Crouching Bull Village.
The night was quiet, and moonlight filtered through the trees, scattering on the ground.
Zhang Dashan stood on the sentry deck, surrounded by fences, spikes, and mud wall that formed the basic defense layer of the village. He wore
thin clothes and carried a short bow on his back.
Although it was already early spring, the cold still seeped to the bones. Zhang Dashan now raised his head towards the sky: “Looking at the
situation tomorrow will be rainless once again, what will become of the crops?”
“Futhermore the Black Wind Bandits had requested grain taxes from the village a few days ago.” Thinking about this, Zhang Dashan’s face let
through a hint of anxiety.
No rain came with spring and the crops were all dying, yet the Black Wind Bandits still wanted to extort them, what were they going to do?
Just as Zhang Dashan was worrying, he suddenly took his bow and p.r.i.c.ked up his ears in surprise, his eyes showing vigilance.
Half a moment later came the sound of horse hooves from afar.
Zhang Dashan observed carefully and breathed a mouthful of cold air, his heart banging in his chest. He struck the broken bell hanging on the
sentry deck with no second though.
“Bad, Bad, the bandits from Black Wind Ridge are nearing the village!”
The bell’s ring broke through the village’s quietness, just like a bowl of water boiling up when a pot of hot oil was poured in it. Messy
footsteps sounded and the lamps lit up as alarm ran across the village.
The news of the bandits’ arrival reached every corner of the village. Inside, the old and weak, the children and women all panicked. A few months
ago we already gave food to those robbers and today they came back, cursed some women in a low voice while they rushed about spreading the news.
“Hide the women and the money!”
Women anxiously packed the valuables inside their house and instructed their children to hide, while young men all gathered at the village’s
entrance carrying machete knives.
In addition to the ordinary villagers, a few followed the village chief to the entrance, each and every one of them looking strong and well-
built, carrying not machetes but sabers and hunting bows.
“Village chief, over there!” Zhang Dashan pointed. As people looked over, several bandits outside the walls were approaching the village, neither
slow nor hurried, laughing and chatting among themselves.
As they came closer and closer the torches’ light shone on the mountain bandits from Black Wind Ridge. Those bandits liked to wear black clothes
with a wolf embroidered on them, that was why they could be identified so quickly.
A middle-aged man stood amidst them wearing black clothes, with a thin faces and cold eyes from which colder light shone even when he was smiling.
He was like a knife, almost as if he would cut down a big chunk of meat from whoever he looked at. The two bandits surrounding him all looked
faintly deferential.
“Hahaha, third brother, we’ve long stayed in the mountains. We haven’t been coming to this Crouching Bull village very often this past year and
now it look pretty wealthy!”
The one speaking was a burly fellow. His cold gaze fell upon the villagers who’d just woken up and climbed on the mud wall: “They can even build
sentry towers and mud walls, looks like they need to turn over a bit more food every year, the amount they last year is far from enough!”
There were only three of them, but the coercion they emitted made it as if the village faced a giant.
“Is there anyone who’s not here yet?” The village chief frowned and looked around. In this situation, to fight or not fight was one thing, having
every man facing the enemy was another thing.
“Everyone’s here except the Pei family widow’s kid, he’s a scholar and sick right now.”
At this moment, at the foot of the mud walls, the middle aged bandit laughed loudly at the villagers and fearlessly shouted: “You traitor
village, do you dare fire arrows at your grandfather?”
…
A loud noise echoed in the darkness, then gradually fell down. Men ran about like pigs, screaming, “the bandits came, the bandits came!”
“Listen up villagers, take out this year’s money and grains, take out your good looking women!”
“We just paid taxes, where would we have money left, I’m begging you milord…”
“Enough, either pay out the money and women, or kill us with arrows. Let’s see if us Black Wind Bandits won’t crush you and kill everything until
there’s not even a chicken left!”
What was that sound?
The young man opened his eyes to faint light, and saw on the ceiling a wooden beam and old-fashioned mud tiles. Quickly sweeping his eyes around,
he saw cracks on the walls filled with gra.s.s to prevent the wind from leaking inside, and windows made from paper paste from which cold air
seeped through. Did such poor mountain villages still exist? Where was he?
His thoughts reaching this point, waves and waves of unspeakable soreness a.s.saulted his forehead and his mind became blank… It was ten thousand
times more painful than a hangover, piercing to the soul, as if the whole world was continuously being torn apart and recombined. Cold sweat
dripped from his forehead and he panted heavily, hearing the news coming from outside.
“We can’t fight, we can’t fight, Black Wind bandits have a hundred men, let’s just turn her over. Village chief, she’s only a child alone.”
“Ay, ay, old man would have no face in front of her parents…”
The chaotic sounds of arguing continued unabated, and a certain kind of feeling stimulated the young man’s survival instincts. He went down
ungracefully from the bed, like someone regaining control of his body after being confined to bed by prolonged illness. He saw that his shoes
were small and made of cloth. He wore his worn-out and single-layered gray clothes, the material feeling rough against his skin. They seemed to
be handmade from hemp.
How to describe them?
Han dynasty style mixed with the style from minorities merging into something unfamiliar, looking like a theater costume, producing a feeling of
strangeness he couldn’t shake.
Thinking there he felt a piercing pain between his eyebrows, as if something wanted to come out, while the noise gushed forth from outside in
relentless waves.
“Miss Su quickly open the door! Open the door!”
