Blind Man, Bitter Fate, Card Draw

When Lu Chen opened his eyes again.

Night had fallen completely.

He found himself lying on the kang bed. Only a single oil lamp burned in the room, its dim yellow halo dancing with the flame and casting the familiar faces around him into shifting light and shadow.

His men were all keeping watch at the edge of the kang.

The moment they saw his eyelids twitch, they immediately crowded closer in concern.

Shuan Hu's dark face nearly pressed into his own. "Boss, you're finally awake. What was with all that blood on the ground? What the hell happened?"

Before Lu Chen could speak, a cold voice came from the corner.

"Brother, was it that old bastard Han Lao Wu? Or did that son of a bitch Li Tianrui send men again?"

The man speaking was nicknamed Blind Man.

He was skinny as a twisted iron nail. His left eye was a rotten, pulpy hole; it was said that an eye disease had blinded him as a child, earning him the nickname Blind Man.

The nickname had followed him for over a decade. No one remembered his real name anymore—not even himself.

Like Lu Chen, he was an orphan. He had fought wild dogs for food as a child and grown up taking beatings from every household, which had bred a vicious, ruthless nature in him. Usually, he barely spoke, but when he acted, his hand was blacker than anyone's.

He was Lu Chen's number one enforcer.

The room was thick with the smell of lamp oil and blood, so stuffy it was hard to breathe.

Lu Chen said hoarsely, "It was Yao Dalong. He tried to sneak in and steal while I was injured."

"The guy next door who sells boiled water?" Shuan Hu froze.

He knew Yao Dalong well. The old man's face was full of wrinkles, his shoulders hunched, and he looked utterly honest. His wife had run off with some lowly opera singer, leaving his life in ruins. He often ran out of food and would shrink his neck between his shoulders as he hovered outside Lu Chen's door, rubbing his filthy hands together to borrow money for rice.

Every time, Lu Chen would give him a few copper coins, never once mentioning repayment.

Who would have thought that this seemingly honest man would dare do such a thing?

"Hehehe."

Blind Man let out a grim laugh. "Even a useless wretch dares to bully us now."

He directly gave the order:

"Shuan Hu, take Er Gou, Baldy, and Miao Lao San. Find Yao Old Dog, stick him, and throw the body into the woods outside the county town for the wild dogs. Oh, and deal with his little brat too."

Shuan Hu's Adam's apple bobbed, and his face turned several shades paler.

"Brother Blind, the child too...?"

Blind Man cast him a cold glance.

"A child? When he grows strong enough to hold a knife, creeps up to your kang in the middle of the night, plunges it into your heart, and cries and screams that he's avenging his dead father, will you still fucking think he's a child? When you do something, do it to the bitter end. Cut the grass and pull out the roots!"

Shuan Hu said nothing. He turned to look at Lu Chen.

Lu Chen's face showed no expression as he said lightly, "Listen to Blind Man."

"Yes."

Shuan Hu gritted his teeth and led the others charging into the freezing wind.

Only Lu Chen and Blind Man remained in the room.

The oil lamp crackled, bursting a flower of flame.

After a while, Lu Chen spoke first. "Do you blame me for giving the territory to Han Lao Wu?"

Blind Man shook his head.

"Han Lao Wu has backing now. We can't afford to offend him. But with the territory gone, the money's gone too. What are we supposed to do from here on?"

The people of Great Liang struggled terribly to make a living, with almost no way out.

The imperial court had long abolished the civil service examinations and replaced them with a system of official recommendations.

Local officials recommended worthy talents and sent them to the capital for assessment. Those who passed could be appointed to office.

It looked fair, but in truth, officialdom had long been monopolized by great clans and powerful families.

Even if you possessed learning that reached the heavens, without gold and silver to pave the road or a powerful patron to lift you up, you could forget about setting even half a foot into officialdom in your entire life.

Now the court was steeped in darkness, corrupt officials and cruel magistrates ran rampant, and year after year of natural disasters had left scarlet earth stretching for a thousand miles, starving corpses lying as far as the eye could see.

Jianghu sects and local tyrants took the chance to swallow up land on a grand scale.

In places like Wen'an County, the fields had long been carved up completely among several powerful clans and Jianghu sects.

After poor people died, they could not even find three feet of thin earth in which to bury their bones.

Every inch of land outside the city belonged to someone.

Farmers who had lost their land could only sell themselves to wealthy households as servants or tenant farmers to survive. They worked like oxen and horses all year, earned a little grain and rice, handed all of it over as rent, and still could not escape the misery of cold and hunger.

Trying to earn a living in the city was even harder than climbing to heaven.

Every trade in the city was controlled by guilds. Outsiders had no hope of getting involved.

Forget opening a shop—even setting up a stall on a street corner and shouting a few calls required first paying the local gangs enough protection money, then offering tribute silver to the guild.

If today's tribute came up even a little short, clubs would be at your door tomorrow, smashing your livelihood to pieces.

