Where Nine Rivers Meet, Carriage Driver Qin Geng

The lower reaches of the Nine Rivers, the land of Tianjin.

Ping'an County Town was the root and historic core of Tianjin, featuring no towering mansions, only alleys dense as spiderwebs, closely packed shops, and corners hiding dirt and filth.

The three teachings and nine streams coexisted here, where rules mattered more than state law.

Ping'an County, South District.

"Ugh—"

"Too painful."

Qin Geng's eyelids felt as heavy as if a steelyard weight were dangling from them, and he barely managed to squeeze open a slit.

Everything in his vision was blurred, as though looking at things through water.

A few large holes gaped in the roof, and the gray daylight leaked down through those holes, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air.

Beneath him was a hard wooden bed, covered with a thin layer of straw that pricked his skin somewhat.

"Xiao Wu? You're awake?"

A hoarse man's voice, tinged with a measure of urgency, sounded by his ear.

Qin Geng twisted his stiff neck and looked toward the sound.

A face drew close.

The man's lips were chapped, his eye sockets deeply sunken, and his bloodshot eyes were filled with turbid pupils.

Yet that concern was as genuine as could be.

It was Xu Chun, Uncle Xu.

"Uncle... Xu..."

The moment Qin Geng opened his mouth, he found his throat frighteningly dry, and as it tugged at the injury on the back of his head, another piercing wave of pain struck.

"It's good that you're awake, good that you're awake."

Xu Chun's rough hand felt his forehead and he let out a breath of relief. "Good thing you aren't running a fever. Do you remember which bastard struck from the shadows? Was it those sons of bitches from Yi He Shantytown?"

Xu Chun's attire was that of a carriage driver most commonly seen in Tianjin.

A coarse-cloth, double-breasted jacket washed to a pale white, with frayed edges at the cuffs and hem, and an oily sweat towel slung around his neck.

He had spent years toiling away outside, his skin baked by the sun like the bark of an old tree, and his hands covered in thick calluses and cracks.

Yi He Shantytown...

This name acted like a key, poking open the mess of paste inside Qin Geng's brain.

The chaotic fragments of memory began to piece themselves together.

The ferry... the wharf... a fellow with a face full of fleshy rolls... Lai Tou...

And... the new rickshaw.

That brand-new, gleaming foreign-style carriage.

The body was made of fine lumber brushed with black lacquer, capable of reflecting the light in the sun.

Gleaming brass fixtures, sturdy rubber wheels, and that imposing rain canopy; he loved the feel of the shafts in his grip and treasured the vehicle.

Qin Geng often stroked it over and over, wiping it clean again and again, feeling as though his good days to come were right before his eyes.

For the sake of this carriage, he had emptied out all the savings he had accumulated working like an ox or a horse over the past three years, and then lowered his face to borrow five silver dollars from his aunt, pooling them together before he could haul this precious treasure back from the carriage shop.

With the new carriage, he could go haul fares in places frequented by respectable people.

The tips from a single haul were enough to match three or four trips of his previous work.

By the end of the day, earning a few dozen more copper coins was not a problem.

Saving up day by day like this, it wouldn't take him many years to rent a decent courtyard in the South District, ask a matchmaker to talk over a match, marry a wife, and have a child...

The good days felt right before his eyes, within touching distance.

It was precisely this thought that had driven him to lose his mind yesterday.

The carriage drivers of Ping'an County Town had their territories divided as well.

The drivers of their Xu Jin's Shanty neighborhood primarily solicited fares at the South Gate and a few surrounding street corners.

Yet the most lucrative territory in the city was the Jin River Ferry.

People streamed back and forth there; merchants heading south and officials going north were all big spenders who threw money around lavishly. The money from a single haul matched what they made running around the South Gate for a whole day.

Yet the ferry was the territory of Yi He Shantytown.

The people of that shanty town were utterly overbearing, and outsiders simply could not wedge a foot in.

