True Martial

The refugee column stretched on and on.

The setting sun was red as blood. One by one, gaunt and sallow, the refugees trudged forward weakly, like a horde of walking corpses.

People were everywhere, yet, unexpectedly, it was quiet. Only the shuffling sound of feet dragging across the ground broke the silence.

Most of them had last eaten two days ago. Now, every ounce of strength was precious, and they had neither the energy nor the will to speak.

...The next county was still who knew how far away.

The road ahead was uncertain, leaving them with almost no hope. They simply kept moving forward mechanically.

Thud!

Someone suddenly toppled to the ground while walking, their breathing weak and ragged.

The people nearby glanced over with numb eyes, then looked away and continued onward, dragging their increasingly heavy, exhausted bodies.

The person lying on the ground struggled for a little while, then went still.

Qin Fang, his head wrapped in a rag, silently turned his eyes away and continued trudging mechanically among the refugees.

His coarse hemp clothes barely covered his emaciated frame. The cloth belt around his waist was pulled tight, but it could not hide the cramping pain in his stomach or its growling.

He leaned on a fairly sturdy wooden stick as he walked. His lips were cracked, split in several places, with the blood already dried.

Dust obscured what had once been a rather handsome face. But three months of hunger had made him lose at least sixty pounds in that short time. He probably weighed less than eighty pounds now.

His cheekbones jutted sharply, his eyes bulged, and his cheeks were hollow. The flesh seemed to have vanished from his face, leaving only skin clinging to bone. There was nothing left of his former good looks.

Though his head was wrapped in a rag, the sun had beaten down on him for so long that his skin had peeled away layer after layer. Flakes stuck to his face, leaving him almost unrecognizable.

His back was hunched. Though young, he gave the impression that he was on the verge of death.

His gaze was dull, but he forced himself to stay alert. Whenever he looked around, he deliberately put a fierce glint in his eyes.

Suddenly, he stopped and looked down. A dirt-covered hand had grabbed his foot.

"Help..."

The person on the ground struggled to raise her head. She was a woman, though the dust on her face made her impossible to recognize. She was just as horribly emaciated, but she seemed young.

Qin Fang fell silent for a moment, then gave a slight tug and easily freed himself from her grasp... She was clearly at the end of her strength. She barely had enough energy to clutch at a lifeline.

Qin Fang continued staggering forward.

The pleading hope in the woman's eyes instantly faded. She lay prone on the ground, breathing faintly.

...It wasn't that he was numb and selfish.

He simply knew that he could barely keep himself alive as it was. He had no strength to spare for indiscriminate acts of kindness.

After walking a few steps, he suddenly heard a shuffling sound behind him. Frowning, he turned his head and saw several other emaciated refugees gathering around the woman lying on the ground.

Qin Fang's sudden glance back made the refugees turn to look at him.

Their eyes were bloodshot. They stared at Qin Fang with numb expressions, without saying a word.

Qin Fang frowned and met their gazes without flinching, the fierce glint in his eyes growing sharper.

Perhaps intimidated by his stare, they instinctively looked away.

But the next moment, one of them clenched his teeth and stopped looking at Qin Fang. He pulled a small dagger from his clothes, his face twisted with savage resolve, and slashed open the throat of the woman who had not yet quite breathed her last.

The woman's eyes widened slightly, and her body twitched faintly. She didn't even have the strength to struggle.

Blood began to flow.

The man threw himself at the wound and eagerly began sucking.

...He was drinking her blood!

Seeing this, the others no longer cared about Qin Fang. They pulled out daggers and bits of iron, cut open the veins in the woman's hands, and, heedless of the dirt, put their mouths to the wounds and sucked greedily.

The scene was instantly awash in blood!

The people nearby panicked a little and instinctively moved away.

Qin Fang's gaze remained steady. A fierce glint flickered in his eyes, then quickly faded. He turned around and continued on his way, expressionless.

"If I die, find a ravine and throw me down it... You hear me?"

A weak conversation came from nearby.

An old man and a boy. They had also seen what the refugees behind them were doing. The older one was just as emaciated, his face weathered by dust and wind. Seeing the scene, a trace of confusion and pity flickered in his eyes before hardening into resolve. He turned to the boy beside him.

