Chapter 1: The Hunters of Jishan

Deep in Mount Ji, the sky was overcast and the sun could not be seen.

Zhao Ji stood on a ridgeline, clad in deerskin hunting garb, one hand leaning on an iron halberd, the other on his hip, breathing hard into the wind as he surveyed the ridges near and far, judging direction by the density and sparseness of the trees.

When his breathing had steadied somewhat, he used the halberd to part a patch of weeds and shrubs, then sat down on a large rock in the clearing.

Seeing him sit, the two brown-yellow hounds that followed at his sides settled down, one to the left and one to the right, their heads swiveling as their tails thumped.

Zhao Ji lifted his head to gaze at the lead-colored cloudbank, then lowered it to study the palms and backs of both his hands.

These were his hands. The faint scars on them were all familiar to him, though there were also some new ones.

This body felt more like the merging of several bodies.

As he pondered why he had come here, and the purpose and meaning of the life he now lived, his expression remained blank, yet solemn.

He was certain that a large part of this body was indeed his own: the burn on his foot, the black mole on the right shoulder blade, just within reach of his left hand.

It was the only black mole on his entire body, along with a single long white eyebrow hair growing from the left brow.

What confused him was the change in his features, as though even his face had been fused together from several sources.

How should one describe this face? A proper, upright face.

As the saying goes, the countenance is shaped by the heart; the changes in the brow and eyes seemed far more like his own.

He was a little over six feet tall, broad of build, nearly four inches taller than the ordinary figure he had been in his previous life.

As for that previous life.

He had not died of illness, nor perished violently, nor experienced any great rise or fall.

He only remembered, on a whim in the middle of the night, downloading an old single-player game. It could not adapt to the new system, failed to save, and kept crashing. So he simply shut the machine down, then, after drinking a normal bottle of beer and eating a serving of cumin beef, went to sleep.

When he woke from that sleep, he found himself in a hunter's hut in Mount Ji, with no flood of memories merging into him.

The memories of the body were simply there; whenever he pondered something, the relevant recollections would naturally surface.

For instance, this body belonged to the grandson of the Pei clan of Wenxi. Though the bloodline was very distant from the main branch of Pei Mao, the Minister of the Imperial Secretariat, his father had fled here in his youth with a handsome face and a capable hand, and was prized by the Pei clan, who gave him a daughter in marriage.

His father was skilled at forging iron and making crossbows, and so over the years had kept the household afloat, earning a modest reputation in the surrounding lands.

As for this body itself, it was the third son in the family, fond of hunting, disinclined to forge iron, and from the age of sixteen had lived alone apart from the family.

The Zhao family’s roots were too shallow. The eldest brother had married a daughter of the Pei clan, though this woman’s blood tie to his mother’s Pei line was distant.

The marriage existed only to bind the Zhao family more closely to the Pei clan; this Zhao family was more like a dependent branch of the Peis.

The second brother’s marriage was simpler, with a daughter of a local mountain people’s family. His work was also tied to the smithy; in future he would forge iron for the eldest brother’s smithy, and the position could even be passed down to his descendants.

Perhaps after the second brother’s children took over the post, the second brother might even end up with a managerial role in the smithy.

As for himself, the third son, he seemed to have an instinctive resistance to such arrangements. Since childhood he had refused to learn ironworking, carpentry, or leatherwork, and had shown even less interest in farming; he cared only for hunting and shooting.

He was the sort who would crawl into the mountains to steal bird eggs even if both legs were broken.

He was simply impossible to educate. Though the family had not formally divided, in truth he already lived as if apart from them.

As for studying outside the home, that required the family to grit their teeth and support him, and also to seek introductions from others; such an opportunity could only fall to the eldest brother.

Above him there was also an older sister, married into the Pei clan. Below him were seven younger brothers and sisters, born over the years to his father’s two concubines.

Among them were two younger sisters who had come as brides, and who had now reached the age when they were about to be betrothed and married off.

From the long view of the clan, the father who had left his homeland to make a living here had done extremely well.

Yet this body truly did not wish to work for the eldest brother. It was one thing not to inherit any family property, but to keep laboring for him forever... merely because he had been born five years earlier?

Perhaps it was the influence of his future self, thought across time and space, upon this former body, that had made the original owner so rebellious.

Now, in any case, he was Zhao Ji. He could not think through or investigate the reason he had come here, and there was no clue by which to return.

