"Young Master Yan, this is Hu Provincial City. The city gate is just a little beyond this place. It stays open throughout the day and there"s no curfew. The Soul Mountain Sect"s Hu Provincial Branch is in the city. You"ll be able to find it easily if you ask around in the city…"
"You have my thanks, Uncle Zhao!"
Yan Liqiang leaped off the horse carriage which was transporting some wood and thanked the uncle who drove the carriage. He had run into this horse carriage while he was in the middle of his journey. When the coachman saw Yan Liqiang hurrying along all by himself, he immediately asked him if he was making his way to Hu Provincial City and offered him a ride. Hence, Yan Liqiang hopped onto the horse carriage in the middle of his journey, saving his stamina from walking. He chatted with the coachman during the entire journey here.
It seemed like the saying, "A handsome person is loved by everyone who sees him and will be offered a ride if seen by car", wasn"t an exaggeration at all.
"You"re very welcome. At any rate, it was on the way!"
The coachman smiled with compa.s.sion and waved at Yan Liqiang. He then whipped his horse with a yell and went toward another direction. The wood on his carriage was to be delivered to another manor outside of the city, so he had to part with Yan Liqiang here.
Yan Liqiang observed the city before his eyes before he marched towards the city gate in the distance.
The provincial cities of the upper provinces rarely experienced war turmoil. Therefore, they were able to flourish and magnificently develop over the history of more than a thousand years. Each of them could be considered huge cities. The walls of Hu Provincial City standing before Yan Liqiang in the distance seemed to reach the height of forty or fifty meters. The height of the city walls alone exceeded a ten-story building. The gate tower situated above the city wall was also about seven or eight stories high. Just the gate tower alone was so much more majestic and glorious than Osaka Castle, which Yan Liqiang had visited in j.a.pan during his vacation back in his previous life.
Braziers were placed s.p.a.ces apart from each other on the gate tower. The sky had only darkened and a fire had been lit in those braziers. The flames burned intensely, illuminating the entire city wall. In the light of the flames, rows of soldiers could be seen patrolling the gate tower.
Yan Liqiang had gotten quite a lot of useful information from the chat he had with the coachman on his way here.
The most astonis.h.i.+ng piece of information to Yan Liqiang was the current time period. Apparently it was already the tenth lunar month of the 16th year of Yuanping"s reign in the Great Han Empire.
Yan Liqiang still clearly remembered that when he went up to that small mountain where the Temple of Purity was at "yesterday", it was still the tenth lunar month in the 13th year of Yuanping"s reign in the Great Han Empire. He had no idea how he came to possess this body. It just felt as if he had slept and thought only a night had pa.s.sed. Little did he expect what felt like merely "a night" to him was actually three whole years. It seemed like obtaining this new body was not an easy feat, at least in terms of time because it actually took more than a thousand days and nights.
Over these three years, the Great Han Empire didn"t seem to be very peaceful and there were some undercurrents in it. Uncle Zhao, the coachman, seemed to know that the northern part of the Great Han Empire seemed to have fought two wars with the Chaman people. Things had also been tense between the Gan Province, the Feng Province and the Dark Ram Tribe. In these two years, four or five va.s.sal states broke their ties with the Great Han Empire one after another and joined the New Crescent Dynasty. The White Lotus Society in a few of the provinces to the south rose from the dead and seized two county towns, wiping a few major clans out in the process. They claimed to be building some sort of White Lotus Heaven, causing turmoil in a few places...
However, Hu Provincial City, which was before his eyes, seemed to be unaffected by the storms happening tens of thousands of li away. The entire city still seemed to be quite normal. The city gate was bustling with activity and the traffic going in and out of the town was endless.
Arriving at the city gate, Yan Liqiang initially wanted to enter the city; however, he soon found himself unable to advance due to the entrance fee of three copper coins.
Touching his empty pockets, Yan Liqiang turned around and left the city gate. You would only truly understand the saying, "A man without money is no man at all", when you were left with empty pockets.
Since he had to walk quite a distance, he didn"t dare to eat until he was too full during his free lunch from earlier. In addition to Yan Liqiang"s increased appet.i.te ever since he started cultivating Muscle Tendon Changing and Marrow Cleansing and the fact that this body before him was still completely the same as his previous body, he was already hungry after one long afternoon considering the stamina he had exhausted while traveling.
The predicament of having no money had already instilled a deep sense of crisis in Yan Liqiang.
Getting into the city required money, eating required money, clothes required money, accommodations required money, and even getting some toilet paper to wipe your b.u.t.t required money. Having no money was akin to having broken limbs, putting one in an extremely difficult position.
Although he could dine and dash once or twice, there was no way he could do that every day. Similarly, living accommodations, traveling, and daily necessities all required money.
No, he really needed to think up of a way to earn some money. Otherwise, he wouldn"t even be able to get inside the city gate at all and surviving would become a big issue.
Yan Liqiang pondered while making his way towards the marketplace nearby.
An old and big city like Hu Provincial City was already packed with people. Therefore, many places outside the city were very lively too with many living there and there were also a few busy marketplaces. By nightfall, when the red and orange lanterns were lit in those marketplaces, that was the most lively time of the day.
As a proletariat without any means of production or connections, it was definitely not easy to find money in an unfamiliar place. Yan Liqiang tried to come up with ways to earn money while walking.
