Chapter 72: The Path of Life
byChapter 72: The Path of Life
In the end, Chen Jinkin was pinpointed by the fastest of the dominion-level Devourers.
It wasn't that Chen Jinkin's reactions were slow or his teleportation speed wasn't fast enough, but rather he determined that this Devourer locking onto him possessed a special ability related to precise tracking or speed and space, making it impossible for him to vanish without a trace.
He was actually quite curious about what kind of Devouring World this Devourer hailed from.
[You have been precisely locked on by the Devourer!]
[Precise lock-on cannot be escaped.]
[Forced entry into the Devourer's world in three minutes!]
……
[You have been devoured by the Devourer!]
[You have initiated "The Path of Life"!]
The Path of Life? What kind of world is this?
*
When he opened his eyes again, Chen Sijin was expressionlessly sucking on a pacifier, his chubby face making a scowl that was far too complex for a newborn.
He stared with his round, sparkling eyes, contemplating his newly "reborn" life.
Yes, a new life.
He never dreamed that in this world, he would start as an extremely fragile six-month-old infant, competing for the path of life with ninety-nine other infants.
Before his tiny infant eyes was a semi-transparent "Path of Life Map," where at the bottom of the map were numbers from 1 to 100, representing the Devourers... now infants, swallowed into this world.
On the left side of the map, in a blank space, were the survival tasks and world tasks for this "Path of Life" world.
"Path of Life Task Announcement:"
"Survival Task: Complete one's life smoothly and safely. Live at least until sixty without dying prematurely or falling behind (ranking on the Path of Life not lower than 50).
Task Reward: Earn the recognition of the Path of Life for successfully surviving, speed enhancement in all aspects."
"World Task: Become the first to complete the Path of Life, reaching the endpoint."
At the endpoint, you will meet all whom you wish to see.
Task Reward: Devourer's core, gratitude from the Life Path world's life.
Compared to the survival and world tasks in Silent Villa, the tasks on the Path of Life are much simpler.
However, simplicity does not mean easy to complete. In fact, Chen Sijin is certain that this "Path of Life" might be the most time-consuming and relatively the hardest world to complete.
...How could it not be lengthy when you have to start from infancy to complete the task?!!
Little Jinzi's chubby face again showed an extremely angry expression, as if he was cursing under his breath.
This devouring world really has no sense of martial ethics!
Unhappily flailing his little arms and kicking his legs, he stared at the semi-transparent map in front of him, wondering about the current states and feelings of the other ninety-nine exile infants.
As he stared, Little Jinjin's round eyes, slightly upturned at the corners, suddenly narrowed, his cursing expression instantly turning serious and alert—
Just now, on the Life Path map in front of him, one of the little red dots alongside his own little green dot suddenly turned gray.
Then, on the right blank side of the Life Path map, a description of a life event appeared:
"Exile No. 78 (infancy phase) parents argued, was fatally thrown to the ground by an angry father."
"Exile No. 78's path of life severed, deceased."
！！！！
If he could speak right now, little Jinjin would surely be hands on hips, cursing at the heavens!
Is this manner of death for real?! What right does such a man have to be a father?!
But baby Jinjin can't talk.
It will be at least another three to four months before he can speak.
Sucking furiously on his pacifier, little Jinjin belatedly felt the world's malice towards him, damn, this is another form of "shut up"!
He hurriedly looked at his tiny fingers, thankful for his foresight in transforming his storage ring into a mole-like little black birthmark.
Otherwise, given this world's damn nature, an infant's hand would never have any adornments.
Little Jinjin breathed a slight sigh of relief.
Then he noticed that the semi-transparent floating life map in front of him had changed again.
Among the group of little red dots beside him, suddenly one dot moved forward by one space. The title on the far left of that space reads [Health reaches 10].
Little Jinjin narrowed his eyes.
Looking at the life event description on the right:
"[Exile No. 1 (infancy phase)'s parents love him dearly, the father brought in the country's best medical team for a comprehensive check-up and ensured he received all the essential vaccinations.
Exile No. 1's health +10.]"
Little Jinjin's beautiful round phoenix eyes turned into angry dagger eyes.
His hands clenched into little fists, trying hard to extend the middle finger.
That's just shamelessly too shameless!
We're all the same people! All starting new lives! Why should No. 78 have a scumbag rageful father, and No. 1 be the darling son of a wealthy loving dad?
