Jiang Qinghe

Dawn had barely broken, and Lin'an County was still shrouded in a thin veil of mist.

In the rear courtyard of the Red Leaf Wine Shop, the crisp sound of chopping wood had already begun.

"Crack—"

A thick log split cleanly in two beneath Jiang Qinghe's iron axe, becoming two neat pieces of firewood.

He was thin and not particularly tall, standing just over five foot seven.

Years of hard labor and malnutrition had left his complexion somewhat sallow.

He wore a washed-out brown short tunic, with a hemp belt cinched tightly around his waist.

His rough hands were covered in calluses and tiny scars, while the straw shoes on his feet had worn through enough to expose his toes.

By now, his clothes had long been soaked through with sweat, clinging tightly to his wiry frame.

Jiang Qinghe wiped the sweat from his brow, planted the axe firmly into a crack in the chopping block, stretched his aching waist and back, and sighed inwardly as he looked at the remaining bundles of firewood.

He was not from this world.

A few days ago, while surfing the internet, he had seen all the major forums going wild with rumors that a flood dragon had appeared in the world.

That day, thunderclouds rumbled and rain poured without end. Jiang Qinghe looked out the window and truly saw an enormous dragon rolling through the clouds.

The dragon twisted its body, and two pillars of light shot from its eyes, sweeping toward him. His vision went black at once, and he lost consciousness.

When he woke again, it was the biting cold that had roused him.

Jiang Qinghe found himself curled up atop a pile of damp straw as fragments of memory came flooding into his mind.

It took him a long while to adjust before he finally came back to himself.

The owner of this body had shared his name. Exhausted from overwork, he had slept in the kitchen that night, only to die suddenly in his sleep and head straight for the Bridge of Helplessness to meet Meng Po.

And at that very moment, Jiang Qinghe had transmigrated here and taken over this body.

Over the past few days, Jiang Qinghe had gone from shock and panic to resentment and helplessness.

In the end, he listlessly accepted the fact that he had crossed into another world and become a menial worker at a wine shop.

When the previous owner of this body had been young, an old boatman surnamed Jiang had found him by the Qing River outside Lin'an County, taken him in, and named him Jiang Qinghe.

The old boatman also had a granddaughter, Jiang Ziyue.

To raise him and his younger sister Ziyue, the old man had worked from dawn till dusk every day to make ends meet.

Later, after the old boatman they had depended on passed away from illness, Ziyue entered the Magistrate's Manor as a hired maid.

He, meanwhile, came alone to the wine shop and did odd jobs.

From his memories, Jiang Qinghe learned that this land was ruled by the Great Zhou Dynasty.

The dynasty's territory was vast and boundless. The seven great provinces under its rule lay across the land like the Northern Dipper, while the eighty-one mighty cities beneath them were scattered like stars across the sky.

The Lin'an County where he lived was merely a remote corner under Cangfeng City in Cangzhou.

The dynasty had been founded upon martial might. Those whose martial path reached the divine could fly through the heavens and burrow through the earth, cleave mountains and sever seas, and decide the fates of hundreds of millions with a single word.

Whenever he thought of this, Jiang Qinghe could not help yearning for it.

But at eighteen, he had not only missed the best age to train in martial arts, he also had neither background nor money. He was still struggling at the very bottom of this world.

Still, so long as there was even a sliver of hope, he had to fight for it. Better that than drift through life in mediocrity and die of old age in this tiny patch of ground behind the wine shop.

"Wanping Martial Academy..." Jiang Qinghe mused inwardly. I'll soon have saved enough for the twenty taels of admission fees.

Steadying himself, he bent to pick up the axe. Just as he was about to continue chopping wood, a sarcastic voice drifted over from behind him.

"Well, well! Isn't this our wine shop's famous Jiang the Good-for-Nothing?"

Jiang Qinghe's hand on the axe paused slightly as his gaze shifted toward the source of the voice.

The wine shop's steward, Qiu San, came swaggering over with his bloated body, idly waving a folding fan embroidered with gaudy gold thread.

His eyes narrowed as he looked Jiang Qinghe up and down. Seeing his sweat-soaked clothes, a mocking curl tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"Did the sun rise in the west today?" Qiu San snapped his fan shut and lightly tapped his palm with its ribs.

"Our Jiang the Good-for-Nothing is actually not slacking off? Chopping this diligently, too."

