Chapter 1

Translated by Oedon Edited by Phantom0408

A Slightly bright and cloudless sky.

Great Yuan Dynasty, Cloud Province, Feiye City.

Haw!

A bird with white feathers and a black beak flaps its wings through the clouds and swoops downward.

It crosses the thick old city walls and towers, then slows down and gently lands on one of the tallest dark red towers in the city, grooming its feathers while looking down.

There are a bunch of grey buildings with different platforms in the city.

Pale yellow houses and pavilions one after another. Large courtyards with raised eaves can be seen everywhere.

In the center, was a huge plaza.

The ground of the plaza is paved with stone bricks more than a meter wide. There were large, strange monster patterns with unusual clarity.

This was a large open space where markets were held on weekdays.

At this time, there was a huge crowd of people who came to watch and listen to preaching.

In the center of the plaza, high on a simple wooden platform, a Taoist in a white robe was holding a horsetail whisk whilst preaching loudly.

“If the scholar recites it for ten times, he will be served by the five emperors, and the three realms will bow down…”

“Therefore, the scholar’s Foul Qi has not disappeared, and the body is not clean…”

“Oh! It’s coming!!” Someone cried out in a low voice among the crowd.

Soon a Taoist holding a wooden basin walked in, then he grabbed a handful of coins and threw them below the wooden platform. He didn’t throw much, but it still caused the crowd below to bend down and pick it up.

Wei He squeezed through the crowd, looking from afar at the old Taoist preaching on the platform.

He was 1.7 meters tall, with slightly dark lips, a childish and ordinary face. He was wearing a grey linen shirt, and fairly intact black cloth shoes.

He only paused for a brief moment before he carried the pancakes he had just bought towards his home.

While squeezing through the crowd, he had to endure all kinds of unpleasant smells coming from the surrounding area. The stench of sweat, feet, saliva, and even the subtle stench of feces and urine.

Wei He looked down and saw a pile of dog shit on the ground to his right, then quickened his pace.

Across the plaza, onto the street, and then through a few alleys filled with dirty and dusty garbage.

Wei He soon returned to his only home in this city.

His home was in a small alley. It was among a row of dilapidated small bungalows.

Hanging outside the house were clothes that have a subtle color difference between men’s and women’s.

Wei He moved the rotten stool that was somewhat blocking the door aside and entered a dark room.

“Second Sister, I’m back,” he said loudly.

In the corner of the room, a thin woman stood up. The woman is washing clothes with her sleeves rolled up, her hands were wet as she stroked her forehead with her forearm, then smiled as she looked at Wei He.

“Little He, why are you back so early today?” [1]

“Work has finished earlier, so I came back first,” Wei He explained.

“The work to repair the main house of the Mu Family is also finished?” She walked to the window and the faint light spilled on her, revealing a slightly delicate face, although her skin was rough and her skin texture was slightly poor, her figure is quite curvy and beautiful. Her name was Wei Ying. She was Wei He’s second sister.

Wei He also had an elder sister, Wei Chun. She is the current backbone of the family, a member of the Blackwater Gang in the city. This was the key to the Wei family’s ability to remain relatively stable in the surrounding area.

“It was done a long time ago, and I helped repair a few guest rooms on the side,” Wei He replied.

He had been in this world for a few months. He was confused at the beginning but now all he felt was calm acceptance. It took him only three months to be able to make a living, three months was really fast.

Wei He’s parents are alive and he has two sisters, the eldest sister Wei Chun is very kind to him, and Wei Ying his second sister is kind to him as well. Furthermore, his parents keep all the good things for him.

The patriarchal ideology, coupled with poverty and the lack of birth control, led to his parents giving birth to two daughters in a row before finally giving birth to Wei He, a male. This caused the whole family to attach great importance to Wei He.

“Big Sister hasn’t come back yet, Little Brother, be careful when you go outside for now. When I went out to find sewing tools, I heard that someone was robbed at home in the middle of the night,” Wei Ying said in a low voice, her eyes showing her nervousness.

“She hasn’t returned yet? How much was stolen from that house?” Wei He’s complexion changed.

“I heard they lost half of the wages they just earned. The amount they had left is not enough for them to live comfortably after this… There is also the Mouse Alley across the street. Yesterday someone was robbed there and when they resisted, his finger was cut off.”

“Another midnight robbery… haven’t those robbers already left?” Wei He asked.

“I don’t know… maybe it’s another wave of new robbers.” Wei Ying sighed, picked up a piece of clothing, a needle, and threads then started sewing the clothing.

“Anyway, when you are outside, tolerate everything and you must be careful, if someone tries to rob you, just give anything you have to them. We are still here, we will not let you starve,” Wei Ying seriously said.

“I know.” Wei He nodded his head.

He looked a little dazed.

He transmigrated to this world and possessed Wei He, an unsurprisingly ordinary teenage boy.

He had no golden finger that could be relied on.

The only golden finger he had could not be activated. It was a bead, or rather a tattoo of bead imprinted on the center of his chest near his heart.

From the information that was inside his mind, the bead was named the Pojing Bead. [2]

Its ability was also very simple and straightforward. It is used to breakthrough a cultivation realm.

When it accumulated enough energy, it would help him breakthrough once.

The reason why he knows this is because of the transplanted memory left by the bead when he transmigrated.

As for whether it is true, that remains to be proven.

After the Pojing Bead accumulates enough energy, it will change color from transparent to pitch black.

Now, even though more than three months have passed, Wei He still hasn’t seen the bead turning black. At most, the color became slightly darker.

