The nineteenth year of the Great Flame New Kingdom, April 22.
Jiangnan Province, Xikou County.
Beneath an old locust tree at the street corner, seven or eight people stood in a circle, craning their necks like a gaggle of geese being wrung by the neck.
Every so often, someone in the middle would cry, "What a move!" drawing curious glances from passersby.
"Rook to the fifth file."
The speaker was a boy of sixteen or seventeen.
His voice was not loud, but carried a calm, unhurried confidence.
Sitting on a low stool, he leaned forward slightly, picked up a red rook, and placed it firmly on the board.
The old man in blue across from him raised his eyelids. The corner of his mouth twitched, but he said nothing, merely jumping his horse forward.
"Check!"
Fang Shuwen made another move, his tone light.
The old man's brows knitted tighter.
He stared at the board for a long while, then suddenly reached out and jumped his horse forward again.
"Old sir, you've pinned my horse twice already."
Little Fang tilted his head and dropped his piece onto the board.
"You don't have a move now."
The outcome on the board was settled.
The old man in blue stared blankly at the board. His lips moved twice, as if he wanted to say something, but in the end no words came out.
He reached out to stroke his beard, then lowered his hand.
"Hmph. I'll admit defeat."
"It's only ten silver dollars. That wouldn't even cover one of my meals!"
The old man snorted, his expression hard.
Every word revealed that he hated losing—a rather proud old fellow.
But in the blink of an eye, he could no longer keep up his aloof facade.
It took him a full minute of fumbling before he managed to produce only five silver dollars.
The old man's expression shifted for a long while. At last, as if he had finally made up his mind, he gritted his teeth, pulled a piece of rough jade from his robes, and pushed it across to Fang Shuwen along with the five silver dollars.
"I was in a hurry when I left home today and forgot my money. You can have this piece of jade for cheap."
Then,
he stood up, brushed nonexistent dust from his hem, and glared fiercely at the boy.
His steps were quick and heavy, and the cane in his hand clacked against the ground.
Maybe he couldn't accept losing to a youngster barely grown.
Or maybe he was aching over that piece of jade.
"Little Fang sure got lucky today, catching a real sucker."
A loafer with a black mole on his face clicked his tongue.
"You can say that again. He made five silver dollars in one game—that's a whole month's earnings for us poor working folk."
A short, fat man beside him chimed in, his voice full of envy.
Hearing them, Fang Shuwen showed no sign of smugness.
In times like these, an ordinary able-bodied man earned only a few silver dollars a month.
Pocketing five silver dollars at once, plus a piece of rough jade, was bound to attract attention.
Fang Shuwen knew he couldn't keep at it.
He stood up and offered his stool to an elderly man nearby who had grown tired of standing,
then casually gathered the chess pieces from the board and packed them into the cloth bookbag he carried with him.
It was his livelihood. He couldn't afford to lose it.
"I owe all you uncles a thank-you for looking out for me today. Tea's on me."
As he spoke,
he took a dozen or so copper coins from his pocket and pushed them across the table.
If you made money, you couldn't keep every last bit for yourself.
Otherwise, no one would come watch, and it would be hard to make a living at this.
Fang Shuwen cupped his hands and thanked them again, putting on a proper show.
Then he picked up his cloth bookbag and walked out of the street at an unhurried pace, turning into a narrow alley.
Before he could catch his breath, he suddenly sped up, darting along the wall like a cat chased by a dog.
His soles struck the flagstones with rapid-fire smacks.
Fang Shuwen didn't look back.
But his ears stayed pricked.
Behind him, he could faintly hear rough curses and a jumble of hurried footsteps.
Sure enough,
someone was chasing him.
It seemed five silver dollars were enough to tempt people into taking a desperate risk.
"Damn this rotten world. I've barely made a few bucks, and already someone's got their eye on me!"
Fang Shuwen cursed under his breath and turned straight into Xikou East Street up ahead.
It was the busiest street in Xikou County Town.
The whole place was filled with vendors hawking their wares.
Human-powered rickshaws rolled by, and black automobiles passed from time to time.
Fang Shuwen melted into the crowd, gauged when his pursuers might catch up, then slipped into a shop not far away.
The place smelled of ink and paper, with several bookshelves lined up against the walls.
It was a bookstore.
A young woman in a qipao behind the counter glanced up at him, then lowered her head and went back to flipping through her book.
Beside her stood a sign on a table.
Paid reading. Seats: one jiao per hour. A cup of clear tea: two jiao.
Heh, what a McDonald's-style business model.
Too bad I'm just here to freeload.
If anyone asked, he'd say he couldn't read.
Fang Shuwen chuckled inwardly and walked brazenly to a seat by the window at the very back.
He set his cloth bookbag by his feet.
But his gaze passed through the glass to the street outside.
