Chu Xisheng had a nightmare.
In his dream, he stood before a magnificent tomb.
An enormous white marble stele stood before it, some thirty feet tall. A line of vermilion characters was inscribed upon it, its strokes like iron paintings and silver hooks, each one ringing with strength and shaking the heart.
It read: [Tomb of Qin Muge, Great Ning's Overlord Martial King and Great General Who Pacifies the North]!
On either side of the gravestone, a large crowd of men and women in ancient white mourning robes wailed in grief, tears streaming down their faces.
Farther away, soldiers in white robes and white armor, mourning hemp draped over their heads, stretched from halfway up the mountain down to its foot, packed as densely as mountains and seas.
Chu Xisheng alone wore the bright red robes an ancient groom wore at his wedding, utterly out of place among them.
For some reason, although Chu Xisheng was clearly still alive, his body could not move.
Several burly men, powerful and built like iron towers, placed him inside a coffin.
A female general lay on the right side of the coffin.
She wore imposing red-and-gold battle armor, her face covered by a visor. Her hands rested together over her abdomen, and she lay motionless, without a sound.
Outside the coffin, Chu Xisheng saw a middle-aged man of about forty looking at him solemnly, seemingly grief-stricken.
Yet the man's eyes held boundless, icy severity, enough to freeze the heart.
-He seemed to be his father's younger cousin.
Behind the middle-aged man stood a dark mass of figures. They seemed to be weeping, yet their eyes held no tears. Instead, the corners of their mouths curled upward, as though they were snickering.
Chu Xisheng felt boundless rage and hatred fill his chest.
He wanted to climb out and kill until corpses formed mountains and blood formed seas, slaughtering every last one of these wolf-hearted, dog-lunged creatures.
Yet he still could not move. He could only watch helplessly as the heavy coffin lid pressed down upon him.
At that very instant, Chu Xisheng jolted awake.
He panted, his heart still pounding with fright, his clothes soaked through from head to toe.
For three months, he had dreamed of this scene every few days, experiencing the indescribable despair within it.
Chu Xisheng took deep breaths, calming himself.
He looked out the window and found that a fish-belly white had appeared along the horizon. Peals of bells also rang out in the distance.
Chu Xisheng hurriedly changed into the disciple's uniform he had only received yesterday.
He stepped outside and saw Chu Yunyun washing beneath the eaves.
The girl had also changed. Her close-fitting disciple's uniform outlined her figure with striking clarity: a waist small enough to encircle with one hand, a tall frame and long legs. Together with her face, every detail suited Chu Xisheng's tastes.
In the morning light, the girl was beautiful beyond compare.
Chu Xisheng was briefly dazed, a trace of surprise appearing in his eyes. "You're in a good mood today, General. Did something good happen?"
Chu Yunyun was brushing her teeth. Biting down on a willow twig, she looked back in surprise, her words muffled. "How do you know I'm in a good mood?"
"I can tell."
Chu Xisheng picked up a carrying pole from the nearby corner and walked over. "Every morning before this, you woke up frowning, weighed down with worries. Today's different. Your brow has relaxed a little."
Chu Yunyun touched the space between her brows, then chuckled.
Perhaps it was because, after three months of rushing about, she had finally glimpsed a thread of hope.
This fellow was quite observant.
Just as Chu Yunyun was thinking this, Chu Xisheng handed her the carrying pole. "Once you've finished washing, help me fetch two loads of water. I want to wipe myself down."
If this Storage Yard had one drawback, it was that there was no well inside.
Fortunately, there was Chu Yunyun.
Despite her lack of talent for housework and her sickly appearance, this woman still had her physical foundation and was excellent at manual labor.
She occasionally broke carrying poles, wooden buckets, and the like. But in this ancient world, wooden goods cost far less than ceramics, clothing, and ironware.
Chu Yunyun puffed out her cheeks, but took the pole anyway, went outside the yard, and returned with two buckets of water.
As she set down the buckets, she remembered something. "Oh, right. When you go to the dining hall for breakfast later, remember to give the granny serving the food one tael of Demon Silver and ask her to prepare two days' food and water for you."
At the mention of paying one tael of Demon Silver, Chu Xisheng's face twitched.
Wasn't that far too expensive for just two days' food and water?
A steamed bun only cost three copper coins outside. Couldn't he buy it there?
One look at Chu Xisheng's expression told Chu Yunyun what he was thinking. Her lips curved slightly. "You'll find out when the time comes."
