Bizarre World!

"Selling fish, selling fish! Fresh handfish!"

Zhou Chen hawked his wares with all his might, the bustling Bluestone Street filled not only with cries of peddling and bargaining, but also the stench of body odor, stinking feet, and stale urine.

"I'll take one! Make the hand a bit smaller and thinner, otherwise once you chop off the human hand, there won't be many pounds of fish left."

A woman with a palm-sized black mole on her face walked up to Zhou Chen's fish stall. As she spoke, the huge mole on her cheek actually split open, and a flesh-colored whisker poked out from inside.

"How do you like this one, Auntie?"

Zhou Chen pulled a pitch-black, bizarre fish out of the wicker basket. The fins on both sides of this fish were actually two dark-green ghostly claws, and they were still thrashing about!

The people around acted as if they saw nothing, and what caused all this bizarre madness was the Black Mist!

Zhou Chen had transmigrated to this bizarre world many years ago, and still hadn't figured out what the Black Mist actually was. He only knew it was extremely polluting; no matter what it was, if soaked in the Black Mist for long, it would undergo all sorts of bizarre changes!

Fish swimming in the river grew human hands and feet, rice grain sprouting in the paddies grew bloody eyeballs, and at night they would make bizarre laughing sounds.

People who ate too much polluted stuff accumulated Miasma Poison in their bodies, which not only drastically shortened their lifespans, but also caused various horrifying mutations—the woman buying fish right before his eyes was a case in point.

"Just this one!"

The woman was very satisfied.

"Alrighty!"

Zhou Chen grabbed the fish, swung it hard down onto the chopping board, and the blade in his hand fell with a flash of cold light.

"Rip!"

This bizarre fish with human hands was gutted and sliced open on the spot.

"Five copper coins, take your fish and go!"

After cleaning up the bizarre fish, Zhou Chen threaded a straw through its gills, tied a neat knot, and handed it to the woman at the stall, who handed him a few copper coins.

"Phew, hold on a bit longer and the martial arts school's tuition should be enough."

Zhou Chen pursed his lips.

The tuition for the martial arts schools in the Outer City was around ten taels of silver a year. His father worked down at the fishery casting nets and catching fish, while he gutted and sold fish; the father and son had saved up for three or four years, and already had over seven taels of fractional silver on hand. As long as nothing went wrong, the rest would be within reach before long.

Thinking of this, Zhou Chen raised his head and glanced at a panel in front of him that only he could see.

[Name: Zhou Chen]
[Age: 18 years old]
[Ability: Fish-Cutting Saber Technique (Major Accomplishment) 2560/3000]

Ever since he transmigrated to this damned world, besides discovering that he could view a personal familiarity panel, he had also found a peculiar space inside his mind.

It was hazy and shrouded in mist, with an unknown Divine Statue sitting upright, in front of which stood a bronze incense burner, and stuck inside the burner was a black stick of incense as long as an index finger.

Over the years, through repeated exploration, he had finally figured out one incredible function of this Divine Statue.

That was its ability to absorb the Miasma Poison in his body!

Whether it was the Miasma Poison he absorbed into his body through contact with the Black Mist or ingested through his daily diet and living, the Divine Statue could purify and absorb it, transforming it into a black stick of incense. The more Miasma Poison it absorbed, the longer the incense stick became.

This meant that Zhou Chen currently had no accumulation of Miasma Poison in his body from start to finish, so he didn't have to worry about bodily mutation at all, nor did he need to worry about a drastically shortened lifespan.

Mutated food that others regarded as poisonous trash caused him not the slightest issue when eaten, which was equivalent to having a built-in purifier inside his body.

But this was still not the most powerful aspect of the Divine Statue. With a single thought, the Miasma Poison transformed into Mist Incense could be ignited.

Once ignited, it would burn rapidly, but his proficiency would shoot up out of thin air!

One foot of Mist Incense could increase proficiency by two hundred points.

After trying it out once, Zhou Chen had never been willing to use it again.

No matter how much I improve the Fish-Cutting Saber Technique, when all is said and done I'm just a fish cutter. But if I can learn martial arts and practice martial disciplines, that will be completely different. With my cheat, I might be able to become a Martial Warrior very soon.

Just as Zhou Chen's thoughts drifted far away, a remark from the woman in front of him pulled him back.

"Ah-Chen, your saber technique has gotten faster again!" The woman with the coin-sized black mole on her face took the fish, but didn't rush to leave. Lowering her voice, she asked stubbornly, "Are you truly not going to reconsider my daughter?"

"Auntie, I plan to study martial arts. As you know, the first rule of the martial arts school is no matchmaking or marriage before the age of eighteen."

Zhou Chen smiled and politely declined.

Of course, there was another layer he didn't voice out loud: that girl had three legs, and during the bridal chamber night, he wouldn't even know which two legs to divide his attention between. He would absolutely never marry her.

Besides, even if he didn't practice martial arts, he had already made up his mind in the bottom of his heart: if he had the ability to marry later, he had to marry a fair-skinned girl with long legs and a slender waist, and what's more, he had to marry several.

"Alas!" The woman sighed and started lecturing him, "How many people in our Qingtian District practice martial arts, and how many actually make it in a year? If one out of several hundred succeeds, it's considered smoke rising from the ancestral graves. Why is a child like you so stubborn? And your father, following along blindly to support you, throwing good silver down the drain. You'd be better off keeping it as a bride price for my daughter; my daughter is one in ten thousand..."

Zhou Chen responded with a smile on his face, but in his heart he was rolling his eyes all the way up to the heavens: Ten thousand have already been picked away, and only your daughter is left...

"Fine, fine, you won't listen even if I talk. It's getting dark, and once the Black Mist rises, I must hurry home."

