Wu Dynasty, Thirteen Provinces, Qingzhou, Ping An County.
The cold wind, sharp as a knife, howled through the broken roof of the dilapidated temple, chilling to the bone.
Chu Yi huddled in a corner, wrapped in a tattered hemp cloth, its edges worn white, patched upon patched, trembling in the wind.
His left leg was empty below the knee, and only half of his right arm remained, its empty sleeve flapping wildly in the wind.
Beside him, his younger brother Chu An and sister Chu Yue shared a similarly tragic fate—Chu An's leg had been cruelly severed from the hip, and Chu Yue's right hand was only a bare wrist, her once nimble fingers long gone.
The three siblings had become beggars, barely surviving by crawling and begging on the streets.
Their deformities were not congenital; everything stemmed from that old beast with the jujube wood cane a few years ago.
That old man was a five-bag Disciple of the Beggar Clan, who said their begging appearance wasn't pitiful enough, and forcibly broke the limbs of all three siblings with the brute strength of the Refining Skin Realm.
Chu Yi suddenly awoke from his daze, his head feeling as if it had been struck by a heavy hammer, the pain so intense that his vision flickered to black.
He gasped for breath, his throat as dry as if it had been scoured with sandpaper; even swallowing saliva felt like an effort.
He instinctively reached for the water bowl by his bed but found nothing, then remembered that there had been no water in the dilapidated temple for a long time.
“Brother… my stomach is big enough for a horse to run in…”
Chu An groaned, lying on the straw mat. His leg was severed from the hip, and a dark piece of hemp cloth was tucked under his crotch.
Beside him, Chu Yue was wiping her nose with her bare wrist. The little girl's right hand was just a round fleshy ball; she had lost two fingers to frostbite last winter.
Just as Chu Yi was about to curse, “Endure it,” a sudden sharp pain shot through his mind, as if something had exploded.
Countless fragments of unfamiliar memories surged in like a raging tide.
Chu Yi clutched his head tightly with one hand, gasping in pain, his vision blurring as he nearly fainted again.
When he finally recovered, he was completely bewildered.
“I… I’ve awakened my past life’s memories?”
Chu Yi muttered to himself, his mind a jumble.
He was originally an ordinary university student on Earth, who loved to immerse himself in the world of novels, especially those Transmigration and System novels, often reading them to the point of forgetting to eat and sleep.
But he never expected that, upon Awakening, he would truly Transmigrate into this completely unfamiliar world, becoming the eldest son of this dilapidated family, and even more tragically, physically disabled and living a difficult life.
Chu Yi looked down at his empty left leg and half-severed right arm, a bitter feeling in his heart.
He turned to look at his younger brother and sister, Chu An's severed legs, Chu Yue's missing right hand.
“This life… it’s too tragic.”
Chu Yi’s heart was full of sorrow, and his eyes were slightly red; fate had been too cruel to them.
But just then, an anomaly occurred!
“Buzz!!!”
A deep hum suddenly echoed in Chu Yi’s mind, as if from the depths of a distant starry sky.
Chu Yi felt his vision blur, and a gigantic Bagua Taiji diagram slowly emerged in his mind, rotating leisurely, exuding an ancient and grand Aura.
Countless fine threads extended from the Bagua diagram, as if connecting to all things in Heaven and Earth.
“All phenomena begin with Yi!”
An ancient and unfathomable Dao sound boomed in his mind, making his eardrums ache. Immediately after, countless golden patterns intertwined and flickered before his eyes, gradually coalescing into a magnificent bronze Bagua diagram.
On the Bagua diagram, the hexagrams rotated rapidly, the Heaven’s Secret fire burst forth, and lines of golden text, emanating a mysterious glow, slowly appeared in the air:
【Limitless, Karma as fuel】
【Any destiny changed by your hand shall be transformed into yi points】
【Moving mountains and filling seas, traversing time and space, reversing Yin and Yang, all methods under Heaven can be changed by it】
Chu Yi stared dumbfounded, his heart pounding wildly in his chest, as if it would burst through.
“This is… a Golden Finger?”
Chu Yi murmured in disbelief.
He pondered it carefully for a while, finally realizing that this miraculous thing was not a System, nor a Divine Artifact, but a unique talent his Soul had awakened due to a mysterious mutation during his Transmigration.
Simply put, as long as he changed the destiny of others, or had a crucial impact on the development of certain events, he could obtain miraculous 【yi points】.
And yi points possessed nearly Heaven-Defying abilities, capable of achieving almost anything you could imagine, and even things you couldn't.
