Mountains and Rivers Map

Great Yan Dynasty, Qingyang County.

Piercingly cold winds swept from north to south, rolling across Azure Province, skimming over the Three Thousand Li Blackwater River, and surging into Qingyang Ancient City beneath the barriers of its towering walls and deep moats.

A few withered leaves danced in the wind before drifting into a mottled little alley.

Deep in the alley, a young man in a tattered cotton-padded jacket lay on the ground, curled up like a shrimp, utterly still.

Beside him lay a broken fishing net and an overturned wooden bucket.

Scattered all over the ground beside the wooden bucket were withered branches and dry wood.

Three withered leaves floated down onto the young man.

Before they could settle, a fierce gale suddenly rose and swept them into the sky. In the blink of an eye, they vanished without a trace.

In the cold wind, the young man shuddered and slowly awoke.

Cold...

So cold!

The chill pierced his bones, and his Limbs and Bones felt as if they had been submerged in icy water. Chu Fan instinctively wrapped his tattered jacket three times tighter around himself.

What happened...?

It's clearly summer. How did jumping into a river to save someone leave me this cold?

The moment he opened his eyes, Chu Fan sensed that something was wrong.

He looked around and found the surroundings utterly unfamiliar. This was not the area near the lake where he had jumped in to save someone.

Even the clothes on his body had completely changed.

Suddenly...

Fragments of memory surged forth like a rising tide.

Running at night in summer, jumping into the water to save someone, pulling that person out while he himself sank into the lake;

A lonely little fisherman from Qingyang County City had finally caught several Fresh Fish in his net, only to have them snatched away by thugs at his own doorstep before he was beaten unconscious...

The memories of two worlds intertwined in this manner, chaotic yet clear.

Chu Fan could hardly tell whether this was a dream or reality.

Enduring the pain and cold, he finished digesting the jumbled fragments of memory. A mouthful of White Breath escaped him.

By now, he understood that the scene of drowning after saving someone had not been a dream, and that the desolate, chaotic world before him was not an illusion either.

He had truly transmigrated...

A cold wind swept over him, making his teeth chatter.

Chu Fan struggled to his feet. He picked up the Withered Branches and Dry Wood scattered across the ground one by one and bound them into a bundle with vine.

Then he picked up the broken fishing net, the wooden bucket, and the bundle of Dry Wood, and limped toward the mouth of the alley.

It might snow...

I'll go back inside first.

After leaving the deep alley and turning right, he had walked no more than twenty paces when an Ancient Mansion suddenly appeared before him.

Though the courtyard was dilapidated, two Stone Lions crouched before the entrance, their eyes wide with fury and their bearing imposing.

From the appearance of the gate alone, it was clear that the Chu Family's ancestors had once enjoyed glory.

In the Outer City of Qingyang Ancient City, there were not many mansions of this size.

It was a pity that the residence had now fallen into desolation. This enormous estate was guarded by Chu Fan alone.

He set down the wooden bucket, pulled a Copper Key from his pocket, and opened the large lock covered in rust.

Creak...

He pushed open the wooden door and stepped into the courtyard.

There were two trees in the courtyard.

One was a Jujube tree, while the other was an Osmanthus Tree of unique form.

The trunk of the Osmanthus Tree twisted like a dragon, while its crown resembled a giant umbrella thrust open toward the sky, leaning entirely southward. It looked just like a gatekeeper with its arms spread wide—strange and immensely striking.

Anyone who entered this courtyard was invariably drawn to the unusual tree.

No one knew how many winters and summers the two trees had endured. Their branches and trunks were covered in the marks of time, radiating an Aura of stillness and antiquity.

Chu Fan glanced at the Osmanthus Tree that pointed toward his parents' room and could not help giving a bitter laugh.

In my Previous Life, a strange tree like this alone could have attracted tourists. I could have made a living collecting admission fees.

But now, despite guarding such a marvelous sight, I have to brave the bitter cold to fish in the river, often going hungry one meal and full the next...

Beside the Osmanthus Tree stood a battered Water Tank. One corner of its rim was missing, yet several small grass carp and Silver Carp were swimming merrily inside.

Chu Fan placed the fishing net and wooden bucket beneath the Osmanthus Tree.

Then he tossed the bundle of Dry Wood into the corner where the firewood was piled.