Seeing that he stopped responding, the woman cursed him under her breath for being unappreciative, then grabbed her fish and hurried away.

Enter the house at dark, lock the door as early as possible was a habit etched into their bones over many years. Deep within the Black Mist lurked all sorts of unfathomable monsters that people called Mist Monsters.

Once night fell, they grew even more rampant, often leaping over the Outer City walls and plunging into residential areas to devour people and drink blood.

Every household was bound to light lamps at nightfall and shut their doors and windows tight, but even so, bad news still frequently came from within Qingtian District: one household had been gutted, another family of old and young had vanished without a sound. When others went to investigate, they only discovered that the entire family had been turned into flesh chairs—spines serving as chair backs, femur bones as stool legs, human skin as upholstery, flesh and bones twisted together with ferocious expressions.

All kinds of strange tales chilled one to the bone.

Especially recently, the times Qingtian District suffered surprise attacks from black mist monsters increased sharply. With no choice, Qingtian District bordered the Outer City wall, only a single wall away from that deadly black mist outside the city.

Thinking of his parents and young sister at home, Zhou Chen's heart grew tighter, and the urge to learn martial arts burned more fiercely.

In fact, besides practicing martial arts, he hadn't tried other ways out.

Yet no matter how he thrashed about with a transmigrator's brain, in the end he always returned in defeat.

When it came down to it, there were still the gangs. In this era, no matter what business you ran, there was always someone coming to scrape off a layer of your fat. Earn less, hand over less; earn more, hand over more. Fighting with your life achieved nothing more than making wedding garments for others.

The more you earned, the more ruthlessly the gangs collected.

This was an era where human life was like grass, and anyone with a shred of silver would be skinned and had their marrow sucked out. Without strength, one was no different from a pig or a dog. Becoming a martial warrior was the only true path.

Only by becoming a martial warrior could he shake off this dilapidated, crowded Qingtian District and move his entire family to a safer region. There, Night Patrol Bureau martial warriors patrolled, and they wouldn't need to live in daily terror, guarding against the monsters surging from the black mist.

What was more, Zhou Chen didn't want to remain a bottom-feeder for his entire life; he wanted to climb upward!

He also wanted to see the scenery at the high places of this world! He wanted to see what extraordinary things this world held!

Clank, clank, clank!

The sound of gongs rang out as a few burly martial warriors in black fitted garments walked over from the end of the street, cursing as they spoke, "Move, move! It's getting dark. What are you all standing around for? You want to die?!"

"Lords, we'll leave right away, right away!"

The surrounding peddlers were scared silent. In an instant, throughout the entire Bluestone Street, all the small vendors hurriedly packed up their goods.

The people who arrived were precisely the Night Patrol Bureau martial warriors, responsible for nightly patrols, slaying mist monsters that entered the city, and maintaining peace. In the eyes of commoners like them in the Outer City, those were lofty existences.

Zhou Chen enviously looked at these Night Patrol Bureau martial warriors, and then hurriedly finished packing his things, pushing his cart to hurry home.

Turning into the familiar alley, Zhou Chen had only walked a few steps inside when he ran head-on into a sturdy fellow wearing gray short-clothes with narrow eyes and a pair of mouse mustaches at the corners of his mouth, giving off a thguish, shifty vibe.

Zhou Chen's brows furrowed imperceptibly.

He recognized this person named Zhang Mingfei, a notorious ruffian in the vicinity who was rumored to have some ties with the Clear River Gang, and usually did all sorts of bullying.

Ordinarily, the two of them minded their own business, but ever since this ruffian set his sights on his ten-year-old sister, he had been wandering around the mouth of the alley every few days, urging him to send Zhou Yu to the Chen Residence to live a good life.

Yet who didn't know that old man Chen was a notorious lecher? Zhou Chen knew all too well what kind of end awaited those who fell into his hands.

How could he possibly push his sister into a pit of fire?

Fortunately, Zhang Mingfei didn't dare to pull any small tricks on them.

For one, Zhou Chen and his father were both tall and sturdy. For another, their Zhou household still had seven or eight households of relatives in Qingtian District, barely looking out for one another.

Yet what was this wretch Zhang Mingfei running over to do today?

Just as Zhou Chen was about to speak, Zhang Mingfei spoke up first, "Zhou Chen, something happened at your house. Why aren't you hurrying back to take a look?"

What?! Something happened at home?

Zhou Chen's heart tightened fiercely!

Having transmigrated here, although life had been hard, he was able to feel genuine care and affection from his parents. This was a warmth he had never experienced as an orphan in his past life, and he had long since treated his family in this world as his own blood!

He hadn't yet practiced martial arts, achieved success, and brought his family to live a good life. The moment he heard something happened to his family, his mind instantly plunged into chaos!

That shouldn't be right! His mother and sister usually washed clothes for others at home, and the gang's attendants never missed a monthly payment. How could trouble arise out of nowhere? Could it be that his father ran into a mist monster on his boat?!

He had to get home quickly to take a look!

Hurriedly muttering a word of thanks, Zhou Chen pushed his cart and ran toward the depths of the alley.

His home was at the very end of the alley, a low, flat-roofed house flanked by fished nets patched again and again, with some dried fish scales hanging upon them.

A woman wearing coarse cloth and hemp garments sat on the threshold, covering her face and weeping. It was none other than his mother, Zhang Fang. His sister, a skinny, yellowish-haired little girl named Zhou Yu, had red-rimmed eyes and clumsily wiped Zhang Fang's tears.

"Mom, what is it?! What happened at home!"

Seeing this, Zhou Chen breathed heavily, dropped his cart, and rushed forward in two steps.