He reckoned that it probably wouldn"t be very difficult for him to find an ordinary job or labor work to earn money like an ordinary person if he wanted to. However, this wasn"t a path Yan Liqiang desired as this type of job wasn"t very rewarding and it was so slow that it was only enough for one to sc.r.a.pe by with meager living conditions. It wouldn"t be able to resolve the desperate situation he was facing right now. All he wanted to do now was to take an exam at the Soul Mountain Sect"s Hu Provincial Branch. He heard that there were only three days left in their disciple recruitment period. If he missed this round, he had no idea how long he"d need to wait for the same opportunity to appear again.
Apart from this path, he had inherited his father"s trade. He still possessed a little knowledge on smithing. However, smithing would require a blacksmith store and this was something he lacked right now. Even if he could find a blacksmith store, no one would allow a newcomer to hold a hammer in the blacksmith store due to the nature of the industry. Even if he had money to rent a place, it wouldn"t work as he feared the weapons he created might offend some customers which would end up ruining the blacksmith store"s reputation.
After much consideration, Yan Liqiang finally thought up of a method which would allow him to earn money within the shortest amount of time with the least amount of resources — by painting portraits!
He didn"t expect for the first trade that got him into society from his previous life to come in handy at a time like this.
Only a few people had seen his portrait of King Cobra, and that had turned into nothing but ashes by the Lu Clan instead of being given away to someone else. The place he was currently at was millions of miles away from Gan Zhou, so he didn"t need to worry about his ident.i.ty being exposed through his drawing. Even if it did, he had nothing to fear because that Yan Liqiang in the past had already died…
...
Just when Yan Liqiang settled down into his new lifestyle, he arrived at a marketplace that was outside Hu Provincial City. Due to his heaven-defying attractiveness, he attracted quite a lot of attention of the people at the marketplace as they turned their heads.
Since he was under the surveillance of too many gazes from the surroundings, he didn"t realize that one of them was quite "unusual"...
To be able to paint portraits for someone else, he"d at least need to have the tools to do it. Yan Liqiang, who was walking in the midst of the marketplace, was thinking of where to find things like charcoal cores, planks, or hard paper and how to launch his business when a person unexpectedly came before him, blocking his path.
It was a gaudily dressed middle-aged man in his forties. Yet the brocade robes he wore on him did little to conceal the wretched aura he exuded. The person came before Yan Liqiang and smiled, flas.h.i.+ng his disgusting yellow teeth.
"Young man, is this your first time here in Hu Provincial City?"
The moment this man opened his mouth, he instantly reminded Yan Liqiang of those pimps he saw outside train stations in a few cities back in his previous life who acted as agents and "introduced girls" to others.
Yan Liqiang casted a single glance at the man and frowned slightly. "So what?"
"Young man, are you looking for a job that can earn you a lot of money quickly? An annual earning of a few hundred thousand taels of silver will surely be a cinch…" The man sized Yan Liqiang up along with the old clothes he was wearing with an earnest face.
"No I"m not…" Yan Liqiang shook his head and directly walked past him. The nonsense this man was spouting might work on other naive youths, but Yan Liqiang never believed that a pie would fall into your lap out of the blue [1]. In this situation, the bigger the pie was, the deeper the dangerous pit was behind it.
The man was shocked. He didn"t expect Yan Liqiang to turn down his offer so bluntly. He quickly chased after him again and prattled on persistently. "I"m just offering this to you as goodwill. Seeing a striking young man like yourself, I can tell that you have just left home to make a living. You are all alone here and unfamiliar with the place, why don"t you join me for some tea at the restaurant over there?"
The man immediately grabbed one of Yan Liqiang"s hands while speaking and wanted to pull him over to the restaurant on the other side.
"Unhand me…" Yan Liqiang stopped walking and looked at the man with a frown.
"Hehe, don"t be so unapproachable, young man. Your parents never told you the importance of having more friends when you are away from home?" The man laughed like a sly fox. His hand was still firmly grasping Yan Liqiang"s wrist while he completely ignored Yan Liqiang"s words. "Come, come, come. Big Brother will treat you to a good meal there. Let"s have a nice chat…"
Yan Liqiang wordlessly jerked his hand free, instantly escaping the man"s grasp. He and continued walking away.
"Sigh, why must you be so unreasonable, young man? Big Brother just wanted to treat you to a meal…" The man was still smiling and he reached out towards Yan Liqiang"s wrist.
Yan Liqiang was aware that this man was bullying him for his young and inexperienced demeanor. Under normal circ.u.mstances, a real fourteen or fifteen-year-old greenhorn probably wouldn"t know how to handle such a situation. If they really treated this man as a warm-hearted person and followed him for a meal, only G.o.d knew what would happen to them afterwards.
Before that man could touch Yan Liqiang"s wrist, he had already lifted his hand up and delivered a slap across his face.
SLAP!! Yan Liqiang"s slap landed squarely on one of the man"s cheeks. He had only exerted a little force and the man was knocked to the floor, dazed from Yan Liqiang"s slap.
"SCRAM!" Yan Liqiang berated him coldly.
It took that man almost half a day to get up. He touched his swelling cheek and glared daggers at Yan Liqiang"s figure in the distance. "Just you wait…" he vehemently said before he pathetically crawled to the other side of the marketplace and vanished...