Ill-Fated Lone Star

To follow the Paper Effigy Maker career path, Li Xiang needed more than the Embalmer profession. He also had to raise the level of its prerequisite profession, Painter.

Painter had unlocked after Boxer, less than a day apart.

As the saying went, with paper effigies, painting the skin and bones was hard enough; painting the soul was harder still.

One wrong stroke, and after the paper figure's eyes were dotted in, it might not only fail to come alive but even attract evil spirits.

Li Xiang sat cross-legged and spread a sheet of rough paper over his knees. He dipped the tip of his brush in ink, then looked toward a fat trainee nearby, sprawled in a twisted sleeping pose with his mouth wide open and drool running out.

Relaxed expression. Features all bunched together. Like a Maitreya Buddha...

Li Xiang murmured to himself and set his worn brush to paper.

A few strokes outlined the figure. A few more captured its spirit.

[Completed a quick sketch. Painter experience +1]

Li Xiang kept drawing.

He drew the corridor's pillars, falling leaves, and an ant moving house in the corner.

In his eyes, the world broke apart into countless lines and patches of color.

[Completed a still-life drawing. Painter experience +1]

[Completed an ecological observation drawing. Painter experience +1]

With each dull stroke, the pages of the Book of a Hundred Trades turned in his mind. The experience bar under Painter grew slowly but steadily.

[Painter level increased to Lv5]

[Unlocking profession ability...]

[Profession ability acquired: Bone-Drawing]

[Profession: Painter]

[Level: Lv5 (0/50)]

[Rank: 0]

[Profession trait: Masterful Brushwork (Beginner)]

[Masterful Brushwork (Beginner): Your hands are far steadier, and your control of color and line surpasses that of ordinary people.]

[Profession ability: Bone-Drawing]

[Bone-Drawing: Painting a tiger's skin is hard; painting its bones is harder. As an experienced Painter, you can see through appearances to the essence beneath. When you gaze at a target, you can automatically picture its internal skeleton, the arrangement of its muscles, and its proportions in perspective.]

[Note: A new profession ability will unlock at Lv10.]

Painter had reached Lv5, while Boxer was still at Lv2.

Painter unlocked later, yet the gap between their levels is already this wide.

Li Xiang mulled it over.

Practicing martial arts consumed a great deal of stamina. After one full round of Taizu Long Fist, he looked as though he had been hauled out of the water.

Drawing was different. As long as he had the energy, he could sit still and sketch seven or eight pictures in the time it took an incense stick to burn, with no more than a flick of his wrist.

So the Book of a Hundred Trades follows a pattern. The closer a conventional profession is to everyday life, the lower its threshold and the easier it is to grind experience. But for combat professions like Boxer, where life-and-death struggles are involved, the difficulty of leveling up grows exponentially.

Deep in thought, Li Xiang clenched his fist without realizing it.

The instant his five fingers closed, an odd sensation welled up inside him.

It was the Painter trait, Masterful Brushwork, at work.

The trait was meant to keep a painter's wrist steady and his lines smooth.

But when Li Xiang applied that same extreme steadiness to his fist, he was startled to find how uncannily stable its path had become.

There was not the slightest tremor, not a trace of wasted movement.

When his power reached his knuckles, the absolute stability of his wrist reduced its loss by at least a tenth!

Masterful Brushwork steadies more than a brush. It steadies a fist.

Li Xiang looked again at the fat trainee, still snoring away nearby.

While drawing him, Li Xiang had focused only on the man's expression and outline.

But now, when he brought the Painter's instinct to analyze structure and draw bones before skin into the Boxer's perspective, the world seemed to change.

The fat trainee was no longer a lump of flesh.

Li Xiang saw a skeleton wrapped in fat.

Left knee slightly bent. Weight resting on the right hip. Neck muscles relaxed...

An anatomical diagram took shape in Li Xiang's mind.

If someone attacked him in that position, he'd struggle to get up and exert force at once. His center of gravity is locked in place.

Understanding flashed through Li Xiang's mind like a bolt of lightning.

Painting depended on structure; martial arts depended on stance.

Painting depended on brushwork; martial arts depended on forms.

At their roots, the two followed the same principles!

Is this what it means when all paths return to one source?

He had found a shortcut.

If he used the Painter's eyes to break down an opponent's moves and see which muscles drove them, then used the steadiness of Masterful Brushwork to control where his punches landed—

Even if he was weaker, he could anticipate his enemy and strike with precision.

Professions were never isolated from one another.

One more profession, one more path.

I have five professions now—Embalmer, Cook, Fortune Teller, Painter, and Boxer. That's five paths I can choose from.

Having worked that out, Li Xiang stood and dusted off his backside.

The midday break had just ended. He saw Qin Zhong crouching beside the stone lion at the entrance, picking his teeth.

The third day of next month falls in a yin year, yin month, and yin day. To unlock Paper Effigy Maker, I'll need to spend some money on proper tools—especially cinnabar and a wolf-hair brush. They're essential for drawing talismans and dotting the eyes on paper figures.

An idea struck Li Xiang, and he walked over.

"Senior Brother Qin, can I ask you something?" Li Xiang said, lowering his voice.

"What is it? Go on, brother. There's nothing in Linjiang County I don't know." Qin Zhong thumped his chest.

"Do you know where I can buy fine brushes and ink? Preferably a wolf-hair brush, and things like cinnabar and yellow paper," Li Xiang asked.

Qin Zhong paused, then said, "There's an antiques street in the south of town. At the far end is an old shop called the Ink Fragrance Studio. It has the best selection, but it's a little expensive."

