Chapter 12: The Golden Lotus

Chapter 12: The Golden Lotus

“Let Wu Chang know my name and tell him I’ll pay for your room. He’ll get you settled.”

“Wait, who’s Wu Cha-“

William cut himself off when Wang Xiaoling rode away quickly. Suspiciously quickly. He narrowed his eyes before eventually facing the building he was dropped off at.

The Golden Lotus.

That was what the sign said in gold lettering. The building was a strange mix of traditional Chinese design and something familiar, it was at the edge of William’s mind, but he couldn’t quite grasp it. Still, with the attractive, bright yellow facade and the hotel’s location in the heart of Xuanjing City, William wondered if he had misread Wang Xiaoling. This did not look cheap.

Maybe she was stingy in all aspects except where she slept? William had known people like that before.L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Ñøv€l--B1n.

A small bell rang when William entered the hotel, announcing that the door had opened. The lobby was small but welcoming, with walls decorated in colorful tapestries and a few comfortable chairs near the reception.

“Welcome to the Golden Lotus,” A middle-aged man with a kind face greeted William with a warm smile.

“... Hi,” William replied awkwardly, not ready for someone to speak to him normally for the first time since he got here. Well, unless Li Jie counted, which he didn’t. The guard was more focused on Wang Xiaoling than anything else.

“Hello,” The man chuckled, “Are you looking for a room?”

“Yes, Wang Xiaoling said she’ll pay for my room.”

“... Wang Xiaoling?”

William shifted in his spot, sensing that something wasn’t right.

“Are you talking about the self-proclaimed number-one trader? That Wang Xiaoling?”

“That’s the one,” William tried to be optimistic, but the way the man looked at him didn’t help, “She told me someone called Wu Chang would help me.”

“I am Wu Chang.”

Traits:

Soul Damage (Major) - Will reduce all base stats to 1 randomly

William frowned at the word ‘randomly.’ Who exactly was deciding the randomness? And was it really random, or would he eventually find that the system had some sort of vendetta against him. The latter was a thought that appeared in his mind frequently on the ride to the hotel. It was highly convenient that the trait randomly activated the moment he received an attribute point.

The easiest way to test it was to spend one of the stat points he received and use it on an attribute, but William wasn’t desperate enough to risk that. Still, it would be nice if he could get more details on how it worked.

[Visible RNG for Soul Damage (Major) effect enabled]

[Current chance of Soul Damage (Major) effect activating: 5%]

[Activation Numbers: 1-50 | Total Numbers: 1000]

[Previous result: 43]

William stared at the info dump in surprise. He expected the HUD to show something, but he certainly didn’t expect it to be what he wished. With how common the occurrence had been, he was sure he would have gotten an alert about safe mode blocking it for his own good.

It was a little comforting that a random number generator controlled this, but that was as long as the RNG was genuinely random as the name implied. William couldn’t exactly confirm if it was true. However, something was better than nothing.

William grunted as he pushed off the bed and put the Dragonfruit on the table. He didn’t think it would be edible for much longer with how damaged it was, but even if he ate it now, it would be useless. It obviously wouldn’t help with increasing his strength attribute, nor would it ease his hunger since he had a full stomach from the past two Dragonfruits he had eaten.

William stretched his hands above his head and groaned at the pops in his back. He gave the room another glance, and if he didn’t know better, it would have fooled him into thinking that he was in his old world.

There were differently sized, folded towels on the counter near the bathroom, along with small bottles of what must be some sort of body wash or something similar. Honestly, everything was eerily similar to what a hotel room looked like in his old world.

With Daoist Chen’s master likely to be a transmigrator or at least have some memory of his old world, it wasn’t that big of a surprise that some similarities could be seen. Not that William expected to see it in a hotel room, of all places.

However, the similarity gave him a sense of calm that William didn’t even know he needed. He locked the door, purely out of habit, not expecting it to do anything for safety, and climbed back into bed.

It would be nice to shut his eyes and let his mind reset from the insane hell he had been through today.