Yang City Zhang Ming

"Young Master, these are the Merchant Guild's earnings for this month." An old steward respectfully handed over an account book.

"Thanks to the membership system, points system, and various services created by Young Master, as well as the Merchant Guild's reputation built over more than a decade and its mutually beneficial cooperation with the Government Office, the Merchant Guild's earnings have reached a new high again this month."

Across from the steward reporting the earnings sat a youth.

His face was like exquisite porcelain, without the slightest flaw. He possessed beauty beyond his years, yet had lost none of a youth's freshness and vitality.

His eyes were like deep lakes, light and shadow dancing within them. Intelligence and cunning were like two fish swimming with ease through the water. This youth was the Zhang Family's young master—Zhang Ming.

Zhang Ming gave a slight nod, signaling for the steward to continue.

"This month's profit was approximately 2,200 taels of silver." The steward lowered his head and continued his report, not daring to meet his young master's gaze.

Hearing that number, Zhang Ming's face showed no expression. He merely tapped lightly against the tabletop.

Knock, knock, knock—

Each tap seemed to strike upon the drumbeat called a heart.

"Old Li, you have been with my Zhang Family for several decades now, haven't you?"

The steward's body trembled as he answered nervously, "Yes, Young Master. This old servant has been with the Zhang Family since childhood. I followed Young Master's parents and have served for more than fifty years."

"Mm, more than fifty years. That truly is a long time, a whole lifetime spent serving my Zhang Family."

There was a trace of emotion in Zhang Ming's voice.

"I still remember when I was little, you used to carry me. Your beard always pricked me."

At the mention of old memories, a smile appeared on the steward's face, and he relaxed. "Yes. This old servant watched Young Master grow up. Young Master had peerless talent and extraordinary wisdom from childhood. People even called you a Reincarnated Immortal."

Despite the praise, Zhang Ming showed no smile.

Then, without warning, his tone turned as cold as ice.

"Old Li, you watched me grow up. You know what I am capable of!"

His sharp gaze fixed directly on the steward. His eyes seemed capable of piercing the human heart, and the invisible pressure became almost tangible, leaving one unable to breathe.

After a long while.

"Then you! Why did you betray the Zhang Family!"

With a thud, the steward suddenly dropped to his knees. His face filled with terror as he kowtowed and cried out.

"Young Master, Young Master, this old servant should not have betrayed you! My son owed gambling debts to that Gang. If this old servant had not done it, they would have killed my son! This old servant was forced into it! I was forced into it!"

Zhang Ming paid him no heed and merely waved his hand. Two burly men entered from outside and dragged the steward away.

"Throw him out of Zhang Mansion. From this day forth, he will have nothing to do with Zhang Mansion."

The steward, cast out of Zhang Mansion, was overjoyed. He kowtowed toward the young master in thanks, thanking him for sparing his life and thanking the Zhang Family for its mercy.

Zhang Ming watched it all expressionlessly.

A moment later.

The study returned to silence.

At that moment, a guileless-looking middle-aged man emerged from the back of the study. After respectfully bowing before Zhang Ming, he asked in confusion.

"Young Master is merciful."

"That old fellow has been lining his pockets these past few years. He has profited by at least a thousand taels of silver. Aren't we going to recover that money?" The middle-aged man spoke with some reluctance.

Zhang Ming gave a cold laugh. "There is no need to recover it."

"Why?"

The middle-aged man did not understand.

"That old fellow spoiled his son rotten. His son never learned properly from childhood, loved brothels and gambling, spent enormous amounts every month, and owed debts beyond counting."

"Once his money has been drained away and he becomes useless, his end will be more miserable than merely taking that money back."

The blows dealt by one's own flesh and blood cut deeper than those dealt by outsiders.

"Young Master's calculations are brilliant."

The middle-aged man's eyes lit up, as though he could already see the impoverished old steward being swept out the door by his own son and shivering in the winter cold.

"Enough flattery. Go take over the mess the old steward left behind. I want to see results."

"Yes, Young Master."

The middle-aged man took his leave, and the study returned to silence once more.

Zhang Ming shook his head. He had long anticipated the old steward's betrayal, and it stirred little emotion in him.

Calming the stray thoughts in his mind, he recalled the eighteen years he had spent since transmigrating into this world.

Zhang Ming, eldest son of the Zhang Family in Yang City, was a transmigrator.

A transmigrator who had awakened Innate Wisdom within his mother's womb and knew both his past and present lives.

After awakening his Innate Wisdom, he passed through the initial stage of physical development. He learned to read at three, recited texts at four, wrote poetry at five, and became a prodigy renowned far and wide, praised as a Reincarnated Immortal descended to the mortal world.

At the beginning, relying on his awakened Innate Wisdom and the immense fame he had gained, Zhang Ming had intended to use his name as a prodigy to carve out a great enterprise and spread his wings in this world.