Even lowly work such as hauling night soil, carrying coffins, and begging had long been divided up among the various foremen.

If you had no skill and wanted to learn a trade.

Taking on a master was like selling yourself. You had to serve him day and night, endure his beatings and curses, swallow your anger, and grind through several years.

Then, only if your master happened to be in a good mood one day might he casually offer you a word or two of guidance.

Once you finally learned the craft and could leave your master, you still had to work for him free of charge for five years to repay his favor.

In this world, poor people were born to suffer, condemned to serve the rich as oxen and horses generation after generation.

There was never any day for them to rise.

Now that Lu Chen's territory was gone, his source of money had been cut off.

He himself was not too worried.

After collecting protection money for nearly five or six years, Lu Chen had saved up some assets. If he spent carefully, it would be enough to last him a year or two.

The hard part was the brothers beneath him who had risked their lives for him.

He could not simply wash his hands of them.

"It's fine that we lost the territory. Once my injuries are fully healed, I'll find another way to make money," Lu Chen said.

Blind Man nodded after hearing Lu Chen's words and said nothing more.

Outside, the cold wind howled, making the window paper flap and thump.

A little more than an hour passed.

The door crashed open, and Shuan Hu rushed in wrapped in a gust of freezing air. His face was blue with cold, and white frost clung to his eyebrows and beard.

"Boss! Brother Blind!"

He panted heavily, his voice trembling slightly. "It's... it's done."

He wiped his face, shaking off bits of ice.

"Yao Old Dog and his little brat were hiding behind the firewood pile at his house. I found them. Father and son had both pissed themselves from fright. We slit their throats; piss and blood ran all over the ground. We dragged them into the old forest behind the mountain and dumped them there. The snow's falling hard—by morning, there won't be a trace left."

Blind Man lifted his eyelid slightly, his lone eye staring at Shuan Hu like a venomous snake.

"You sure they're dead?"

Shuan Hu nodded hard. "Don't worry, Brother Blind. I did it myself. Two cuts. Their necks were nearly severed. They're dead through and through."

With the matter settled, Blind Man said no more and left with Er Hu.

Lu Chen was tired as well. Listening to the wind howl and snow batter the windows outside, he drifted into a muddled sleep.

Early the next morning, just as dawn broke.

Shuan Hu brought in breakfast: a large bowl of millet porridge, several baked flatbreads, and a few small fried dough sticks.

Lu Chen wolfed it down with a lump of pickled vegetables.

After Shuan Hu left.

Lu Chen lay on the kang and, with a thought, the page of Chronicles of Jianghu Heroes appeared before his eyes.

Chronicles of Jianghu Heroes

[Basic Card Pool: Entering the Jianghu]

[Single Draw: 150 copper coins; Ten Draws: 1,350 copper coins]

Lu Chen stared wordlessly at the small line beneath the card pool for a long while.

A skilled craftsman in Wen'an County could rise before dawn and work until dark, only to earn around thirty copper coins for a day's labor—and even then, he had to watch his employer's expression.

One single draw cost 150 copper coins.

That amount could buy five jin of fatty pork in these times.

"Fucking robbery." Lu Chen spat.

Dragging his injured body off the kang, he walked to a red-lacquered cabinet in the corner.

The cabinet was extremely heavy. With his injuries, Lu Chen huffed and strained for quite a while before moving it aside. He pried up a floor tile, revealing a rough earthenware jar buried beneath it, its mouth tightly sealed with oil paper.

Lu Chen peeled away the oil paper and saw the jar filled to the brim with copper coins.

This was the fortune he had amassed over five or six years of collecting protection money. He rarely touched it.

He reached into the jar, felt around for a moment, and pulled out a string of copper coins.

The thousand copper coins were threaded together with fine hemp rope, heavy in his hand.

He carefully counted out 150 of them.

"Let's do a single draw first and see what I get."

Lu Chen reached out and tapped the Single Draw button below the Entering the Jianghu card pool.

The 150 copper coins vanished in a flash.

The page flickered. After the card-drawing animation, a white card abruptly appeared on the draw screen, bearing several thin characters:

Vitality +1.

Almost at the same moment, Lu Chen felt a faint tremor in his chest, as though a wisp of warmth had seeped into him. It quickly dispersed, spreading through his limbs and bones.

He looked at the character page again.

[Lu Chen: Strength 13, Vitality 9 (8+1), Inner Force 0, Insight 1, Agility 3, Bone Structure 2, Fortune 1, Fist Technique 9, Leg Technique 2]

[Martial Arts: None]

Having played this game for a month before, Lu Chen understood every attribute well.

Strength was attack power, Vitality was health, Inner Force was internal-damage power, Insight was critical damage and critical chance, Agility was dodge rate and movement speed, Bone Structure was martial aptitude, and Fortune was luck.

Among them, Bone Structure and Fortune were relatively rare attributes, obtainable only from purple cards.

Lu Chen had drawn a white card that increased Vitality.

His health had increased, and the injuries on his body had improved considerably.