Yesterday, Qin Geng had taken on an urgent fare; the guest wanted to go to the ferry, and he figured he would drop them off and leave immediately, which should have been fine.

Yet upon reaching the spot, looking at the endless flow of crowds, a demon possessed him and he wanted to earn a bit more money.

He harbored wishful thinking, shouting out near the edge of the ferry in hopes of picking up a passenger returning to the city.

It was precisely this shout that ruined everything.

Lai Tou of Yi He Shantytown brought a few men and surrounded them.

That was a fellow with a scarred, scabby face who relied on his association with the boss of South City Carriage House to run roughshod at the ferry.

"Where's this stray dog from, daring to come here and snatch food?"

As for what happened afterward, Qin Geng did not remember very clearly.

Qin Geng only remembered Lai Tou's face full of coarse flesh, and then, the searing pain that came from the back of his head; everything went black, and he knew nothing more.

"It was Lai Tou..."

Struggling to sit up and leaning against a pile of straw, Qin Geng lowered his head. "I wanted to pull a fare at the ferry, and they saw me..."

As his memories flooded back, Qin Geng's heart sank to the bottom along with them.

He braced his body to sit up, but the movement aggravated his injuries all over. Beneath his ribs, it hurt as if needles were pricking him, and he could not help but gasp.

"Don't move!"

Xu Chun hurriedly pressed him down. "You're still injured. What on earth happened? Where's your new rickshaw? Did those bastards snatch it?"

Qin Geng looked at Xu Chun's anxious face. On that face were concern and anger, but not a single trace of blame.

Three years ago, his old man sold his aunt to the Su Family as a maid. The money from the sale was all thrown into the gambling den, and in the end, his father lost the bet and was beaten to death.

Afterward, Qin Geng became a beggar on the street fighting stray dogs for scraps. When he was on the verge of starving to death, it was Xu Chun who picked him up and brought him back to the shantytown where the carriage drivers gathered.

At that welcome meal, Qin Geng took advantage of Xu Chun's inattention and ate five large steamed corn buns straight off, almost choking himself to death.

Later on, Xu Chun simply called him Xiao Wu, treating him no differently than family.

Uncle Xu taught him the craft of pulling a rickshaw, giving him a mouthful of food. Gradually, Qin Geng reconnected with his aunt, and his days were getting progressively more hopeful.

Owning a rickshaw of his own, earning a living by his own strength, and then taking a wife to live a peaceful life—that was the greatest dream of his entire life.

Now, just as the dream had begun, it was shattered.

The new rickshaw was gone, and there was no way to repay the money for his aunt anymore.

He clenched his teeth, forcing back the heat that surged into his eye sockets, and said, "The rickshaw was snatched away."

"Uncle Xu, this... this is my fault. I was just being greedy."

Qin Geng lowered his head.

In the carriage-driving trade, turf was the root of one's life.

Tianjin sat at the tail ends of the nine rivers, boasting convenient waterways, and travelers and merchants coming and going were as numerous as carp crossing a river.

Wherever there were people, there was business.

Train stations, ferries, opera houses, opium dens, restaurant entrances... these were all the "wharves" with the richest pickings.

To seize turf, the carriage drivers formed factions and staked out territory. Minor friction was constant on ordinary days, and a large-scale brawl would erupt every three or five days.

Those who lost the fight got off lightly with bruised noses and swollen faces, or more seriously with broken hands and feet, and naturally, their turf was snatched away.

Their shantytown simply couldn't match Yi He Shantytown in manpower, and their gear wasn't up to par either. They had suffered heavy losses in recent conflicts, losing several passenger-hauling territories.

"Your fault? Your bloody fault!"

Xu Chun glared, his voice coarse and loud. "It's those bastards who have no morals! Snatching a rickshaw—that's smashing someone's rice bowl and cutting off their path to survival!

If we swallow this and word gets out, where will our shantytown save face? Anyone will be able to come up and trample on us!"

