River Opening

In the capital city of the Great Deer Kingdom, Lizhou City.

A great river, the Lishui River, flowed through the city.

Lizhou Prefecture was named after the Lishui River. This great river not only cut through Lizhou City but also split into two streams downstream, one flowing north and the other south. The northern stream entered the Song Kingdom, and the southern stream flowed into the sea. It was a vital and well-connected waterway for the Great Deer Kingdom. Except for winter, it was incredibly busy year-round, with hundreds of large and small boats passing through daily.

Thus, there has long been a poem:

"The Lishui River, with its convenient passage for boats, Flows south to the vast sea and north to the Song. Pushing waves and rippling waters deliver prosperity, A single river can build a wealthy nation."

Although it was the transition between winter and spring, and the great river had just thawed, with cold winds still blowing, the dock was bustling with warmth and crowds. The laborers and boatmen, their body heat concentrated, released a potent mix of sweat and warmth, creating an intense atmosphere.

Today was the start of spring. The Lishui River, freed from its winter freeze, would even summon laborers and workers to smash the ice and forcibly open the river for boats. This entire process was called "River Opening."

Every year during the River Opening, people who made a living from the Lishui River's transport would gather here. Laborers would chip away at the ice to weaken it, and then boatmen would pull a heavy ship, crushing the ice layer and clearing the river channel.

Boatmen hauling ships, laborers smashing ice, wind and blood, sun-baked skin, and the constant rhythm of their chants.

"Nine zhang and three chi of rope on our shoulders! Heave ho!"

The boatmen shouted their chants in unison, exerting their strength to pull the large ship. The thick hull, catching the wind, was aided by the sailors on board. With the combined force of wind and human power, the ice layer was shattered.

"A life of toil, tied to our shoulders! Heave ho!"

This was no ordinary ship. It was a specially made vessel brought out only for the annual River Opening. Its hull was cast iron, and its body was made of hundred-year-old wood. No ice layer could withstand it.

"Feet on stone, hands digging sand! Heave ho!"

As the ice layer was crushed, it cracked everywhere. Large chunks of ice tumbled in the water, creating miniature icebergs.

"Don't say we can't sail against the current! Heave ho!"

The Lishui River, a great river, was five li wide. River Opening was a massive undertaking that would take an entire day, and even the Prefect of Lizhou would come to personally oversee it.

The iron-bottomed ship charged towards the ice layer with astonishing force. The terrifying cracking sounds as it broke through the ice were like a battering ram. Fragments of ice were projected high into the air, falling around the boatmen like hailstones. Some fine ice mist, reflecting the sunlight, created streaks of rainbows.

The air was filled with steaming ice mist, and the people were steaming with heat. The intermingling of cold and heat produced bursts of white smoke.

The first group of boatmen, exhausted, were immediately replaced by a second group, who took over the ropes and continued to pull the ice-breaking ship.

The first group of boatmen, having shed their heavy burden, quickly moved away, eager to rest.

Only one person remained standing in place, unmoving.

His skin was dark brown, appearing exceptionally healthy. Years of pulling ships had built up his muscles, giving him a well-proportioned physique.

What truly set him apart was that while most other boatmen had rough features and hunched backs, he stood perfectly straight, with handsome features. At first glance, he didn't look like a boatman at all.

His name was Li Qi.

Li Qi, having just released the tow rope, looked at the large ship and the icy river before him, a sigh escaping his lips. Even though he had seen it three times already, he still found it magnificent.

However, before he could finish his sigh, an old boatman beside him threw an arm around him, pulling Li Qi, who was standing there dazed and admiring the scenery.

"Let's go, Little Li. It's our turn for the second round. Let's go grab some hot soup first!"

"Uh, ah... alright, Uncle Liu." Li Qi nodded and walked towards the riverbank with a group of boatmen, all bare-chested except for a loincloth.

Li Qi was also a boatman, but he was different from the others. He wasn't a boatman whose family had been doing it for generations.

On the riverbank, others had already prepared hot soup and warm clothes to help the boatmen and sailors who had just finished the River Opening warm up. Because in a little while, after they recovered their strength, they would have to go out for a second round.

Sitting together, the boatmen changed their clothes and, holding bowls of meat soup, began to eat heartily, their manners far from refined.

Only Li Qi squatted by the river. Although he was also tired and covered in sweat, with his body bearing the marks of the tow ropes, he quietly waited without rushing to grab the official's meat soup.

After the crowd had all gotten their bowls, he walked up to collect his own, then returned to the riverbank. He sipped his soup slowly while watching the other boatmen pull the large ship.

"Brother Li! Here, I found a stool for you!" A boatman brought a stool from afar, it was unclear where he had gotten it.

