Under One Person: Rebuilding the Glory of the Beast Master

Winter of the 18th year of the Republic of China.

The heavy snow had been falling for seven days straight, and before the smoke from the chimneys of Zengjiazhuang could rise, it was torn apart by the north wind and hung in the air.

Zeng Qing'an squatted on the threshold of his pigsty, holding a pipe in his hand but not lighting it. His gaze passed over the dozens of plump white pigs in the yard and looked towards the white, misty mountain road outside the village.

At this time of year, the mountain road is usually bustling with merchants buying pigs, and the sound of mule bells ringing from dawn till dusk. But this year—he squinted, and there wasn't a soul in sight on the mountain road.

"This year has been a bit tough!"

Zengjiazhuang is situated on a flat plain deep in the Daqing Mountains, surrounded by mountains on three sides and water on one side, making it a place that is easy to defend and difficult to attack.

The Zeng family ancestors moved here at least two hundred years ago. According to the family genealogy, the Zeng family was originally a lineage of "beast masters" in the world of supernatural beings for countless generations. However, they were not very good at fighting humans, but they did have a unique set of methods for taming livestock.

In the early days, there was a saying in the world of supernatural beings: "Beast Masters are at the bottom, and Mechanists are at the rear," which shows that these methods are indeed not good in fighting and magical combat.

But it was precisely because of the skilled butchers that the pigs raised in Zengjiazhuang became famous far and wide. The meat was tender, fatty but not greasy, and fell apart as soon as it hit the pot, with a rich aroma. Even the big restaurants in the provincial capital specifically requested pigs from Zengjiazhuang.

Every year in winter, after slaughtering the pigs for the New Year and smoking cured meat, merchants would drive mule and horse caravans up the mountain.

Pig bristles, pigskin, and pork—all were highly sought-after commodities. The hundred or so households in Zengjiazhuang lived more comfortably than the wealthy families in the towns below the mountain, all thanks to pig farming.

But this year's snow came too early and too heavily.

After shaking his pipe, Zeng Qing'an went back inside.

Zeng Qing'an turned around and looked around, then asked the woman beside him, "Old woman, where did Su'er go? I haven't seen him all day."

"How was I supposed to know? This child has been missing all day, hasn't even had a hot meal, and none of you care about my precious grandson..."

"Alright, alright," Zeng Qing'an waved his hand. "Don't you know Su'er? He knows what he's doing. He's probably gone to the old house. It's safe there."

Zeng Qing'an's wife, Liu Hua, came from a merchant family in a town at the foot of the mountain. She had been married into Zengjiazhuang for over thirty years and considered herself part of the Zeng family. She pulled a cotton-padded coat from the closet, patted it, and muttered, "Sense of propriety? He's only eight! What sense of propriety does an eight-year-old have? It's freezing outside; if he catches a cold, I'll never forgive you."

Zeng Qing'an, unusually, didn't argue with his wife; he just slightly curved the corners of his mouth. He really adored his grandson.

He vividly recalled the day Zeng Su was born.

That day was also a snowy day. When the midwife brought the wrinkled baby out of the delivery room, she said, "This child has a strong voice, and his cry is as loud as thunder."

When Zeng Su was three years old, Zeng Qing'an noticed something was wrong—the child was too quiet.

Children of other families at this age are usually disliked by cats and dogs; they run wild all over the village, climbing on roofs, tearing off tiles, catching chickens, chasing dogs, and doing all sorts of things.

But Zeng Su was different. He could sit on the threshold and watch the snow for half a day. He was usually very well-behaved. There was always something indescribable in his dark eyes.

It didn't seem like naivety, but rather... a sizing.

Zeng Qing'an found it fascinating to see a three-year-old child observing the world.

What truly captured his attention was when Zeng Su was five years old.

According to the Zeng family's rules, the skills of a beast master must be taught from the age of five, starting with recognizing beasts, understanding their nature, learning cultivation, and practicing Qi, progressing step by step.

Zeng Qing'an didn't have high expectations for this grandson—over the years, the Zeng family's bloodline had become increasingly diluted, and fewer and fewer of the younger generation could make a name for themselves. By the time his son's generation reached the basics of the family's Qi cultivation method, that would be considered quite good.

But Zeng Su is different.

"Grandpa, this 'Beast-Sensing Technique' you mentioned, does it mean first you need to guide the Qi to this acupoint, and then bring it around to this side?"

Five-year-old Zeng Su pointed to a spot on his arm and asked this question, which left Zeng Qing'an stunned for a long time.

He taught the "Sensing Beast Technique" for less than three days. It would take a normal child half a month just to memorize the formula for this Qi circulation route, let alone accurately locate the acupoints.

Not only did Zeng Su remember it, but he also pondered the principles of the Qi circulation route and even proposed a method that Zeng Qing'an had never thought of.

"How...how did you come up with that?" Zeng Qing'an asked, suppressing his shock.

Zeng Su tilted his head and thought for a moment, then said in a matter-of-fact tone, "I just feel that it's closer to go this way."

Zeng Qing'an tried the route he was told, and remained silent for a long time. Then he got up and spent half a day flipping through the family genealogy in the ancestral hall.

For over two hundred years, the Zeng family has been known for its exceptional talent in the field of beast masters. The most talented among them was the second-generation ancestor, Zeng Huaiyuan. It is said that he mastered the "Beast Sensing Technique" at the age of seven, could control six strange beasts simultaneously at the age of ten, and had already become one of the top masters in the world of extraordinary people by the age of fifteen. Unfortunately, he died young and was unable to pass on his skills, which was also a part of the decline of the Zeng family.