Just then,
two men came out of the alley.
One was tall and thin, with a black mole on his face; the other was short and fat, walking like a penguin.
They were the two men who had been watching the chess game earlier.
"That brat sure runs fast."
The tall man snorted. Then, as if he'd thought of something, he smacked the short fat man on the back of the head.
"This is all your fault. If you weren't so slow on your feet, that kid wouldn't have gotten away today!"
The short fat man immediately gave the tall man a wronged look and stammered,
"B-b-b-brother, that kid... doesn't he... go to Public Middle School...?"
At that, the tall man's eyes lit up.
"Good thinking. We'll wait for him outside the school gate in a few days. What's he going to do, never come out?"
They cursed a few more times, then squatted down in a corner.
Inside the bookstore.
"It's just five silver dollars and a worthless piece of rough jade. Those two chased me through three streets and still won't quit. Are they planning to lie in wait for me?"
Watching the scene, Fang Shuwen couldn't help grumbling.
Five silver dollars and a piece of rough jade.
Two grown men had chased him through three alleys over such worthless scraps.
Now they were waiting on the street, looking determined to get what they wanted no matter what.
Fang Shuwen looked down at his faded gray long gown, then at the sky outside, growing darker by the minute.
His expression grew uglier.
Damn this rotten world.
Back in his previous life, he'd have called the cops and taught those two bastards why flowers were so red.
That's right. Fang Shuwen was a transmigrator.
The original owner had been a middle school student who hung around with a rich kid surnamed Guo from his school.
To be precise, he was the kid's lackey.
He'd sucked up and flattered him, thinking that would make him better than everyone else.
A few days ago,
he'd gone to a temple fair with Young Master Guo and his entourage, where they spotted a girl.
After Young Master Guo egged him on, he'd actually gone up and pinched the girl's butt.
Well, that got him into trouble.
Who'd have thought
a burly man would suddenly appear, saying something about how hooligans deserved a beating?
He'd punched the original owner in the chest, knocking him out on the spot.
That punch had killed the original Fang Shuwen and sent the twenty-first-century Fang Shuwen to the Great Flame New Kingdom.
When he'd first arrived in this world, he'd thought he'd transmigrated to the late Qing or early Republican era.
But within a few days, Fang Shuwen realized something was off.
This world was like the late Qing or early Republican era, sure.
It had ironclad ships and heavy guns, foreign concessions and trading houses, and warlords carving up the land. It had the works.
But it was also very different.
Notices calling for the extermination of demons covered the streets, and steam engines powered not just trains and ships but also Bio-Armor forged from steel.
Those who trained their martial arts to a high level had blood and qi like a furnace and could withstand firearms head-on.
And deep in the mountains and old forests lurked strange, evil creatures that devoured people without even spitting out the bones.
Ordinary people lived from one day to the next, struggling terribly!
And he was one of those ordinary people.
Even if someone beat him to death, there'd be nowhere to seek justice.
What a rotten world!
Thinking of the original owner's behavior made him even more speechless.
The original Fang Shuwen came from an ordinary family. His mother had died early, leaving him and his father, Old Fang, to depend on each other.
Old Fang worked as a gatekeeper for a wealthy household, pawning everything but his last pair of pants to put Little Fang through Public Middle School, hoping he'd amount to something and make a name for himself one day.
But, as it turned out,
Fang Shuwen was a fool who treated school as a place to suck up to the powerful and be their dog.
He never studied, failing six of his seven subjects.
He was practically on the verge of being expelled.
Fang Shuwen had arrived during summer vacation and inherited this whole mess.
To live better, to eat meat every meal, to scrape together his tuition, he could only hustle for money as hard as he could.
So, with his extensive knowledge of chess manuals and endgame puzzles, Fang Shuwen had started making money by playing chess on the street.
The times were chaotic, so he'd already been very careful.
He hadn't expected to be targeted today anyway.
"Young man, a regular seat in the reading room costs one jiao an hour."
A voice sweet enough to make his bones melt rang out. A graceful figure immediately caught Fang Shuwen's eye.
He looked at the woman approaching. It was the one who'd been behind the counter.
Well, she'd seemed like a cool, elegant older sister.
The moment money came up, she suddenly seemed so vulgar.
He was tempted to protest that he couldn't read, then turn around and walk out.
But from the corner of his eye, he could still see the two shapes, one fat and one thin, lurking in the shadows beneath the wall outside.
Fang Shuwen shook his head inwardly and reached for a one-jiao copper coin.
What did money matter compared to his life? He could always earn more if he ran out.
She took the money from him, then swayed her hips as she returned to the counter.
Only, at that moment,
Fang Shuwen had no mind to admire the view.
A dazzling light curtain appeared before his eyes.
[Absorbed a foreign energy source. Conditions met.]
[Open the Martial Dao Panel?]