"My sleepless night alone, my space alone, my longing alone, the image of us together.
Whose tears were they, whose weariness, heartbreak scattered all over the ground.
My adventure alone, my seat alone... hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm..."
He had forgotten the lyrics.
With a sea of stars overhead, Zhang Qingyuan walked along the road.
All night, his surroundings had been very quiet. The people who had been following him, waiting for a chance to strike, had all withdrawn.
Perhaps there were still some whose skill emboldened them to take desperate risks, but without absolute confidence, they did not dare get close to Zhang Qingyuan lightly.
Even more than fifty martial artists had failed to probe the limits of his strength, so no one dared take the initiative to throw their lives away again.
Over the next dozen or so days, Zhang Qingyuan suffered three assassination attempts in total.
This time, he showed no mercy and spared none of them, cutting them all down.
Those who killed others would themselves be killed.
During those dozen days, Zhang Qingyuan deliberately sought out news of the martial world at every place he visited, especially news about himself.
The martial world's opinion of Zhang Qingyuan had improved somewhat.
This was mainly thanks to the first two attacks, during which Zhang Qingyuan had spared most of his assailants. Those people were grateful that he had not dealt them a killing blow.
On the other hand, some credit also went to the Taiyin Dao Palace.
They had taken the initiative to spread word that Zhang Qingyuan had been cultivating at the Taiyin Dao Palace all along and therefore had no opportunity to carry out the massacre.
As a top sect of the martial world and an orthodox Daoist order, the Taiyin Dao Palace's words naturally carried weight.
Even so, rumors still filled the skies.
Fortunately, there had been some improvement. He was no longer someone everyone clamored to beat down.
He also enjoyed considerably more peace. Although he had still suffered three assassination attempts, those were mainly the work of the two-thousand-tael bounty.
Though each of those three attackers was stronger than the last, they were all below the Grandmaster level. No Grandmaster-level experts had become involved.
Grandmasters were not fools. How could they fail to see through such an obvious lie?
In fact, ordinary martial artists could see through it too. They merely played dumb for the sake of those two thousand taels of silver.
The martial world never lacked news. New events happened every day.
And so, Zhang Qingyuan's popularity was soon buried beneath new trending topics.
Just as he was about to reach Taihang Mountain, three major pieces of news suddenly emerged in the martial world.
First, Yang Chen, who had obtained the Starlight Sword, had reportedly mastered Starlight Swordsmanship. He then went to Jiangnan to challenge the Sword Immortal, Li Qinglian, only to be defeated in a single move and withdraw into seclusion again.
His defeat was perfectly normal.
Yang Chen had made his name before Zhang Qingyuan. Back when Zhang Qingyuan first entered the martial world, Yang Chen had already distinguished himself among a crowd of martial artists and obtained the Starlight Sword.
But however powerful the Starlight Sword was, however brilliant its swordsmanship, it still depended on who wielded it, did it not?
In the present age, sword users were as numerous as hairs on an ox. Many Grandmaster-level experts also wielded swords.
Yet among everyone in the martial world, only three had earned a place on the list.
The Sword God, the Sword Saint, and the Sword Immortal.
There were unique qualities that had allowed those three to stand out among so many sword users.
The Sword God was the fiercest, the Sword Saint specialized in killing, and the Sword Immortal was the most free-spirited.
The three had never fought, but everyone under heaven knew they would battle one another sooner or later.
For among all the swordsmen under heaven, those three stood at the pinnacle.
They had yet to duel because they held one another in check. Their attainments in the sword Dao were roughly equal, so without absolute confidence, they generally would not fight.
How could a youth fresh out of the thatched cottage compare with one of the greatest swordsmen of the age?
The second piece of news concerned a fiend who had appeared in the martial world, called the Thousand Eagle Devil Master. He had already killed no fewer than a dozen experts.
The Thousand Eagle Devil Master had been extremely conspicuous ever since his appearance. In a mere month, he had stirred up the entire martial world, leaving it no peace.
Reportedly, two of those dozen or so experts had been Grandmasters.
One was the junior martial brother of the Mount Hua Sect's leader, and the other was Heavenly Constancy Saber Zhou Tong. Both had died at the Thousand Eagle Devil Master's hands.
Their injuries were identical: a palm print left on the chest. This palm technique was called the Thousand Evils Ten Thousand Poisons Palm. It was sinister beyond compare, and anyone struck by it would die from the poison within an hour.
The Martial Arts Alliance's bounty on the Thousand Eagle Devil Master had already accumulated to three thousand five hundred taels, but there was still no news.
Evil arts had been disliked since ancient times. Though martial arts themselves were neither righteous nor evil, becoming righteous when used for good and evil when used for evil.
From ancient times to the present, however, it seemed few practitioners of evil arts had been upright people.
They were either bloodthirsty or vicious.
This was also human nature. Anyone who weathered the vicissitudes of life and endured untold hardship to master evil arts would become increasingly twisted in mind.
Just as scenes of movie superheroes sacrificing themselves for others and defending their homes and countries after gaining superpowers could only appear in movies.
If someone actually gained superpowers in reality, the first thing they did would probably be to profit from them.
Leaving aside how many righteous martial artists the Thousand Eagle Devil Master had harmed, the main issue was that this fellow was cruel and exceedingly fond of beautiful women.
Quite a few young women had already suffered his vicious attentions and been defiled by him.
But none of this had much to do with Zhang Qingyuan. After all, he was already overwhelmed by his own troubles.
The third piece of news was something Zhang Qingyuan had now encountered himself, and it was not news exclusive to the martial world.
A drought had struck Kaifeng Prefecture.
