Imperial City.
Earth No. 1 Prison Camp.
Inside Room A.
Zheng Xiu blankly touched his neck.
After a brief moment of stillness, a wave of real pain shot from his neck. Zheng Xiu clenched his teeth, breaking out in a cold sweat. He collapsed onto the hay pile, curling into a ball.
Having his Incarnation, "Zheng Shan," beheaded by bandits in the Ghostly Realm should have been a trivial matter.
But that single slash sent Zheng Xiu's head flying—and jolted him right back to reality.
Zheng Xiu clutched his neck tightly. His head and neck were clearly still attached, but the feeling was incredibly vivid: the blade slicing through skin and flesh, hacking in from the side, pausing for half a moment against his cervical vertebrae. It gave him the distinct sensation of having been truly beheaded.
Zheng Xiu gritted his teeth, forcing himself not to cry out in pain and alert the Prison Guards on night watch outside.
After several minutes, Zheng Xiu gradually calmed down, finally forcing a curse through his clenched teeth.
"What kind of bandit are you with a sword that slow!"
Zheng Xiu was exasperated by the man's incompetence.
If that bandit leader, Li Dachui, had been just a little faster with his blade, he wouldn't have had to suffer so much.
Beyond the physical agony, the near-death experience placed an extraordinary amount of pressure on Zheng Xiu's Spirit.
It was the dead of night. Zheng Xiu writhed in his cell for a while, soaked in sweat, but didn't disturb anyone.
Once he caught his breath, Zheng Xiu steeled himself and once again controlled his Incarnation, stepping into the Ghostly Realm.
This time, he still planned to forge ahead, ignoring Baili Village.
The thick fog parted to reveal the official road. As expected, night fell and the rain began. Drenched, Zheng Xiu once again encountered the bandits.
[Your resilience has tempered your Will by a thin margin.]
The rain continued to fall.
[Your resilience has tempered your Will by a thin margin.]
[You fought hard against the calamity, struggling against Heaven. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Your Constitution has been tempered by a thin margin.]
[You have quickly caught a cold.]
[You stubbornly resist, fighting off the biting wind. Your Constitution has been tempered by a thin margin.]
As the large raindrops hammered down, making his head spin, the text that periodically appeared gave Zheng Xiu the surreal feeling that he was playing a game and constantly gaining experience points.
"CLIP-CLOP-CLOP..."
The sound of horse hooves arrived.
As a bandit, Li Dachui's Swordsmanship wasn't fast, but he was exceptionally dedicated. He and his underlings had come to block the road in the pouring rain, right on cue.
"Hahahaha—If only..."
If life were only like the first time they met... Seeing the Mighty Painter who had once been his victim, Li Dachui was about to deliver the same opening line.
Before Li Dachui could finish, Zheng Xiu, using his foreknowledge, seized the initiative. He quickly pulled out a bag of crushed silver and threw it at Li Dachui's face like a hidden weapon.
[You threw a "Coin Dart" and hit Li Clan bandit Leader Li Dachui. Your Muscle Strength has been tempered by a thin margin.]
Li Dachui never expected this lamb to the slaughter to fight back. His face stinging, he angrily grabbed the "hidden weapon." A cascade of crushed silver fell from a tear in the cloth bag. CLATTER. When Li Dachui saw the gleaming silver, he was stunned.
Zheng Xiu lowered his head and charged forward. The other bandits, not anticipating his decisive action and with no orders from Li Dachui, were momentarily stunned, frozen in the rain.
Beside Li Dachui, Bandit A exclaimed, "What has this broken world come to? Who uses silver to hurt people?"
It was only when Zheng Xiu was about to run past the spooked steed that Li Dachui, as if waking from a dream, drew his sword and slashed at Zheng Xiu's head.
"Heh!"
Seeing that familiar stance, Zheng Xiu couldn't help but chuckle. 'Same old move.' He came to a sudden stop and yanked his neck back.
[Your struggle has tempered your Step Technique by a thin margin.]
His horizontal slash having failed, Li Dachui was overcome with rage and followed up with several more strikes.
[DEATH.]
...
This death was slightly different from the last. Zheng Xiu had dodged the blade head-on—he dodged, but not completely. Looking at the handsome Mighty Man on the ground, Li Dachui once again erupted in fury and shame, frantically stabbing Zheng Xiu in the chest several more times.
Zheng Xiu once again experienced the realistic agony of death.
Each stab felt like it was carving up his heart.
Again!