Chu Xisheng put down the willow twig he used to brush his teeth and looked thoughtfully at Chu Yunyun opposite him. "What I really want to know is why you're so familiar with Zhengyang Martial Academy. According to legend, after inheriting his father's post, Qin Muge, the Great General Who Pacifies the North, remained in the army the entire time. He never joined any immortal martial sect during his lifetime, nor did he ever visit Xiushui City."
The so-called Qin Muge, Great Ning's Overlord Martial King and Great General Who Pacifies the North, was none other than the younger sister he had acquired before him.
She had originally been twenty-eight years old-an older unmarried woman, in modern terms.
Yet after the two of them returned to life, Chu Yunyun's face and figure had somehow reverted to those of a fourteen-year-old.
"How can rumors of the martial world be trusted?" Chu Yunyun laughed despite herself, reminiscence appearing in her eyes. "Before I entered the army at sixteen and inherited the Iron Mountain Qin Clan, I changed my name and joined the Formless Divine Sect. Later, my identity was exposed, and I was stripped of my status as a direct disciple."
Understanding dawned on Chu Xisheng.
That explained why Chu Yunyun had insisted on coming to Xiushui Commandery after they escaped from the tomb.
The two soon finished washing and went together to the large training ground in the academy's East Court for morning practice.
The East Court had seven or eight hundred inner and outer disciples in total.
Together, they faced the rising sun and regulated their breathing, drawing the pure yang power of the newly risen Great Sun into their bodies and transforming it into true essence.
This was the Origin-Nourishing Art: absorbing pure yang power to nourish one's own vital essence.
Chu Xisheng took one of the Origin-Nourishing Pills awarded to him by the academy master, Lei Yuan, before beginning his breathing exercises.
Facing the sun, Chu Xisheng felt unbearable pain throughout his body, as though thousands upon thousands of steel needles were piercing his flesh.
His face contorted, yet he had no choice but to endure it.
He had crawled out of a grave, returning from death to life. Yin power had corroded every limb, bone, and internal organ, making him especially vulnerable to fierce yang fire.
Yet he had no choice but to practice the Origin-Nourishing Art. Only primordial yang power could improve his constitution and help him resist the yin poison and cold baleful intent.
Apart from taking Yanghe Powder, this was the only way he could prolong his life.
Still, Chu Xisheng was quite satisfied with the Origin-Nourishing Pill's effects.
Once refined, the pill truly provided the equivalent of ten days of cultivation, adding ten days' worth of true essence.
By the beginning of the hour of the dragon, their entire bodies felt scorchingly hot from the breathing exercises.
This was because the intensity of the sunlight had exceeded what they could withstand.
Apart from the academy's inner disciples, who continued cultivating beneath the rising sun, the outer disciples all stopped their breathing exercises and practiced martial techniques under the instructors' supervision.
They separated according to their disciplines. Some practiced with swords, some with sabers, while others wielded spears and staffs.
Those practicing the Wind-Chasing Blade were the most numerous, numbering over ninety.
Chu Xisheng persisted until half an hour into the hour of the dragon. Only when bluish smoke began rising from his entire body did he stop his breathing exercises and walk to the back row of inner disciples to practice his saber with the others.
He had yet to learn the complete Wind-Chasing Blade, and most of his movements were empty flourishes. Yet the supervising instructor beside him did not reprimand him. Instead, he smiled kindly, appreciation in his eyes.
Word had long since spread throughout the academy that, yesterday morning, an outer disciple who had not even learned the complete Wind-Chasing Blade had wounded Long Sheng with a single slash and trampled on the dignity of Shao Lingshan, the West Court's head instructor.
The East and West Courts had always been at odds, so they found Chu Xisheng especially pleasing to the eye.
By the time Chu Xisheng finished his morning practice, he was panting, his hands and feet trembling slightly.
This reminded him once again of the Virtual Training in the Martial Dao Treasury.
He could not afford to neglect practicing his saber techniques.
Chu Xisheng needed time to cultivate his essence art and accumulate true essence.
He also needed extensive practice to incorporate those saber moves into his flesh and bones, turning them into instinct.
Yet in his current state, even half an hour of nourishing his qi and two hours of saber practice a day were enough to nearly kill him.
Only the Treasury's Virtual Training could help him solve this problem.
The problem was that one Martial Dao Point could only buy ten days of practice, which Chu Xisheng felt was poor value.
He had obtained these Martial Dao Points without understanding how.
