Chapter 2
Chapter 2
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 2
Chapter Title: First Death
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I was still living a bleak life today.
When I opened my eyes in the morning, my throat was parched, I craved a bowl of porridge, but once I quenched my thirst, an immeasurable emptiness stabbed at me like needles. Then, a short while later, I stepped outside and began practicing the Six Harmonies Swordsmanship out of habit.
Six Harmonies Swordsmanship.
It was the most common sword art in the jianghu, and its basic stance, Six Harmonies Mountain Splitter, was treated as the most fundamental technique in the jianghu: twist the body halfway to the left, then slash upward to the right upper diagonal using the recoil. In simple terms, it was just a diagonal cut. Even a three-year-old child could figure it out after imitating it two or three times.
What did a single form of the Six Harmonies Sword, which included the Six Harmonies Mountain Splitter, look like?
It was said that it typically took an ordinary person about a month to master the Six Harmonies Sword, which consisted of a total of 32 movements across 8 stances. Even low-level escort warriors in the marketplace needed a full month of training to learn the Six Harmonies Sword forms.
Moreover, to use those Six Harmonies Sword forms flawlessly in actual combat without any wasted motion required at least five years of real battle experience. To reach the refined realm of a master, one also needed internal energy to support it, so it was safe to say it took over 40 years to step into the first-class realm.
And this year marked the 45th year since I had begun learning martial arts.
Yet, far from dreaming of the first-class realm, I was holed up in a shabby thatched hut, endlessly repeating the Six Harmonies Swordsmanship every day. In the jianghu, my level was second-rate at best—no, the kind of mediocre you could find anywhere.
How did things end up like this?
"......"
Whoosh! Whoosh!
I kept my mouth firmly shut to avoid spewing curses and swung my sword.
No amount of cursing would change my life, so I just shut up and kept at it.
It was the minimal comfort I had learned after living a trash-like life for so long.
Why didn't I practice any sword arts besides the Six Harmonies Swordsmanship?
It wasn't that I didn't practice them. I couldn't.
The only sword art I knew was the Six Harmonies Swordsmanship, and the only internal art was the Three Talents Heart Method!
I stopped swinging the sword.
No matter how I thought about it, it was pathetic, so I finally let the curse slip.
"Fuck..."
I was an Aspirant High Expert.
I wasn't born into a martial family, nor had I received guidance from any renowned master. Despite having no innate conditions to achieve great success as a martial artist, I had stubbornly worked as an Escort Warrior for an escort agency and clung to martial arts for one reason alone.
I believed it was the only way I could succeed.
I was ugly. So ugly that from childhood, women would grimace and hurry past at the sight of my face, and mean little girls would even spit at me. Among men, the disgust was no different—some handsome bastards would make me the butt of their jokes or pull down my pants.
My family wasn't well-off either, so I drifted between mediocrity and poverty. At age twelve, both my parents died, and I was taken in by the local village chief's household. The village chief used me like a servant, and I ended up living as the servant to his son. It got a little better after I became an independent Escort Warrior for the escort agency, but those days still lingered as psychological scars.
Yes, as soon as I was old enough to properly grip and swing a sword, I applied to become an Escort Warrior for the escort agency and worked there for decades. Since escort warriors were provided with basic martial arts, I thought that if I trained diligently, I could succeed too. I believed that with the power of "martial arts," even my ugly looks, lack of family background, and shitty life could somehow turn around.
And now, I knew it had all been a delusion.
The escort agency I belonged to had been destroyed two years ago by just a single First-Class Expert. The Blood Phosphorous Hand, renowned in the Central Plains region, had invaded us on a commission from another escort agency. The agency's warriors fell helplessly to his hands, and though the agency master eventually slew the Blood Phosphorous Hand, the damage was already irreparable.
In the end, the agency master declared the dissolution of the escort agency, and I was cast out into the world with the money I had saved up until then. "Cast out" is the right term, since all I had was a measly fifty taels—far too little to live on until old age. In the end, I had no choice but to become a tenant farmer, living little better than a beggar.
But in a final act of defiance against my life, I refused the tenant farmer path.
I had trained in martial arts nonstop from my late teens for decades. Even if it was just the Six Harmonies Swordsmanship and Three Talents Heart Method, maybe I could suddenly achieve great success and hit the jackpot! With that thought, I built a thatched hut in the mountains and began training my sword realm endlessly.
"... Achoo!!"
