The Declaration That Changed Fate
Si Ming raised his head weakly and glanced at her. You're the female hoodlum for saying something like that.
Memories lingering in his body were triggered. The woman before him was named Yao Bilian, the manager of Minggui Orphanage, and she was twenty-five years old.
Under the government's regulations, citizens who still hadn't found a partner by age twenty-five had to attend a blind-date event or social mixer organized by the local marriage bureau once a week. The bureau was also obliged and responsible for matching all older unmarried young people with suitable partners.
The reason for this regulation was that, in this world, True Qi was the basic source of power, and only people could supply it. The population was therefore a national strategic resource, and how to increase it and halt the declining birth rate was an important issue every government had to prioritize.
For those who still had no steady partner after twenty-five, the personal tax rate rose by one percent for every additional year. Those who had not had a child by thirty faced the same tax increase and were stripped of social benefits, including the five social insurances and housing fund.
The guiding philosophy of the country's national policy was Mohist thought, so it was comparatively tolerant. Under a Confucian government, men and women of marriageable age who did not marry would be fined a certain amount. If they were still unmarried past thirty, their parents would be held accountable, because "to raise a child without teaching him is the father's fault."
The School of Military thought was even harsher. Citizens who remained unmarried past twenty-eight were immediately deprived of their personal freedom and sent to singles' concentration camps under completely closed management. Men and women lived together, and they would not be released until they found someone they liked inside.
After recalling this common knowledge, Si Ming couldn't help lamenting, This world is practically hell for single dogs!
But on second thought, in a sense, it could also be considered a paradise for single dogs. If he had to call it hell, it should be hell for people committed to staying single.
"Right, you're fourteen this year, aren't you?" Yao Bilian suddenly remembered. "That means you'll reach the legal marriage age in another four years. I'll be just twenty-nine then, not quite thirty... If I still don't have a partner in four years, I'll just marry you. For the sake of that pretty face of yours, I can keep you, you know. I'll make sure you never have to worry about food or clothes for the rest of your life. Mm, it's settled. Remember to take good care of yourself, and don't grow up ugly, or I'll return the goods."
She clapped her hands, looking as though she thought herself a genius.
Settled, my ass! Hurry up and pick your dignity off the floor!
Si Ming fought back the urge to retort. He hadn't fully absorbed the memories yet and didn't know how the body's previous owner would have reacted, so he could only excuse himself on the grounds that he was exhausted. He returned to his room, flopped onto the bed, and drifted off into a groggy sleep once more.
The golden crow sank, and the jade rabbit rose.
As the souls fused, Si Ming's body grew hotter and hotter. The blood in his veins gradually grew restless, and his metabolism sped up. Pain appeared on his face as sweat poured from his entire body. A mysterious power hidden deep within his bloodline was roused, and a Dao seed character representing "comprehension" appeared between his brows before fading from sight again.
The night grew deeper.
Chapter 2: The Declaration That Changed Fate
Si Ming woke up in the morning feeling refreshed and clearheaded, with none of the sense that he was a walking corpse that he had felt the day before.
He got out of bed and went to the mirror, studying the figure in it. After striking a few JoJo poses, he sighed. "Sure enough, I really did transmigrate. With this 'always looking like a weak, delicate wimp,' it seems I can't be a sailor. I can only be a pretty boy."
After fully receiving the memories, he recalled the body's past and found its life story rather sparse, with hardly anything noteworthy.
The body's previous owner had been abandoned as an infant and knew neither who his parents were nor where he had been born. On top of that, all the meridians in his body had withered, leaving him unable to absorb Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi or cultivate internal martial arts. In this age of True Qi, when everyone practiced martial arts, being unable to cultivate internal martial arts was no different from being disabled.
In this world, True Qi was the basic source of power. To use household appliances, one had to supply True Qi to be converted into electricity; to cook, one had to supply True Qi to be converted into flame; and to drive a car, sail a boat, or fly a plane, one likewise had to supply True Qi to be converted into mechanical power.
Without True Qi, one couldn't even live a modern life. Unless one paid a recharger to come and replenish it, one would have to live like a primitive.
Because of this, the previous owner had often been mocked by his peers and subjected to others' pity and discrimination. Though optimistic by nature, he had gradually become disheartened and given up on himself. As a result, he had lived his past fourteen years quietly and ordinarily, the sort of person whose sudden disappearance one day would not strike anyone as strange.
"Was this guy an idiot? Why care what other people think? Even if he couldn't cultivate internal martial arts, he could still become an external martial arts expert!"
To people in this world, cultivating internal martial arts was an essential ability for an ordinary person, just like walking on two legs or using one's hands to hold chopsticks. Being unable to cultivate them was a congenital defect.
For Si Ming, however, who hadn't even seen martial arts in his previous life, how could he feel any regret when he had the chance to practice them in this one? This was plainly a gift from heaven.
