Awaiting Slaughter

Autumn, Zhao City.

The slums lay beneath city walls like an iron curtain, dark as night even in broad daylight.

The alleys were wet, muddy, and twisted. Shacks made of broken planks and rotten felt stood jaggedly interlocked, pressing inward. Standing in their midst felt like being slowly chewed by the gaping maw of an abyss.

"Thanks to you for bringing A-Cheng back. I truly don't know how I could ever repay you..."

"Auntie, please don't. We can't accept that... We have things to do today, so we'll be going."

Chen Cheng had been awake for a while.

Curled on his side atop the wooden bedboard, his pitch-black eyes had remained fixed on the doorway.

Fragments of his mother's hushed conversation with a man and a woman still lingered in his mind.

"Red Moon Nunnery is still buying corpses... The human-meat shops are nearly out of stock..."

"Old Li sold his grandson, who starved to death yesterday, just to scrape together enough money for his daughter, who worked as a secret prostitute, to pay her taxes..."

What kind of world was this...

Chen Cheng slowly pushed himself upright.

A dull pain at the back of his head tugged at his neck and spine, suddenly clenching tight.

Cold wind slipped through the cracks in the broken boards around him. The stench of excrement, urine, and sour sewage from outside mixed with the damp moldy odor indoors, making him furrow his brow.

Just moments earlier.

Countless shards of memory had forcibly pierced his mind, rapidly piecing together a world called Earth and a complete flashback of his previous life.

His Past Life Wisdom had awakened in a single day.

His mind seemed remade, and only then did he feel a fierce revulsion toward the foul stench he had known since childhood.

"A-Cheng! You're awake?"

Madam Li backed into the room, shut the door tightly behind her, and dropped the wooden bolt.

"Mother..."

Chen Cheng tried to force a smile to reassure her, but the agony in the back of his head made his smile uglier than a cry.

"How did you pass out in that dark alley? Good thing Xiao Long and Hu Niu happened to pass by... If it'd been anyone else, they'd have carried you off and sold you long ago..."

Madam Li's eyes were red-rimmed. Before she could finish, tears began falling like a snapped string of beads.

"Xiao Long... Hu Niu... They were the ones who brought me back?"

Chen Cheng had no memory whatsoever of what happened after he lost consciousness.

As for Xiao Long and Hu Niu, they were the brother and sister next door whom he had played naked with since childhood.

After growing up, each had gone off to seek a living. He had not seen Xiao Long for over a year.

He did run into Hu Niu now and then.

She had just turned sixteen not long ago. Her features had fully grown in, and she was far prettier than in childhood. Her figure had developed nicely too, as though it had suddenly filled out over the past year. Quite a few people had come to propose marriage.

"A-Cheng... What exactly happened? Say something..."

Madam Li's sobbing dragged Chen Cheng back from his tangled thoughts.

"...That gutter rat Laitou!"

After steadying himself and silently searching his memories, Chen Cheng could not help but picture a young man with a head full of festering sores, as though someone had used it as a toilet.

"I was running goods for the trading firm today... Laitou from the Black Wolf Gang knocked me out with a club halfway there..."

Chen Cheng raised a hand and rubbed his face hard. His palms were rough, and the rubbing made the skin tightened by the cold wind sting in waves.

For the past three full years, he had worked as a menial laborer at the Tea Horse Trading Firm.

Every day, he rose before dawn and worked until after dark—feeding horses, moving cargo, running errands, chopping firewood, carrying water, sweeping, washing clothes... There was never a moment without endless work to do.

Though still young, he had already been worn into a face full of hardship, and his body had been drained hollow.

That afternoon, Laitou had received word in advance and hidden along the route. One blow had knocked Chen Cheng unconscious, and Laitou fled with the goods.

At the time, Chen Cheng had not felt much discomfort. He climbed to his feet and stumbled dazedly back to the trading firm.

After he explained what had happened, the reclusive beautiful proprietress personally came out from the Inner Courtyard to inspect his injuries. She did not make him pay for the goods, but she would no longer employ him.

As for the wages still unpaid for this month... How could he have the face to bring them up?

He had silently returned to the slums. Just as he was nearly home, his head suddenly felt as though it were splitting apart, and he lost all consciousness.

"...How did you provoke people from the Black Wolf Gang!?"

Madam Li's face was filled with terror, her voice trembling.

"I never provoked them... Whenever I got paid each month, didn't I always hand over the Peace Tax early?"

Chen Cheng said, frowning deeply.

"What happened today was robbery and attempted murder!"

He could tell with certainty that Laitou's blow had been meant to kill.

For local gang members, beating one or two wretched slum-dwellers to death was no different from beating stray dogs to death by the roadside.

In the bottomless stagnant pool that was the Outer City, it would not stir the slightest ripple.

The Patrol Guard Bureau would not investigate at all.

Even the dead person's family might not report it.

In the slums, even a three-year-old child knew that the patrol office opened toward money: with reason but no silver, do not enter.

Laitou had counted on precisely that, which was why he had acted with such utter abandon. If not for his hurry to move the goods, he likely would have carried Chen Cheng away to exchange for silver.

This world...

Though the poor stood upright on two legs, they were no different from livestock awaiting the butcher's knife.

Once someone set their sights on them, death was certain.

"If he really meant to kill you... he... he'll definitely come after you again!"

Madam Li twisted the sleeve cuff patched over with patch after patch between her fingers, shaking violently.

Chen Cheng nodded, his expression turning solemn.

"I've already thought this through... I need to learn martial arts!"

"...Learn martial arts?"

