Great Qi Dynasty, third year of Xihe, eleventh month.
The night was like splashed ink, oppressively pitch-black.
In Jizhou, Yuhe County, Wazi Township, a lone farmhouse stood by the field ridge. Its rotting wooden door hung ajar, and when the wind blew in, it let out a drawn-out creak—like the dying moan of an old man.
The window paper on the second-floor attic had several holes torn in it. In the gloom, one could see a crooked wooden table, cobwebs in the corners shrouded in dust, and tattered cloth swaying in the wind. Their shadows fell upon the floor, lengthening and shortening, eerily like someone walking with arms hanging down.
A youth stood cowering in the corner, his face pale, his terrified gaze sweeping across the room.
He lit a candle and set it on the table. The flame flickered.
Hwoosh!
From some crack in a window came a faint sob. It was impossible to tell whether it was the wind, or something hidden up in the beams letting out a sigh. Even the air was wrapped in a damp, moldy stench, as cold as ice pressed against bone.
The candle flame sputtered, pitching the room into flickering light and shadow.
The youth jolted and dove beneath the bed, as if the cramped space could offer him a shred of safety.
“Could there really be a ghost?
“Even if there is, if I hide here, it shouldn’t be able to find me.”
Cold sweat seeped from his palms and soles, and chills ran down his spine. He kept muttering inwardly, trying to bolster his courage.
Just then, faint sounds came from outside.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
It was as if something was climbing the stairs.
Before long, the sound of footsteps on the stairs vanished.
The youth wondered why this ghost would make such rhythmic thuds as it walked, but he had no time to think. He vaguely sensed that at the dilapidated wooden door of the attic, the ghost was surveying the room, searching for the living.
“Where are you?”
A dry, cold voice rang out, startling him.
The window had opened at some unknown point, and cold wind instantly filled the room.
With a huff, the flickering candle finally died completely.
The youth’s clothes were completely soaked in cold sweat.
His face was pale with fright. He held his breath, doing his utmost to hide, squeezing his eyes shut while silently praying that the ghost would leave soon.
Thud, thud, thud.
The sound echoed through the room.
It seemed the ghost was searching everywhere.
The youth’s heart was in his throat.
However, before long, the thud-thud-thud gradually faded away.
The youth let out a sigh of relief, feeling a burst of fortune. Fortunately, he had hidden under the bed, and the ghost had failed to find him before leaving.
Thinking that the ghost had departed, his entire body relaxed considerably.
“Oh, found you. So this is where you were hiding.”
A damp, cold voice suddenly spoke beside his ear.
Every hair on his body stood on end, and he snapped his eyes open.
In that very instant, he saw, to his horror, a bloody, mangled face.
Wazi Township, Yang Family Village.
Yang Jing sat on an old wooden stool in front of the main house, staring blankly at his courtyard, which was both unfamiliar and somewhat familiar.
The main house, along with the wing rooms on both sides, totaled five or six rooms. Yet the paint on the doors and windows had long since curled and peeled, revealing the dark wood beneath.
Scene after scene surfaced in Yang Jing’s mind, leaving him somewhat dazed.
He had transmigrated. In his previous life, he had been hit by a vehicle on the road, and then arrived in this world similar to ancient China, becoming a farmer’s son who had entered a martial arts hall.
Creak.
At that moment, the courtyard gate was pushed open from outside.
A slightly plump woman dressed in coarse hemp clothes walked in, carefully holding a lotus leaf. Wisps of meaty fragrance drifted out from between its folds.
“Jing’er, is your body feeling better?” the woman asked upon seeing her son sitting at the door.
“Much better, Mother.” Yang Jing said.
This woman was Liu Cuiling, his mother in this world. Years of labor had made her skin dark and rough. At this moment, fine beads of sweat dotted her forehead, glinting slightly in the sunlight.
“I went to the market and bought some ribs. I’ll cook them for you later to nourish your body.” As Liu Cuiling spoke, she headed straight for the kitchen.
“Thank you, Mother.” Yang Jing said shamelessly.
“Hmph, you stinking brat. Let’s see if you still dare to make reckless promises in the future.” Liu Cuiling muttered from the kitchen.
Yang Jing knew his mother harbored great resentment.
However, as they say, every gain has its loss. It was precisely because of the original owner’s recklessness that he had been able to transmigrate and take over this body.
Half a month ago, the original owner had asked the martial arts hall master for leave to return home and get the money for next month’s expenses, just in time to meet his aunt returning to her parents’ home.
His aunt knew that the original had entered the county martial arts hall and was now quite capable, so she asked him to go to his uncle’s ancestral residence to see if it was truly haunted.
The original had considered his qi and blood vigorous and didn’t believe in ghosts. Flattered by his aunt’s words, he agreed without hesitation, ignoring his mother’s objections.
That very night, in his uncle’s ancestral residence, he was literally scared to death.
Only then did Yang Jing transmigrate over.
So in the eyes of others, Yang Jing had merely fainted from fright.
Yet for half a month, even though they knew Yang Jing was recuperating, his aunt and uncle had never come to visit. Naturally, this made his mother furious.
