A Life of Ordinariness

A Life of Ordinariness (Please Keep Reading)

Night.

Xu Xing was being punished, scrubbing the dozen or so warhorses in Filial Righteousness Hall.

Master Ma had originally exempted him from this punishment upon seeing that he had become a scholar. After all, having Xu Xing, a scholar, go back to scrubbing horses was somewhat inappropriate.

Put lightly, it violated the rules.

Put harshly, it was an insult to a scholar.

Yet Xu Xing willingly accepted the punishment. He said that since he was one of Filial Righteousness Hall's brothers, he had to accept the hall's disciplinary rules. Otherwise, everything would fall into disorder, and that would be his fault.

Never mind whether Xu Xing's words were merely a performance.

But once he said this, and backed it up with action, the brothers of Filial Righteousness Hall found him much more pleasing to the eye.

Men climbed upward, water flowed downward. Xu Xing had enrolled in Taste Classics Academy on his own without informing everyone, and that truly had been improper. But with a chance to study, who would be willing to keep licking blood from the edge of a blade?

Xu Xing regarded himself as part of Filial Righteousness Hall. If he prospered in the future, then rounding it off, it would be much the same as them prospering. Though they had harbored a little dissatisfaction toward him, after this little performance of Xu Xing's, whatever resentment remained would turn into approval.

"I'm so good at being an official..."

"Who knew I'd fucking fall into a trap and run into Chongming Emperor, that dog of an emperor..."

After splashing a bucket of warm water over a four-year-old chestnut horse, Xu Xing scrubbed it as he cursed Chongming Emperor of the Phoenix Creek Kingdom.

He considered himself rather good at being an official.

Currying favor with superiors, uniting subordinates...

Yet he had run into Chongming Emperor, that dog of an emperor—ambitious but incapable.

But just as he was cursing, the [Fate] entry finally changed, shifting from [Fate of Violent Death (Gray)] to [A Life of Ordinariness (White)].

After the change.

Xu Xing set the scrub bucket on the ground, closed his eyes, and returned to the real world.

Phoenix Creek Kingdom, Celestial Prison.

Ding, Cell Twenty-Four.

Xu Xing stared without moving at the Ancient Bronze Mirror in his mind.

The chance to alter his heavenly fate was now.

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[Mirror Master: Xu Xing.]

[Dao Fruit: None.]

[World: Late Qing and Republican Era (Myriad Heavens).]

[Descent: Soul.]

[Time Flow Rate: One to Five.]

[Fate: A Life of Ordinariness (White).]

Upon the golden mirror's surface, his Fate had changed.

Only... after his consciousness returned to the real world, the Fate [A Life of Ordinariness (White)] actually showed faint signs of dispersing, as though it would collapse the next moment.

"Your gray Fate [Fate of Violent Death] has been changed into the white Fate [A Life of Ordinariness]."

"Would you like to use [Dao Fruit] to solidify it, turning an illusory cause into a real fruit?"

Line after line flowed across the mirror's surface.

Xu Xing naturally chose to use [Dao Fruit] to solidify his Fate.

If he had guessed correctly, his original Fate in the Phoenix Creek Kingdom had also been the white [A Life of Ordinariness]. Yet after transmigrating and being reborn, he had defied fate and changed his destiny, becoming an eighth-rank Director of the Imperial Stables at the Imperial Stud Directorate through the arithmetic examination. As a result, "virtue did not match his position"; his fate lacked the air of nobility, so he encountered this killing calamity and was thrown into prison in chains.

The benefit of the Ancient Bronze Mirror was that it could solidify one's Fate.

It raised his lower limit.

The next moment.

The word "None" beneath [Dao Fruit] slowly shifted, turning into the four words [A Life of Ordinariness (White)].

At the same time, Xu Xing had no idea what was happening to him.

From the instant his Fate changed, it felt as if much of the strength had been hollowed out of his body.

It was comparable to the aftereffects of taking Musk Dragon Powder on his wedding night.