"Thank you for your trouble, but it's not necessary. No one else has a stool..." Li Qi was about to say something when the boatman beside him gently pushed him down.

"Uncle Liu has one too. Brother Li, don't refuse. You and Uncle Liu secured the first round for us this time. It's just a chair, what's wrong with sitting on it?!"

"That's right!"

"The first round even had a personal reward from the Prefect. Brother Li helped us get this position, so what's wrong with sitting on a chair?"

"Exactly!"

"Me too!"

Seeing this, Li Qi no longer refused and sat down. While resting, he watched the boatmen of the "second round" pull the large ship.

Unknowingly, he had now witnessed three River Openings.

He had been in this world for almost three years.

Yes, he wasn't originally from this world. Seeing the large ship, this thought resurfaced in his mind.

That ship, with a displacement of several thousand tons, could be pulled by only a hundred or so boatmen, along with sails, and could even break through the ice!

He glanced at his own bulging muscles. Among the other boatmen, he didn't appear thin. When he was just an ordinary researcher, he certainly didn't have this physique.

But here...

Thinking of this, he suddenly stood up and threw a punch!

The air seemed to compress, and a whistling sound accompanied his fist. The ground not far away was kicked up with dust, as if a heavy object had landed.

Seeing this, the other boatmen praised, "Brother Li's Wave-Pushing Strength is used so skillfully!"

"I've practiced for ten years, and I still can't match Brother Li's effort of just two or three years!"

"Nonsense, who are you? And who is Brother Li?"

The boatmen chuckled, thinking Li Qi had just suddenly felt like moving. They didn't find anything strange about it.

For men, it was perfectly natural to get a sudden burst of energy and throw a few punches at the air; they bet no one had never done it.

But Li Qi was sighing inwardly.

More than three years ago, after his plane crashed and he lost consciousness, he found himself here. And he had arrived in his own body, with a broken game console and his travel backpack in his pocket. Most of the contents had been burned, leaving only a few pieces of scrap metal.

He had transmigrated, and he had brought his body with him.

Transmigration wasn't unheard of, but where were the promised inherited memories? Where was his original identity?

Nothing at all. He didn't even have household registration.

Others had even brought smartphones with them, while he only had half a game console.

Fortunately, he met some local boatmen who saved his life. Coupled with his background as a researcher, he had a decent brain, which allowed him to establish a firm footing among the boatmen. After earning their trust, Uncle Liu taught him some ancestral strength-training methods passed down by the boatmen.

In just three short years, he could now carry 700-800 jin of cargo and move with the speed of a flying horse. He even doubted if he was still human. Could humans achieve this level through training?

According to Uncle Liu, the boatmen's strength-training methods were quite rudimentary. The methods used by the military, the government, and the sects were considered profound, far beyond what the boatmen could compare to.

At first, he was incredibly excited, thinking he could achieve great things with the knowledge in his head!

Then, reality cruelly slapped him in the face. He discovered that this place was incredibly developed, and his meager intelligence was of no use at all...

In mathematics, which he excelled at, Lizhou City had a sect called the Thousand Mechanisms Sect, skilled in divination. Its members could all perform mental calculations, analyze data, and were extremely proficient in probability theory.

There were indeed no cars here, but the people here could travel a hundred li a day on foot. He heard that wealthy families had spirit horses that could cover a thousand li in a single day, which was no small feat.

This was even on mountain roads. If there were a highway here, could those horses compete with F1 cars?

Yes, there weren't many machines here, but what use were those machines?

The peculiar rules of this world had led it down a completely different path. Although there were few tools, almost all tools could be replaced by human effort.

Trucks? The boatmen could carry 700-800 jin, and those strongmen could each carry two to three thousand jin of goods for a whole day.

Precision machine tools? Li Qi had personally witnessed a craftsman carve a battle scene of a hundred people onto a grain of rice with a needle in fifteen minutes, all to show off his skill.

Research? It was a joke. The Thousand Mechanisms Sect I mentioned earlier, not to mention their mental calculation abilities, wasn't even considered a major sect in Lizhou's upper echelons. But when Li Qi heard them recruiting members, he discovered that their research into probability theory and chaos algorithms even surpassed his own world's. He couldn't even understand it.

Human strength had been infinitely magnified in this world. Through "cultivation methods," humans had completely replaced all tools. No tool was more useful than a person themselves.

Even weapons, Li Qi believed that even if an entire modern army group were placed in this world, they would likely be annihilated by the Lizhou military.

He had seen the military personnel when he was pulling a boat for important figures. At that time, the Commander of the Military Affairs was performing for the officials on the boat. Wielding a long saber, he severed the five-li wide Lishui River for a few seconds with a single strike.

