Killing Intent / Grain

After a long while, seeing that the worse turn of events he had imagined had not occurred, he finally relaxed a little.

Before actually leaving the instance, Qing He Miao went to a more distant patch of overgrown wasteland and controlled his stand to dig a shallow pit.

He buried his empty plastic insulated cup in it.

After all, he had to take the sanitary conditions of this era into account.

With things looking like this, there was no telling whether some virulent infectious disease might be lurking about.

It was better not to carry things used by people in this world back and forth between the two worlds.

Besides, it was only an old-fashioned, single-layer plastic cup, with neither stainless steel nor an insulating layer. It wasn't worth much.

Chapter 30: Killing Intent

After finishing all this, Qing He Miao used Metallica to hide himself again, then finally left the "The Outcast" world with a thought.

"Ahhhhh—!"

Back in his own room, he made sure no one was there, revealed himself, and had just plopped down on the familiar, half-warm kang.

All the tension, discomfort, and embarrassment at his glaring mistakes that he had suppressed earlier erupted in an instant.

Qing He Miao clutched his head and threw himself onto the kang, pressed his face against its mat, and rolled back and forth involuntarily.

The hard surface of the mat over the brick-and-stone kang dug painfully into him.

What on earth was he doing!?

Once the feeling had subsided a little, he stayed in that position and opened the system with a depressed look.

He went straight to the status bar, his gaze falling on the entry he had only developed in this life:

[Killing Intent]

[Due to the long-term suppression of the desire to kill for experience, when faced with targets from which experience can easily be obtained, the user is prone to a latent mindset of disregarding life and favoring the most efficient solution. Subconscious anticipation and impulses toward combat and harvesting are present.]

As long as he "killed monsters," he could level up, grow stronger, and even... perhaps one day attain immortality.

For anyone with such an ability, that was undoubtedly an enormous, nearly irresistible temptation.

Even immortals probably couldn't resist it.

Just look at how many people were lured in by demonic arts that improved cultivation through killing, let alone a good thing like this.

In his previous life, Qing He Miao had only been a corporate drone who had wasted more than thirty years. How much self-control could he have?

So, after he confirmed that "killing monsters to level up" was the right way to use the system, his perspective on other living beings naturally underwent a subtle change without his realizing it.

As the saying went, with a sharp weapon in hand, killing intent arose of itself.

When you held a hammer, everyone looked like a nail.

After getting the system, it felt as though the entire world had become unreal, and everything around him looked like an NPC.

To Qing He Miao, these people had all gained the label of "experience pack" in addition to their original identities.

There was nothing that couldn't be killed.

It was only because he had died once before, gained experience, and come to terms with much that he hadn't.

He had far more control over his life this time and wasn't in a hurry to improve his cultivation, so he hadn't gone out looking for trouble.

But he had always longed for a chance to gain experience and raise his level to his heart's content,

and so the [Killing Intent] status had naturally persisted for a long time.

Yet when the opportunity actually appeared before him, he had shamefully hesitated because of all sorts of emotional entanglements.

Entering an instance was supposed to be about "fighting and having a blast"!

Just look at what he had done!

Back in his previous life, it wasn't as though Qing He Miao had never done things that harmed others for his own benefit.

He had felt perfectly at ease then.

Because he knew full well that he too was a link in the chain of oppression and exploitation.

If he didn't hurt others, he might be the one to lose out.

So hurting others was the fault of the broader environment, and had nothing to do with what he wanted.

But now the situation had reversed, and for the first time, he was the one with the power to choose whether to share the pie.

It left him a little unsure how to conduct himself.

He had actually hesitated.

"I really envy people who can resolutely be villains..."

Qing He Miao couldn't help muttering to himself.

Being the sort of villain with a pure, grand goal and an unyielding will took talent too.

And it seemed he was precisely the sort who lacked it.

Most pitiful of all were people like him, who couldn't even become bad guys when they wanted to.

"Sigh..."

He let out another long sigh.

Qing He Miao decided to leave it for now and not seek out the protagonist's group just yet.

What was so interesting about Li Xingyun, whom even Gangzi couldn't prop up?

He might as well level up near his spawn point.

In chaotic times like those, there would never be any shortage of bandits, routed soldiers, or wild beasts anyway.

A kill was a kill, whatever he killed!