This contrast is just too brutal.
Little Jinjin felt very indignant, but the current little Jinjin, no matter how angry, could only vigorously suck on his pacifier, not even able to bite it through.
He stopped looking at the life map in front of him.
Because he started to feel hungry and... the need for a diaper change.
Bodily needs... Well, he's wearing a diaper, so that's manageable.
But hunger isn't something he can deal with on his own.
It wasn't until this moment that little Goldie began to take a closer look at his "new home."
Then, the slight furrow of his brow deepened.
It wasn't that the family appeared extremely poor and couldn't afford food; instead, the family seemed well-off, and he was now in a specially designed children's room. The room was warm and cute, and a nanny was nearby, wiping the table and occasionally glancing at him, seemingly taking special care of him.
But there was something very wrong with this nanny!
Xiao Jinjin felt a chill run down his spine as he watched the nanny wipe the table then turn to give him a dark glance.
Instantly, headlines about nannies stealing, swapping, and abusing children flashed through Xiao Jinjin's mind. He immediately spat out his pacifier, wanting to cry out, but then he suddenly closed his mouth.
Don't provoke this nanny.
What if she smothers him with a pillow if he cries?
So, Xiao Jinjin just lay obediently in the crib, keeping silent as golden.
Finally, it seemed the nanny had made up her mind. She walked over to Chen Sijin with a scowl, and Xiao Jinjin immediately flashed a shamelessly sincere smile, catching the nanny off-guard with such a radiant grin—she fell right into the trap.
[City Residents' Beauty Filter Bonus.]
This was one of the gifts Chen Sijin received from the citizens of the City of Beauty after liberating their world.
Chen Sijin had always thought this beauty filter was useless, inferior even to the small mirror, but now, he was thankful for the beauty and the filter!
The nanny's face clearly showed struggle and conflict, but in the end, she gritted her teeth, picked up Chen Sijin, placed him in a small trolley, and pushed him out as if to take a child out for some sun.
It was then that Chen Sijin realized he lived in a nicely located large flat, but what of it? From then on, he would be far removed from a carefree life of luxury.
Xiao Jinjin, with a wooden expression, felt the nanny pushing him further and further away, finally leaving him near a deserted park lake. Then, with a cold laugh, she shoved a bottle half full of milk into his mouth and turned to walk away.
"Whether you live or die depends on your fate!"
Xiao Jinjin: ...
Xiao Jinjin saw a green indicator representing his own life event on the map.
[You've been pushed to the lakeside by a nanny with malicious intent. With the lakeside being windy and the slope slippery, you could fall into the lake with the stroller at any moment, ending your brief life.]
Xiao Jinjin: .
Xiao Jinjin gritted his teeth, mumbling and cursing under his breath.
He began to think of ways to save himself.
He first struggled to sit up, flipped over, then stretched out his little head to look outside the stroller.
Great, a fall from the stroller would surely end him.
Meanwhile, Xiaojinjin noticed that as he moved, his stroller began to slowly slide towards the lake.
The wind beside him was getting stronger.
Xiaojinjin: .
Unable to speak or write, he urgently thought of what else could be done.
Then, the baby's beautiful eyes blinked, and he suddenly giggled twice. With a flip of his chubby hands, a character card appeared in his grasp.
[Yao Yan (The Wounded Soul): Top-level jack-of-all-trades worker.
Possession of this card allows for the summoning of the working wounded soul to help with tasks, currently available for fifteen minutes. Refreshes at midnight the following day.]
"Ah ah ah!"
The baby let out three vigorous cries.
Come forth! My all-powerful jack-of-all-trades worker!!
At that moment, the stroller was blown by the wind, gliding faster towards the lake's edge, on the verge of falling in.
Suddenly, a nimble figure in a bespoke tailcoat burst from the nearby woods, taking strides as if flying towards the stroller, and in the nick of time, just as the stroller was about to hit the water, he reached out and pulled it back up!
"Ah!"
Xiaojinjin inside the stroller cried out, heart still racing.
Looking up, he saw a young man in a tailcoat and white gloves, hair impeccably slicked back, slightly bowing to him with a perfect smile.
"We meet again, quite a rare sight you are in this state. Your personal butler is at your service."
For the first time, Xiaojinjin saw the tailcoat from a friendlier perspective, suddenly finding the face before him much more agreeable.