He stood up, pacing back and forth inside the cramped shantytown. The cloth shoe soles, worn to a shine, scraped against the ground and made a rustling sound.

"You stay down and tend to your injuries first, and don't think about anything else. I'll go talk to the others about this. Since that Lai Tou dared to pull the first act of villainy, don't blame us for pulling the fifteenth!"

A fierce edge leaked through Xu Chun's tone.

Qin Geng wanted to say something, such as "Uncle Xu, don't be impulsive" or "They have more people, we can't beat them," but the words reached his lips only to be swallowed back down.

Saying such things at a time like this would only deflate his own side's prestige.

Among these lower-class people who lived by brute strength, sometimes a breath of pride mattered even more than life itself.

Once that breath was gone, the spirit and vitality scattered with it, and from then on they truly could only be slaughtered at will.

"Get some good rest. There's porridge I left for you in the pot; heat it up yourself if it gets cold."

Xu Chun patted Qin Geng's shoulder. The force wasn't light, but Qin Geng could feel the comfort behind it.

With that, Xu Chun lifted the tattered straw mat that served as a door curtain, bent over, and squeezed out.

Inside the shantytown, silence returned.

Only Qin Geng's own breathing and the occasional distant bark of a dog from outside the window remained.

He lay on the hard wooden bedboard, staring dully at the hole in the thatched roof.

The dull ache at the back of his head, the stabbing pain under his ribs, and the hollowed-out sense of loss and humiliation in his heart gnawed at his internal organs like countless little bugs.

Three years.

He had gone from a beggar who missed meals to a carriage driver who could fill his stomach with his own strength.

Qin Geng had thought his life had finally stepped onto the right track; so long as he worked diligently and kept his head down, he could live a good life, just as he had dreamed.

Yet reality dealt him a heavy, muffled blow.

The blood-sweat money he had painstakingly saved over three years, together with the money he borrowed from his aunt, vanished into thin air overnight.

His dream shattered.

A deep sense of powerlessness washed over him like a tide.

In this world, having no power or influence made one like a weed by the roadside; a gust of wind would knock it flat without a single sound.

Could he just accept this fate?

Let Uncle Xu and the others risk their lives against those people from Yi He Shantytown over his matters?

Qin Geng clenched his fists so hard that his fingernails dug deep into his palms, sending a sharp pain.

He was unwilling to resign himself to this.

Just as he was flustered and burning with anxiety inside, the previously blurry scene before his eyes suddenly began to twist and swirl.

Qin Geng thought his injuries were too severe and he was hallucinating.

He blinked hard, but far from disappearing, the bizarre scene grew increasingly clear.

A faint halo, like ink spreading on xuan paper, appeared out of thin air before his eyes.

Within the halo, lines of archaic characters emerged word by word, as if written by invisible brush and ink.

It was not any script he knew, yet the moment it appeared, it made him understand its meaning.

[Book of a Hundred Trades]

[Man in this world must have a trade; refine that trade through diligence, and you may commune with ghosts and gods]

Qin Geng's breathing hitched abruptly, his eyes wide open.

What... was this thing?

He struggled to sit up, wanting to get closer for a clear look, only to find that the light screen seemed fixed upon his eyes. No matter how he moved, it hovered steadily before him, neither far nor near.

He tried reaching out to touch it, but his fingers passed straight through without the slightest obstruction, as if it were merely a hollow illusion.

Was a monster acting up?

Or had he run into ghosts and gods?

A cold sweat instantly broke out across Qin Geng's back.

Times were chaotic these days.

Although the Great Xin Dynasty still stood, it suffered defeat after defeat abroad while levying harsh taxes at home, plunging the people into misery.

In remote, rugged mountains and murky waters, bizarre and supernatural occurrences emerged endlessly.

There were rumors galore: Great Immortal Huang demanding enfeoffment, water monkeys in the river pulling people down to serve as scapeplots, wild foxes hosting banquets beneath old pagoda trees that had gained sentience in the night...

