Three years ago, Lai Li’an opened his eyes and found himself lying in a stinking ditch.

He struggled to get up, covered in mud, with memories of his previous world still lingering in his mind: overtime work, instant noodles, and endless mortgage payments.

Then, he saw that thing.

A translucent light screen hovered before his eyes, with a few lines of text floating on it:

Lai Li’an stared at the light screen for a long time, slowly digesting a fact: he had transmigrated, and brought a system with him.

Great! I am going to dominate the Cultivation World!

He spent three whole days digesting another fact: this system was complete trash.

Because this thing called “Fantasy Points” had a fatal limitation.

The target had to have a sufficiently clear understanding of “power.” But asking a mortal to imagine how strong a cultivator was, was like asking a frog at the bottom of a well to imagine the vastness of the sky, they couldn’t even grasp the concept. Therefore, he couldn’t even reach the Qi Condensation Stage himself.

Making mortals believe he was a master could, at most, increase his strength a little and make him run a bit faster, but he would never be able to touch true “immortal cultivation.”

For a mortal like him, encountering a cultivator was harder than winning the lottery.

And so, three years passed.

Over these three years, Lai Li’an had traveled through seventeen towns, deceiving countless wandering martial artists, wealthy merchants, local squires, and even a few frauds who called themselves “Half-Immortals.”

Relying on the novels, movies, and TV shows he had seen in his previous life, he packaged himself as a “supreme expert wandering freely through the mortal realm.” Over the past three years, he had developed a poker face that wouldn’t flinch even if Mount Tai collapsed before him, practiced a flawless set of rhetoric, and even tempered his body to be much stronger than an ordinary mortal’s using the meager “Fantasy Gain” he obtained from the system.

But that was all. He was still just a mortal.

He had no Spiritual Root, no Cultivation Base, and couldn’t even achieve the most basic act of drawing Qi into the body.

The only “practical benefit” the system gave him was that whenever someone fully believed in his strength, his physical fitness would receive a slight boost.

Accumulating this over three years, he could now shatter a blue brick with a single punch and travel a hundred miles a day without panting. He could be considered top-tier among mortals, but if he were placed in the Cultivation World, he would probably be beaten to death with a single punch by even the weakest cultivator.

He once felt that he might be the most miserable transmigrator in history.

Until today.

Lai Li’an found the girl on a mountain path. She had fallen from the sky and crashed into the bushes by the roadside.

He was traveling at the time, planning to head to the next town to continue his “acting career,” when a streak of light flashed across the sky, followed immediately by a muffled thud.

Having just hidden himself, Lai Li’an cautiously poked his head out.

It was a girl who looked to be about 18 years old. Her moon-white long dress was now mostly soaked in blood.

But even though she was in such a wretched state, Lai Li’an couldn’t help but gulp the moment he saw her face clearly.

Her features were so exquisite that she didn’t seem real; she looked more like a fairy in a painting, drawn stroke by stroke by a master artist using heaven and earth as paper and spiritual energy as ink.

Her dark eyebrows were as fine as willow leaves. Even though they were slightly furrowed in unconsciousness, they possessed an arc that naturally tugged at the heartstrings.

The few spots of blood on her cheeks only served to accentuate her fair, smooth skin, resembling red plum blossoms fallen upon white porcelain, giving her a breathtaking, fragile beauty.

She was half-leaning against the broken branches of a shrub, her head tilted slightly to one side.

Yet… even though she was clearly heavily injured and on the verge of death, her very presence was like a sheathed divine sword. Even covered in dust and blood, she still instinctively radiated a sense of danger.

This was not an aura a mortal could possess.

This was the transcendence exuding from the very bones of someone who had truly embarked on the immortal path, having been refined day and night by the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.

An immortal cultivator. This was a genuine immortal cultivator!

His heart violently skipped a beat, but three years of hardship allowed him to calm down instantly. He began to observe his surroundings: there were no pursuers, no one else. This girl had fallen straight from the sky.

Lai Li’an took a deep breath and slowly walked out from behind the rock.

Right at this moment, the system panel popped up:

Lai Li’an stared at the panel for three seconds.

A fortuitous encounter! It was finally his turn!

A Foundation Establishment Cultivator, even at Early Foundation Establishment, could easily crush a Peak Qi Condensation cultivator. And now, a cultivator who had once reached Foundation Establishment was lying severely injured right in front of him.

Lai Li’an licked his dry lips. He knew this was an opportunity, but he also knew it was an abyss.

Saving her might draw the enemies pursuing her; not saving her meant he might never encounter another immortal cultivator for the rest of his life.

He crouched down and checked the girl’s breath. She was still breathing, but it was very weak.

The skin around her wounds was faintly black, as if eroded by some sinister power.

Lai Li’an gritted his teeth, took off his outer robe, carefully wrapped it around the girl’s body, and hoisted her onto his back.

“Don’t let my effort to save you go to waste.”

He muttered, walking toward the nearest ruined temple in his memory.

The ruined temple was located at the foot of the mountain. Having been in disrepair for years, its incense offerings had long since ceased.

He had carried the girl on his back for about two hours, and the sky had grown completely dark.

The temple doors hung crookedly, and the courtyard was overgrown with waist-high weeds. Lai Li’an placed the girl on a pile of dry hay, then gathered some firewood from outside the temple to start a fire.

The firelight reflected on the girl’s pale face. Her eyelashes fluttered slightly, as if she were enduring immense pain even in her unconscious state.

Lai Li’an sat by the fire, staring at the girl’s face, his mind racing.

How should he act when she woke up?

The experience he had accumulated over the past three years told him that the more critical the situation, the less he could afford to rush.

The core of all his “performances” came down to one thing: letting the other party use their own imagination.

You couldn’t just outright say, “I’m very strong.” That was too tacky. You had to put on a front, offer a little ambiguous information, and let them fill in the blanks themselves.

Human imagination is the most powerful weapon. They will use their own preconceptions to supplement whatever it is you lack.

Lai Li’an took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and began to rehearse in his mind.

He had to remain detached, composed, and even show a touch of casual indifference, that was the standard demeanor of an unfathomable expert.

Finally, and most importantly, he absolutely had to make her owe him a favor.

Everything depended on tonight.