To let Yang Yiyang display the might of a transmigrator and show this feudal age the power of a modern transmigrator.

But as he grew older and his understanding of this world deepened.

He gradually realized that, on the surface, this world resembled a feudal age. It had emperors, scholars, Government Offices, landlords, poor peasants, tenant farmers, and every social structure one would expect.

Yet it also contained supernatural elements that should not have existed, such as Demons, ghosts and evil spirits, martial sects, thousand-year Empires, and ten-thousand-year Buddhist and Daoist traditions.

The existence of these extraordinary factors forced him to suppress his ambitions and proceed with caution.

Thus.

After lying low for several years, his reputation as a prodigy gradually faded away.

Yet while his fame as a prodigy faded, his standing within the family did not decline because of it.

On the contrary, drawing on the experience of his previous life and the reputation he had accumulated early on, he began helping the Zhang Family develop several small ancestral shops.

After a series of measures and more than a decade of effort, under his leadership, the Zhang Family had risen from an inconspicuous Minor Family in Yang City into the great family now known as "Zhang Half-City."

Zhang Ming deserved great credit for this.

Thinking of the title "Zhang Half-City" now circulating throughout Yang City, Zhang Ming shook his head and chuckled softly.

"How could I possibly have developed the title of 'Half-City' in just over a decade through business acumen alone? Did they think commerce was omnipotent?"

After confirming that this world, despite its strange martial arts and other supernatural elements, still retained the operating rules of feudal society in most respects.

More than a decade ago, Zhang Ming began doing something that everyone at the time found utterly baffling.

He sponsored scholars and students!

Yang City was merely a county under Xinhe Commandery. Its population was small, only several tens of thousands. Even counting the surrounding villages and towns, there were only a little over a hundred thousand people.

But Jiangnan's literary culture flourished, and so there were dozens, even over a hundred, students.

Not every one of those dozens or hundred-plus students came from wealthy households with no worries over food, clothing, or daily expenses. There were also children from poor families and humble backgrounds.

Thus, through more than a decade of uninterrupted sponsorship, accumulation, and friendship with them.

After more than a decade of rises and falls.

In recent years, several of the students he had sponsored and befriended had begun to make their mark in officialdom.

In addition, through a stroke of fortune, Zhang Ming had happened upon an old man who had been demoted from Kyoto for offending too many people due to his stubborn and unyielding character and incorruptible integrity. He had taken the man as his teacher.

A year ago, with the help of an old friend, his teacher returned to Kyoto and reentered officialdom.

Though his teacher was merely a minor Sixth-Rank Official in Kyoto.

In Xinhe Commandery, however, even the commandery governor had to be utterly respectful toward a Sixth-Rank Official from Kyoto, currying favor and offering filial tributes.

Thus.

Above him stood a Sixth-Rank Official teacher in Kyoto.

In the middle were the "friends" he had sponsored and befriended for more than a decade, some of whom had now entered officialdom.

Below was Zhang Ming's intelligence and talent.

Together, these people protected the Zhang Family's expansion and commercial methods.

Only then had the title of "Half-City" fallen upon the Zhang Family.

Otherwise, relying on commercial methods alone?

The Zhang Family would have long since been devoured until not even dregs remained.

Recalling the storms and shifting winds of these eighteen years, Zhang Ming could not help but smile.

"As a transmigrator without a Golden Finger, I may not have become emperor, proclaimed myself emperor, become immortal, or founded a lineage like those predecessors over these eighteen years, but I have not disgraced transmigrators, have I?"

After more than a decade of development, the Zhang Family's footprints stretched across every trade in Xinhe Commandery.

They were still short of becoming Xinhe Commandery's richest family, but not by much.

"Not bad."

After chuckling smugly a few times, Zhang Ming lowered his head to look at the letters in his hands, sent by his younger brother and sister from thousands, even tens of thousands, of miles away.

The smile on his face instantly froze, and his eyes filled with bitterness.

"My younger brother and sister both possess exceptional martial talent, martial geniuses who could easily enter great sects."

"Why is it that I, their elder brother, have such utterly worthless martial talent?"

Martial arts!

Martial arts!

Martial arts!

It was Zhang Ming's only heartache over these years.

Anyone who had experienced transmigration knew.

How grave the heartache was for a transmigrator who had arrived in a world of extraordinary strangeness yet could not touch the extraordinary.

There was no cure for it!

Since awakening his Innate Wisdom, Zhang Ming had begun practicing martial arts at six, after comprehending the strangeness of this world. Now eighteen, twelve whole years had passed, yet he still had no clue.

"How exactly does one enter the path of martial arts and sense Vital Energy?"

Just then.

As Zhang Ming immersed himself in his troubles, he suddenly heard something from the void.

[Congratulations on reaching eighteen. You have obtained a Miracle: Ignite Comprehension.]

A deadbeat author's new book was setting sail.

(^▽^)