When Qin Geng was a beggar in his childhood, wandering everywhere, he had witnessed such a strange event with his own eyes.

That was at the potter's field outside the city, where a tall, thin man in Taoist robes walked in the moonlight leading a string of seven or eight "people."

Those "people" all had yellow paper talismans pasted on their foreheads, covered with black cloth, their complexions pale and greenish. They hopped forward, their postures unspeakably stiff and bizarre.

That was a legendary corpse driver.

At the time, Qin Geng hid in the grass, not daring to draw a full breath.

Halfway there, for some reason, one zombie's forehead talisman fell off, and it suddenly rushed straight toward his hiding spot.

The zombie's fingernails were black and long, and it made strange "he-he" sounds from its throat, scaring him almost to the point of pissing his pants.

Just when he thought he was done for, the corpse driver shook the bell in his hand and chanted incantations. The frenzied zombie collapsed to the ground as if its tendons had been pulled, and the corpse driver pasted another talisman on it, making it obediently follow the procession once more.

That incident left an extremely deep impression on Qin Geng.

In this world, there were many eccentric things.

Could this [Book of a Hundred Trades] before his eyes be one of them?

Qin Geng forced himself to calm down, suppressed the fear in his heart, and carefully scrutinized the light screen before him.

On the light screen, text was still emerging.

[Profession]:

[Carriage Driver (Level 4)]

[Experience: (12/40)]: You are a diligent carriage driver, conscientious, pulling carts daily with nimble legs and feet.

Reaching Level 5 in the carriage driver profession allows you to select a core professional talent: [Divine Stride] [Endless Breath]

[Divine Stride]: Your speed is enhanced, which increases with the talent level.

[Endless Breath]: Your stamina is enhanced, which increases with the talent level.

[Beggar (Level 1)]

[Experience (2/10)]: You are a failed beggar, knowing neither literary nor martial begging; as a beggar you will starve to death.

Reaching Level 5 in the beggar profession allows you to select a core professional talent: [Literary Begging] [Martial Begging]

[Literary Begging]: Your words are more easily met with the favor of others, which increases with the talent level.

[Martial Begging]: Your pain tolerance is enhanced, which increases with the talent level.

Qin Geng read on word by word, growing more alarmed the more he read.

Carriage driver?

Beggar?

Weren't these precisely the two trades he had practiced in his life?

He had lived from hand to mouth as a beggar, fighting with stray dogs for food, and truly was a failed beggar; calling him Level 1 wronged him not in the least.

Later, he followed Uncle Xu for three years as a carriage driver, braving wind and rain without daring to slack off for a single day, and considering himself diligent, so this Level 4 seemed justified.

What did the subsequent [12/100] mean?

Experience points?

Progress?

And those so-called core talents... [Divine Stride] and [Endless Breath].

Divine Stride, speed increased?

Endless Breath, stamina increased?

Qin Geng's heartbeat accelerated uncontrollably.

He knew all too well what these two things meant for a carriage driver.

Greater speed meant seizing more business and traveling farther in the same amount of time.

Better stamina meant hauling heavier loads and running outside all day long without tiring.

These were quite literally the skills carriage drivers dreamed of!

He looked next at the beggar profession's talents.

[Literary Begging], easier to gain others' favor?

Weren't these those beggar bosses who knew how to say nice things, spin stories, and soften people's hearts to make them cough up money in just a few sentences?

[Martial Begging], pain tolerance enhanced?

This was essential for martial beggars who staged fake accidents, acted viciously, or even mutilated their own bodies to win sympathy.

This [Book of a Hundred Trades] had clearly and thoroughly listed out his life experiences and the trades he had engaged in, even providing directions for advancement and rewards.

Qin Geng tried reciting silently in his mind: "Close."

The light screen before him showed no reaction.

He thought again: "What kind of thing are you?"

The light screen remained the same, offering him no answers.

It seemed this thing could not communicate with him.

