The Red Pine Martial Academy... or rather, every martial academy in Great Liang had a public mission hall or mission room.
But regardless of the mission, very few were posted there straightaway. Usually, they were snapped up within a small circle.
Posting a mission was, in essence, asking someone to do something.
If the fee was the same, why let an outsider benefit when someone close to you could earn the money?
Any mission that finally made it onto the mission hall's board was either a sky-falling catastrophe or something the people close to the issuer would struggle to accomplish.
Of course, missions with no profit or very little profit could be handled this way too.
Wu Youren wanted access to missions to kill Weirds, but he was practically guaranteed not to find any in the mission hall.
The Weird Race was supposedly running rampant in Liang at present, but there really were not many around Tianjing, and most were weak.
Weak Weirds were not hard to kill. The key was... they could even drop equipment!
How would outsiders normally ever get a chance to take missions like that?
Wu Youren did not know exactly how the game worked, but he could guess the general situation.
If he actually waited until a Weird-killing mission appeared in the mission hall, the situation... probably would not be very promising!
Sure enough, despite being new students, Salinen and Subar really did know about this.
Not many Weirds appeared near Tianjing, but there certainly were some, and several incidents had caused quite a stir.
However, Weirds could drop treasures, so whenever word got out, professional bounty hunters would rush over.
In terms of access to information, bounty hunters reacted fastest. Even the martial academies were a little slower.
Wu Youren was somewhat puzzled. "What about ability users, then?"
"Ability users..." Salinen smiled disdainfully. "They only care about improving themselves. What interest would they have in taking risks?"
From what he said, Great Liang valued ability users too highly and was unwilling to deploy such forces lightly.
So much so that some martial artists held ability users in a little contempt, considering them far too pampered.
Subar, however, disagreed. "Can you stop spreading hearsay? The powerful ability users are all out there killing Weirds!"
"Hmm, care to elaborate?" Wu Youren felt that, since his identity had not been exposed to his roommates, they could still interact as equals.
"There's not much to say." Subar was clearly unwilling to elaborate. "The Weird Race is stronger than either of you imagines. It's just that the ones nearby are weak."
Wu Youren thought for a moment, then asked another question. "Then which do you think poses a greater danger to Great Liang, the Weird Race or enemy nations?"
"The Weird Race, of course," Subar answered without thinking. "If you lose to humans, you can still surrender. With the Weird Race... impossible!"
"Not necessarily." Salinen insisted on contradicting him. "To repel threats from without, you must first pacify those within!"
Then he gave Wu Youren a suspicious look. "Why are you asking?"
"Because... I want to kill Weirds," Wu Youren replied mildly. "I find fighting among humans rather pointless."
Many years later, Subar's son commented on this moment.
"My father always regretted being shaken by his words, which led to everything that followed... If only he had killed him then."
In fact, Subar's reaction right now was disbelief. "Would you really dare to take part?"
"I'm from Jin, and I've come all the way to Liang," Wu Youren answered calmly. "I just want to do something meaningful for life."
He really was no actor. Life had simply forced him to dance gracefully-the kind of dance performed on a knife's edge!
Half a month later, Salinen actually found some connections. He said that when they went to kill Weirds, they could consider bringing his roommates along.
But participating in the fighting was out of the question. Watching from the sidelines would be fine.
As for any spoils, they should not even think about them. Being allowed to come along was already something to count themselves lucky for.
Naturally, this information was not free either. That evening, Wu Youren treated his two roommates to another lavish meal.
For three martial artists, spending two or three silver dollars on a meal was actually quite normal.
But the two martial artists from Liang had never treated their roommate from Jin to a meal. Did that also represent a form of discrimination?
In short, that evening, Wu Youren grabbed Salinen by the throat again.
Fortunately, his two roommates were already wary enough to anticipate his actions.
This time, the incident caused a full-blown uproar. Salinen even declared furiously, "If you don't fucking want to treat us, just say so!"
Wu Youren sighed and said apologetically, "When I was little, a servant tried to harm me at night... I once killed someone in my sleep!"
Who did not have a little childhood trauma?
But this clearly could not be brushed aside. Even if the three of them came to an agreement, the neighboring dorm rooms would not stand for it!
Killing in his sleep... the victim might not necessarily be in his own room. It could be someone next door!
In fact, Salinen and Subar were pretty frightened too. "Better move him to another room."
The three of them had never been particularly close anyway. They had some friendship, but not much.
After discussing it, the academy decided to assign Wu Youren a room of his own-not out of favoritism, but because no one dared to live with him!
The fellow had failed in all three attempts and had taken a beating each time. His attitude was fairly good too, but the problem was... he could not change!
As for his new accommodations, it went without saying that they were far worse than the dormitory.
It was a small single-story house not far from the training grounds, right beside an old equipment room, with another small grove on its other side.
The house was built of crude materials, half brick and stone and half adobe. It did not feel as sturdy as a shipping container.
What was particularly unfortunate was that it was not far from the training grounds' latrines. Although the smell did not reach it, it still felt awful.