Until Chu Xisheng figured out how to acquire Martial Dao Points, he treasured them all the more.
While Chu Xisheng was agonizing over this, he felt someone seize his hand.
It was Chu Yunyun, pulling him along in a headlong sprint.
At first, Chu Xisheng was puzzled, but then he understood.
He saw the disciples who had finished morning practice surging forward like a human tide, racing to outdo one another.
Every one of them was heading for the nearby place called the dining hall.
Chu Xisheng could not help marveling. He had never expected that, ten years after graduating from high school, he would once again experience this life of scrambling for food in a cafeteria.
Had Chu Yunyun run at full speed, she would naturally have far outstripped these inner and outer disciples whose cultivation had yet to reach even the lowest grade.
But she held herself back, keeping to the middle of the crowd.
By the time it was the siblings' turn to receive their food, little of the dining hall's truly tasty fare remained.
Following her instructions, Chu Xisheng handed one tael of Demon Silver to the granny serving the food.
The granny beamed. Not only did she add a meat-stuffed flatbread to his bowl, she also handed him a bundle.
The bundle bore the stamped words "Zhengyang Dining Hall." Inside were a waterskin, sixteen meat-stuffed flatbreads, two roast duck legs, and a small bag of pickled mustard stems-enough to feed him for two days.
Chu Xisheng discovered that he was far from the only one doing this.
Many newly admitted disciples were quietly slipping silver to the granny.
There had to be a reason for this.
After breakfast, he and Chu Yunyun parted ways.
Chu Yunyun was an Arts Court disciple and normally studied talismans and magical arts at the Taoist temple north of the martial academy.
Chu Xisheng, meanwhile, joined a group of newly admitted disciples, following several instructors to an enormous stone building at the center of the academy.
The stone building was five hundred feet wide and seven hundred feet long, rising twelve stories, each over twenty feet high. Its design was ancient and simple, its presence magnificent.
Above its main entrance were the three upright, gold-stamped characters for "Sutra Repository."
Ye Zhiqiu, the East Court's head instructor, was already waiting there.
She stood on the steps with her hands behind her back, looking down at the hundred-odd newly admitted disciples below.
"This is the hallowed hall of martial learning that countless martial artists in Xiushui Commandery dream of entering. It not only contains the Formless Divine Sect's complete External Ten Arts, but encompasses a vast range of knowledge: seven hundred martial classics below Sixth Grade, as well as countless totems and visualization diagrams passed down from High Antiquity.
"Under our academy's rules, everyone must pay ten taels of Demon Silver each time they enter or leave the Sutra Repository! Inner disciples of the academy must pay thirty taels of Demon Silver for each day they spend inside.
"However, the founding patriarch of our Formless Divine Sect established a rule: inner disciples of every martial academy under the Divine Sect may study inside free of charge for two days upon admission.
"So you must not waste this opportunity. Memorize as much as you can of the External Ten Arts and the martial classics inside. If there is anything you do not understand, you may come out and ask an instructor."
At this point, Ye Zhiqiu beckoned to the side, and a large group of martial instructors walked over.
"To prevent damage to the books inside, once you enter, you must surrender all prohibited items, including weapons, concealed weapons, fire starters, and flints-especially anything used to start fires. No open flames may be used inside. Any single item in there is worth over a thousand taels of Demon Silver. You couldn't afford to compensate for it even if you lost your entire family fortune!"
As Ye Zhiqiu finished speaking, sabers, swords, axes, short spears, darts, locust stones, plum-blossom needles, crossbow bolts, throwing arrows, fire starters, flints, and more fell all over the ground with a chorus of clanging.
Someone even produced a small spiked mace.
Ye Zhiqiu's next words, however, startled Chu Xisheng.
"To prevent you from concealing iron implements or smuggling in oils and grease, no one may bring in food or waterskins purchased outside. The academy has prepared food and water for you: steamed buns cost one hundred copper coins each, meat buns two hundred, meat-stuffed flatbreads two hundred, and waterskins five hundred."
Chu Xisheng turned to look at the corner Ye Zhiqiu indicated.
There, some twenty young and middle-aged men dressed as cooks stood guard over dozens of large wicker baskets, smiling at them with exceptionally kindly expressions.
Those baskets were piled high with steamed buns, meat buns, meat-stuffed flatbreads, and waterskins.
Chu Xisheng could not help letting out a "Heh," thinking that the academy's people certainly knew how to make money.
He felt the bag on his back again, deciding that the granny at the dining hall did have quite a conscience.