Archery at Perfection

Over the next few days, Sun Yu practically lived in Black Crow Mountain.

With the system as his safety net, he threw all his focus into that copy of Beginner Archery.

On the second night:

[Beginner Archery (Proficient)]

From thirty paces away, he could nail a scurrying pheasant dead with a single arrow.

On the third night:

[Beginner Archery (Mastered)]

When he drew that shoddy wooden bow, he no longer needed to aim deliberately.

Raise his hand, nock an arrow, loose the string—muscle memory replaced his sight.

Within fifty paces, he could hit whatever he pointed at.

On the fourth night:

[Beginner Archery (Minor Accomplishment)]

The calluses on the three fingers of his drawing hand peeled away layer by layer, only to grow back again, hard as stone. His arms no longer ached, and drawing a full-moon hard bow was as easy as pulling apart a thread of cotton.

Until the sixth night.

Inside the woodshed, deep in the night.

As the glow from his final stat point vanished into his brow, the panel shook violently.

[Martial Skill: Beginner Archery (Perfection Realm)]!

Sun Yu felt an intense coolness surge up from the depths of his eyes.

He abruptly opened them, his gaze piercing through the window.

A hundred paces away, the veins on a withered leaf hanging from a dead branch were revealed in every minute detail before his eyes.

Countless scenes of drawing bows and nocking arrows merged in his mind, transforming into an unfathomably profound instinct.

He grabbed the wooden bow and drew out a sharpened wooden arrow.

Nock the arrow, draw the string.

The stiff, dry, inferior ox sinew now seemed to become an extension of his body.

"Creak."

Sun Yu loosened his fingers.

"Bzz!"

He completely smothered the vibration of the bowstring with the subtle force of his muscles, leaving not even the faintest whistle of an arrow cutting through the air.

The arrow vanished in an instant.

The next second, a dull thud rang out.

The withered leaf a hundred paces away was precisely pierced by the wooden arrow and nailed fast to the trunk.

At a hundred paces, he pierced a willow leaf; the arrow flew without a sound!

Sun Yu's eyes brimmed with delight as he looked at the old bow in his hands.

At least now he had a means to protect himself.

Eight Divisions Vajra Skill had strengthened his body, but it still fell short when trouble arose.

Now, however, things were different. With Beginner Archery at Perfection Realm, he was no less skilled than those divine marksmen who had spent years in the army.

With archery at the Perfection Realm to protect him, Sun Yu was no longer content with the Snow Rabbits and pheasants on the outskirts of Black Crow Mountain.

He headed straight into the ancient forest deep within Black Crow Mountain.

Human tracks were scarce here, while ferocious beasts roamed freely.

A massive tiger over ten feet long, its fur mottled with stripes, was lowering its head to gnaw on a dead deer.

It sensed the disturbance and abruptly turned its head, a pair of Vertical Pupils locking tightly onto Sun Yu a hundred paces away.

A reeking wind rushed at him.

The tiger drove off with all four limbs, its enormous body leaping forward as it pounced with suffocating pressure!

Sun Yu stood where he was, his feet rooted to the ground.

Expressionless, he drew an Iron-Tipped Arrow from his back and set it against the bowstring.

The tiger closed to fifty paces.

Sun Yu raised his arm and drew the bow.

Thirty paces!

"Whoosh!"

The bowstring snapped back without a sound.

The tiger pouncing through the air did not even have time to dodge before one of its eyes burst open in a spray of blood!

The Iron-Tipped Arrow pierced its eyeball and drove straight into its brain.

Its enormous body lost control and, carried by inertia, crashed heavily into the snow three paces in front of Sun Yu, skidding out a deep trail of blood.

His limbs twitched twice, then went completely still.

Sun Yu stepped forward, pulled out his short blade, and skillfully cut open the tiger hide.

Over the past half month, relying on his perfected archery and the robust vitality laid down by the Vajra Skill, he had moved through these deep mountains and ancient forests like a fish in water.

Wild boars, muntjacs, even two lone gray wolves—all had become ghosts beneath his hands.

He used all the meat he could not finish eating to replenish the vitality he expended in training.

