Conversion Method

On the way back, Zhou Ming could not quite figure something out.

How had the butler Brunode's son, who looked like a fat pig, become Edward's attendant?

It was not that Zhou Ming was envious or jealous. He was wondering why Baum, also born a commoner and the son of Butler Brunode, had managed to defeat the more outstanding second sons of nobles from other territories and become the knight attendant everyone dreamed of being.

Was it Butler Brunode's son's ability?

Or Brunode's own skill at flattering others?

Or was there something wrong with Edward's head, making him choose a teammate who was like a pig instead of a more capable partner?

"Perhaps it was some inexplicable vanity, coupled with absolute confidence in his own strength, that made Edward rather choose a servant who could wait on him and flatter him than a useful talent..."

"This will surely become Edward's fatal weakness..."

Having lived several lives already, Zhou Ming saw human nature with exceptional clarity. As long as his opponent exposed an obvious weakness, he was confident he could defeat them with his mind!

"Fine. Now that Brunode's son has become a knight attendant, Brunode's attention won't be on punishing and abusing me anymore. His top priority now is to gather a large sum of money to outfit his son Baum with knightly equipment. That equipment is worth a fortune, so he won't deliberately come looking for trouble with me anytime soon."

Zhou Ming knew the profession of knight very well. Every knight was piled up with money. The land needed merely to support one knight amounted to 4,500 mu, not including a fine warhorse that cost over a thousand silver coins, a suit of armor with astonishing defense worth more than a hundred gold coins, and lances, greatswords, shields, bows, crossbows... all of which consumed enormous amounts of money.

A knight attendant's equipment cost far less, of course, but he still needed to buy a decent horse, a sword, a set of leather armor, and a shield. Together, they would cost around eighty to a hundred gold coins. Given Butler Brunode's income, that was probably quite a strain.

Yet, to Zhou Ming's surprise, only one week later, Brunode's son Baum appeared before all the residents of Glan Territory, dressed in leather armor with iron shoulder guards over it, a medium-length Side Sword in hand, and seated atop a tall gray horse, looking utterly spirited.

"Embezzlement. Other than embezzlement, I can't think of any way a baron's territorial steward could scrape together that much money in seven days."

Zhou Ming concluded that Butler Brunode, that crooked-fingered fellow, must have pocketed quite a bit of money while managing Glan Territory's income and expenses.

But whether Brunode had embezzled anything had nothing to do with Zhou Ming. Nor would he foolishly run to report him to the lord. After all, Brunode's attention was no longer on him, and over the past week, he had not deliberately made things difficult for him again. That was enough. Better offend a gentleman than a petty man; the worst thing was being remembered by one.

Not only that, but to keep petty people like Brunode from "remembering" him again, Zhou Ming began another plan.

Evening.

Under the dim yellow glow of an oil lamp, at the warm dining table.

After slowly chewing and finishing a piece of bread, only one-third of his usual dinner portion, Zhou Ming clapped his hands. He did not drink his favorite lamb milk pea soup either, and simply set down his bowl.

"Brother, why have you been eating so little these past few days? You've gotten so much thinner lately."

Seeing that her brother had once again eaten so little for dinner, Alice said with some distress.

Recently, she did not know what had happened to her brother. There was clearly still so much food at home, yet he had suddenly cut his breakfast portion in half and reduced his dinner to one-third of what he normally ate. He deliberately refused to eat his fill. What was this for?

Her brother's once fairly handsome face had become noticeably gaunt these past few days.

"Alice, don't worry. Your brother will take care of his health. If I'm hungry, I'll definitely eat more."

"If you're not hungry, then why have you gotten so much thinner lately? Your face isn't as handsome as before."

"I'm not getting thin. I'm losing weight. Don't you think my muscles stood out too much in town? They can't stand out like that anymore. I need to slim them down, or your brother will suffer for it." Zhou Ming explained.

"They didn't stand out at all. They looked good. I don't want you to slim down. It won't look good if you do." Alice pouted, sulking.

"Not looking good is exactly the point."

Zhou Ming sighed. After patting Alice's head, he walked into the backyard and picked up the Birch Pole again. Its grip had been worn into deep indentations by his hands, and its shaft gleamed with oil. In the night lit only by faint starlight, he faced the blurry human-shaped wooden target and began that day's spear-charge training.

In the blink of an eye, two months passed.

By now, Zhou Ming no longer looked anything like he once had.

He had lost more than thirty jin!

The muscles on his arms, thighs, chest, abdomen, and everywhere else had completely disappeared. Even the padding of flesh on his buttocks had thinned considerably.

In its place was a shriveled face so hollow that his eye sockets seemed visible through it, his cheekbones exposed; ribs standing out one after another beneath his chest; a belly that seemed covered by only a thin sheet of paper; and a frail body that looked as though a light breeze could blow it away.

And in daily life, he moved like a walking corpse...

"Little Ryan has been completely ruined. That coldhearted Brunode wouldn't even spare a child..."

"The devil has corrupted Little Ryan's soul, and demons are draining his life. If Little Ryan cannot recover from that blow, perhaps before long, we won't see him anymore."

"Ah... if only this child's parents were still alive. He wouldn't have suffered so much."

Even Butler Brunode, who often mocked Little Ryan at the edges of the fields, gradually began to ignore this insignificant person. Slowly, in Brunode's eyes, Little Ryan became no different from those skin-and-bones, malnourished farmers. He was no longer worth deliberately mocking, targeting, or teasing. Brunode found no pleasure in tormenting such a pitiful person.

However, whenever Zhou Ming returned home after finishing work each day and a sharp gleam suddenly flashed through his dead-gray eyes, his truest self appeared before him.

"Over the past two weeks, while doing Zhou Labor, Butler Brunode has mocked or ridiculed me zero times, punished me with extra labor zero times, and even spoken to me almost zero times..."

"Yesterday, when Edward rode out to hunt, he no longer looked at me with that contemptuous, disgusted gaze. There was only indifference..."

"Titles and nicknames like 'Clever Little Ryan' and 'Lucky Little Ryan' can no longer be heard from the children in town..."

"That clever, lively Little Ryan, who repeatedly created miracles and was so ambitious, has more or less died in their hearts, hasn't he?"

Heh heh.

Was that not exactly the effect he had wanted?

Trading only thirty jin of flesh that could grow back at any time for a version of himself that had "died once" in everyone else's impressions—no matter how one looked at it, it was an extremely worthwhile bargain.

Besides, only after his former self had "died" could those "memories" of being hated, mocked, sneered at, and ridiculed fade away with him.

But...

Only Zhou Ming himself understood that he had always been alive. He had merely changed his way of living, into one that others could not fathom, yet would ultimately leave them utterly astonished.

And he would make "them" pay a grievous price!