That scene gave Li Qi nightmares for three consecutive nights.

Moreover, productivity was not lacking at all.

They said people from other worlds were all idiots, developing for ten thousand years and still in an agricultural society?

Their agriculture was indeed agriculture, but the problem was, had you ever seen rice yield three to four thousand jin per mu? And it was spirit rice, with incredibly high energy content. When Li Qi first started practicing Wave-Pushing Strength, he couldn't even eat half a bowl without feeling uncomfortably full.

But now, three jin of rice only made him half-full.

It was just that he couldn't get enough meat.

Because there was little livestock farming in this world, meat was primarily obtained through hunting. However, hunting costs were very high, so it was only during festivals, like the current River Opening, that they could get a little minced meat and meat broth.

It was precisely because of this that the boatmen ate like starving ghosts.

There was almost no livestock farming. Li Qi had initially seen it as a business opportunity, but after trying it once, he gave up.

In this world, where people were so formidable, the wild beasts were even more astonishingly fierce. A single pig was like a tank, making large-scale domestication very difficult. Li Qi had never seen a tiger in this world, but he guessed that such a creature could probably dismantle a Gundam without much trouble.

So far, the only domesticated animals he had seen were the spirit horses that occasionally appeared at the docks.

He heard there were also demonic beasts and spirit beasts, but those were too far removed from Li Qi. As a boatman, he belonged to the lowest stratum of society and had no chance to witness them.

It wasn't that he wasn't ambitious. In the first two years, he hadn't given up on climbing the social ladder, hoping to become a protagonist-like figure.

However, in a world like this, "cultivation methods" were bound to become the most precious resource.

People relied on cultivation methods to form small groups.

For example, in Lizhou City, there were three boatman gangs. One was their Wave-Pushing Gang, and the other two were the Water-Horse Gang and the Mighty Gang. Together, they comprised seven to eight hundred boatmen.

Within these three gangs, the cultivation methods were guarded with extreme strictness. Only after a thorough background check, a pledge of loyalty, and a long period of observation could one be granted the right to practice cultivation methods and officially become a gang member.

Afterward, they had to take solemn oaths and sign written agreements not to divulge the cultivation methods. If a traitor was found, not only would there be internal punishment, but the government also had explicit regulations prohibiting the leakage of cultivation methods after signing the agreement. The punishments were extremely severe, often involving banishment to thirty thousand li. He didn't know how vast this continent was.

Under such circumstances, the small groups in various cities were stratified by cultivation methods. The various gangs and groups were incredibly solidified, making it impossible for him to learn the methods of other factions.

In three years, besides relying on his intellect to gain a position as an advisor within the Wave-Pushing Gang, earning the respect of one to two hundred boatmen, he had truly achieved nothing.

"Alas..." Thinking of this, he sighed.

He was living a mediocre life. Although he could eat his fill of rice every day, adding some vegetables required careful consideration. As for meat... that depended entirely on the generosity of the important figures above.

He had transmigrated, but his life seemed to have worsened... except for his body becoming stronger.

Oh, more than a little.

It's just… I'm a bit unwilling.

"Uncle Li, Sixth Master is looking for you!" Just then, a child, bringing another boatman in his forties, ran over and shouted at Li Qi.

As the child shouted, drool streamed uncontrollably from his mouth.

Seeing the child's appearance, Li Qi was amused. He smiled and handed over the half-bowl of meat broth he hadn't finished: "Alright, seeing you like this, take it. Remember to return the bowl after you finish drinking!"

The child cried out in delight and jumped up. He grabbed the bowl and drank it down, drool and all. He chewed the bits of meat in the broth, even forgetting to say thank you.

However, the old boatman, referred to as Sixth Uncle, frowned upon seeing the child. He placed a stool next to Li Qi and sat down. "You only get to eat meat a few times a year, and you're giving it to him just for showing the way?"

"When you've been rained on, you'll hold an umbrella for others. When you've starved, you'll know the preciousness of a bowl of soup given freely. If Sixth Uncle hadn't given me a bowl of soup back then, wouldn't I have died too?" Li Qi chuckled casually.

Then, he turned to the matter at hand: "Alright, let's not talk about this. Sixth Uncle, what did you need me for?"

"I gave you vegetable soup back then!"

Sixth Uncle grumbled, but he didn't delay. He immediately got to the point: "Little Li, you're quite clever. Help me figure this out. It seems we've run into trouble."

A new book has been released! It's not a system-based novel, just a heads-up.

I have a completed novel of over a million characters. I don't skip updates or abandon books, so feel free to read with confidence.