He vaguely felt that some invisible shackle was on the verge of breaking.

As a mere household servant, he naturally knew nothing of such matters, not even what realm he had reached.

As for the skinned pelts and surplus prey, he no longer traded them to Old Cripple for coarse rice. Instead, he took a detour to the market in town and exchanged it all for hard silver and gold.

He sewed every scrap of silver into the underclothes next to his skin.

Feeling the heavy weight against his chest, Sun Yu let out a breath of white vapor.

Aside from the customary payment due this month, the rest would be enough to buy back his indenture contract.

At the end of the month, more than a hundred people stood packed tightly together in the open space of the Servants' Compound.

The cold wind howled, and everyone hunched their necks, their faces frozen blue.

A thick tiger hide covered the grand chair at the front.

Steward Zhou wore a brocade-lined winter robe and cradled an exquisite hand warmer as he slowly sipped hot tea.

Behind him stood four broad-shouldered, thick-waisted Qian Family guards, Horse-Chopping Sabers hanging at their waists.

"Begin."

Steward Zhou set the lid over his teacup without even lifting his eyelids.

The servants in the front row lined up and shuffled forward, trembling as they tossed the game in their hands into a large basket.

Those who had turned in enough let out long breaths and stepped aside.

Those who fell short were kicked to the ground by the guards, their hands and feet tightly bound with hemp rope before they were thrown into a corner of the yard.

Soon, it was an old man's turn.

Old Li.

Usually, he was humble and submissive before everyone. At home, he had only his fourteen-year-old granddaughter to depend on each other for survival.

Old Li walked up to the basket, shaking like chaff in a sieve as he poured two scrawny Snow Rabbits from a tattered burlap sack.

"Master... Master Zhou..."

Old Li dropped to his knees in the snow and frantically banged his head against the ground. "The heavy snow has sealed off the mountains. I truly couldn't catch any living prey... Please give me a few more days, Master Zhou. I'll definitely make up for it next month!"

Steward Zhou lowered his eyes to glance at the two rabbits, his brows knitting in disgust.

"Rules are rules."

Steward Zhou lifted his teacup and blew away the floating tea leaves. "If the customary payment falls short, then pay with a person."

He tilted his chin toward the side.

Two guards immediately charged into the crowd like wolves and tigers, forcibly dragging out a girl in a worn floral padded jacket from the back.

"Grandpa! Grandpa, save me!" The girl shrieked in terror, clinging desperately to the doorframe and refusing to let go.

"Take her to Bright Moon Tower in town. She should fetch a dozen or so taels of loose silver," Steward Zhou ordered lightly.

"No! Master Zhou, I beg you!"

Old Li's eyes instantly turned bloodshot. Like a madman, he threw himself forward and wrapped his arms around a guard's leg, opening his mouth and biting down hard.

"Get off me, you old sack of bones!"

The bitten guard flew into a rage. Raising his heavy leather boot, he viciously kicked Old Li square in the chest.

Crack!

Several ribs broke with a dull snap. Old Li spat out a mouthful of blood and flew away like a ragged sack.

Yet the moment he hit the ground, strength somehow surged into him again. He snatched up a broken woodcutting blade from the ground, his eyes red as he hacked at the guard!

"I'll fight you bastards to the death!"

"Courting death."

Steward Zhou snorted coldly, leaning against the chair back without moving a muscle.

The gaze of one saber-bearing guard behind him turned abruptly cold.

He took one step forward.

Clang!

The piercing ring of a blade tore through the freezing wind.

Sun Yu stood amid the crowd, his eyes slightly narrowed.

With the eyesight honed by his current Perfection Realm archery, he could clearly see every movement of the guard drawing his blade, sinking his stance, and slashing.

There was nothing flashy about it—only pure speed and strength.

He was a true martial artist, trained in the killing arts!

Among these men were quite a few who, like Sun Yu before, had once been Qian Family servants. After earning merit, receiving rewards, and learning martial arts, they had naturally become guards of the Qian Family.

With their status elevated, they naturally no longer acknowledged their former brothers in hardship. When they struck, they showed no mercy whatsoever.

"Pfft!"

