead?
Lin Yi glanced at him. "As long as it makes money, who's afraid of risking their life?"
"Alright. Wait for me at the bus stop downstairs from your apartment at nine tonight.
I'll take you somewhere. You'll understand when we get there!"