Was it merely a... narrator?

A recorder?

He steadied his mind and began a more in-depth study.

Qin Geng discovered that when he concentrated on thinking about the "carriage driver" profession, the explanations for [Divine Stride] and [Endless Breath] would become slightly clearer, as if an invisible force were instilling this information into him.

And when he recalled his experiences as a beggar, the line for [Beggar] also seemed to light up slightly.

Lying on the bed, he tossed and turned, pondering for a short half-hour, until the initial fear in his heart was gradually replaced by an unspeakable excitement and curiosity.

This thing appeared to do him no harm.

Furthermore, it seemed to reveal a path... that could let him make a name for himself!

"I just need to honestly be a carriage driver, pulling carts, and I can raise that progress of [12/100]?"

"Once the progress is full and I reach Level 5, I can acquire the talent of [Divine Stride] or [Endless Breath]?"

"And professions... are they professions I have practiced?"

Questions popped up in his mind one after another, and immediately following them, an even bolder thought that made his heart race sprang forth fiercely like a spring shoot breaking through the soil.

"Then if I... try other professions, will they also appear on this Book of a Hundred Trades?"

If that were possible...

If he went to be a cook, could he also acquire talents related to culinary arts?

If he went to be a blacksmith, would he possess infinite strength?

If...

Qin Geng's breathing grew rapid.

He thought of the canal laborers making a living on the docks of Tianjin, every single one of them broad-shouldered and thick-waisted with startling strength, capable of killing an ox with a single punch.

There were also the itinerant physicians who, with a few silver needles and a plaster of ointment, could pull dying people back from the brink of a breath.

Or those performing martial arts and selling skills beneath the Heavenly Bridge, vaulting over roofs and ridges, swallowing swords and breathing fire, possessing a body of hard Qigong.

There were also armed escorts from escort agencies, as well as House Guards and Red Poles of lineages and gangs.

He even thought of those corpse-herding men from back in the day who could control zombies by shaking bells.

Could these people and these trades all become professions on the Book of a Hundred Trades?

Could they all acquire miraculous talents through accumulating "experience points"?

Yet which trade should he choose?

A cook? A blacksmith? A physician?

All of these required connections, required taking on a master, and required spending a vast amount of time and silver coins to learn.

He was currently penniless and still owed his aunt five silver dollars, entirely lacking the conditions for such paths.

Qin Geng's gaze involuntarily fell once more upon the Divine Stride talent.

The pain at the back of his head and along his ribs constantly reminded him of the humiliation he suffered yesterday.

Lai Tou's arrogant face, the companions' disdainful gazes, the powerlessness when his new carriage was snatched away... scene after scene replayed in his mind.

Divine Stride and Endless Breath could make him a better carriage driver.

Yet could a better carriage driver take back a snatched carriage?

Could he withstand Lai Tou's ambush staff strikes?

No.

No matter how fast he ran or how good his endurance was, he was still just a puller of carts.

Facing fists and clubs, he would remain utterly vulnerable.

This world spoke the language of fists.

Whoever had the hardest fists held the reason.

Why did Yi He Shantytown dare to be so arrogant?

Was it not precisely because they had numbers, could fight, and were vicious enough?

What if he... also knew how to fight?

What if he... was more vicious than them?

Qin Geng's gaze changed bit by bit.

That bewilderment and helplessness belonging to a youth were like molten iron calcined by a hearth fire, slowly shedding impurities and tempering into something cold and hard.

Qin Geng thought of the resolute viciousness Uncle Xu displayed when he left.

A much larger conflict was already inevitable.

When that time came, he could no longer be like yesterday, letting himself be slaughtered without the slightest ability to fight back.

Qin Geng wanted revenge.

He wanted to take back what belonged to him.

What this required was not the strength to pull a carriage, but... the strength to beat people.

A thought took root, sprouted, and grew wildly in his heart with utter clarity and firmness.

"I want to practice martial arts!"