The sound of a sharp blade cutting through flesh and cervical vertebrae was exceptionally muffled.

Old Li's charging body suddenly stiffened.

The next moment.

A grizzled head shot into the sky. Scalding blood spouted like a fountain from the cleanly severed neck, instantly melting swathes of white snow into glaring crimson.

The headless corpse swayed twice, then crashed heavily to the ground.

"Grandpa!!!" The girl let out a heart-rending shriek of despair, then rolled her eyes back and fainted dead away.

Two guards dragged the girl out of the courtyard like a dead dog.

The entire clearing fell deathly silent.

Among the hundred-odd men at the bottom of society, not one dared make a sound.

Everyone kept their heads bowed low, even suppressing their breathing to its faintest, terrified of being tainted by even a trace of misfortune.

A life was cheaper than paper.

At that moment, those four words stabbed into Sun Yu's eyes like a sharp knife.

Blood slowly flowed along the cracks in the stone ground until it reached Sun Yu's feet.

The fingers hanging at his side twitched slightly, his thumb brushing over the thick callus on his forefinger.

It was hopeless.

If the system had not suddenly appeared, he would have met the same end today.

"Next."

The guard kicked Old Li's corpse aside. Blood dripped from the tip of his blade onto the snow as he barked coldly.

The crowd stirred faintly.

No one dared step over that pool of blood.

Sun Yu stepped forward expressionlessly, treading over the dark-red snow until he reached the large basket.

He untied the sack from his back and gave it a shake with both hands.

"Crash!"

Two plump wild piglets, three Red Foxes, and another five or six Snow Rabbits spilled out, piling into a small mound.

A wave of sharp intakes of breath rose from the surrounding crowd.

Even Steward Zhou, who had been resting with his eyes closed, lifted his eyelids in surprise and looked Sun Yu over from head to toe.

"You've got some skills." Steward Zhou rolled the Iron Balls in his hand.

Sun Yu tossed the sack to the ground, reached into his clothes, and pulled out a heavy coarse-cloth bundle.

"Slap."

The bundle landed on the square table beside Steward Zhou's hand.

The loosened opening revealed a gleaming pile of broken silver inside.

"Steward Zhou, this is twenty taels of silver. I want to buy back my freedom." Sun Yu raised his head and looked straight into the other man's eyes, his voice utterly even.

The moment he said that, the entire courtyard became quiet enough to hear a needle drop.

Er Niu beside him widened his eyes, staring at Sun Yu as though he were some kind of monster.

The Iron Balls rolling in Steward Zhou's hand came to a stop.

He stared at the silver on the table, then gave Sun Yu another long look.

That sum was one a bottom-tier household servant could never save in an entire lifetime.

For this kid to get hold of so much money within half a month, he definitely had secrets.

Under ordinary circumstances, Steward Zhou could have simply pocketed the money, then pinned a charge of stealing the master's property on the kid and had him beaten to death with random clubs.

But before so many people, he did not have the nerve, as a mere steward, to openly violate the Qian Family's rules for buying one's freedom.

Steward Zhou narrowed his eyes.

"Fine."

Steward Zhou suddenly smiled, but there wasn't a trace of mirth in his eyes.

He swept the broken silver into his sleeve, then pulled a yellowed contract from a stack of documents beside him and casually tossed it onto the ground.

"Take your deed of sale and get lost."

Sun Yu bent down and picked up the flimsy sheet of paper.

After glancing at his own handprint on it, he tore it straight into pieces.

Then he turned around, paying no heed to the envious, shocked, or jealous gazes behind him.

He strode out of the Servants' Compound.

Outside the gate, the wind and snow still raged.

In his mind, the image of Old Li's headless corpse spurting blood intertwined with Steward Zhou's lofty, superior gaze.

Redeeming himself was merely tearing the dog chain from around his neck.

In this man-eating world, so long as you remained weak, another blade could come chopping for your neck at any moment.

Sun Yu glanced back at the vast estate amid the wind and snow, savage light churning in his eyes as though he would choose someone and devour them.

He tightened his cotton-padded jacket around himself and plunged headlong into the boundless mountains.