He then cracked a toothless grin and gestured that he wanted to go home.
He was still worried about whether he could make it home, but as it turned out, an all-purpose laborer truly lives up to the name.
In the fifteen minutes that Yao Yan was able to appear, he contacted Little Jinjin's parents, reported the nanny to the police, and suggested taking Little Jingjing to the hospital for a check-up, truly doing everything that could be done.
Truly the epitome of an all-purpose butler!
Even as he was leaving, Yao Yan found the time to hand Little Jinjin a grasshopper made from wild grass, saying, "Today's service is now concluded. I look forward to your next summons."
Chen Shijin: .
Don't say it, really, don't.
He suddenly understood why he kept encountering this unlucky tailcoat in all sorts of worlds!
It's really a case of who uses it knows; it's not that the tailcoat is indestructible, but this all-purpose laborer in a tailcoat is just too cost-effective!
It's a pity that it can only be summoned once a day; otherwise, who needs a nanny when you have an all-purpose butler?
Little Jinjin happily overcame the crisis.
Then, to his dismay, he became joyously ill with a fever.
[You were saved by a kind passerby, but you caught a cold from being out in the wind. Health -3.]
[You need to recover your health within three days and complete the necessary vaccinations. Otherwise, you will die from the infection.]
[But your father and mother are both working overtime, and they've hired a new nanny. You need to remind them to get you vaccinated.]
Little Jinjin: .
Tired, let it all end.
Since when does a baby have to remind their parents to get them vaccinated, ah!
Eventually, with great effort, Little Jinjin managed to secretly nourish himself with milk and medicine over the three-day fever period. By crying cutely, shouting, and gesturing wildly with his hands, he finally reminded his career-driven mother that he had not yet been vaccinated.
At the very end of the third day, Little Jinjin finally got his vaccine, health +10, taking the first step on the path of life.
The new nanny, blessed with the city dweller's beauty filter bonus, took decent care of him. However, this episode still left him with a minor coughing issue, causing him to cough from time to time.
And during these three days, Chen Shijin watched as three out of the ninety-eight fellow exiles walking the path of life with him were lost—
[Exile #55 (infancy) was killed when the family's large cat carelessly knocked over a cabinet onto them.
Exile #55's journey of life has been severed, deceased.]
[Exile #37 (infancy) was killed by a speeding driver while being pushed across the street by parents, both of whom were distracted by their phones.
Exile #37's journey of life has been severed, deceased.]
While the first two "accidents" are alarmingly absurd, they can, if stretched, be considered accidental.
But the third life event reported made Chen Shijin instantly alert, and he felt fortunate for choosing to summon the all-purpose laborer when he fell into the lake, rather than conjuring up a sofa, wooden table, or some special tool to float on the surface.
[Exile #19 (infancy), in an act of defiance against a grandmother who favored boys over girls, managed to bend the largest sewing needle while being pricked.
The grandmother, shocked and scared, summoned a witch doctor and doused #19 with charmed water.
Exile #19 died from poisoning. Their journey of life has been severed.]
Lying in his crib, Chen Shijin let out a small sigh, alas, indeed when one is powerless to defend oneself, survival is the priority!
In the following days, Chen Shijin watched as other exiles on the life path map began to take their first steps towards health +10, and some succumbed to fate and died.
On his tenth day of infancy, a bold and enlarged line of text suddenly appeared on the right side of the life path's grand map.
[Three years have swiftly passed, and your lives have entered a new chapter—the toddler phase.]
Upon entering the toddler phase, the grand map of life's path refreshed.
Chen Shijin saw that there were a total of 88 exiles still on the map of life's path.
Twelve people died during infancy.
However, this didn't evoke much emotion in Chen Shijin; he was more concerned about the person marked as number 1 and the dozen or so people ahead of him.
Everyone advanced three years in a blink, yet why is there such disparity in the progress on their paths of life?
Chen Shijin scrutinized the position of number one, whose status was marked as:
[Intelligence 20
Health 20
Charm 20
Money 1000]
Little Jinjin frowned at the status markers, understanding the first three, but what's with the last one, Money 1000?!
Is this supposed to represent personal savings or pocket money from parents?! If it's pocket money, who gets a thousand bucks a day?!
Number 1 must be cheating, absolutely cheating!
Chen Shijin stared fixedly at the number of the first place, hoping he would never find out who this person was.