Every day, he chopped a little Dry Wood when he returned from fishing. Little by little, it had filled the corner of the courtyard.

Dragging his exhausted body into the house, he collapsed onto the bed and pulled two old, tattered quilts over himself.

The two old, ragged quilts gave off a musty odor.

The dry grass stuffed inside poked out through a small tear in the quilt, silently recounting its owner's hardship.

One quilt belonged to Chu Fan.

The other had belonged to his deceased parents.

The cotton inside both quilts had long since clumped together, and they were stuffed mostly with dry grass.

Though tattered, the two quilts layered atop one another were heavy and warm, pressing down on his body and giving him an indescribable sense of security.

Dry grass was spread beneath the bedding as well, making it loose and soft.

Chu Fan lay still with his eyes closed. Outside, the cold wind howled, while his body gradually warmed, granting him a brief moment of peace.

In his mind, the memories of his two lives appeared in turn like scenes from a lantern show.

The despair of sinking after exhausting his strength in the lake filled him with an indescribable sense of helplessness.

His swimming skills had actually been quite good.

But after running five kilometers, where would he have had any strength left...?

As he thought this, the memories of his Previous Life gradually faded, while the details of his more than ten years in this life grew increasingly clear.

Remembering the humiliation of being beaten a few days earlier, Chu Fan could not help clenching his fists beneath the quilts.

Gurgle~

The thunderous rumbling in his stomach jolted Chu Fan awake from his daze.

Enduring the pain All over the body, he struggled out of bed.

Every movement felt as though hundreds or thousands of steel needles were roaming through his body.

The cruelty with which Liu Da and those other villains had beaten him was truly outrageous.

Fortunately, they had not damaged his bones or tendons. Otherwise, with the one hundred and twenty copper coins he had painstakingly saved from fishing, he probably could not even afford a single packet of medicine for his injuries.

At that point, aside from selling the ancestral home, he would have had no way to survive.

Thinking of Liu Da and the others, fury blazed in Chu Fan's chest.

This was already the second time he had fallen victim to them.

Those men ran rampant through the countryside and committed every conceivable evil. They had repeatedly harassed him at the behest of the Local Tycoon Huang Shouliang, attempting to force him to sell his ancestral home—worth more than thirty taels of silver—for a mere five taels.

Naturally, Chu Fan had refused. As a result, on the third day after his refusal, Liu Da and several others stopped him in the street and beat him savagely.

Today, they had gone even further, smashing his head violently against the wall...

That blow had brought the Chu Fan from another world over.

Chu Fan gritted his teeth and cursed viciously.

Liu Da's threat as he left still rang in his ears: if he did not sell the house, then the next time they came, he would have to choose between losing a hand and losing a foot!

At the thought of that scene, Chu Fan tensed from head to toe.

This was a world where martial arts flourished. There were even legends of demons causing chaos and ghosts and monsters running rampant.

Liu Da and the others had trained in a martial arts school for half a year. Their skills far surpassed those of ordinary people. Even if Chu Fan confronted them with a knife, he would be no match for them.

Only by learning martial arts could he escape oppression and stop enduring hunger and cold.

However, the tuition at the martial arts school was exorbitant. Even selling the ancestral home would not be enough.

His predecessor had once wanted to join the Seven Star Gang, one of the Three Major Gangs in Qingyang County. By entering the Seven Star Gang, he could learn martial arts without paying tuition.

Unfortunately, he was too old, and his natural aptitude was mediocre. He had barely said a few words before the Seven Star Gang members drove him out.

The Seven Star Gang recruited mostly thirteen- to fifteen-year-olds.

And in three more months, he would turn eighteen.

Unable to learn martial arts, he could only make a living by fishing.

If not for the pressure from Huang Shouliang, Liu Da, and the others, eking out a living through fishing would have been barely possible.

This year, the Blackwater River had flooded. Much of Azure Province had suffered disasters, and Vagrants were everywhere.

Every time Chu Fan went out fishing, he saw Disaster Victims in ragged clothes.

An unknown number of Disaster Victims had gathered beneath the walls of Qingyang Ancient City.

Compared with them, he still had an ancestral home for shelter and a fishing trade to support himself. He should not have been in such dire straits.