The very evening Wu Youren moved in, the burly man from the Life-and-Death Knot came.
His expression was mocking. "Just how many secrets do you have, to pull something like this?"
Wu Youren explained in all seriousness, "I really do have a habit of sleepwalking."
In the eyes of someone who knew the score, a lie repeated ten thousand times was still a lie, but he simply refused to change his story.
The man already had his answer. Even if Wu Youren really did sleepwalk, it would not change his perception, so they might as well each stick to their own story.
The burly man did not argue with him, since there was no point. Better to offer a threat instead. "Living alone, you'd better watch out for danger."
Wu Youren answered earnestly, "Keeping my distance from ordinary martial artists also makes it easier to avoid suspicion. That counts as a good thing, doesn't it?"
He was on guard against the other side trying to recruit him and turn him, but could they truly have no worries at all about him secretly stirring up wind and rain?
"Hmph, you think too highly of yourself," the burly man replied dismissively.
But that was largely a posture too. Whether he really thought that way was hard to say.
Then he asked with a serious expression, "What do you mean by wanting to kill Weirds?"
There really were no secrets in front of these people! Wu Youren was not surprised, though. Those two roommates could not possibly keep his secrets.
"I'm tired of humans fighting among themselves, and I want to gain some experience killing Weirds... besides, I need money!"
"Just don't try any tricks." The man turned and left. "If you need money, earn it yourself. We're hardly charging much protection money."
Watching him leave, Wu Youren gave the matter another round of serious thought.
The way the man kept haunting him like a lingering ghost clearly meant they wanted to exert pressure over the long term, but they did not seem particularly concerned about whatever money he might earn.
He did not believe they could be so kindhearted. Struggles between nations could not possibly be tender and affectionate. They would stop at nothing.
In other words, right now, he was merely a small fry in their eyes, not worth taking seriously.
Once he carried enough weight, the pressure he faced would not be this simple or easy.
So right now was his best window to lie low and develop.
But he had only just moved, so he should not act rashly. It would be better to keep quiet for a few days.
Over the next few days, he cleaned up the house and bought some cheap furniture.
In his spare time, he also used branches he had picked up to fence off a small patch behind the house, around fifty square meters, less than a tenth of a mu.
The branches were planted very sparsely. As he was picking stones out of the ground, an academy administrator came over and asked what he was doing.
He said he wanted to grow some vegetables, both to brighten up the surroundings and to add variety to his side dishes.
He stressed repeatedly that he would not keep livestock or affect anyone else, but the man still ordered him to stop.
Presumably, the administrator rarely encountered such an oddball, someone who actually wanted to farm inside the academy, so his attitude was not too bad.
He merely demanded that Wu Youren remove the branches himself. Otherwise, if he had to send people to do it, the consequences would be different.
Wu Youren was in a bit of a bind. The very reason he had not applied to the academy beforehand was that he wanted to make it a fait accompli first.
He had not expected that, relaxed as the academy's atmosphere seemed, someone really would intervene over any unusual change!
After thinking it over, he bought two jars of weak liquor, made strong liquor himself, tore off the labels, and went to see the administrator.
He had already handed the strong-liquor business over to Jin Garden and would not get involved in it again, but making some for personal use... surely that was fine?
Academy administrators did not earn much, and ordinary martial artists would not bother cultivating friendships with miscellaneous staff like them.
He did accept the two jars of liquor, then explained: it was not that he wanted to make things difficult for Wu Youren, but that this behavior was too out of the ordinary at the academy.
The administrator had superiors too. If he turned a blind eye and someone reported it, he would be held accountable.
Two jars of liquor in exchange for some honest words was not a bad deal.
Yet two days later, the administrator actually came looking for him. "That liquor, do you have any more?"
As it turned out, after drinking some and finding it tasted good, he had gone to enjoy a drinking session with his superior-who could live in this world without a little socializing?
His superior had liked it too, so he had come to ask of his own accord.
Wu Youren said the liquor was rather hard to obtain, but he would get another two jars and deliver them in a couple of days.
He did not bring up the vegetable plot again. The county magistrate mattered less than the man directly in charge. Building a good relationship with this man would make other matters easier to negotiate too.
The administrator felt that the young fellow was reasonably sensible, actually refraining from using the opportunity to set conditions.
After receiving another two jars of liquor, he said that the vegetable plot... could indeed beautify the surroundings.
But it would be best if Wu Youren could get two jars of this liquor every month, so he could explain things to his superiors.
The administrator also emphasized one point: he would not take it for free. He would pay!
The academy covered two square kilometers. Land was the last thing it lacked. Whether the boy occupied such a tiny patch was simply a question of whether he chose to intervene.
The boy had already given him four jars of good liquor. If he still wanted another two free jars every month, that would mean he did not know his limits.
Even if the boy was only a teenager, and from Jin at that, he was still a martial artist.
At that hot-blooded age, if he really bullied him too harshly... who never had to walk a road at night?
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