Almost at the foot of Taihang Mountain, Zhang Qingyuan only discovered while passing through Kaifeng Prefecture that it was suffering a drought, and the common people had harvested not a single grain.
There was no helping it. In this age sustained entirely by agriculture, an age without Academician Yuan's hybrid rice technology, the common people depended entirely on Heaven's charity to survive. Any natural disaster or man-made calamity could cause large numbers of ordinary people to die untimely deaths.
As he passed through several towns and villages, highway robbery and similar incidents had already begun occurring.
Some people gnawed on tree bark and grass roots.
For now, there was still tree bark to gnaw on.
After some more time, if the imperial court still failed to provide disaster relief, horrors such as exchanging children to eat would follow.
After dealing with several bandits robbing travelers, Zhang Qingyuan arrived in a town.
Looking at the emaciated common people, he felt a faint ache in his heart.
Thanks to Academician Yuan's greatness, Zhang Qingyuan had never gone hungry in his previous life, nor could he imagine what famine truly meant.
Now that he experienced it firsthand, a sense of helplessness enveloped him tightly.
Beside the street, a woman led her child along, begging. Such scenes were everywhere.
The poor child was sallow and skeletal, following beside his mother and timidly watching the passersby.
After great difficulty, his mother begged half a steamed bun, only for the other disaster victims begging nearby to snatch it away.
There was no helping it. The will to survive had already made them forget propriety and morality. As long as they could get a mouthful of food, they would do anything.
The child wailed, his cries miserable and desolate.
Zhang Qingyuan slowly approached the mother and child. The mother raised her head. "Master Daoist, please spare us something to eat. My child hasn't had a single full meal in five days."
Zhang Qingyuan searched his belongings. The dry provisions he carried were all gone too.
He said apologetically, "Wait for me. I'll go buy some."
Zhang Qingyuan wanted to do something for these people, but he did not know what he should or could do.
He did not know how to produce hybrid rice, nor could he bring the dead back to life.
As a modern person, his head was filled with modern knowledge. He wanted to do something for these common people, but after thinking for a long time, he still did not know what he could do.
Even as a transmigrator, faced with tens of thousands of disaster victims, he could not think of a way to keep these people alive.
Before his eyes, people who had starved to death were constantly being carried away from the roadside or gnawed on by stray dogs.
Zhang Qingyuan's heart felt as though it were being sliced open by a knife.
He looked at his bundle. Inside were the gold, silver, and jewels he had looted when he destroyed the Black Lotus Sect's branch.
Gritting his teeth, Zhang Qingyuan took the bundle to a jewelry shop.
"Take a look at these. How much can I sell them for?"
The shopkeeper received him personally. After taking the items and counting them, he smiled. "Master Daoist, to tell you the truth, in a year of great disaster, the price may not be very high."
"How much?"
"The most we can offer is four thousand taels."
"Five thousand."
"Master Daoist, you're putting us in a difficult position."
"Five thousand!" Zhang Qingyuan glared at the shopkeeper. This was the first time he had spoken to someone with such an air of bullying the weak with his strength.
The shopkeeper looked troubled, and Zhang Qingyuan's imposing manner weakened somewhat.
"I know it's a disaster year. You might earn a little less, but it's not as if you won't make anything, right?"
Under Zhang Qingyuan's reasoned insistence, the shopkeeper finally bought the items for four thousand eight hundred taels.
Zhang Qingyuan withdrew the sword resting against his neck and nodded in satisfaction.
With the money in hand, Zhang Qingyuan immediately went to a grain shop. Normally, one shi of grain cost only two or three hundred copper coins, but now the price had risen to five hundred coins per shi.
One dan was roughly equivalent to one hundred jin. In other words, Zhang Qingyuan's four thousand eight hundred taels of silver bought nine thousand six hundred shi of grain, or nine hundred sixty thousand jin.
It looked like a lot.
But there were over a million disaster victims throughout Kaifeng Prefecture. At one jin of grain per person per day, his money was not enough to cover a single meal.
These provisions alone certainly could not relieve all of Kaifeng Prefecture.
But they could sustain this town for a few days.
There were roughly a hundred thousand or more disaster victims in town. At two meals a day...
"Ah!"
Zhang Qingyuan had the grain shop's assistants set up large pots at the crossroads and begin cooking porridge.
While the porridge cooked, Zhang Qingyuan deliberately scattered two handfuls of sand into it.
There was no other reason: he feared people would pose as disaster victims to fish in muddy waters. He was not the first to use this method in this world, either. People had done it as early as the previous dynasty.
Once the porridge was ready, Zhang Qingyuan hurriedly filled a large bowl especially for the mother and child and went to find them.
When he found them with the bowl of porridge in his hands, he discovered that the little boy had already fallen asleep in his mother's arms.
Holding the bowl, Zhang Qingyuan hurried over.
"Wake him up, quickly. There's food now. I'm giving out porridge at the crossroads. If you're hungry tonight, just..."
Before he finished, the mother gently shook her head, tears glistening in her eyes.
She raised her head and said despairingly, "Thank you, Master Daoist. There's no need..."
Crack!
The bowl fell to the ground.
Zhang Qingyuan slapped himself across the face.
At that moment, he suddenly recalled a classic saying from Jin Yong's martial arts novels.
The greatest heroes should serve their country and its people.
He thought back.
That fellow offering two thousand taels of silver should be very rich, right?
That Thousand Eagle Devil Master or whatever-he's worth three thousand taels.
At this thought, Zhang Qingyuan clenched his teeth.
Fuck reputation.
Starting tomorrow, I'm going to make money!