At present, while ensuring his survival, the best he could do was improve his quality of life and enrich his inner world.

Only, these past few days without a phone and without the high efficiency of networked information exchange, he had found it difficult to adapt, as though he could never quite get enough to eat or enough to drink.

Fortunately, food had to be made by one’s own hands. Living alone was in itself busy work, and in the midst of that busyness one gradually forgot about toys like phones.

Even so, in idle moments he still found himself anxious over the lack of a phone.

Even with a small cheat of sorts, he still could not rid himself of his attachment to the phone and to informational society.

The cheat was simple: when he focused his thoughts, an ability icon would appear on his palm, more like a crimson crest of a sword-strike.

Hack and slash, increasing attack damage.

As a minor cheat, it was only at level one for now, and through perception he could tell it increased damage by eight percent.

Using the skill cost no extra stamina or energy, and each time he activated it, it would correct his way of exerting force.

Posture and form became more in line with the principles of force generation. Was that how the damage increased?

Or, after the skill corrected his technique, would it still add extra damage?

If he struck with ten parts of strength, then after a proper correction of form he could produce stable output of a dozen or more parts of damage, and with the skill’s additional amplification, could it reach twenty-something, even over thirty?

Merely correcting his form was already immensely valuable, a piece of martial knowledge difficult to buy even with money.

He also wondered whether, if the skill could not continue to improve, other new skills might appear.

Zhao Ji was not in a hurry. During his rest, he lowered his head to look at the red tattoo-like icon on his right palm and considered reliable ways to improve his life.

The quickest way would naturally be to become an official, a slaveholder, or an employer; hire a few servants, or seize some slaves, or, at the very least, marry a wife through the family.

If he married through the family, then in the future he would be tied to the household, laboring for his father, for his eldest brother, and eventually for his nephew.

As for hiring servants, where would he get the money and goods?

He did not even own a horse, so he could not go far afield to seize slaves. People nearby would be difficult targets; if he took them, acquaintances would buy them back, or they would flee using their familiarity with the terrain.

Improving his present living conditions was easier said than done.

Besides, in the deep forests of Mount Ji, simply surviving with enough to eat and drink was no easy matter.

With a faint sigh, Zhao Ji rose, slung his back basket again, and after tying the cuffs of his trousers tight, he hefted the iron halberd and called to his hounds, "Move!"

The two hunting dogs wagged their tails at once and then, one after another, darted ahead, leading the way along the direction Zhao Ji indicated.

Along the ridge, after crossing two ravines, one of the dogs lunged and caught a thin, long pheasant.

After it was bled on the spot and placed in the back basket, Zhao Ji took the herbs and mushrooms he had gathered along the way and made a detour back.

Before dark he still had to check the snares and traps nearby. Today his luck was good; a large rabbit had been caught by the leg in a fine leather cord.

As Zhao Ji approached, the rabbit struggled even more fiercely, tugging the brush into a rustling shake.

Before Zhao Ji could make a move, one of the dogs leaped in and bit down.

By the time Zhao Ji drew near, the rabbit had already been shaken hard in the dog’s jaws and was more or less subdued.

Crouching, Zhao Ji drew the short dagger from the leather sheath in his boot shaft. He planted his foot on the rabbit’s two long hind legs, hooked his left hand under its head and wrenched it back by the neck, exposing the throat.

Without hesitation, he drove the short dagger into its neck and slit the fur, letting the rabbit’s blood flow out as completely as possible so as not to stain the hide.

Rabbit hide and mouse hide sewn together could become a fur coat fit to keep out the winter cold.

Only when the rabbit had finally stopped struggling did Zhao Ji wipe the blood from the dagger on his boot, sheathe it, and fasten the clasp.

After lightly covering the bloodstains, Zhao Ji hung the rabbit from the iron halberd, slung it over one shoulder, and headed for his hillside hut.

Outside the hut stood a low wall built of wooden stakes and stones, and before Zhao Ji had even come close, he noticed that the gate of woven branches had been raised and that faint cooking smoke was rising from the hut.

The two dogs also grew excited, circling Zhao Ji in quick arcs, tossing their heads as they sniffed at every scent.

Leaning on the iron halberd, Zhao Ji climbed the slope and saw his second brother, Zhao Yuan, squatting in the courtyard vegetable patch and picking leaves.