The boy was tall, but skinny as a pole. His open collar revealed a chest as bare and bony as a rack of ribs. But his eyes were clear. At the man's words, his face filled with alarm. "Father?"

"There's no hope of a proper burial anymore. I just don't want those bloodsuckers getting their hands on me after I die... Even being eaten by wild beasts would be better than ending up in their bellies."

The old man murmured.

The boy could only stare at him.

Many of the refugees nearby fell silent.

Then...

They continued onward.

There was nothing they could do.

When people were starving, they were capable of anything.

Qin Fang had seen similar things more than once over the past few months... Whenever someone died, others would rush over at once. While the body was still warm, they would slit its throat and drain the blood, then drink it right there in full view of everyone...

The first time he saw it, Qin Fang's scalp had prickled and his whole body had gone rigid.

But now...

He was numb to it.

There was a reason the old man had told his son to throw him down a ravine after he died... There were too many refugees and too many dead. Those "bloodsuckers" wouldn't waste their strength going all the way into a ravine to look for his corpse just for a mouthful of blood.

Besides drinking blood, only a very few people ate the flesh directly.

It was too much trouble...

Cooking it was difficult. For one thing, there was no fire. For another, finding firewood would take a great deal of strength... With that much energy, wouldn't it be better to hurry toward the next town?

Who would want to drink human blood if they weren't starving to death?

Human blood was rank—ranker than animal blood. Did anyone really think it was some delicious treat?

And though it was a liquid, it only made you thirstier the more you drank.

It had been three or four months since the heavens last sent rain. Water was more precious than food.

In dire straits, people cared even more about getting the most for their effort.

Naturally, they wouldn't do it.

Of course, when people were starving... some would chew a couple of bites raw.

But that took a great deal of energy. Raw meat was tough and required a lot of chewing. Most of the time, people had no choice but to swallow it whole.

But swallowing it whole was risky... When you were both hungry and thirsty, your throat was parched. There had been cases where people choked to death before the meat went down.

Time passed. The setting sun sank in the west, and darkness fell. The moon peeked over the horizon.

The hot air grew a little cooler, lifting the refugees' spirits.

But as their spirits rose, the hunger in their stomachs grew even more unbearable.

"Grrr..."

Their stomachs rumbled like thunder.

Qin Fang used to think that was an exaggeration.

He hadn't realized it was literal.

Stomach acid surged, and violent contractions sent waves of pain through his gut. Qin Fang knitted his brows, sweat beading on his forehead, and could only clutch his stomach and endure.

After a long while, the pain eased slightly. He instinctively tried to swallow.

But his throat burned. There wasn't a drop of saliva. The motion only made his throat stick together, bringing a sharp pain.

His expression stiffened. He didn't dare try to swallow again. After resting for a while, he let out a soft breath and continued on his way.

Other people had transmigrated, and so had he. Even transmigrating as a condemned prisoner would have been far better than becoming a refugee fleeing famine, wouldn't it?

At least... his stomach wouldn't be empty.

Qin Fang thought silently.

He used the thought to distract himself from his discomfort and kept moving mechanically.

On his feet was a pair of straw sandals he had pulled from a corpse, but the soles seemed to have worn through again. Blisters covered the bottoms of his feet, layer upon layer, and some spots had already festered. Every step felt like walking on the tip of a knife.

His legs had long since grown numb with exhaustion.

But he knew he couldn't stop. If he did, he might not be able to get back up.

And then, in the next moment, someone would be on top of him, cutting his throat...

He had to keep his legs moving mechanically like this... Maybe he could hold on a little longer.

He wasn't from this world. He had arrived three months ago.

What had brought him here... was a large cargo truck.

To this day, he still remembered the look of terror on the truck driver's face as he came to his senses in the cab of the large cargo truck that had "flown" over from the opposite lanes of the highway...

Then there was a crash, and he knew nothing more.

When he woke up, he had become this refugee, Qin Fang, fleeing along the road.

At first, he had been bewildered, terrified, horrified.

Then came the pain of hunger, anger, and despair.

And now... numbness, acceptance, and a struggle to survive...

It had not been an easy process.

During three months on the road, he had passed through many places and seen many things he could never have imagined before.

At first, everyone had brought some food, and things had been a little better.

But as their food gradually ran out, the fighting began.