And whoever this person is, it just absolutely cannot be that damn Yuezi!
At this moment, a new event appeared on the life map.
[You are about to enter kindergarten. Before doing so, your parents have decided to hold a rare family gathering.]
[Please behave well at the family gathering; at the very least, do not embarrass your parents. Otherwise, your path in life will become more challenging.]
Chen Shijin: ???
Are the remaining eighty-eight people all gathering together? What reason could there possibly be for such a gathering?!
Little Jinjin, with his chubby cheeks puffed out, didn't quite understand, but soon his workaholic parents came before him.
"Little Jinjin! Tomorrow you will start kindergarten! Today, we are going back to our ancestral home to celebrate our family's fifth generation attending school.
Little Jinjin must perform well! Make your mom and dad proud! Don't let your brothers, sisters, younger brothers, and younger sisters outshine you!"
Then, at three years old, Jinjin was taken by his workaholic parents to the ancestral home.
There, he finally saw the other eighty-seven exiles with whom he would share his life path.
Chen Shijin was ranked sixteenth.
It was a relatively advanced position.
But it was clear that the families of the fifteen people ahead of him were in a better position, especially the family ranked first, which seemed the very image of nouveau riche wealth.
Looking back from his position, the parents of the fourth generation, purported to be family members who came to the banquet, appeared progressively poorer the further back they were.
By the time you reached the 100th, the exile at the end looked practically like a little beggar.
Upon arriving, the first thing Little Jinjin did was check out the kid ranked number one.
He scrutinized him to see if it was that deserving-of-a-beating Yuezi. Not to mention, even if Yuezi was only three, Chen Shijin was confident he could recognize him at a glance, even if he were a one-year-old with a chubby face.
Surprisingly, the boy at number one, who seemed perfect in every aspect, was not Yuezi.
Although he had a face that promised handsomeness in adulthood, it was not comparable to Yuezi's flawless visage.
Most importantly, perhaps it was a feeling in his gut, but Chen Shijin found the boy at number one... inexplicably uncomfortable and dislikeable.
And when he noticed Chen Shijin looking at him, those mixed-race green eyes held an unnervingly sinister smile.
Little Jinjin: ...
There it was, someone he disliked even more than Yuezi. And it just had to be number one, whom he must surpass.
However, it didn't matter. The road of life was still long, and the advantages given by one's parents and family in early life don't necessarily last forever.
For now, he should look for his beloved little Yuezi.
Yuezi wasn't first, so which position could he be in?
Xiaojin carefully queued and looked from the front to the back, noticing none of the first ten were Xiao Lezi.
Not in the top twenty either, Xiaojin's expression gradually became complex.
Then, at number 68, he saw a familiar face. It was Wang Baojie, whom he hadn't seen for a while.
The moment the boy with a fierce demeanor saw Chen Shijin, his eyes lit up!
He waved excitedly, greeting Xiaojin.
Before Chen Shijin could wave back, his father, who was particularly concerned about appearances, voiced his displeasure.
"Don't play with children who lack prospects. Don't look back; focus on the elder brothers and sisters ahead."
Xiaojin rolled his eyes.
But he still stealthily waved at Wang Baojie.
While waving, he inadvertently glanced to the back and saw the last kid dressed like a little beggar lifting his head, revealing large round eyes of deep blue with hints of gold.
Chen Shijin: ?!?!?!
What a joke!
Always prominent in other worlds for enjoying spectacles, how could he be the very last, pitiable figure in this world?
He even lacked parents!
Then, a shocked Chen Shijin saw the pitiable Lezi spotting him. Amidst the barely there disdainful glances of others, with his three-year-old body clad in tatters, he stretched out a small hand and blew him a kiss through the air.
This instantly provoked a wave of scornful shrieks from the parents.
Xiaojin heard his faux father say, "If you befriend that kind of person, mom and dad will disown you! You might as well be dead!"
Chen Shijin furrowed his little brows.
Then, the grand ancestral mansion's banquet hall suddenly lit up, and a very old man was wheeled into the center of the hall.
The one pushing him, a butler who appeared exceedingly stern and unfeeling (and whose tailcoat was far inferior), spoke up:
"Now, it is time for the young masters and misses to present themselves as heirs."
"Please, show the head of the family your excellence."
"Our family has no need for mediocrity."
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