The vision in the dice flashed by in an instant.
When Zheng Xiu looked closer, he could no longer make out the image of himself in the center of the dice.
He couldn't even clearly recall that "self's" posture, expression, or appearance.
The only thing he remembered was that "self's" butt, which was particularly round—just like a Full Moon.
Zheng Xiu silently gripped the die, his gaze falling upon the small, squirming, worm-like words on the Paper Scroll:
[Host]: [Zheng Xiu]
[Path]: [Prisoner]
[Derivation]: [Observing the Sky from Prison (Initial Path)]
[Talent]: [No merchant is honest (Initial Path)]
[Experience]: None
'I can't get any useful information from this.'
Zheng Xiu rubbed the paper and sniffed it. It had the texture of skin, exceptionally smooth, but he couldn't discern anything else special about it.
He tried pressing his finger on each line of text.
It wasn't until he reached the third line that, like a junk-mail pop-up ad, a description WHIZZED into view—
[Observing the Sky from Prison (Initial Path)]: Though your body is in prison, your heart roams free. You gaze upon the vastness of Heaven and Earth, lamenting your own insignificance.
[No merchant is honest (Initial Path)]: As the saying goes, no merchant is honest, and you are the king of deceit. When rolling the dice, there is a chance to trigger "Cunning and Deceitful," doubling the value of your roll.
Master Zheng was instantly furious.
'I am a famously scrupulous and wealthy merchant!'
Zheng Xiu scoffed, disdaining to even deny it. At the mention of the roll's "value," his gaze fell back to the red die on the table.
In his youth, Zheng Xiu had searched in vain for a path to Cultivation, only resigning himself to mediocrity and becoming a simple, wealthy merchant after all his efforts proved fruitless.
Like a storm-tossed youth who has found calm, Zheng Xiu's excitement subsided. He was now as serene as a sage, carefully pondering this "Golden Finger" that had appeared out of thin air.
"So many years have passed. It can't possibly be appearing only now, can it?"
The more he looked at the motionless die, the more familiar it seemed.
'Let me look again. Let me get my thoughts straight.'
"'Prisoner?'"
As Zheng Xiu stared at the increasingly familiar red die, the corner of his eye twitched. He reached up and touched the small bump on his forehead.
It was a slight cranial deformity he'd had since birth, a subtle, barely noticeable protrusion in the center of his forehead.
In his childhood, he'd heard that after his birth, his late father had consulted a master fortune-teller. The seer had declared it a "high, full forehead"—a sign of great fortune—though perhaps a bit too pointed.
'Could this be the tabletop game die I tripped on and died in my last life?!'
Zheng Xiu froze. After twenty years, he finally remembered the die's origin, and understanding dawned on him.
"'Prisoner? Prisoner... Prisoner!'"
Zheng Xiu slapped his forehead in a flash of insight.
'The name says it all! It can only be triggered by going to prison!'
'How ridiculous!'
'I've been a law-abiding citizen for so many damn years, and now you're telling me I had to get thrown in jail just to activate you?'
If not for this accidental imprisonment, with his status as the Richest Person, when would he ever have had the chance to experience even a day trip to jail? It would have been a cold day in hell!
Zheng Xiu felt a mix of joy and worry. After a moment's thought, he decided to make the best of the situation and picked up the die from the table.
The terrifying vision that had accompanied the die's appearance still lingered in his mind.
But then Zheng Xiu remembered some novels he had read twenty years ago. In them, certain Magical Treasures or Profound Artifacts would always put on a strange, startling show for their Host upon appearing, just to seem more impressive. Ultimately, however, it would often be a case of "operates with the fury of a tiger, but only deals 2.5 damage." Thinking of this, Zheng Xiu felt he had nothing to fear. He'd figure it out as he went.
Besides, he had spent twenty years in this world. He knew this parallel dimension held no true supernatural phenomena, only some physically strong Practitioners. Any random Golden Finger should be enough to dominate. When he combined his status as the Richest Person—his "money-power"—with an actual superpower, wouldn't he be completely untouchable?
'This is perfect,' Zheng Xiu thought. But the instant his finger touched the die, a sharp pain shot through it. The Deceitful Object had opened a mouth full of sharp teeth and bitten him, drawing blood.
In a daze, Zheng Xiu blinked. The sharp teeth, the bloody mouth, the bite itself—all vanished without a trace, as if it had been an illusion.
Zheng Xiu stared blankly at the die in his palm as the yellowed Paper Scroll spread itself out on the table.
Like a celestial map of a square Earth, crisscrossing blood-red lines appeared, and faint, dim dots materialized one after another on the table.
The intersecting red lines resembled a set of coordinates.
At the center of the coordinates stood a small, motionless figure with a blurred face, like a proud puppet.
Immediately after, one of the small dots to the figure's right swelled slightly, emitting a faint black light. It looked just like a peeled century egg, embedded in the table and glistening slickly.
Zheng Xiu's gaze narrowed. On the century egg—ah, no, on the small point of light—two lines of distorted text appeared.
[Ghostly Realm]: [Baili Village]
[Difficulty]: [Sunrise]
Zheng Xiu didn't make any rash moves.
He was already in the zone, gradually beginning to understand the situation.
But there were still two things Zheng Xiu didn't understand.
First,
for some unknown reason, the cause of his death from his previous life had accompanied him into this one.
It was just that for all those years, he had never suffered the misfortune of imprisonment, so it had remained inactive.
[Prisoner] was both his current status and some kind of [Path].
But what puzzled Zheng Xiu was this: if the Golden Finger was activated through one of his "identities," why hadn't it been something like [Richest Person], [Good Man], or [Mighty Man]—traits that were obvious, self-evident, and impossible to ignore about him? Why did it have to be [Prisoner], an identity he only gained after being thrown in jail?
