After leaving Tongyang County, Zheng Qian found a large tree in a forest more than ten miles outside the county town and settled there, planning to set off for Ziyang City, the commandery seat, after daybreak.
The night passed uneventfully--
Before he knew it, the next day had already arrived.
As the first ray of morning sunlight appeared on the horizon, Zheng Qian opened his eyes.
Looking at the rising sun in the distance, he was dazed for a long while before stretching, then lightly leaping down from the tree.
Ever since he had come to this world, he had either been locked in a death-row prison devoid of light or hiding at the bottom of a similarly dark and damp well. He had barely seen the sun, and his circumstances had been utterly miserable.
Now, everything had finally passed.
Half an hour later, after washing up and eating a little, Zheng Qian headed toward Ziyang City, the commandery seat.
Ziyang City lay directly north of Tongyang County, connected to it by an official road about five meters wide.
Although the sun had only just risen, there were already many people on the road.
However, most of them were small-time peddlers and villagers from the surrounding villages and towns.
Some sold fresh fruits and vegetables, some sold the hides and meat of wild beasts, some sold firewood, and some were entering the city to buy things...
Most of them pushed small carts or carried their goods on their shoulders and backs. Only a few ox carts and donkey carts could be seen.
As a modern man from the twenty-first century, Zheng Qian was seeing ancient people's lives for the first time.
At a glance, most people's clothes were patched, and they were all extremely thin.
Clearly, these people at the very bottom of society could not even meet their basic needs for food and clothing.
This made Zheng Qian sigh inwardly at those online trolls from his previous life. They had enough to eat and warm clothes to wear, yet they were still dissatisfied, attacking this person and that person online for no reason.
Some even yearned for life in ancient times, believing that with modern knowledge, they could throw their weight around and surround themselves with women after arriving in the past.
But if they were truly sent to ancient times, setting aside how much useful modern knowledge they could remember, the various exorbitant taxes alone would leave them no time to think about anything else.
Not to mention that ancient society valued agriculture over commerce, leaving industry with virtually no foundation and making most modern knowledge completely useless.
But that was getting off topic--
Zheng Qian did not consider himself a savior. He had neither the time nor the energy to help these people at the bottom of society.
Thus, he walked and observed along the way. His pace was neither fast nor slow, and about three hours later, he appeared outside Ziyang City.
Ziyang City truly deserved to be the commandery seat. It was several times larger than Tongyang County, and its walls were considerably taller, reaching seven or eight zhang.
"Ziyang City, Prefect Mu Tingzhou! The Li Family of the Four Great Families! I hope you can bring me some good news..."
After standing outside the city for a while, Zheng Qian muttered those words and walked inside.
His appearance had changed considerably by then. His skin was much darker, his nose bridge was slightly higher, and he even had a pair of walrus mustaches beneath his nose.
In this ancient era, where information was extremely limited, these changes were enough to make him look like an entirely different person.
He did not want to do this either, but he had no choice.
Although his current strength was enough for him to run rampant across Xishan Commandery, there were still several experts in the commandery city at the same cultivation level as him. They probably would not be his opponents, but what if they were?
One had to know that his current identity was still that of an escaped death-row prisoner.
As the saying went, two fists could not defeat four hands. Although he had great confidence in his strength, he would never underestimate anyone. Who knew what methods those aristocratic clans with centuries-old legacies had hidden up their sleeves?
Soon, Zheng Qian, carrying a forged travel permit, paid two copper coins for the entrance fee and entered the city with ease.
"It really is lively..."
Beside a broad avenue fifteen or sixteen meters wide, Zheng Qian looked at the endless stream of pedestrians, merchant caravans, and peddlers before him and could not help muttering.
After standing there and watching for a while, he strode forward along the street.
His first priority was to find a place to stay. After that, he would inquire about the basic information concerning Ziyang City.
For example, the city's layout, the distribution of its forces, and the locations of the Prefect's Mansion and the Li Family.
As the saying went, money could make the devil turn a millstone.
After looting County Magistrate Fang Yujie, Zheng Qian could not claim to be extraordinarily wealthy, but he still had eight or ten thousand taels of silver.
That did not even include the hundreds of pieces of jade, jewelry, antiques, and calligraphy and paintings in his Storage Space. If he exchanged them all for silver, his wealth would probably multiply several times over.
Soon, Zheng Qian settled into an inn called Wanfu Tower and paid an entire month's rent in one go.
After arranging everything, he left the inn while it was still early, intending to go outside and gather some information.
If one wanted to know where information traveled fastest in ancient times, the answer was naturally restaurants.
The most luxurious restaurant in Ziyang City was called Zuixian Tower. It stood directly in the very center of the city and was extremely conspicuous.
Half an hour later, Zheng Qian appeared at a window seat on the second floor of Zuixian Tower and ordered every signature dish the restaurant had in one go.
There was Drunken Immortal Brew, braised Eight-Treasure Duck, charcoal-grilled lamb chops, steamed golden-thread fish...
He had heard of most of these dishes for the first time. He had no idea whether they tasted good, but their high prices were beyond dispute.
Just twelve dishes and one jug of wine cost him a full one hundred and ten taels of silver.
One had to know that in this era, one hundred taels of silver was enough for a family of three to live without worries for two or three years.
In other words, he had eaten the equivalent of an ordinary family of three's income for three years in a single meal.
His lavish spending also attracted the attention of many people.
However, no one who could enter Zuixian Tower was poor, so they merely glanced at him curiously before paying him no further attention.
Zheng Qian was happy to enjoy the peace and quiet. After ordering his food, he channeled his energy into his ears and began listening to what the people around him were discussing.
Soon, voices of conversation continuously reached his ears.
Most of them were meaningless topics: how much someone had earned that year, whose wife was beautiful, whose mother-in-law and daughter-in-law were at odds, who had struck it rich that year, and so on.
However, several matters caught Zheng Qian's attention.
The first was that the Four Great Families of the commandery city would jointly hold an auction seven days later. It was said that the star item was an incomplete low-grade Grandmaster-level cultivation technique.
Although incomplete, it was still enough to attract countless Xiantian experts to compete for it.
That included Zheng Qian himself!
The second was that the third young master of the Li Family, one of the Four Great Families of the commandery city, would marry the Prefect's granddaughter in half a month.
According to what Zheng Qian knew, Prefect Mu Tingzhou had only one granddaughter—and that was Fang Yujie's daughter.
The third was that someone had discovered a sect ruin deep in the Xishan Mountains east of Ziyang City and brought three Meridian Flowers out of it.
According to that person's account, their group had consisted of seven people, but he alone had emerged alive.
The others had either died to beasts along the way or perished from various mechanisms, traps, and poisonous gases on the outskirts of the ruins. Only he had managed to escape by sheer luck.
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