And two years into that training, my stamina gave out, and I could no longer swing the sword. I huddled in a corner of the hut, shivering. It was too cold to bear.
'C... cold... a cold?'
Unbelievable.
In wuxia novels, masters secluded themselves in the mountains and trained tirelessly with their pure, robust physiques. But I soon realized it was only natural. For two years, with no money, I survived by hunting nearby wild animals, digging up roots and mushrooms—on the frail body of a man in his mid-to-late fifties, it was inevitable that pushing myself would lead to illness.
And a cold was dangerous. It wasn't just any illness; I had no way to recover my stamina and drive it out. If this continued, I'd end up as another common mountain corpse. With that thought, I hurriedly packed my belongings in the hut to prepare for descent.
As I stuffed my things into a cloth bundle, tears suddenly welled up.
"Achoo! Cough... cough... sob...."
Even in my feverish, hazy delirium from the cold, resentment surged wildly.
How did things end up like this?
Hadn't I ascended the mountain intending to master swordsmanship and conquer the world?
But descending now, struck down by malnutrition, exhaustion, and a mere cold just to survive—it was too ridiculous.
Still, I had to live, so I wiped away the tears forcefully, slung the cloth bundle on my back, and began descending the mountain path. It would take at least two hours through the rugged trails to reach the village, so I carefully pushed through the treacherous underbrush.
I had been walking for some time.
"Ugh, uwaaaah!!"
Thud.
Suddenly, the ground gave way beneath my feet, and it felt like my body was being pulled underground. Before falling completely, I desperately grabbed a tree branch and held on, dangling precariously. Below me stretched a cliff over three zhang deep.
Terror surged. Martial masters could lightly land from such a height with their lightness skills, but I wasn't one of them. With internal energy too weak to even fend off a cold, falling meant certain death or crippling injury. As the branch seemed about to snap, I hurriedly flung the bundle off my back into the abyss.
Crash! The sound of all my belongings shattering echoed up. But at least I wouldn't plummet to instant death. Cautiously, I shifted my hands and feet along the cliff face, searching for footholds. After fumbling several times, I succeeded in letting go of the branch and finding a crevice on the cliff to stand in.
Now, I had to go down or up. Imagining which was easier, I decided down would be better. This cliff had slightly more crevices and protrusions for footing, and falling while climbing up would be disastrous. Forgetting my cold entirely, I moved with all my strength.
Tremble.
Finally, drenched in sweat like rain, I clung to a spot where I could properly plant both feet. As I caught my breath, I noticed a cave opening beside me on the cliff face. A cave midway up a cliff—clearly man-made. Curiosity piqued, I shifted toward it. I couldn't hang there forever anyway; it was the only choice.
Entering the cave felt like salvation. I wanted to collapse and sleep right there, but I had to check what kind of place it was. So, I decided to venture deeper inside. The pitch-black cave was surprisingly deep; I had to grope along the walls for quite a while.
Thud.
I bumped into a stalactite, raising a lump on my head. Swallowing a scream from the pain, I slumped to the ground right there. Then, spotting faint light leaking from afar, I cautiously crawled toward it.
The light came from a chamber embedded with a bead emitting brilliant glow. Clearly artificially created by someone! The moment I saw it, joy nearly drove me mad.
"Yes!"
Was this a Fortuitous Encounter?
Something straight out of novels happening for real!
Overjoyed, I felt a hot surge rise in my throat. I inched closer to the bead.
That was the moment.
Swoosh—thunk.
"......"
What... just happened?
I felt excruciating pain flood in as my vision blurred. Shaking off momentary memory loss, I realized what occurred: a metal spike had suddenly shot from the front, piercing straight through my abdomen. With my guts impaled, unimaginable agony was inevitable.
Fresh blood gushed. Blood erupted from my mouth.
"Ugh... urk.... Uwuaaagh..."
I collapsed to my knees, awaiting the death that would soon come.
And I regretted it bitterly. If only I hadn't entered this cave, I wouldn't have died...
Of course a guardian trap protected a Fortuitous Encounter...
How could my life be so stupid and unlucky!
... I'm dying?
Just like this?
"Grk... ugh..."
No, that can't happen.
Even if I die, I have to know what's in that box before I go!
With my last strength, I crawled to the box. The bronze chest opened easily even with my dying strength. No, it was designed to open with just a touch from the start.
"Th... this is..."
Right before death, I thrust my right hand inside and grasped a single book.
At the same time, blood loss plunged my consciousness into haze.
Now, I die.
This was my first death.