'The 'Path'... Could it be that it's fixed?'
After a long moment of contemplation, Zheng Xiu could only come to one conclusion.
As for the second thing,
it was this strange "Baili Village."
Zheng Xiu wouldn't dare claim to know every corner of the Daqian Empire, but after so many years in business, his dealings were hardly confined to the Imperial City. Wherever a business opportunity existed, the Zheng Clan had an enterprise.
If the "little figure" in the center of the map represented the Imperial City, then Baili Village's location would be somewhere to the east of Yanzhou, deep within a lush mountain range.
'Perhaps it's just a nameless little village that the trade routes haven't reached,' he mused.
Zheng Xiu was certain he'd never heard of Baili Village and could only set the matter aside for now.
"COUGH, COUGH, COUGH."
Just then, a few dry coughs echoed from the cell across the way. Zheng Xiu blinked, his consciousness drifted out of the "Heart Prison," and when he opened his eyes again, he was back in his cell.
In the darkness, the inmate in the opposite cell was curled into a ball, coughing for quite a while as if sick.
Zheng Xiu had no intention of offering useless sympathy to the man across from him. After confirming that he could enter and exit this "Heart Prison" at will, he closed his eyes, and upon opening them again, he was back at the game table.
The location [Ghostly Realm - Baili Village] was shrouded in a faint black mist. Zheng Xiu gripped the die, ready to cause some trouble.
With a mere thought, Zheng Xiu felt a faint, intrinsic connection to the "little figure" on the table.
Another sheet of paper materialized from the Void and floated before him. Ignoring the inherent strangeness of the situation, Zheng Xiu saw nothing but business opportunities, and his eyes lit up.
The paper floating before him had many blank spaces. A memory from twenty years ago surfaced, and Zheng Xiu recognized it. This looked just like the [Character Card] he used to prepare before playing tabletop games.
Tabletop game, Dice, little figure, Character Card, Baili Village.
The word "session" flashed through the silent Zheng Xiu's mind. He cautiously took the [Character Card].
The moment he took the Character Card, Zheng Xiu felt a sharp pain in his forehead as a flood of information was forcibly poured into his mind.
"'It's the 'Rules'...'"
Zheng Xiu clutched his forehead, grumbling. 'If you're going to come in, fine, but couldn't you be a little gentler? Use some lubricant next time, maybe?'
Soon.
Zheng Xiu, a man of two lives, felt as if he had returned to his previous one. Guided by the "Rules," he quickly created a cool-looking face based on his own appearance, filled in the [Birth] and [Age] fields, and all that was left was to roll for stats.
'No, wait. The proper term for this is 'Incarnation.''
Time to roll!
[You were Cunning and Deceitful!]
[You were Cunning and Deceitful!]
...
[Name] Zheng Shan
[Birth] Painter
[Age] Thirty-two (In the prime of life)
[Muscle Strength] Nineteen (Powerfully strong)
[Step Technique] Four (Clumsy movement)
[Constitution] Three (Frail and sickly)
[Appearance] Thirty-six (Peerlessly handsome, extraordinary presence, unmatched in this age)
[Will] Thirty (Loyal and unyielding)
[Destiny] Eleven (Slightly blessed)
[Physique] Twenty (Built like a bear)
[Scholarship] Twelve (Broad but not deep knowledge)
...
After finishing the rolls, Zheng Xiu was barely satisfied with his Incarnation's final stats. It was a twenty-sided die, with values from one to twenty. For him, a roll of ten was the absolute minimum.
The rest of the stats were average, with their own strengths and weaknesses. However, his [Appearance] and [Will] had triggered his [No merchant is honest] talent, resulting in a critical that doubled their rolls.
What frustrated him was that his [Step Technique] and [Constitution] had nearly bottomed out. His Incarnation felt extremely unbalanced, like a min-maxed build.
With the Incarnation's Basic Attributes settled, it was time for its Acquired Traits.
Zheng Xiu could choose three traits to fill his Incarnation's empty slots.
Zheng Xiu mulled it over, picking and choosing carefully. He still had no idea what he would encounter in Baili Village, but the two words "Ghostly Realm" made his eyelid twitch. In the end, given the choice between "Enhance Strengths" and "Avoid Shortcomings," he chose the latter, opting to use his Acquired Traits to shore up his weaknesses.
All about that Yin-Yang balance.
[Scouting (Slightly Knowledgeable)]: You are highly observant and can spot clues that ordinary people would miss.
[Medical Principles (Slightly Knowledgeable)]: You were born into a Xinglin Family, but your family fell into decline. Your parents died young, before they could pass on their knowledge. By studying the family's old texts, you taught yourself the basics of medicine. You can treat simple, superficial wounds and identify some wild medicinal herbs.
[Intuition (Initial Path)]: Your fate has been a harsh one. You were displaced and lost your family at a young age. As a result, you possess an unusual alertness that allows you to sense potential impending danger, though such threats rarely manifest.
[Scouting] and [Intuition]—one active, one passive—would allow him to detect danger in advance. In his opinion, they offered an extremely high return on investment.
As for [Medical Principles], his "Good man Zheng" Incarnation was already frail and sickly. If it didn't know even a little medicine, he feared it might drop dead from a chilly breeze just by stepping outside.
All preparations were complete.
On the table, the small figure named "Zheng Shan" suddenly opened its eyes.
In that instant, its eyes flashed with a cold light, as sharp as lightning and as clear as dew. Its clothes began to flutter, and a palpable force rushed forth.
On the table, "Zheng Shan" began striding toward "Baili Village," coughing dryly as it went.