A Hair's Breadth Between Life and Death—Leaping onto a Horse, the World Is a Bitter Sea; One Must Fight Across It with One's Own Body! Fight Across It! (Please Bookmark!)

Filthy water ran everywhere through the pungent alleyways.

Passing one pedestrian after another, all skin and bones, their hunger-dazed eyes flickering with a green glow.

Ji Xiu clutched a battered paper packet to his chest. With arms so thin the bones showed through the skin, he tightly held shut his patched brown clothes and walked expressionlessly into a ramshackle house with broken tiles and drafts whistling through it.

Only after he had shut the door completely—

did he let out a breath, some warmth returning to his eyes.

"Brother, how about... y-you sell me?"

On the bed, a tiny figure heard the movement and poked her head out from the ragged bedding. Looking at the packet in Ji Xiu's arms, she bit hard on her lip. After a long while, her gaze dimmed, as if she had made some momentous decision.

Yet when those timid words reached Ji Xiu's ears, he gave no answer.

He merely opened the paper packet he had held against his chest, set the dried herbs inside beside the stove, brought over a small bundle of dry twigs to start a fire, added water and boiled it into medicine, then carried the bowl to the bedside.

Ji Xiu looked at Ji Wei, his younger sister in this life. Her palm-sized face was waxen and gaunt from catching a chill. His cold brows drew tightly together, and after a long silence, he sighed.

"Drink the medicine yourself."

"I'm going to make food."

He walked to the crumbling rammed-earth wall at one side and looked at the millet jar, already scraped clean to the bottom.

Ji Xiu pressed his lips together. In the clear-water jar beside it, the reflection revealed a pair of bright black-and-white eyes and the face of a boy around sixteen or seventeen.

In his previous life, someone that age would still have been in school.

What a pity.

In this world, one's birth had nearly decided everything.

How could anyone possibly be granted such leisure for no reason?

The hollow, oil-starved hunger in his belly kept rising, making Ji Xiu want to retch, but he could only force himself to endure it.

Hungry!

Hungry!

Hungry!

Splash!

He scooped up a ladle of water and gulped it down. The loose strands at his temples were dampened by the spray. Ji Xiu panted in huge breaths as the scorching, ferocious hunger—

finally receded a little.

A few days ago, he had awakened from sleep and found himself in Anning County, Jiangyin Prefecture, Cangzhou, Great Xuan Kingdom.

Not only was his home bare to the four walls, with drafts leaking in from every direction.

He had also gained sixteen years of memories, along with a younger sister.

And more tragically still—

before awakening his memories, unable to survive and driven into a corner,

he had, in order to support the family, signed a contract of sale. The authorities had stripped him of his household registration, and he had entered the nearby Anning Lin Residence as a household slave, joining the lowly caste.

Once he entered—

getting out again would be difficult.

Moreover, he was a servant without any skills. Cooking, butchering, driving carriages, cultivating medicinal herbs... he knew none of the more respectable trades!

Thus, he had sold himself for only three taels of silver. Ji Wei had fallen slightly ill, and with the cost of feeding her, nearly all of it had already been spent.

The wages afterward were pitifully scant, and he would have to work as a tenant slave and servant, facing yellow earth with his back to the sky, laboring all his life, his days visible at a single glance.

The very thought of it was bleak and lightless.

Running away was not an option either.

In this era, a slave who fled without permission committed a grave crime!

Besides, he had a burden to drag along. If they were caught—

the punishment would likely be worse than death!

Ji Xiu looked at Ji Wei on the bed. He did not deny the ugliness of human nature.

Though they were lowborn, everyone in their family had good looks.

He truly had considered it.

But—

for someone who still possessed a bottom line,

he could not bring himself to do something so filthy.

Even if this cruel world gave him no path to live, as long as he kept moving forward step by step—

he would eventually carve out a way to survive!

"There's no millet left at home. Make do with this for now."

"And don't say such things again."

"Sell you? Heh. Do you know what it means to be a slave?"

He found two cold, hard flatbreads from beside the stove, mixed with who knew how much flour and sawdust.

Ji Xiu stared at them for a long time, sighed, took a bowl of water, soaked one inside it, and handed it to Ji Wei. He put the other in his own mouth.

In an instant, the dry, hard sensation, like chewing wood—

nearly shattered his teeth!

He crunched down hard twice, smoothed the hair of the bewildered Ji Wei, and smiled with cold mockery.

"To have no freedom is to be a slave!"

"To have no control over life and death is to be a slave!"

"To be treated as property is to be a slave!"

"If you are not prepared to bear all that, then do not casually pass judgment on your own fate."

The little girl's face turned snow-white.

Seeing that she no longer brought it up, Ji Xiu's expression finally softened.

"Rest easy. No matter what, the same blood flows through us."

"As long as I'm here, you won't starve to death."

"I'm going to the Lin Residence. Remember to bar the door."

As Ji Xiu finished speaking—

he pushed open the door. The instant his left foot crossed the threshold, a bone-piercing cold wind slashed into him!

