Chapter Two: The Supreme Golden Core

Yang Mo was startled as well and hurriedly cried out, “Let go of him, do you know who he is?”

“I don’t know, nor do I need to,” Lin Yi replied. With a flick of his arm, Wang Hongquan staggered backwards several steps and landed flat on the floor with a thud.

“How dare you hit me!” Wang Hongquan roared in rage. The pain in his body was nothing compared to the humiliation he felt. Good news rarely travels far, but bad news spreads like wildfire—he was certain that, within half an hour, word of him being beaten would circulate throughout his social circle.

“And why wouldn’t I dare?” Lin Yi shot back, then continued, “I’ll give you three seconds. Disappear from my sight, or you can say goodbye to your other arm.”

Wang Hongquan’s expression shifted again. After all, he was a department manager at Linda Corporation, yet here he was, being threatened by an unknown nobody.

This wasn’t just losing face; it was having his dignity trampled into the dirt.

“Fine, very well,” Wang Hongquan spat out, anger contorting his features into a twisted smile. Now he understood: this kid was either a fool or reckless beyond reason—how else could he be so arrogant?

Too bad he hadn’t brought any of his men today, or the outcome would have been very different.

“Three… two…” As Lin Yi was about to count to one, Wang Hongquan made a snap decision and left the restaurant.

Yang Mo shot Lin Yi a furious glare and hurried after Wang Hongquan.

Lin Yi, however, paid them no mind, calmly sitting down to finish his juice.

Once they were outside, Yang Mo, still fuming, asked, “Brother Wang, are we really just going to let that brat get away with this?”

Smack.

Wang Hongquan slapped Yang Mo hard across the face, his expression dark and menacing. “If it weren’t for you, would I have been humiliated like this?”

“Brother Wang…” Yang Mo clutched her cheek, tears welling up in her eyes as she looked at Wang Hongquan, her resentment toward Lin Yi growing deeper.

In her eyes, a poor loser ought to be groveling before a goddess, not acting so arrogantly.

A cold gleam flashed in Wang Hongquan’s eyes. “No one has dared treat me like this in years. I’ll make sure he can’t set foot in Lancheng again.”

…

On the other side, after finishing his juice, Lin Yi returned home.

“Lin Yi, you’re back. How did your blind date go? Was it successful?” asked a girl in an apron.

Her name was Lin Doudou, a child Lin Yi had taken in ten years ago. Back when he’d just moved to Lancheng, he’d come across her—she’d been abducted by human traffickers.

At the time, Lin Doudou was covered in wounds, one leg broken by the traffickers, but her eyes were bright, filled with hope for life.

After rescuing her, Lin Yi learned she was an orphan. And so, he adopted her.

Ten years had passed since then. The little waif from back then had blossomed into a graceful, beautiful young woman.

“It was all right,” Lin Yi replied with a gentle smile, not telling her the whole story.

“It didn’t work out, did it? I told you, you have to pay attention to your appearance on a date! It’s not like we don’t own a suit,” Lin Doudou scolded earnestly.

“You’re a little imp,” Lin Yi chuckled, tapping her on the forehead before returning to his room.

He sat cross-legged on his bed and began practicing the Primal Chaos Qi Cultivation Method. Two hours later, he exhaled a breath of white vapor and stopped his training.

Earth was no longer suited for cultivation. His progress had been stuck at the Golden Core stage for a thousand years; no matter how hard he trained, the bottleneck remained unyielding.

Instead, his inner energy kept accumulating, forming nine golden cores, and now the tenth was beginning to take shape—it wouldn’t be long before it was complete.

Lin Yi had a feeling that if his golden cores reached eighteen in number, he might finally break through his current realm.

However, with each new core formed came a heavenly tribulation.

Typically, only cultivators at the Tribulation Crossing stage would face such a calamity, and only true prodigies would encounter it earlier.

Lin Yi had no idea what was happening with his own body.

He wasn’t born with any special constitution, nor was he practicing any forbidden techniques, yet his golden cores formed as easily as laying eggs; as long as his energy was sufficient, they would condense on their own.

Ordinary cultivators, no matter how solid their foundation, could only ever form one golden core—maybe a larger one if they were exceptional, but never in the way Lin Yi could mass-produce them.