Before Jiang Qinghe could react, Qiu San suddenly raised his voice.

"Since that's the case, add another hundred pieces for him tomorrow! We can't let that heaven-born strength of yours go to waste."

The two shop attendants following behind Qiu San immediately burst into shrill laughter.

These two were usually Qiu San's loyal lackeys, and they took pleasure in bullying Jiang Qinghe.

The shorter lackey stepped forward, kicked at the towering pile of firewood, and said in a strange voice, "Brother Qiu, the bowls and plates in the back kitchen are still piled up there. We haven't found anyone to clean them."

The taller lackey caught on at once, waggling his brows as he continued, "Hey! Why look for someone else? Isn't there a ready-made one right before our eyes? Let our Jiang the Good-for-Nothing clean them all up too!"

Hearing this, a look of wholehearted approval immediately appeared on Qiu San's fat face.

He cast an approving glance at the two lackeys and nodded in satisfaction.

"Thud! Thud!"

With two dull blows, Qiu San struck Jiang Qinghe on the back of the head with the hard ribs of his fan as though he were knocking on a wooden barrel.

The force was so great that Jiang Qinghe, caught off guard, saw darkness flash before his eyes and heard a loud buzzing in his ears.

He staggered before barely managing to steady himself. A searing pain flared at the back of his head, where a huge lump visibly swelled up.

"Did you hear that? Your tasks have been assigned. Get to them properly!"

Qiu San leaned close, breathing onion-and-garlic-scented foul breath that made Jiang Qinghe nauseous.

"If I see even a trace of grease on those bowls and plates tomorrow, I'll make sure you can't swallow it and carry it away!"

After throwing out those words, he left in grand fashion with the two shop attendants.

They've gone too far!

Jiang Qinghe cursed inwardly. He touched the painful swelling at the back of his head and watched the three men gradually depart with a gaze sharp enough to cut.

This steward Qiu San often made things difficult for and humiliated him because the previous owner had been skinny, foolish, and dull-witted. He had even resorted to fists and kicks.

"Make me eat good fruit?" A chill flashed in his eyes as he split the firewood standing beneath his iron axe and sent it flying. "Just wait!"

After the last wisp of sunset was swallowed by the evening gloom, Jiang Qinghe finally finished all of that day's work.

Rubbing his aching arms, he dragged his exhausted body out through the small rear gate of the wine shop.

By now, the sky was utterly dark, and the entire West Street was terrifyingly silent.

The shops on both sides had long since closed. Only a few scattered oil lamps shone through their paper windows, casting dim yellow halos and painting blurry circles of light across the bluestone road.

Jiang Qinghe pulled his thin clothes closer around himself and followed the route from his memories, passing through the alley at the end of West Street that was flooded year-round.

After turning north and winding around three or four corners, he soon arrived before a dilapidated tiled house in the northwestern corner.

He pushed open the creaking wooden door, revealing a front courtyard. The ancient tree in its center had withered until it was barely recognizable.

This was the home where he, his grandfather, and his sister had lived for more than ten years.

Three low tiled rooms and a small courtyard less than ten paces square held his most precious memories.

In a daze, he seemed to see once more his grandfather's hunched figure sitting beneath the tree and telling them stories, and to hear his younger sister's silver-bell laughter echoing through the courtyard.

Now, his grandfather rested forever in the graveyard by the Qing River, while his sister Ziyue served as a maid in the Magistrate's Manor.

According to the manor's rules, maids were not allowed to leave without permission. Thus, he alone remained to guard this little courtyard.

Only during major holidays such as the year-end festival could Ziyue request half a day off to return home.

Jiang Qinghe's thoughts drifted back to that rainy afternoon three months ago.

He had saved half a day's wages to buy a packet of osmanthus cakes, then secretly gone to the side courtyard of the Magistrate's Manor to visit his sister. He remembered the little girl's delighted expression.

"Brother, I eat and sleep in the manor, and everything is fine. You don't need to worry." The young girl pressed broken silver into his hand.

"In a few more months, we'll have saved enough for the martial academy fees. Then you can become a powerful Martial Practitioner!"

So that he could attend the martial academy and learn martial arts, so that he could fulfill his dream, Ziyue had lived frugally and saved every copper coin from her meager earnings as a rough maid in the Magistrate's Manor.

Jiang Qinghe remembered every bit of it in his heart, and had already come to regard her as his own younger sister.