But it was infuriating that others had set their sights on his residence. The next time Liu Da came, he might truly lose a hand or a foot.

He could evade them for a while, but not forever.

After turning the matter over in his mind, it seemed that his only option was to sell the ancestral home to someone else and flee to South City.

His predecessor had been emotionally attached to the ancestral home, so whenever a broker came to ask about the price, he had flatly refused.

But how could Chu Fan worry about that much?

Staying alive was what mattered most.

If his hands and feet were truly broken, then in this man-eating world, only death would await him!

Tap, tap, tap...

Chu Fan walked slowly through the estate, his footsteps especially clear in the empty courtyard.

The enormous residence was utterly vacant.

After his parents had successively fallen ill and died two years earlier, he had sold off nearly every valuable object in the house to survive.

All that remained was a table, a chair, an iron pot, a net, a bucket, and two Water Tanks... Even a rat would have shaken its head and left upon entering.

After sighing, Chu Fan pulled a dry, stiff Wheat Cake from his robe and tried to break it with all his strength... but could not.

This fisherfolk's Dry Ration was hard as iron. It was made by boiling wheat grains, pressing them flat, and drying them into Dry Cakes.

If one was careless, they could easily crack several teeth.

Even with strong teeth, one had to bite it apart little by little and swallow it with clear water.

He carried the Wheat Cake to the Kitchen, fetched the Kitchen Knife, and used the knife handle to smash the Wheat Cake into the pot.

Then he scooped a palm-sized little fish from the Water Tank in the courtyard, scraped off its scales, gutted it, cut it into pieces, and added it to the pot.

Just as he was about to light the fire, he saw that there was no Dry Wood left by the stove.

Chu Fan went to the corner of the courtyard where the Dry Wood was piled and sat on a little stool. He stood a piece of Round wood upright with his left hand, gripped the Cleaving Knife in his right, aimed at the Round wood, and brought the blade down...

"Crack!"

The blade sank only three inches into the wood, and the Round wood did not split.

The pain left behind by Liu Da and the others suddenly flared up. His arms, chest, legs, and feet all hurt terribly!

Chu Fan sucked in a breath of cold air. Then he raised his right hand and smashed the knife and the Round wood downward together!

"Kachaa!"

The sound of splitting wood rang out, and one piece of Round wood cracked cleanly in two.

Chu Fan picked up one of the pieces he had just split, stood it upright, and brought the blade down through its center once more.

This time, it was much easier. The wood split with a crack.

[Chopping Wood Saber Technique Experience +1]

"!!!"

Seeing the information appear in his mind, Chu Fan nearly burst into tears of joy.

It's here. It finally came...

Deep within his consciousness, a massive scroll slowly unfurled.

It was a Mountains and Rivers Map. Dragon-scale patterns faintly appeared along its edges, while countless phenomena of heaven and earth flowed across the image—snow peaks hung upside down above a sea of clouds, a nine-bend river surged backward, and golden Runes glittered at the crest of every wave...

In the empty space to the right of the Mountains and Rivers Map, rows of text emerged.

[Dharma Master: Chu Fan]

[Spiritual Essence: 0]

[Pollution Level: 0/100]

[Skill: Chopping Wood Saber Technique (Beginner) (Trait: None)]

[Progress: (1/100)]

Chu Fan stared fixedly at the Mountains and Rivers Map.

For some reason, he did not know what the Spiritual Essence and Pollution Level were.

But he understood the "Chopping Wood Saber Technique" below...

He gently shook his head, stood up another piece of Round wood, and split it as he had before.

[Chopping Wood Saber Technique Experience +1]

The progress of "Chopping Wood Saber Technique" on the Mountains and Rivers Map immediately became 2!

Chu Fan ignored the hunger in his stomach and the pain in his body and immediately began chopping wood furiously...

Sometimes, he needed three or four consecutive strikes before gaining one point of experience.

Other times, a single strike was enough to gain one point of experience.

One strike after another, until his tiger's mouth went numb and he was panting heavily.

[Chopping Wood Saber Technique Experience +1]

[Progress: (99/100)]

"One more point of experience, and I'll break through!"

Seeing the number on the panel, the exhausted and hungry Chu Fan immediately brightened with renewed energy!

He picked up a piece of Round wood, took a deep breath, and brought the blade down...