"Price doesn't matter if the goods are good." Li Xiang nodded.

"One more thing." Li Xiang glanced around and lowered his voice further.

"Senior Brother Qin, you're out and about a lot. If you hear of any elderly person who's... ahem, passed away of old age, or a difficult corpse that no one wants to handle, let me know."

"Huh?" Qin Zhong's eyes widened. He stared at Li Xiang as though he were a monster.

"Junior Brother Li, you... you're into that?"

"Get lost!" Li Xiang rolled his eyes. "I'm an Embalmer. It's my job. Can't I earn a little money on the side?"

Besides, the Embalmer advancement ritual had been stalled for so long that it stuck in his throat like a fishbone.

"All right, all right. An Embalmer, a craftsman." Qin Zhong chuckled. "I'll keep an ear out. Plenty of people die these days, but finding someone who passed peacefully of old age really does take luck."

While they were chatting, an elderly voice suddenly called from nearby.

"Zhong, my boy! Zhong, my boy!"

The voice whistled through gaps in the speaker's teeth, yet carried remarkably far, with a distinct local accent.

At the sound, Qin Zhong's roguish look vanished. Surprise and filial concern took its place.

"Great-Grandma! What are you doing here?"

Qin Zhong tossed aside his toothpick and ran over as though his backside were on fire.

Li Xiang followed the voice with his eyes. Below the steps outside the martial arts school stood a stooped old woman with hair as silver-white as snow. Leaning on a cane, she trembled where she stood.

She carried a bamboo basket covered with blue-flowered cloth.

She was extraordinarily old.

Wrinkles crowded her face like dried orange peel. Though her eyes sat deep in their sockets and had grown cloudy, they held the calm of someone who had seen through the ways of the world.

She wore an old-fashioned, front-fastening jacket, faded white from washing but spotless. Her feet had been bound in the style peculiar to the Demon Dynasty, and she swayed as she walked, as though a gust of wind might blow her over.

"Oh, in this heat, why did you come all this way yourself?"

Qin Zhong hurried to support his great-grandmother, his face full of reproach and concern. "Didn't I ask Auntie Wang next door to cook for you?"

"That Wang family daughter-in-law cooks with no oil."

The old woman had lost all her teeth. She patted the back of Qin Zhong's hand with fingers as thin as chicken claws. "You're still growing, and you have your martial arts training. How can you go hungry? I brought your favorite food."

With that, she lifted the blue cloth from the bamboo basket. A rich aroma drifted out.

Li Xiang stood nearby and watched in silence.

At the entrance to a martial arts school steeped in sweat and violence, the tender scene looked out of place. Yet it warmed his heart.

"Is that Senior Brother Qin's grandmother?" a new trainee whispered nearby.

"Not his grandmother. His great-grandmother—his grandfather's mother," another trainee said, clicking his tongue in disbelief. "Senior Brother Qin said she's a hundred and seven this year!"

"A hundred and seven?!"

Li Xiang's pupils contracted slightly, and his hands went still.

In these troubled times, ordinary people lived little more than forty years on average. Reaching sixty counted as a long life; seventy was rare since ancient times.

A hundred and seven?

What did that even mean?

When this old woman had been born, the demons of the previous dynasty had probably still been wreaking havoc. She had survived the Demon Dynasty's fall, the early years of warlord conflict, and famine and plague beyond counting.

She was practically an auspicious beast.

Perhaps even... a little uncanny.

The professional instinct of a Fortune Teller stirred within Li Xiang.

Without thinking, Li Xiang activated Ironclad Divination.

"Open!"

Buzz!

His vision warped, and the surroundings blurred.

Li Xiang looked past Qin Zhong and fixed his gaze on the head of the kindly old woman.

The next instant, a chill shot from the soles of his feet straight to the crown of his head.

There was no green aura of longevity, nor any golden aura of good fortune.

Above the old woman's silver hair hovered a strange mass of fate, black as ink yet faintly glimmering with blood-red light.

It did not soar skyward. Instead, it pressed down on her head like an overturned black cauldron, sending countless dark tendrils out in every direction.

The tendrils writhed through empty air, seeming to search for life they could devour.

And right then, they were greedily coiling around Qin Zhong.

"This is..." Li Xiang drew in a sharp breath. "Heavenly Baleful Lone Star?"

Heavenly Baleful Lone Star: a fate that doomed husbands and children and severed the bonds of blood.

Those close to its bearer suffered bad luck at best and sudden death at worst.

Only someone with an exceptionally resilient fate could cling to life under such killing intent.

A bearer of this fate lived an extraordinarily long life, feeding the flame of their own life with the fortunes and years of their closest loved ones.

Li Xiang sucked in a breath. His hands and feet went cold.

He looked at the old woman, watching Qin Zhong eat with such tender affection.

Her hundred and seven years were no blessing. They were a blood-soaked chronicle of a lineage's extinction.

Qin Zhong was the last fruit left on her withered tree.

"No wonder..."

Li Xiang murmured to himself. The way he looked at Qin Zhong changed.

No wonder Hong Tianbao had accepted Qin Zhong as a direct disciple.

To survive into adulthood under the influence of that Heavenly Baleful Lone Star fate—and grow so strong besides—just how resilient was Qin Zhong's fate?

He was a stubborn stone by birth!

"Delicious! It's delicious! Great-Grandma, your cooking's the best!" Qin Zhong said between big mouthfuls, grinning like a child.

The old woman smiled at him and reached out with a withered hand to wipe his mouth. "Eat slowly. Don't choke, Zhong. You must live well. You're the only one left of our Qin family..."