Hua Xiaomei

After the meal was ready, he went over to Liu San's corpse and began searching it.

To his delight, Liu San had been quite well-off. He even found a few taels of silver.

In this world, one tael of silver was worth one string of copper coins, and a string contained seven or eight hundred copper coins. For Shi Feizhe, that was a huge fortune.

But soon, he noticed a square tattoo with a floral pattern on Liu San's arm.

Shi Feizhe recognized it: the mark of Four Directions Gang, a local gang in Yi Yang City.

There were three major gangs in Yi Yang City: Four Directions Gang, Live Slaughter Gang, and Blood Wolf Gang.

Since Huang Tian had taken over Yi Yang City, the three gangs had been fighting fiercely. The area where Shi Feizhe lived belonged to Four Directions Gang.

Now that he had killed one of their men, he couldn't go back to the clinic. Though gang members treated the clinic's owner with great respect, they barked orders at everyone else there, acting as if they owned the place!

Then, should he go somewhere else in Yi Yang City?

Yi Yang City was square, fifteen kilometers from east to west and ten kilometers from north to south. It was a major city connecting the north and south of Yi Province!

If he hid somewhere else in the city, Four Directions Gang would never find him.

No. How could he practice martial arts properly while constantly looking over his shoulder?

He would escape Yi Yang City and train until he had mastered True Origin Sword Finger Technique. Then he would come back and kill them, one with each sword finger, slaughtering the entire Four Directions Gang to his heart's content!

With that in mind, he rolled his only two sets of clothes into a bundle. After eating, he headed for the south gate.

His home was actually closer to the north gate, but the route passed by the clinic. Afraid someone there might see him and cause trouble, he went south instead.

It was already past the hour of Chen. The sun had fully risen, and Huang Tian above City Lord's Mansion had vanished. The sky had turned pale blue again.

The shops around the south gate were opening one after another. Calls and hawkers' cries rang out all around. Yi Yang City seemed to come alive in an instant, bustling with activity.

Seeing this lively scene, then remembering last night's struggle for life and death, Shi Feizhe felt as if a lifetime had passed.

After thinking it over, he decided that if he was going on a long journey, he ought to make more preparations.

So he went to a pawnshop and bought an old umbrella. Then he went to a dry-goods shop and bought some provisions to carry with him. He also picked up a crooked-mouthed gourd to hold water.

Once he had everything packed, he followed the crowd out of Yi Yang City and set off south for Qiu Yang City.

He walked by day and stayed at inns by night. By the third day, Shi Feizhe felt that he had recovered quite a bit. In his haste, he missed the last inn and had no choice but to spend the night in the wilderness.

This was because Shi Feizhe had too little experience. He didn't know that people in this era could only travel so far each day. Many were merchants on the road, hauling goods with oxen and horses, and they couldn't move quickly.

That was why inns and other places to stay could be found every few dozen li along the main roads, offering travelers somewhere to rest.

Miss one, and the next would be dozens of li farther on.

Qiu Yang City was four hundred kilometers south of Yi Yang City. At forty li a day, the journey would take nearly twenty days.

Even a fast horse could cover four hundred kilometers in a day and a night, but only if relay stations kept changing its mount without sparing the horses, to reach that kind of speed.

Unless one was a martial arts expert who could travel a thousand li a day, no one could get from Yi Yang City to Qiu Yang City in a single day.

"Man, transportation really is inconvenient! If only there were high-speed trains..." Shi Feizhe gathered a pile of firewood, found a sheltered spot in the woods near the main road, and lit a fire with a sigh.

High-speed trains would get him there in just an hour or two!

The temperature dropped sharply in the wilderness at night. He had been sweating all over while walking during the day, but now he was cold enough to need a fire.

Sleeping alone in the wilderness was extremely dangerous. Never mind passing bandits—even an extinguished campfire, a sudden cold snap, or poisonous insects and snakes could cause plenty of trouble.

If there were two people, they could take turns keeping watch. Alone, he couldn't sleep soundly, so Shi Feizhe could only practice his stance.

After resting for several days, his flesh wounds hadn't fully healed, but the meridians inside him no longer hurt. He could try practicing his stance and circulating his qi.

As with the Sword Stance he had practiced before, he planted his feet, held his hands at his sides, and stood straight. With each breath, true qi arose in his Dantian.

"Only a strong physique can cultivate true qi." "For decades, no one has ever mastered True Origin Sword Finger Technique!"

Shi Feizhe no longer dwelled on what Liu San had said.

Over one inexplicable matter alone, he could have been killed. This world was simply too dangerous for someone like him, with no support, power, or influence.

Having lived a second life, he didn't want to die like a blade of grass, without even knowing what had happened!

He could only seize the one power that might let him survive.

By the third watch, after Shi Feizhe had completed several Ren Meridian Small Cycles and the thread of true qi within him had slowly grown stronger, he suddenly heard someone speak.

"I didn't expect there to be someone here!"

Shi Feizhe looked up and saw a man—a strange man—slowly approaching from the darkness.

He wore a white brocade robe beneath a cloak embroidered with Auspicious Clouds. A black wanzi headwrap sat on his head. A gold-inlaid white jade belt was fastened around his waist, and he held a folding fan.

He had a face as beautiful as jade and eyes bright as stars, and looked remarkably like Chow Yun-fat.

He looked less like someone in the wilderness and more like he was attending some kind of banquet!

"Who are you?" Shi Feizhe asked warily. A handsome man suddenly appearing in the middle of the night was downright bizarre.

"I'm Hua Xiaomei. A pleasure to meet you, young brother!" the man said politely, bringing his hands together in greeting.

Strange. A man called Hua Xiaomei.

"I'm Shi Feizhe," Shi Feizhe replied politely.

"I was returning from a banquet and happened to pass by. I saw the fire here, so I came to take a look," Hua Xiaomei said.

A banquet? What kind of banquet could there be in the middle of nowhere?

"And then?"

"Then what?"

"After you took a look, what then?" Shi Feizhe asked warily.

"Ha!" Hua Xiaomei laughed. "Don't be nervous, young brother! I mean you no harm. I just thought your stance looked interesting, so I came over to talk."

"Oh? What was interesting about it?"

"I used to practice that stance when I was young," Hua Xiaomei was about to say, but suddenly fell silent and looked in another direction.

Shi Feizhe followed his gaze and saw another figure suddenly appear near the campfire: a woman dressed in white.

"The night is cold. I invite you both to my humble home to escape the wind!" Her voice was cool and clear, and very pleasant. She wore flowing white robes, with a silver hairpin in her hair and a veil over her face, obscuring her features.

But her eyes were strikingly bright. In fact, she looked at the two of them with an almost unnerving intensity!

Hua Xiaomei's expression changed. "I'm not going!"