It was also true that he could barely eat a full meal every meal nowadays, so he can’t have any extra energy to save up for the bead.

The energy required by the bead mainly depends on his daily eating, transforming the essence from excess food, absorbing it, and slowly accumulating it.

In the beginning, Wei He still had hope for it, but after three months have passed, the excitement brought by his hope has now slowly turned into indifference.

Wei He collapsed on his bed for a temporary rest. There were only three beds in the house, one for his parents, one for his eldest and second sisters, and one for him.

In a house less than 60 m², the three beds could only be squeezed in one place, and the rest of the area was also crowded by the stoves, tables, and chairs.

But they were already considered a middle-class family among the surrounding commoners.

After sleeping for a while, Wei He woke up and planned to go out for a walk.

He has the Pojing Bead, so he is hoping for the chance of finding some decent Martial Arts techniques, and then use the Pojing Bead to achieve a breakthrough.

But as of now, even any Martial Arts technique seemed impossible to find, his big sister mostly relies on cruelty and violence to barely stand her ground in the Blackwater Gang.

And the Pojing Bead barely changed at all. Wei He felt helpless, he could only wander around the city a few times after work. Because he is small, dressed in rags, and looks poor at first glance. No one bothers trying to rob him.

When he woke up, his second sister Wei Ying had fallen asleep on the only table in the room. Wei He went out carefully, closed the door of the room, and walked to the alley on the right.

*cough* *cough*

Just when he was about to go inside the alley, coughs came from the right side. He looked up and saw that Sister Zhang, a neighbor who often works with Wei Ying, was putting her hand in her mouth and coughing continuously with her head down.

“Little He, stand back!” Someone pulled him aside.

The one who pulled him is a short old man, with a tobacco stick and wearing a sweaty white magua, he pulled Wei He out of the alley and then walked out a few more steps. [3]

Then he said in a low voice, with his expression becoming unsightly. “Recently there has been a plague sweeping through the city… I’m not sure what happened to Sister Zhang, but she has been coughing since yesterday. So you have to be more careful, do not let yourself be infected. Also, remind your sister to be more careful.”

“Thank you, Grandpa Wang.” Wei He’s heart shuddered. He had heard about the plague earlier, and it is said to have been only circulating in the northern areas of the city, but now it has spread to this side… In the past three months, he also tried hard to help solve his family’s economic problems with the knowledge of the modern era.

Unfortunately, it had all failed. No matter what kind of methods he used, when it comes to this city, there was just no way to get around the impasse, that is the gangs.

The low-level gangs have their own territory, and different gangs manage different territories.

Whether you open a store or a small business, you have to pay the gang whose territory you are staying in. If you have no background or backing, and your business is a little better, your business will immediately be targeted.

Then, the result is that either the business will be closed or you will be forced to work for them.

Or pay a large sum every month, causing one to earn little with much toil.

This is a bad era for commoners as they are being targeted as long as they have some money.

Wei He didn’t stop, he quickly left the alley and walked through the alleys in the city. He soon came to a somewhat ancient gray courtyard.

The sound of reading out loud constantly emanates from inside the courtyard. From time to time, there was also a small noise of an old man reprimanding someone.

At the gate of the courtyard, a plaque hanging on it read: Lecture Hall, in two big words.

In the Lecture Hall, many big families send their children here to let them study.

It is said that all the teachers inside are well-known and talented scholars.

“I’ve learned all the words from this world. Anywhere you go, words and knowledge are the basic prerequisites to master everything.”

Wei He lowered his head and scribbled on the dusty ground using his fingers, practicing the words he had learned before.

“Wei He!” Suddenly a young kid with a queue hairstyle stealthily ran up to him and cried out. [4]

“This is for today.” The kid took out a roll of paper hidden in his arms and then threw it into Wei He’s arms.

“The old rule, one silver,” Wei He calmly said.

“Okay, okay, okay! Finish it quickly, the teacher wants it finished tomorrow morning,” The kid said in a low voice, taking a piece of silver from his sleeves which he then tossed to Wei He, and then he quickly left.

This was a ghostwriting job, he made this business while eavesdropping on the class lecture. The name of the kid is Li Fang, the only son of a rich merchant family in Feiye City.

Wei He put away the silver, calculating the amount of money he had so far earned.

“In this way, my earnings can almost cover the cost of the Mountain Fist’s tuition from Old Man Zheng.” [5]

Since he had a golden finger, he will naturally not easily give up on the only way to use it.

The information left by the Pojing Bead mentioned that it can help him breakthrough. Wei He had tried to practice some ordinary fighting techniques before, under the training of his big sister, but it was useless.

Later, he learned from his big sister that some people in this world had mastered a technique called Internal Arts.

This group of masters is the real force behind this world. There were masters like those in the Blackwater Gang that his big sister is part of.

It’s just that Internal Arts techniques are not easily passed down, even Wei He through his relationship with his big sister, took more than a month until he finally found a place nearby where they are willing to teach an Internal Arts technique to outsiders, and that was Old Man Zheng’s place.

But the tuition fees were not cheap.

1. It should be Xiao He, but I localized it to Little He. If you don’t know Xiao is something like a pet name, it means “Little”, so Little He

2. Golden finger means cheat (Artifact, system, old grandpa spirit, etc.) while Pojing means breakthrough, so the name is basically Breakthrough Bead

3. Magua is a Chinese styled jacket worn by males during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) for more information: https://bit.ly/3pKVfuV

4. A Queue or cue hairstyle: https://bit.ly/3cHed1H

5. Mountain Fist (回山拳) which if translated literally means Return to the Mountain Fist, it’s too long so I shortened it.

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