“That thing was strange. Was it really a ghost?”
In Yang Jing’s mind, the bloody, mangled ghost face from the original owner’s memories surfaced.
No wonder the original had been scared to death. That face was truly revolting and horrifying.
As he recalled, more and more scenes appeared in his mind.
The original’s family had possessed over twenty mu of land, and their life had been relatively well-off—one could tell from this spacious farmhouse courtyard. However, later on, to support the original’s martial arts training—the apprenticeship fees, medicine fees, living expenses, and so on—they sold everything that could be sold. That was why the courtyard seemed so empty, the paint on the doors and windows peeled away, and there was never money to repair it.
“Sigh.”
Yang Jing sighed inwardly.
He had received the original’s memories and knew that the entire family had exhausted their resources to support his martial arts training. In the family’s eyes, the original was a proud son of heaven, the pride of the whole family.
But Yang Jing knew that the original’s aptitude was merely mediocre. He didn’t work hard at the martial arts hall either, spending all day drinking and having fun with a few fellow disciples who also didn’t train hard. Only when he came home to ask for money would he deceive his family about how hard he worked at the hall, what progress he had made, and how he had earned the appreciation of his teachers and the respect of his peers.
Yang Jing was somewhat speechless.
Grandfather, grandmother, father, and mother all hoped that the original could pass the county-level imperial examinations with high marks. Even a tiny bit of official status would be an event so momentous for the entire Yang Family that it would be like smoke rising from the ancestral graves. Most crucially, with official status, he could be exempted from taxes and corvée labor.
Taxes alone: the formal tax collected by the court was twenty percent of the annual harvest—a very high proportion. In reality, besides the formal tax, there were many additional and miscellaneous taxes at the local level. Added together, they amounted to fifty to sixty percent of the harvest.
It was said that rebel armies had already appeared in some eastern prefectures. To suppress the rebellions, the court might also apportion military expenses and troop-training funds onto the peasants.
These various taxes were like a great mountain, weighing heavily on the shoulders of the farmers.
Therefore, the entire family was filled with hope for the original.
Even if they had to sell their last possessions and subsist on chaff and wild vegetables, they would support his martial arts training.
One must understand that the cost of practicing martial arts was beyond imagination.
There weren’t many farmer’s sons practicing martial arts among the twenty-plus villages of Wazi Township.
“What an animal.” Yang Jing cursed inwardly.
The original clearly knew the family circumstances were difficult, yet still indulged in carousing and debauchery outside, without any intention of improvement.
This couldn’t help but make Yang Jing recall news he had seen in his previous life: there was a high school senior who skipped class and slept all day, whose grades were at the bottom of the entire grade, yet told his family that his scores were skyrocketing, ultimately leading to a thunderous crash at the college entrance exams.
Except, by comparison, the original had kept up the act rather well up until now. The crash hadn’t come yet.
“If things continue developing according to the original’s situation, the crash isn’t far off. This time, fainting from fright at the uncle’s ancestral residence is also a catalyst. If someone were paying attention, they might guess that the original is nothing but an embroidered pillow. Good grief, the crash is right before my eyes.” Yang Jing thought secretly.
As the old saying goes: poverty supports literature, while wealth supports martial arts.
Practicing martial arts requires capital, and great capital at that.
Just the auxiliary medicinal herbs and blood-qi-rich food alone constituted a massive figure.
And the Yang Family was out of money.
The original’s aptitude was mediocre, belonging to the most ordinary among all the disciples in the martial arts hall.
Once the Yang Family could no longer provide money to support him, he would have no choice but to slink back home.
“But just because the original couldn’t do it doesn’t mean I can’t.” Yang Jing’s eyes narrowed slightly.
In the next moment, a line of text appeared in his mind.
[Mountain-Crushing Fist: Entry (30/200)]
When he first discovered this extra line in his mind, Yang Jing had worried whether something was wrong with his mental state.
However, in some inexplicable way, he had also received information about this line.
Yang Jing simply called it a panel.
This panel’s ability was that during Yang Jing’s cultivation of any technique or martial art, he would never encounter bottlenecks.
This meant that breakthroughs which were extremely dangerous to others held no risk whatsoever for Yang Jing.
As for whether it was truly reliable, Yang Jing couldn’t confirm yet. He still needed to slowly test it.
But if it were true, he could completely walk step by step to an extremely high position on the martial path—the highest heights within sight!
One must understand that on the path of martial arts, the most difficult thing was breaking through bottlenecks.
The reason the vast majority of martial artists could not advance to higher realms was that they were blocked by bottlenecks.
And he had no bottlenecks!
“Hoo!”
Yang Jing let out a long breath, suppressing the restlessness in his heart, and began to calculate silently.
He had been frightened that night, but after a few days he had recuperated.
However, Yang Jing still needed time to slowly sort through the many memories received from the original.
By now, he had more or less sorted them out.
‘In this world, if you want to rise above others, the only way is to train martial arts well.’
‘It’s time to return to the city.’
‘Let the original’s crash be his own. Now that I’ve occupied this body, I can’t crash!’
Yang Jing calculated inwardly.