Madam Li froze for a moment, then silently nodded.

She might not understand grand principles, but she was not blind.

In this slum that resembled an abyssal purgatory, only Martial Artists could live even somewhat like human beings.

Not to mention faraway examples—the current leader of the Black Wolf Gang had relied on his martial skills to become the living King of Hell of Bitter Locust Village.

Every month, he forcibly collected the Peace Tax. At the slightest whim, he killed people and did whatever he pleased. To the more than one hundred poor households of Bitter Locust Village, they were all no better than pigs and dogs in his eyes.

If her son had practiced martial arts, how could he have been knocked unconscious by a single blow and nearly lost his life?

"Mother..."

Seeing Madam Li nod, Chen Cheng's expression instead grew graver.

"Right now... I can't even scrape together half a copper coin..."

The Black Wolf Gang's monthly extortion and the government's layer upon layer of taxes had long squeezed every drop of oil from his Bones.

Now even his rice bowl had been smashed. Making a living was already a problem, so how could he speak of learning martial arts?

Before his words had faded, a rumbling growl suddenly came from his stomach.

Madam Li froze, then instinctively turned and hurried two steps to a corner of the room. She brought over half a bowl of watery porridge so thin it could not have been thinner, with bran husks and rotten vegetable leaves floating in it.

"This was... cooked at noon. Mother ate half of it... I originally wanted... to save it for tomorrow..."

Her voice carried an embarrassment she could not conceal. Her hands were thick-knuckled and covered in chilblains, and they still trembled slightly.

Chen Li said nothing. He took the bowl and drank two mouthfuls, showing that he did not mind.

Then he walked over and set the bowl down. Without any surprise, he saw the empty rice jar in the corner, so empty that even a rat that fell into it would lose its footing.

At the beginning of the year, while his father was still around, the family could at least afford coarse rice and gray flour.

Later, his father had been forcibly conscripted, and all word of him vanished completely. From then on, their coarse rice porridge grew thinner by the day.

His mother took on mending and laundry work day and night, but how could she withstand being drained of blood by both gangs and officials?

Chen Cheng had lived at the trading firm year-round. Only today did he learn that his mother had reached the point of surviving on bran porridge, without even knowing whether there would be another meal after the last.

He had originally planned to ask his mother to take out some money and help him weather this immediate crisis.

But now...

"Don't worry about money."

Madam Li wiped the corners of her eyes with her sleeve and spoke slowly.

"When the government came to seize men for conscription, you were at the trading firm and didn't know what was happening at home..."

"Your grandfather originally wanted his three sons to draw lots to decide who would go... Your eldest uncle refused even unto death, while your Third Uncle was sick at the time..."

"In the end, your grandfather made the decision and sent your father. He also made your eldest uncle and Third Uncle swear that they would look after the two of us..."

"Your grandfather also promised you a chance to learn martial arts. It was a favor he had done for someone years ago. He said he could let you study for free for half a year..."

Madam Li paused, her gaze slightly evasive.

"Mother thought proper jobs were hard to find, and I was afraid you might not have the talent for martial arts... If you quit your work at the trading firm and then failed to learn it... well... I never told you."

"But now, you've lost your work at the trading firm and provoked a life-demanding ghost... Whether you have the talent or not, you have to venture down this road..."

After silently listening, Chen Cheng could not help clenching his fists.

He had always thought his father had simply been unlucky and forcibly taken away by the government.

He never expected there had been such hidden circumstances.

No wonder... Though Third Uncle's family was also living in terrible hardship, Third Uncle still came by every few days, sometimes even bringing food.

As for his grandfather and eldest uncle, after his father left, they had never again cared about this widow and orphan.

Their oath to look after them was no different from farting.

That promise of martial arts...

Chen Cheng's eyes darkened. He no longer held any expectations.

Thinking of that honest, worn-out man who had poured out his heart and soul for his wife, children, father, and brothers, Chen Cheng clenched his fists even tighter.

"This can't be delayed. Let's go there right now!"

Madam Li's face was full of urgency, as though every extra moment they waited put her son in greater danger.

"Perfect timing. Your Third Uncle sent word a few days ago that your father finally mailed a letter home, but the courier delivered it to your grandfather's place. We'll bring it back today as well."

Chen Cheng nodded and said nothing.

Even if the hope was slim, trying was better than waiting foolishly.

Besides, they needed to retrieve his father's only letter home. No matter what, he had to make this trip.

He braced himself and got out of bed. The dull ache at the back of his head remained, but it no longer hindered his movement.

Madam Li took two rough-cloth padded coats from a wooden chest. They were stuffed with straw and hemp wadding, stiff and heavy, carrying a pungent damp-mold smell.

They each put one on before leaving the house.

They walked through the gloomy, cramped alleys, where debris was piled haphazardly and shacks leaned inward against one another. In some of the narrowest stretches, only one person could barely squeeze through.

Trash, excrement, urine, and puddles of piss were everywhere. Waves of stench wriggled into their nostrils as if tangible, flowing straight into their lungs. Every breath was like swallowing rotten, fermented pus.

Madam Li walked ahead, her steps hurried, but she kept looking back at Chen Cheng.

It was as though she feared he would get lost, and feared that his weakened body and serious injury might make him collapse.

Fortunately, Chen Cheng seemed to be recovering bit by bit...

Boom!

Halfway there, a thunderclap exploded inside his skull without warning.

An immeasurable, overwhelming torrent of divine strangeness surged into him.

It rushed and intertwined in the depths of his mind, ultimately condensing into an ancient mark wreathed in faint spiritual radiance, shaped like a vertical eye.