The Ability Exchange

After sighing, Li Nuo accepted reality.

A wage slave was a wage slave. Better to be tired than dead.

He picked up a copy of the Book of Law and planned to study it carefully.

Cultivating the Legalist school wasn't especially complicated. The first step was to carefully study the works of the Legalist sages, understand their principles, and grasp their ideas. Of course, just like with the Confucian school, cultivation in the Legalist school couldn't be achieved by rote study alone.

The Confucian school sought to govern the state and bring peace to the world; the Legalist school sought to enforce the laws. Both required one to enter government service.

Li Nuo could skip that step. Thanks to his father's position, he could hear cases even as a commoner.

That made the process of cultivation very simple for him. He could hear and investigate cases at the county office by day, then study Legalist classics when he got home at night. If he was quick, he'd truly enter the Legalist school in a year or two; if he was slow, it might take three to five years.

For ordinary people, cultivating in the Legalist school was still somewhat difficult.

It was true that Legalists could grow stronger simply by judging cases, but only if they judged correctly. If they ruled wrongly, their cultivation might even regress. This feedback in their cultivation wouldn't show up right away. Instead, it accumulated over time, until a quantitative change triggered a qualitative one.

So even Legalists couldn't tell whether they'd judged a particular case correctly by watching how their cultivation changed.

Fortunately, Li Nuo wasn't an ordinary person.

The Code of Law would tell him on the spot whether he'd ruled correctly.

The Legalist school controlled rules. Even those who had just entered the realm could control some simple forces of heaven and earth.

For example, the Confinement Art was an ability only available at the Fourth Realm of the Martial Dao. But the Legalist school's Confinement Art differed from the Martial Dao's Object Manipulation. Object Manipulation was fundamentally about using one's own true qi to control objects, while the Confinement Art had already touched the origin of heaven and earth. The power of that origin could only be controlled by experts of the Sixth Realm of the Martial Dao.

Of course, the amount of the world's power they could control differed as much as heaven and earth.

One had to cultivate in the Legalist school to at least the Sixth Realm to stand against a Sixth Realm expert of the Martial Dao.

"Enforce the rule of law, strengthen the state through reform; its benefits are immediate, its achievements will last for a thousand generations..." Li Nuo read while copying down the important passages to deepen his memory. But after writing a few characters, he noticed something was wrong.

His handwriting wasn't exactly hideous, but no one could call it pretty, either.

Li Nuo knew this handwriting all too well. It was his own. During the day, he could write in the same delicate Zanhua Small Regular Script as that female assassin, but at night, he'd been turned back into his old self.

The first thing Li Nuo thought of was the Code of Law.

As soon as he brought up the Code of Law, he noticed something strange.

The female assassin's portrait had grown much dimmer than before, like the difference between a color photograph and a black-and-white one. It wasn't just her portrait; the goateed thief on the second page had dimmed, too.

Of the four portraits, only Steward Zheng's concubine's was still bright.

Three portraits were dim, one was bright. But the portrait on the fourth page, of a merchant named Cui Ze, had never lit up at all.

Li Nuo fell into thought. The female assassin's portrait had dimmed, and his handwriting had reverted to its original state. That meant the ability he'd gained by catching people wasn't permanent; it had a time limit. Judging by the timing, the limit was most likely one day.

He'd thought it was a permanent skill, only to find it was a one-day trial. Li Nuo was a little disappointed.

He had to admit, her handwriting was beautiful and pleasing to the eye. If only his own handwriting were that pretty... The thought had barely crossed Li Nuo's mind when he saw the female assassin's portrait light up again.

Li Nuo paused, then realized what was happening. He picked up his brush and wrote a few characters on the paper. Just as he'd expected, his handwriting had turned into beautiful Zanhua Small Regular Script again.

His ability had returned, but Li Nuo wasn't particularly happy.

There was no such thing as a free lunch. Everything came at a price.

He immediately stood up and carefully checked his body. He hadn't lost any parts, and he didn't feel unwell at all.

Only then did Li Nuo relax and close the Code of Law again.

His gaze passed over the cover of the Code of Law, then returned to it the next moment.

"Name: Li Nuo."

"Lifespan: Twenty-five days."