For a bite to eat, he had once been forced to fight someone. A hoe had gouged a wound in his waist... If he hadn't reacted quickly, he would be swarming with flies by now... That blow had been aimed at his head.

At death's door, his own ferocity had been roused. He had used the dagger the original owner carried for self-defense to stab wildly at the other man at close range, "pfft, pfft," without knowing how many holes he had made.

In the end, the other man died, and he lived.

The man's accomplices had been frightened off by his viciousness, allowing him to keep the small amount of food he had.

Once, while resting in the middle of the night, he had been ambushed. If the attacker hadn't stepped on a twig and startled him awake while he was already half asleep, he would probably have been killed in his sleep.

As it was, a dagger had been driven into his shoulder... and once he came to his senses, he had slit the attacker's throat with his own dagger.

He had also...

Thinking back over the road he had traveled, Qin Fang's expression remained numb.

"Nine narrow escapes" wasn't enough to describe what he had been through.

At that thought, he stared blankly at the empty space in front of him.

"A cheat..."

Yes, he had a cheat.

In fact, without it, there was a good chance he wouldn't have made it this far.

Practice diligently without cease, and you will surely gain!

Basic Dagger Technique (Minor Accomplishment Stage): 132/1000

The first time he killed someone, this panel and these words had appeared automatically.

That was when he realized he had a system.

After careful study, he discovered that it was a Proficiency Panel.

It had no other functions, just one...

If he practiced something for a long time, he could make the results permanent.

When he broke through a stage, he would also experience something like an epiphany.

For instance, when Basic Dagger Technique first appeared, it hadn't been at the Minor Accomplishment Stage. It had read "Basic Dagger Technique (Initiation Stage): 1/500."

Through his experiments, he learned that as long as he focused wholeheartedly on figuring out how to use a dagger—"slicing," "stabbing," "thrusting," and so on—the number would tick upward.

But it wouldn't work if his mind wandered. He had to devote himself to it completely.

After spending more than a month grinding his proficiency up to 500/500, he had suddenly felt as if inspiration had struck, as though he had instantly "seen the light."

He lowered his eyes to his thin, bony hand, then drew the dagger from his waist. It had been sharpened until it was very keen, but it was mottled all over.

The next moment, the dagger seemed to come alive in his hand. Its sharp blade spun and glided around his fingertips...

Light as a feather.

And it didn't cut his fingers at all.

It had been something he couldn't do before.

Now he could do it as smoothly as water.

That was the "epiphany" he had gained when Basic Dagger Technique advanced from Initiation Stage to Minor Accomplishment Stage.

And on the night he was ambushed... If his Basic Dagger Technique hadn't reached Minor Accomplishment Stage, he might not have beaten his attacker.

He had even learned moves like "parry" and "block" from Basic Dagger Technique out of nowhere. When he was ambushed, he had used those moves instinctively, which was how he managed to kill the attacker.

This discovery had lifted his spirits.

Over the next few months, he had hoped to train himself in other things too... like boxing or kicking.

That would undoubtedly increase his chances of survival.

But in the end...

After throwing a few punches on his own and nearly seeing stars and collapsing...

He hadn't dared try anything reckless.

He was fleeing from disaster, after all!

He had no food or water, and every ounce of strength was precious...

He couldn't afford to experiment.

Experiment, and die!

So after that, he could only keep studying the "dagger." Even then, he spent only a little time on it each day... After three months, his dagger technique had only gained 132 proficiency points at the Minor Accomplishment Stage...

Most of the rest of his time was spent on the road.

...Survive first. Worry about the rest later.

He thought to himself.

A sudden commotion came from up ahead.

"We've reached True Martial County!"

Qin Fang's spirits lifted. He looked up.

The last government runner they'd passed, from Yanping City, had told them that True Martial County was the closest place.

The imperial court had already prepared a large amount of supplies there to provide relief and aid to the disaster victims!

There was a chance they could survive!

A smile spread across his face. At last, he saw a glimmer of hope, and even his steps seemed to grow lighter.

But before the smile had fully bloomed, a wail rang out from up ahead.

"This is bad!! The soldiers of True Martial County say they have no extra food! They—they're going to drive us to the next county!!!"

In an instant, one stone stirred up a thousand-layered wave.

The disaster victims, numb until then, erupted into chaos!