Every Chinese person had a dream of becoming a great hero, and Si Ming was no exception. He had merely been born with severed meridians; as long as he was alive, he could always find a solution.
"Refine essence into Qi, refine Qi into Spirit Transformation. Cultivating internal martial arts skips the 'refine essence into Qi' step and goes straight to the second. This body can't cultivate internal martial arts, which means I can't skip a level and take a shortcut, so I'll just follow the first step properly. As long as I train external martial arts to their peak, I can still move from the outside in and generate True Qi. This body's previous owner clearly knew all this, yet he still lost heart... Forget it. He was only a child in the end, and immature. I can't be too hard on him."
Si Ming thought it over and decided he shouldn't judge a child's conduct through an adult's eyes. That would be unfair. Just because he was willing to grind an iron pestle into a needle to fulfill his dream of becoming a great hero didn't mean someone else would be.
Moving from the outside in was easy to talk about, but for a person of ordinary talent to reach that stage would take at least twenty years of arduous training. And how many people in this world would be willing to spend twenty years doing something others could accomplish with ease?
At that moment, Sikong Ming glanced at the clock. "Crap, there's hardly any time left. I have to get to school... I never thought that, so many years after graduating, I'd get to relive school life."
He quickly washed up, went downstairs, and took a few slices of bread and some milk from the kitchen. After hastily swallowing them, he was about to leave, but had only reached the doorway when he saw Yao Bilian lying there, reeking of alcohol.
Looking back through his memories, this seemed to be a common occurrence. Si Ming sighed. "No wonder she can't find a partner. No matter how pretty she is, her personality is rotten. Spend enough time with her, and her true colors will show and scare people away."
Now that he'd seen her, he couldn't just leave her there, so Si Ming had no choice but to carry her back to her room first.
He had to admit, people in this world really did have outstanding physiques. Even someone as frail as him didn't find it especially difficult to pick up a woman weighing over a hundred jin. Presumably, even without internal martial arts, he had practiced martial arts since childhood, so he wasn't as weak as he looked.
Having wasted a little more time, Si Ming simply ran along the way. His body naturally began using a lightness skill as he went; from his memories, it seemed to be called Flying over Grass.
Though the name of this lightness skill was unremarkable, it was a broadly applicable martial art compiled by several grandmaster-level experts brought together by the national education bureau. It was enough for an ordinary person of average aptitude to practice for a lifetime.
At first, Flying over Grass merely increased speed and the frequency of one's steps, showing nothing miraculous. But once mastered, it not only made one as light as a swallow, able to run across rooftops and up walls, but could also counteract one's own gravity, allowing one to run over grass without bending a blade. He had no idea what principle lay behind it.
When Si Ming first started running, his posture was a little awkward, and his movements were far from smooth. But as his body instinctively adjusted and errors in the details were corrected, he grew faster and faster. He even reached the theoretical limit for someone not using True Qi, enough to compete with the Olympic athletes of his previous life.
Si Ming thought this was the previous owner's normal level and paid it no mind, unaware that he had surpassed his predecessor's limit in just a few minutes.
Running at full speed consumed a great deal of stamina, and by the time Si Ming saw the school gates, he was already panting. His body was relatively frail even compared to those his own age, and he didn't have internal martial arts to help him.
"Good thing I made it."
Just as Si Ming walked through the gates, a girl's voice suddenly came from beside him.
"You finally made it. Are you feeling all right? It happened to be my turn on cleaning duty yesterday, and by the time I finished cleaning the classroom, I couldn't find you in the infirmary."
Si Ming nearly jumped. He hadn't noticed at all that someone was waiting by the school gates. He turned to see a delicate-looking girl with an oval face gazing at him, a faint smile at the corner of her mouth.
The girl's body had yet to fully develop, its curves only faintly visible, but she had bright eyes, white teeth, and a pretty face that made it easy for people to like her. She also gave off some of the unhurried air of a literary girl. For some reason, though, her presence was so faint that she was easily overlooked.
A name instantly sprang into Si Ming's mind: Liu Qingqing, the original owner's childhood friend. They had been in the same class throughout elementary and middle school. They had been quite close as children, good friends who told each other everything, but after entering middle school they had gradually grown apart and spoken less and less.
Whether it was a case of shared hardship drawing them together or birds of a feather flocking together, Liu Qingqing likewise had no particularly outstanding qualities. Her grades and interests were ordinary, and she had no special talents. Though she was quite pretty, for some reason her presence was surprisingly weak. Once, on a school spring outing, she had followed the wrong class, but no one noticed until the outing ended. Not only had her own class failed to notice one person missing, but the other class hadn't noticed an extra person either.
"After a good sleep, I've completely recovered. Thanks for your concern," Si Ming answered instinctively.