Zhao Yuan was slightly shorter, also of upright and handsome bearing, and because of his ironworking was even sturdier than Zhao Ji by several degrees.

Today Zhao Yuan wore a sleeveless lacquered cuirass. The armor showed obvious signs of wear and flaking paint, and two palm-sized steel plates had been hung over the chest to strengthen the protection.

Traveling in the mountains and wilds, beasts were not the hardest thing to guard against; the most difficult threat was the mountain folk lurking near the roads, and the hidden arrows of those mountain folk.

Zhao Yuan glanced back at Zhao Ji, then stood and said, "The county is recruiting soldiers. Third brother, will you go?"

Seeing that Zhao Ji did not answer, Zhao Yuan stepped back from the vegetable patch and continued, "This is also Father’s wish. Third brother, you’ve lived alone in the wild mountains for more than a year, and the family has been quite worried. The county has also praised your courage and steadfastness, which is why they came to invite you in person."

After a pause, Zhao Yuan added, "This time they’ve come with good words. If they come again, who knows what sort of attitude they’ll have?"

Zhao Ji was likewise speechless. He followed Zhao Yuan to the mountain pool by the stream outside the courtyard, and said to him while washing vegetables, "Do they think I’ve turned to banditry in the mountains?"

"Not only them. Your sister-in-law’s natal family thinks so too."

Zhao Yuan raised his brows at Zhao Ji. "You’re strong and vigorous, at exactly the age when a man loves excitement. Yet you’ve secluded yourself in Mount Ji, with no teacher or elder to guide you. What do you think you’re doing here?"

It was clear from Zhao Yuan’s manner that he too suspected the former owner of the body was engaged in some unsavory occupation.

Zhao Ji understood very well that before he truly took over this body, his own thoughts had already crossed time and space, or perhaps had influenced the former owner hidden within that consciousness. Thus the former owner’s purpose in living in seclusion on Mount Ji had been quite pure: he simply refused to let his family arrange his life, and had come here with axe and bow to survive in the wilderness.

Zhao Ji spread his hands. "Second brother, you can see that I don’t even have a horse or a donkey here. Surely I wouldn’t be stealing close to home?"

"What you did before is not important. What matters is that the county and the local district think you have the ability to steal!" Zhao Yuan’s tone grew severe. "These are Father’s words. Do not bring disaster upon the family! A lone man like you, living apart from others, is like a fierce beast. The county is uneasy, and so is the Pei clan. Come down the mountain with me. Father has prepared a suit of armor and a horse for you. Answer the levy and join the army."

Seeing that Zhao Ji remained unmoved, Zhao Yuan softened his tone. "There are more than twenty mouths in the family, old and young, men and women alike. Can you bear to implicate them?"

"So my second brother means that even if I must die, I should die as far away as possible?"

Zhao Ji scooped up water to wash his hands and then his face. His words left Zhao Yuan silent.

When Zhao Ji had finished washing, Zhao Yuan finally said in a muffled voice, "That is not my meaning. In the family I only forge iron; I have no say in things, and I cannot make decisions. What use is it for you to say such things to me?"

Zhao Ji merely snorted with a faint smile. "So only second brother is innocent, and all the blame is mine. But if I go down the mountain to answer the levy now, are you not afraid that if I die, the family will still have to send another man in my place?"

"Until every male in the household is dead and the women and daughters remarry?"

Zhao Yuan still said nothing.

Zhao Ji went on, "For your sakes, it seems I really cannot die."

Zhao Yuan then added, "Nor can you run."

What answered him was Zhao Ji’s indifferent gaze. Zhao Yuan did not find this strange, and said emphatically, "If you become a deserter, the whole family will suffer."

Zhao Yuan walked toward the courtyard. Seeing that his third brother did not follow, he did not turn back, but stopped and looked up at the sky, drawing out his words. "Father still has something to say to you. If you will not come down the mountain with me, then when Father arrives, he will surely burn this place to the ground. It is not that Father does not want you to live a peaceful life; it is that the people of the district cannot tolerate you."

"You are not in the district, so of course you do not know how they speak of you. Some even say you have been bewitched by a fox spirit and live neighboring the mountain sprites and ghosts."

At this, anger rose in Zhao Ji’s heart. Was it enough, merely because he had lived alone in the mountains for a year, to make those around him wary of him?

The anger came quickly, and quickly passed.

Zhao Ji restrained his emotions, turned, and followed Zhao Yuan back into the courtyard.