“Third child Su! Today you’ll have to open the door whether you like it or not, that Pei Ziyun kid next door is sick and can’t protect you…”
The restless voices gradually came next door, clamorous and chaotic with seemingly everyone talking at once; their accent carried the flavor of
the dialect from the Southwest, yet the young man could instinctively understand them. He could see the shadows of people going past the seam of
his door, twenty to thirty of them in a messy group judging by the footsteps. He mumbled with a frown: “…are they making a movie?”
He couldn’t make sense of the situation. Hearing a knock at the door he went to open it, but his body suddenly felt like it had miraculously
recovered, and from his four limbs came a feeling of vitality he hadn’t known in a long time. His vision was also strangely clear, as if he’d
taken his foggy gla.s.ses off and seen a world of rain.
He thought of something at this moment and lowered his head, looking at his shoes… The feet inside were white and tender, those weren’t his
feet, but looked like those of a woman.
“What the…”
He unconsciously touched his chest and sighed in relief. His facial expression became odd as he lifted his arms and looked at them. This was the
body of a young man, stronger, used to farming labor, with calluses between the thumb and index finger; perhaps the hand often held a knife…
Confused for a few seconds, he saw a machete knife with a clean and shiny blade inserted in a pile of firewood when his gaze swept past the heap.
Pa-
Pushing the door open, he saw mountains in the distance. This was a small village built against the mountain slope, and people were running
everywhere. A bunch of villagers were knocking next door trying to convince a girl to come out, but she hadn’t yet.
A cacophony of aunties were trying to persuade her: “Ye Su’er, on Black Wind Ridge you’ll have delicious meals and spicy drinks, don’t be
afraid.”
“There’s no sound.”
“Less chitchat, the surnamed Ye doesn’t appreciate our kindness, she’s just someone who moved to our village from outside anyway and there’s no
one alive left in her house, let’s just bash the door open and tie her up.”
“Yo, she’s even holding a knife inside.”
“Hush, lower your voice, don’t alarm the kid next door, he’s somewhat close with Ye Su’er. If his brain goes on fire he’s capable of doing
anything, he’s a student, a scholar!”
“Did I transmigrate?” A small bug fell from the bamboo leaves and crawled on the young man’s face, treating him as a statue. His brain was
buzzing.
At this moment, the crowd trying to persuade the girl had managed to upset her. She started to cry, and her very soft yet seemingly familiar
voice crossed the crowd and the forest of bamboo to be transmitted clearly in the young man’s ears: “Big brother Yun…”
That voice became the key that opened the safe of memories from the body’s previous owner.
“Boom!”
“I wish to – protect those dear to me, take revenge on every enemy of mine, as well as bring peace to this chaotic world of immortal
cultivation…” Someone faintly said: “You, the one with the same name who inherited my everything, the system in your mind is very interesting.
If you want to obtain my plum blossom, then complete my missions!”
“Ong!”
Pain burst between his eyebrows and his body became stiff, even his breathing stopped. Moonlight floated down on the quiet bamboo leaves,
illuminating the young man’s forehead, and between his eyebrows suddenly appeared the transparent shadow of a plum blossom. A petal was
flickering and faintly discernible, as if ready to become reality.
“No!” Memories, so familiar yet unfamiliar, endlessly rushed to him, converging in a beam of blood light.
His body shuddered and the young man subconsciously touched his neck, once again sinking into the memories.
This was a long dream, this was a man’s life.
Same as himself, called Pei Ziyun.
This as a world where dao arts exists. He was born with a spiritual treasure, but because of ignorance, weakness, and hypocrisy he wasted five
years and finally managed to join a sect after much efforts, but was betrayed by his beloved eldest senior…Countless memories continued to
surge in.
“Inborn spiritual treasure? My cheat was s.n.a.t.c.hed, but the spirit roots remain? A wish for rebirth? Then I answered that wish and came to the
original’s body from a dozen years ago?”
“Time reversal!”
His body was soft and weak, his head hurt, hurt like it was going to split… Countless memories continued to reorganize themselves, adding
emotion after emotion to the forming soul. There’s love, there’s hate, there’s despair, there’s hope.
In front of him was Ye Su’er.
“He was stimulated into regaining consciousness because of Ye Su’er?”
Childhood sweetheart Ye Su’er… Separated many years, they had seen each other again in a stern sect. They couldn’t forget each other. The
young man had received with fear and tremor such feelings… her past and future, her body and soul.
Memories kept on pushing forward, finally condensing to the moment of death. In front of his old enemies, the plum blossom and the roots
connected and bloomed in front of his eyes, then a strike of lightning and everything became emptiness. He… no, the body previous owner made
a wish.
“Boom!”
Suddenly a tiny white plum appeared in front of his eyes, quickly enlarging and becoming a half-transparent data screen, floating in his vision
with a faint glow. Data projected on it.
Name: Pei Ziyun
Privilege: None (parasite)
Race: Human
Occupation: Scholar
The young man looked at the skills, it was very vague but when he stared at them they gradually became clearer. There was two gray symbols,
resembling a book and a sword.
When the symbols appeared a line appeared naturally within his heart.
“Four books five cla.s.sics: Beginner (incomplete)”
“Pine Wind swordsmanship: Beginner (incomplete)”
Following that a line of red words appeared on the data screen: “Mission: save Ye Su’er.”
The transparent plum blossom rested motionless between the youth’s eyebrows, and as the moonlight shifted through the bamboo leaves, the plum
flower disappeared as if it had never been there.
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