Li Nuo's body jolted, his face filled with disbelief. No, he'd had twenty-six days left just now. How had he suddenly lost a day?

It wasn't even midnight yet, and it wasn't dark outside!

Wait. Could the price of lighting up the female assassin's portrait and regaining her calligraphy ability be a day of his life?

His lifespan had only dropped by one day, but for Li Nuo, who had less than a month left, it was still a major blow. What good was beautiful handwriting? And he'd most likely traded a day of his life for a one-day calligraphy trial. What a waste of life.

It took Li Nuo a full quarter of an hour to recover from the heartache.

He could only comfort himself by thinking that trial abilities had their advantages. At least he wouldn't have to worry about accidentally lifting someone's purse out of habit and getting caught red-handed one day. That would be mortifying.

But the concubine's lover's portrait had always been dark. Did that mean he had no worthwhile abilities or talents?

As for Steward Zheng's concubine, her portrait was lit, but Li Nuo had no idea what ability he'd gained from her. The Code of Law offered no hint, so he'd have to figure it out himself.

Li Nuo shook his head, let out a long breath, and set these thoughts aside for the moment. Then he continued reading.

Steward Wu stood outside the window, watching Li Nuo read with such focus. A pleased, relieved smile appeared on his face.

He'd known it. How could the Old Master's son possibly be a fool?

Compared to the Young Master of before, the Young Master now was the one who seemed like the son of Minister of Justice Li Xuanjing.

Steward Wu had watched both the Old Master and the Young Master grow up. Over the past two days, he'd finally seen the shadow of the Old Master in the Young Master: they were both clever and perceptive, both hardworking and eager to learn, and both exceptionally handsome.

People said the Young Master wasn't worthy of the Young Madam. But now it seemed the two of them, one a scholar and one a warrior, were a match made in heaven.

As he was thinking this, a figure walked in from the courtyard. Steward Wu spotted her and hurriedly bowed. "Young Madam..."

Li Nuo was reading in his room when he heard a knock at the door.

He opened it and saw Song Jiaren standing outside. He felt a little uneasy. Was she here because he'd stolen her purse?

As he watched the woman raise her hand, Li Nuo instinctively lifted his own to shield his head.

Song Jiaren tucked a stray lock of hair behind her forehead and said, "Get ready. Come with me..."

As dusk fell, a luxurious carriage rolled out of Li Manor.

Li Nuo sat inside the carriage. So his wife hadn't come to settle the score after all. It was the Song Family's Old Madam's sixtieth birthday today. As one of her granddaughters, Song Jiaren had to return to the family home to celebrate. As her husband, Li Nuo had to go with her. He was supposed to have gone during the day, but he'd spent the whole day at the county office. Now that they were finally on their way, they were already somewhat late.

Li Nuo had heard from Steward Wu that the Song Family was one of Great Xia's Military Families. When Great Xia was founded, they'd followed the founding emperor and rendered outstanding service. Although they were no longer as powerful as at their peak, they were still one of Chang'an's noble families.

The Li Family, meanwhile, had humble beginnings. It was only in his father's generation that the family entered government service, making Li Nuo a genuine scion of a government official.

Word had it that Li Nuo's father and Song Jiaren's father had been close friends in their youth. At the time, both families' wives were pregnant, so the two men made a pact: if both had boys or both had girls, the children would become sworn siblings; if one had a boy and the other a girl, they would marry. And that was how things had come to this.

Li Nuo couldn't help marveling that, for the sake of a promise made more than ten years ago, the Song Family had been willing to marry off such an outstanding daughter to a fool. The ancients really did keep their word.

Still, the Song Family hadn't exactly come away empty-handed.

From a personal perspective, his wife marrying him was like a toad getting its paws on a swan; a fine cabbage had been fed to a pig.

But from the family's perspective, the Song Family had climbed a high branch by marrying into the Li Family.

Even Song Jiaren's eldest uncle, the current head of the Song Family, was only a fifth-rank military officer.

His own father, on the other hand, was a Third-rank Official of the imperial court. Their ranks differed by a full four grades, and the power and resources they commanded were worlds apart.

Looking at it that way, he was actually the cabbage...