His breath was weak and sluggish.

The body he had nursed back to health these past few days by eating meat had once again been drained...

"Turning an illusory cause into a real fruit..."

"Must come at a price."

"And the price was the consumption of my life force?"

"Perhaps I need not consume life force at all—other kinds of power could be converted in its place. It is only because I cultivate neither martial arts nor immortality, and in the Celestial Prison I have nothing left but this sack of flesh, that it consumed my life force?"

Xu Xing lay atop a pile of wheat straw, drawing deep breaths to ease his exhaustion as he pondered this inwardly.

Phoenix Creek Kingdom had legends of immortals.

As a court official, he had heard some of them.

It was only that he had never witnessed a true immortal with his own eyes.

Forget immortals—even martial arts, he only half believed in. After all, the martial arts masters he had seen could neither strike out a three-foot wall of qi, nor vault over roofs and scale walls, nor prolong their lives...

For instance, in Western Pass Circuit, his hometown, there was a martial arts expert called Iron Palm Immortal. Barely past forty, he already had a gray beard and white hair, his face steeped in age. He looked like an old man in his sixties or seventies.

He trembled and tottered with every step, looking as though he had only a few days left to live.

Thus, he had long ago abandoned those illusory notions of martial and immortal cultivation, turning instead to the study of how to enter officialdom and become an official...

Only by becoming an official could one rise above others.

But now—

the Ancient Bronze Mirror was in his mind.

Once again, he became convinced that immortal cultivation truly existed.

"It's just... seeking immortals is far too difficult..."

"To travel all the territory of Phoenix Creek Kingdom alone would take at least ten or more years."

"Still, while immortals are difficult to find, martial arts are not. The instance world has Master Ma's inherited internal cultivation method. Perhaps I can find a way to ask for it. Even if Master Ma refuses to offer it, there must surely be manuals of internal cultivation elsewhere..."

The fate [A Life of Ordinariness] could allow Xu Xing to temporarily evade calamities, even let him live a lifetime in peace and safety.

But what about the future?

He did not want to truly live [A Life of Ordinariness] for the rest of his days.

Besides, a life of ordinariness did not mean he would never suddenly die from natural disasters or man-made calamities.

In ancient times, common folk who died in plagues or famines could also be said to have lived ordinary lives.

The next day.

While Xu Xing was lost in such thoughts, Zhao Yunniang once more appeared before Xu Xing in the Celestial Prison, following Old Li.

"Husband..."

"Princess Anren is getting married, and His Majesty has decreed a general amnesty. Though your group of convicted officials is not among those to be pardoned, husband, your life has been spared for now..."

"Lord Han told me that he will pull some strings at the Ministry of Justice and strive to have your death sentence commuted."

The moment they met, Zhao Yunniang softly told Xu Xing this momentous news.

Xu Xing was not surprised.

He had already altered his fate and had long known that he would not die.

Yet when he heard that Princess Anren's wedding had suddenly taken place, he could not help clicking his tongue inwardly. As far as he knew, Princess Anren's wedding was meant to be in March of next year. For the marriage to have been moved forward so abruptly, it was likely not unrelated to the Ancient Bronze Mirror in his mind...

"Thank you, Yunniang, for telling me this."

Xu Xing took Zhao Yunniang's soft hand and spoke warmly.

He held no feelings for Zhao Yunniang, but they had, after all, been husband and wife for one night. Moreover, Zhao Yunniang had left a silver ingot for the Celestial Prison guards, improving his meals. He would remember this kindness.

As they spoke, he also took a close look at Zhao Yunniang.

He saw that she had changed her appearance as well. She had let down her twin flat buns and replaced them with a married woman's fallen-horse bun. She had also removed the gold hairpins and silver ornaments she once wore, using only a wooden hairpin to secure her hair.

Her clothes, too, had become loose robes that concealed her figure.

At the sight, Xu Xing nodded to himself.