[A transmigrator worked to death, a guardian deity in debt, and a family so poor it has only one pair of pants left, yet can buy the heavens and all worlds.]
Shen Changsheng, a modern-day corporate drone who worked himself to death at his desk, opened his eyes to find himself a penniless spirit in the ancestral shrine of the Liu family in the cultivation world.
A System notification popped up in his face: "Bind a clan's fortune and unlock the Starving Corpse Dao Physique."
Looking at his gaunt clansmen gnawing on Guanyin clay, Shen Changsheng opened the [Poverty God Compendium] without hesitation:
"So we're down-and-outs, are we? Starting today, my Liu family will cure every case of wealth sickness across the Myriad Worlds!"
Poverty is a craft.
He taught the clan to refine their tumbledown thatched cottages into "Humble Abode Grotto-Heavens." The more spirit-stone debt they owed, the faster they cultivated.
He taught the young lady of the house to turn a patched skirt into a "Heavenly Silkworm Treasure Robe." Every extra hole made her sword energy three parts fiercer.
Wealth is a sin.
When the prodigies of the immortal sects rode qilin beasts around, flaunting their might, Shen Changsheng flicked a finger and laid out the "Poor Scholars' Banquet":
The qilin became skewers, magical treasures turned into bowls and chopsticks, and the rain of swords from the sky landed as pickled vegetables.
"Thanks, buddy, for the gift of a Mahayana tribulation!" he laughed, rubbing the heavenly punishment into a hemp rope and adding another beam to the Liu family's dilapidated house.
Then, one day, the Hongmeng Golden Ranking issued an execution decree:
"The entire Liu clan has defied Heaven and changed its fate. All their wealth is to be confiscated, and they are condemned to eternal slavery!"
Shen Changsheng tore open his ragged blue robe, revealing a chest scorched with three thousand marks of poverty:
"We have no money to give, but three thousand lives to wager. Do you even know? My Liu family's poverty was written long ago into a talisman that blots out the sky!"