Just as Qing He Miao was adjusting his mindset and rethinking his strategy for using the "instance," he heard the door open and familiar footsteps in the outer room.

"What are you doing lying on the kang with your backside stuck up? All you know how to do on your days off is hole up in here!"

Qing Mu came in with her usual scolding, still wearing her worn-out work clothes:

"Look at the time! Couldn't you at least heat the kang? This room's practically an ice cellar!"

At this time of year, winter beyond the Pass was such that indoor temperatures dropped rapidly without a continuous source of heat.

The fire in the stove had long since died down, leaving only a few dark red embers. The warmth in the room was rapidly fading, and before long it would gradually become too cold to stay in.

Qing He Miao abandoned his rather dejected pose and rolled over to sprawl on the kang, facing the ceiling as he gave a listless, offhand reply:

"I feel like I've earned boundless merit and made a breakthrough in my realm. I'm too tired. Don't feel like moving."

"Just keep being lazy! Boundless merit? I'd say you're still muddled from sleep!"

Qing Mu shot him an irritated glare, but though she grumbled, her hands didn't stop. She turned and went out to fetch firewood, preparing to light the fire and heat the kang again, and make dinner while she was at it.

Before long, Qing Fu came home too, bringing with him the chill of the outdoors and a faint smell of tobacco.

Soon the sounds of Qing Mu getting the pots, bowls, and utensils ready for cooking came from the kitchen.

A little later, Qing Fu's slightly puzzled voice came from the back kitchen:

"Huh? Did either of you see those flatbreads in the cupboard? I remember there were some left."

Qing He Miao heard him from the inner room, blinked, and called back casually:

"Oh, I ate them. I made a breakthrough in my realm and felt hungry, so I found them and ate them. And the old cakes in Grandpa's room too.

By the way, how many times have I told you not to eat food straight after it's gone cold? Sooner or later your stomach won't be able to take it."

With that, he stopped lazing about, nimbly rolled off the kang, put on his padded shoes, and left the room to start helping with the chores of his own accord.

It was mealtime, and not only did the people need to eat, the family's livestock had to be fed too.

In the countryside, people often had to see to the animals before they could eat.

His parents had never had the heart to let their son Qing He Miao do some of the particularly dirty, exhausting jobs, for fear that people at school would look down on him afterward.

But purely physical work like chopping firewood, carrying heavy buckets of water to the livestock, or pushing a cartload of feed—

was naturally as easy as reaching out and grabbing it for Qing He Miao, with his cultivation.

It could make things easier for them.

So, after transmigrating, his quality of life had declined compared with what it would be more than ten years later.

Now he could even enter an instance set in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. You could say the longer he lived, the further back he went.

"All right, what's eaten is eaten. I'll buy some more next time I go to the market."

Qing Mu's voice came from the main room as she carried a large basin of vegetables to be washed through the central hall:

"You cultivate day after day, but I haven't seen you develop any real divine powers. You can't fly, and you can't eat them. With all that energy, you'd be better off studying more and trying to get into a good university."

This was a typical pattern of conversation between ordinary parents of the older generation and their children.

They always unconsciously slipped in a little unhappy criticism.

"Really? You look pretty happy when you go out showing off, don't you?"

Having studied in two lives and seen more of the world, Qing He Miao had long since seen through this and wasn't angry. As he worked, he shared some life experience:

"Also, how many times have I reminded you? I'm not the only person in this world who knows cultivation and has abilities. The country has special laws of its own for 'Outcasts' like us.

If you stand out too much and have too great an impact, you're liable to attract attention, and that's no good thing. But you still can't keep that mouth of yours shut, can you?"

Chapter 31: Grain

"Oh, go on! So I was wrong to give birth to you, was I?"

Faced with Qing He Miao's retort, Qing Mu loudly shot back.

Nobody was a fool; normal people all knew what they were doing.

But when they could stand on the moral high ground without consequences, naturally they would deny it when it suited them.

Things like this were wrong, but not fatal, and Qing He Miao didn't really hold it against her.

And so, with the family living together for so long, it was inevitable that ladles would knock against pot rims. Amid the quarrelling, the air filled with the smell of burning firewood.

Once the two elders had also returned from outside, one after the other, everyone began to eat.

It seemed that in the oil and grain shops of any era.