“Is this what they call ‘Heaven-Defying Fate Change’?”
Chu Yi was incredibly excited; the Awakening of the Golden Finger brought a ray of hope to his despair.
But after the excitement, he quickly calmed down.
Right now, the most urgent matter was to fill his stomach.
This Golden Finger came at just the right time; if it had been two days later, their three siblings would probably have starved to death in this dilapidated temple. Then he would have become the first Transmigrator to starve to death, becoming the shame of Transmigrators.
“But… how do I use these yi points?”
Chu Yi muttered to himself, instinctively checking his current yi points.
“10 points?”
Chu Yi was slightly stunned, then suddenly realized—although he had not awakened this talent for sixteen years, it had actually existed since his Reincarnation into this world.
Over the years, unknowingly, he had changed some subtle things, thus accumulating these precious yi points. Although the quantity was not large, they became their only hope at the moment.
“10 points it is. At least it’s initial startup capital, much better than having nothing at all.”
Chu Yi stared at his empty trouser leg, his eyes filled with complex emotions: unwillingness over past tragic experiences, and a glimmer of hope for the future.
As he was pondering, Chu Yue suddenly began to sob, “Brother, I’m so hungry I could swallow the entire West Street…”
“Stop wailing!”
Chu Yi regretted yelling after he did, and stroked his little sister’s straw-like hair, “Wait, big brother will do a magic trick for you.”
He closed his eyes and poked the Bagua diagram in his mind: 【Exchange for three bowls of plain noodles with poached eggs, make them hot.】
【-0.3 yi points】
When he opened his eyes again, the broken bowl before him was indeed steaming hot, with flecks of oil floating on the clear noodle soup, tender green scallions scattered within, and the poached eggs fried to an enticing golden color, emitting an aroma that made one's mouth water.
Chu An’s eyes nearly popped into the bowl in astonishment, and he stammered, “Brother, did you… did you steal the Kitchen God from Drunken Immortal Tavern? How did you suddenly conjure up such delicious food?”
“Eat your food!”
Chu Yi picked up his chopsticks and lightly tapped his brother on the forehead, but his own gaze was fixed on the remaining 9.7 yi points, his throat involuntarily bobbing as he swallowed.
Should he replace his leg or his hand first?
This was harder than filling out college applications.
As he was contemplating, a gust of wind suddenly blew, sharply lifting his trouser leg and revealing a terrifying, grotesque scar—a remnant from when the old beast had broken his leg, a perpetual pain in his heart.
Chu Yi gritted his teeth and made a firm decision: 【Exchange for a new leg, an original one!】
【-3 yi points】
Instantly, the root of his leg suddenly itched intensely, as if countless ants were furiously gnawing at it.
Immediately after, new flesh buds grew out rapidly, like bamboo shoots after rain.
Chu Yi gasped in pain, watching as bone fragments extended out inch by inch, and muscles and blood vessels entwined around them rapidly and orderly, like knitting.
This pain was several times more intense than when the old beast had broken his leg. Beads of sweat rolled from his forehead, soaking the straw mat beneath him.
“Brother, your leg! Your leg!”
Chu Yue was so frightened that she spilled her noodle soup everywhere, pointing at Chu Yi’s leg in terror, her voice trembling.
Chu Yi looked down and saw that the newly grown leg was fair and smooth, like tender tofu.
He tried to lift his foot and kick the wall forcefully, and with a loud “bang,” dust from the rafters rattled down.
With 6 yi points remaining, Chu Yi’s hand trembled slightly as he slowly touched his bare right arm, muttering in his heart: 【Exchange for an arm, one that can wield nunchaku!】
【-3 yi points】
This time, something even more miraculous happened.
A puff of bloody mist suddenly erupted from the severed end, and five fingers rapidly and powerfully drilled out, like bamboo shoots breaking through the soil.
Chu Yi cursed in pain, “Damn… this is just like 3D printing, it’s killing me!”
As Chu Yi was flexing his newly grown fingers, savoring the miraculous sensation of having his limb back, the “thump-thump” sound of a jujube wood cane hitting the ground suddenly came from outside the temple door.
Immediately after, a hoarse voice, like a broken gong, drifted in: “Little brats, have you collected twenty coins today?”
A chill ran down Chu Yi’s spine—that old man came at You Shi (5-7 PM) every day to collect money, and if they were short even one coin, they would get a whipping.
He instinctively looked down at the three empty bowls scattered on the straw mat, and his newly grown leg muscles couldn’t help but twitch, a strong sense of fear and tension welling up in his heart…
“Brother, your leg! Your leg!”