After a while, once the pain and terror of death had subsided, Zheng Xiu entered the Ghostly Realm again. He soon encountered the Li Clan bandit leader, Dachui, once more.
[DEATH.]
[DEATH.]
[DEATH.]
[Through your unyielding efforts and repeated struggles on the brink of life and death, your Step Technique has improved.]
[DEATH.]
Finally!
This time, Zheng Xiu was hacked to death by more than a dozen men. But upon returning to reality, he felt as invigorated as if he'd just had a thorough, full-body massage. The expression on his face was one of pleasant satisfaction—a mixture of pain and pleasure.
'So it's true! Even though I die over and over in the Ghostly Realm, the improvements my Incarnation gains from its actions there are retained!'
'Heaven doesn't let down the diligent!'
'This leap in improvement is all thanks to my own hard work!'
Before the pain could even fade, Zheng Xiu straightened his back, closed his eyes, and sat upon the Bone Chair.
The Mighty Man on the table still possessed an extraordinary air. The more Zheng Xiu looked at his Incarnation, the more he liked what he saw.
[Step Technique] +1.
Additionally.
[Intuition (some accomplishment): Your life has been fraught with misfortune. You experienced displacement and the death of your family at a young age, giving you an uncommon alertness that occasionally allows you to sense impending danger.]
In the description for the Trait, the wording for [Intuition] had changed from "very rarely" to "occasionally."
'This is what they mean by a quantitative change leading to a qualitative one!'
No matter how strong Zheng Xiu's Will was, each time that "DEATH" appeared, he suffered real pain. He lay spread-eagled on the hay to rest, counting on his fingers how many times he could speed-run the "Bandit Leader Li Dachui" route in one night.
The way of the merchant lies in one word: persistence.
Having accidentally discovered this highly efficient "Li Dachui" sheep to shear during his speedruns, how could Zheng Xiu live up to his status as the Richest Person if he didn't shear it persistently?
Effort! Struggle! Strive!
The fighting spirit of Good man Zheng was ignited!
As the saying goes, haste makes waste.
Since a speedrun won't work,
Then I shall speed-farm instead!
...
「Dawn broke in the east.」
As a brilliant ray of dawn replaced the moonlight, squeezing through the narrow window into the cell, the warm light fell like a cluster of soft, maidenly hands. SLAP, SLAP, they struck the face of the handsome, wealthy man sleeping against the wall, leaving behind unsightly splotches of sunlight.
"Psst! Master Zheng?"
"*Hooo...*"
"Psst, psst, psst! Master Zheng!?"
"*Hooo...*"
"Pssst—Master Zheng?"
When Zheng Xiu was finally woken by the insistent, hushed whispers, he opened his eyes to see the towering Scarface Liu squatting furtively outside the bars and waving at him. Still groggy and half-awake, Zheng Xiu could have sworn he saw a chubby Golden Labrador squatting outside, licking its chops and holding out a paw, begging for a hug, a walk, and to be lifted up high.
Zheng Xiu blinked, and the Labrador was gone. It was just a trick of the light.
When Zheng Xiu looked up, his haggard appearance and the dark circles under his eyes made Scarface Liu start. But then he thought it over. He'd seen it plenty of times before—a young master who had lived a pampered life, now fallen from grace to become a prisoner. Thinking of the bitterness and forbearance it must take, Scarface Liu shook his head, a strange pang of pity welling up inside him.
"Master Zheng, you're finally awake! You must have had a rough night!" Scarface Liu imagined that Zheng Xiu, though calm and composed in front of others, must have been secretly panicking and trembling. Feeling a wave of sympathetic understanding, he met Zheng Xiu's placid gaze and furtively slid a wrapped "breakfast" into the cell.
Zheng Xiu unwrapped it. Inside were two steaming meat buns.
"Sixth Brother, you shouldn't have."
Zheng Xiu didn't eat them, instead wrapping them back up.
Scarface Liu scratched the scar on his brow. "It's nothing! Nothing! These are the signature buns from your family's shop, the Zhengde Chicken branch on Lotus Lane. That place is so popular, I had to get in line before dawn! It was just my turn. These two are still hot. Huh? Master Zheng, how did you know it was me who paid?"
Zheng Xiu smiled and explained casually, "If my family had sent breakfast, it would have been according to my preferences. I prefer lighter fare, such as a thin congee with abalone sauce, made with pearl millet from the rich farms in the south. It's nourishing for the spleen, and both gentle and delicious."
Scarface Liu's expression went blank, unsure of how to respond.