“Lin Yi, dinner’s ready!” Lin Doudou called from outside.

“Coming,” Lin Yi answered.

In truth, with his strength, he could survive without eating or drinking, subsisting on energy alone.

But he was still human, not stone; he still had his own appetites.

Sitting at the table, Lin Yi listened as Lin Doudou said worriedly, “Lin Yi, our savings are running low.”

“That’s because you eat so much,” Lin Yi teased gently.

Despite her sweet and obedient appearance, Lin Doudou had a formidable appetite—even five buns at a meal only left her seventy percent full.

“You’re awful,” Lin Doudou blushed, shooting Lin Yi a glare. Didn’t he know it was rude to talk to a girl like that?

Lin Yi laughed and asked, “How much do we have left?”

“Less than two thousand,” Lin Doudou replied.

Lin Yi shrugged. “I’ll go withdraw some more from the bank later.”

Lin Doudou’s eyes lit up with excitement. “How much do you still have in your secret stash?”

Lin Yi thought for a moment. “A lot. Billions, at least.”

“Yeah right. If you were that rich, we’d already be living in a mansion, and I’d have three bowls of milk every day and throw away three more just for fun,” Lin Doudou pouted.

She knew better than anyone what their household was really like.

Lin Yi just smiled—no one knew Doudou better than he did. She was a thrifty, hardworking girl. She managed all the housework neatly and saved him a lot of trouble.

Knock, knock, knock—the door was suddenly pounded.

“Lin Yi, get out here!” came a coarse, impatient voice from outside.

Lin Yi frowned slightly and rose to open the door.

Standing in the doorway was a plump, middle-aged woman, her hair curled, her face caked with so much foundation it was almost nauseating.

“What do you want?” Lin Yi asked, facing her.

“You have some nerve asking me that! I went out of my way to set you up with someone, and you dared to offend her? Thought she wasn’t good enough for you?” The woman launched into a tirade the moment she saw him.

Her name was Su Honglan, proprietress of a matchmaking website. She’d arranged the blind date for Lin Yi.

They were neighbors, and Lin Yi didn’t want to sour relations, so he’d agreed to go.

“So, Yang Mo told you?” Lin Yi almost laughed. Typical—Yang Mo crying foul when she herself had been flirting with other men right in front of him.

“Of course. I always thought you were a decent guy, but it turns out you’re just picky. She’s a top university graduate, and you’re just from a third-rate college—she’s not good enough for you?” Su Honglan sneered.

Lin Yi didn’t bother arguing; there was no point debating with a shrew.

Su Honglan mistook his silence for guilt and pressed her advantage. “What, cat got your tongue? Yang Mo called me in tears—said you never respected her, made her pay for your meal, and then you hit her friend. Are you even a man?”

Lin Yi countered, “And you believe everything Yang Mo says?”

“Why should I believe you over her?” Su Honglan looked at him with disdain.

A third-rate university student—if you wanted to put it kindly, he was still a student; if not, he was worse off than a junior high graduate, who could at least start working to support a family early. Who knows, after you graduate, you might end up working for people like her.

Lin Yi didn’t care to explain further and turned to head back to his room.

Su Honglan kept chattering at the door, “What’s with your attitude? I’m not finished!”

Bang.

The only reply was the slamming of a door, leaving Su Honglan’s pudgy face livid with anger.

“Ugh, ungrateful brat!” she cursed at the closed door.

No sooner had the words left her mouth than she saw Lin Yi appear in the doorway, his gaze icy cold.

“What did you just say?” he asked.

Su Honglan instinctively wanted to keep up her tirade, but something about Lin Yi’s frosty glare made her shrink back.

“N-nothing,” she muttered, then hurried away.

Lin Yi glanced at her disdainfully—she was the type to bully the weak and fear the strong.

Returning to the dining table, he saw Lin Doudou swinging her small feet, pouting in discontent. “That awful woman is always making trouble for us.”

Lin Yi replied, “There’s no need to pay attention to people like her. Just treat her as air.”

“Mm, okay.” Lin Doudou’s mood brightened, and she ate a few more buns in quick succession.