The stubbornness that had surged up in that instant nearly scattered completely. He wiped his face, not knowing whether it was a tear squeezed out by the flatbread or water that had splashed onto his cheek earlier.

"This dog-eat-dog world!"

"No. I can't accept my fate!"

"Money, power, freedom..."

"One day, I will fight to obtain them. I absolutely cannot sink here!"

Anning County, Lin Residence!

A burly man with a face full of bristles, iron bracers on both wrists, and a whip in hand—one look was enough to tell he was not someone to provoke.

He stood within the gates of the Lin Residence, looking at the scattered dozen or twenty thin, sallow-faced servants in gray below him, and spat.

"You newcomers had better keep your eyes sharp. Don't offend the honored people of the inner residence, or else—"

"Your contracts of sale are in the master's hands. A whipping and three days without food would be considered light punishment!"

Crack!

The whip lashed out from the man's hand and struck a stone stele deliberately erected to one side. A crisp report rang out, and the rock exploded apart!

At once, everyone fell silent as cicadas in winter, not daring to move recklessly.

Below.

Ji Xiu lowered his eyes, standing silently in an inconspicuous corner near the back.

Now that things had come to this, complaints were useless. Without any skills to rely on, he could only lie low for the time being and wait for an opportunity.

But—

this brawny man named Qin Biao was merely a guard and thug raised by the Lin Residence!

A single whip strike could actually split stone and shatter a stele?!

Ji Xiu clenched his fists, his pupils narrowing. Faintly, he seemed to have grasped an opportunity to defy fate and change his life!

If I could possess such martial strength too... then perhaps...

As he secretly pondered—

Qin Biao above had already coughed twice, summoning the attendants and supervisors from the various masters' courtyards, as well as the kitchen, stables, washrooms, and other places, to select people.

In an instant, figures thinned out. Seeing that there was nothing left for him to do, Qin Biao yawned, put away his whip, and prepared to leave.

However—

"Stop! Stop, quickly!"

A sudden delicate cry came from outside the residence gates!

Everyone turned their heads.

They saw a young girl dressed in a cloud-brocade gown, with pretty brows and eyes. Her face was full of urgency. She stumbled and nearly fell, only barely being supported by a maid at her side.

"Second Miss?"

Qin Biao froze when he saw her. Then—

Neighhh!

A horse suddenly let out a long, piercing whinny. Qin Biao's expression changed, alarm spilling from his face.

"Oh no, it's... the spirited horse the master chose for Second Miss!!"

"Why has it gone mad?"

They saw a pure white steed, without a single stray hair on its body, smash over the threshold and charge straight inside as though it had gone berserk!

Qin Biao's heart tightened.

He wanted to help, but he was too far away.

Seeing—

that the horse was about to knock aside the stumbling Second Miss and send the servant standing furthest back flying, sweat broke out on Qin Biao's brow as he hurried forward!

If it struck a few servants, that would be no great matter.

But the Second Miss was a daughter of gold. If anything happened to her, he was only a guard, not one of those true martial men. He would be unable to bear the consequences!

Yet the scene Qin Biao had never accounted for happened!

Whoosh!

The servant who had been destined to be sent flying bent at the waist, flexed his knees, and leapt backward the instant Thousand Mile Snow crashed toward him!!

"Beast, stop at once!"

A stern shout suddenly burst forth!

Immediately afterward, the leaping youth clamped his legs around the horse's belly and slammed down a hand!

At once, the spirited horse that had been like an arrow released from the bow instantly lowered its head obediently, snorting through its nose!

"This!"

The sudden change made Qin Biao's eyes widen like bronze bells!

Just then—

the afternoon sun shone down, lighting the youth's profile. Long-term malnutrition had made his face even more gaunt, as though carved by knives and axes.

And—

at that moment, Ji Xiu's brows were tightly furrowed like congealed frost. His hawkish eyes were filled with icy severity as he held the horse firmly in check, like a tiger and lion locked in combat, leaving it unable to move.

For a moment—

even the girl in the cloud-brocade dress, who had just been helped up by her maid after making a spectacle of herself, stood there stunned.

No one knew—

what exactly had happened.

Only Ji Xiu himself stood atop the horse. Though waves crashed through his heart like mountains roaring and seas howling—

he kept his face taut, lest his expression crack apart.

"This..."

"What?!"

His heart was filled with shock!

Just moments ago!

At the razor's edge between life and death!

At the instant he was about to be struck and sent flying by the horse behind him—

a Dao Talisman from his previous life, one he had worn for years as a protective charm after seeking it from a famous Taoist Temple, had suddenly taken form in his mind!

Thus—

relying on instinctive reaction—

he had borrowed its effect!

Primordial Dao Talisman: A thousand arts, ten thousand divine powers—comprehend them all in a single day!

Current Ordination Master: Ji Xiu

The Ordination Master has attempted to tame a spirited horse. Advance use of "Horsemanship" successful.

Post-event condition: Tame horses one thousand times to achieve mastery and unlock the next "advance from the future"!

Currently available martial arts and Dao arts for advance use: None!