But Zeng Su started thinking about optimizing the Qi circulation route when he was five years old.

Zeng Qing'an put down the family genealogy and sat in the ancestral hall all night.

The next morning, he called Zeng Su to his side, placed the ancestral wooden plaque on the table, and said solemnly, "Su'er, from today onwards, Grandpa will teach you the methods of the Zeng family's Beast Master lineage, one by one."

"Remember this," he said, looking into his grandson's eyes, word by word, "our Beast Masters have been at the bottom of the supernatural world for two hundred years, not because our skills are inferior, but because the Zeng family is inferior. I'm afraid I'll never see the Zeng family rise again in my lifetime, but you—you might be the exception."

Zeng Su looked at the wooden sign, his small face expressionless, and simply nodded: "Okay."

Just one word.

At that time, Zeng Qingan did not know how much weight was hidden behind the word "good".

Zeng Su was indeed an exception, but the underlying nature of his "exception" was far more complex than Zeng Qing'an could have imagined.

Zeng Su remembers many things.

He remembered his name from his previous life, the place called "Earth," skyscrapers, cell phones, computers, the internet, and that he was an ordinary office worker who worked late into the night, fell asleep at his desk, and woke up as a crumpled baby in someone's arms, with a strange woman's weak yet joyful voice in his ear: "It's a boy, it's a boy!"

It took him three whole years to accept the fact that he had traveled through time.

It took another two years to figure out where he had traveled to.

When he was five years old, Zeng Qing'an first showed him the skills of a beastmaster—a large white pig weighing over 300 jin (approximately 150 kg) was driven by Zeng Qing'an to catch a wild rabbit as accurately as a hunting dog, and then used its nose to nudge the trembling rabbit to Zeng Su's feet.

Zeng Su stared at the wet rabbit, which had been nudged by a pig's snout, and his mind exploded.

Beast Master, Qi Cultivator, Extraordinary Beings.

These keywords, when strung together, reminded him of a comic he had read in his previous life—"Under One Person".

He still remembered the plot of that comic, although most of the details had become blurry, but he still remembered the general framework. Old Master Zhang Zhiwei, Na Dutong, Quanxing, the Eight Extraordinary Skills, the Jia Shen Rebellion... these names seemed to be engraved deep in his memory, and he could never forget them.

It is now the 18th year of the Republic of China, which is 1929 AD.

The Jia Shen Rebellion occurred in 1944, 15 years later. The creation of Wu Gensheng, the Thirty-Six Thieves, and the Eight Extraordinary Skills hadn't yet happened. The old Celestial Master Zhang Zhiwei should still be a young man, perhaps not even having become a Celestial Master yet.

The great storm brewing in the entire world of supernatural beings is still twenty years away.

He, Zeng Su, transmigrated into a family that was at the bottom of the supernatural world.

"Damn it," he muttered under his breath, his white breath quickly dissipating in the cold wind.

But Zeng Su was never one to just complain. In his previous life, he was able to go from being a child from an ordinary family to being admitted to a key university and then become a programmer in a big company because he was smart and hardworking.

The fact that he's experienced time travel means that either God is trying to kill him or has given him something else entirely.

As it turned out, it was the latter.

He mastered the "Beast Sensing Technique" passed down by the Zeng family in less than half a year, and then spent another year getting to the basics. He could be said to have entered the inner sanctum, and even his grandfather Zeng Qing'an could not compare to him.

By the age of seven, he was able to simultaneously control five adult pigs, making them perform complex coordinated actions—something that no one in the Zeng family, except Zeng Qing'an, could do in nearly three generations.

Zeng Su learned incredibly fast, so fast that Zeng Qing'an sometimes felt it was unreal when he looked at him.

But what Zeng Su himself found truly unbelievable was what he awakened to at the age of seven.

That day, he was squatting by the pigpen, trying to establish a connection with a newborn piglet using the "Animal Sensing Technique".

The piglet was entirely black except for a small tuft of white hair on its forehead, and it looked strangely clever. He needed a real tamed beast, and this little piglet was the most talented of all the piglets in Zengjia Village.

He channeled his Qi, slowly transferring it into the piglet's body, sensing its meridians and acupoints—this was one of the methods used by beast masters to select superior breeds. The better the animal's aptitude, the more acupoints it had, and the higher its compatibility with the beast master's Qi.

Only by fusing one's own Qi with that of a beast can one obtain a true beast tamer and thus use the true methods of a beast master.

However, the instant his Qi entered the piglet's body, a screen of light suddenly appeared before his eyes.

The semi-transparent light screen hovered in the very center of his field of vision, with lines of clear text written on it:

[Domesticable target detected: Pig]

[Breed: Crossbred of common wild boar and local pig]

[Current Evolution Stage: Mortal Beast]

[Potential Rating: E+]

[Possible Evolutionary Paths:]

【Route 1: Iron-bridled Pig (D) - Conditions: Target age ≥ 1 year, daily use of Qi to unblock specific meridians, weight reaches 500 jin, fed (Iron Bristle Feed)】

【Route Two: Mighty Pig (D+) – Requirements: Target age ≥ 2 years, cumulative strength training for 300 days, with daily Qi-based bone strengthening during this period. Feed with [Strength Feed]】

【Route 3: Sensory Pig (D-) – Conditions: Target age ≥ 6 months, cumulative 60 days of olfactory training, daily Qi-enhanced nose training. Feed with [Super-Sensitive Feed]】

[Note: The current target has low evolutionary potential. It is recommended to select targets with higher potential for focused development.]