Chapter 67: Even A Small Stone Can Block The Great Path
“Hekou Village belongs to the scouts’ army. Since you are a disciple of the village, why aren’t you in the military, but wandering around the wasteland instead?”
Zhang Min’s question left Yun Ce stunned for a moment. He had just been thinking about how to explain killing her father and her four brothers, but unexpectedly, she started caring about his future instead.
“I’m not from Hekou Village. I’m a wildman who wandered to Hekou Village. Now I’ve left and come to Chuyun Prefecture seeking a future.”
“Starting from killing Zhang Yaliang, seizing the seal, and writing your own recommendation letter?”
While Zhang Min was speaking, Yun Ce carefully observed her expression and found that when she discussed Zhang Yaliang’s death, her emotions showed no fluctuation at all, just like talking about a stranger.
A flash of inspiration struck, and he stepped forward, saying: “Zhang Yaliang deserved to die!”
Zhang Min chuckled lightly and said: “How do you know I’m not his daughter?”
Yun Ce said frankly: “Just based on your indifference to the matters in Pingyuan City.”
Zhang Min fiddled with the small cage hanging from her belt and said: “The court has no time to manage wasteland affairs. Over the years, chaos has reigned in the wasteland. Among the twenty-seven cities, eleven have risks of violent unrest.”
Yun Ce said knowingly: “When the abscess is ripe, it should be lanced. Pingyuan City has formed an abscess, so why lance it only in Sheyang City?”
1 Zhang Min looked at Yun Ce in surprise and said: “Zhang Yaliang’s greed was too heavy. He wanted to grab the big money and wouldn’t let go of the small money either. Even the court’s graces to the wasteland, like recommendation letters for talents, he sold for money.
1 Over the years, Pingyuan City had long become unsustainable. Bringing it out to let the wasteland people vent their anger is also good, and it conveniently warns the city lords of the other cities not to scrape the land too excessively.”
1 Yun Ce added: “You watched with your own eyes as I chopped off Duke Yu, the city lord of Sheyang City’s, two feet. How do you explain that?”
1 Zhang Min laughed and said: “Duke Yu lived a life more luxurious than a king’s. As a mere fifth-level city lord, he shouldn’t have lived like that.”
1 Hearing Zhang Min say this, Yun Ce brazenly lifted his robe, revealing his left leg, and said: “I injured your leg. Now you can tooth for tooth.”
1 Zhang Min shook her head and said: “Some people say your life is very important. For the greater good, I’ll take this loss.”
1 Yun Ce immediately said: “Since you like seeing me advance so much, now I need three recommendation letters from nobles of Grand Master Rank or above to continue participating in the Grand Competition. Can you help?”
1 Zhang Min smiled.
1 “This official is of Grand Master Rank. Giving you three recommendation letters is not difficult, but when I need manpower, you must accept this official’s summons.”
1 Yun Ce nodded repeatedly and said: “Of course, of course.”
2 Seeing Yun Ce agree so readily, Zhang Min said coldly: “If you go back on your word or disobey orders, you will truly find it hard to take a single step afterward and will suffer unimaginable hardships.”
2 Yun Ce spread his hands and said: “One doesn’t know if one will live to see tomorrow. Trading an unreliable tomorrow for today’s smooth sailing—honestly, I think I’ve gained.”
2 Zhang Min stretched out her finger to tease the fat insect. Seeing it still in that half-dead state, she said to Yun Ce: “At dusk, someone will deliver the recommendation letter to the guesthouse where you live.”
2 Seeing Zhang Min turn to leave, Yun Ce hurriedly asked: “Can you tell me who said my life is important?”
2 Zhang Min didn’t answer, just gave a strange smile, and entered the rich man’s gate.
2 Long-term planning is not suitable for officialdom, because your rise and fall are never in your own hands. Seize every opportunity to climb up immediately—that is the most correct way.
2 In itself, having an opportunity to climb up means your luck has come. Only by standing on another step can you see the scenery farther away.
2 Yun Ce deeply understood this point, and it was also why the higher the official position, the more he believed in what fate said—unless one reaches the highest place, one cannot truly control fate, rather than being controlled by it.
2 From Zhang Min’s words, Yun Ce could tell that she really needed him to act as her thug in Chuyun City. At this moment, Yun Ce had no objection to being someone’s thug.
2 “Chuyun City is not peaceful either.” Yun Ce muttered to himself and continued walking toward the schoolhouse. Today, no matter what, he had to borrow the first part of King Huo’s Biography《》.
3 Yun Ce studied bitterly in the schoolhouse for four hours before returning the hard-to-borrow first part of King Huo’s Biography《》. Quite impressive—over four hundred pounds of bamboo slips.
3 Many people read this book; the leather ropes binding the bamboo slips were broken in many places. This thing has a specific cultural term for it: Weibian San Jue.
3 Just reading the first part, Yun Ce felt that the supreme military achievements established by the Champion Marquis on Earth didn’t even reach one-tenth of those here.
3 This wasn’t much, after all, it was Huo Qubing—a man who could accurately find the enemy leader amid thousands of troops and horses, chop him dead, and in an era without maps or satellite navigation, navigate accurately across over 1.1 million square kilometers of land without getting lost, gaining supreme military honors every time.
3 Establishing more military achievements here was commonplace.
3 However, Yun Ce still discovered something extraordinary from the summary of the first part of King Huo’s Biography《》: this guy lived way too long.
3 According to King Huo’s Biography《》, from his first time leading two thousand Thunder Smoke Beast cavalry to exterminate the Horn Throat Kingdom, to his last battle participating in breaking the Maqi 600,000 rebel army, this guy actually lived for five hundred years!
3 King Huo’s Biography《》 is clearly reliable—content straightforward, concise, not verbose, just states facts without mixing in personal emotions. Not the wild fabrications of novelists.
3 In Yun Ce’s view, the historians’ records of Huo Qubing’s biography were even more truthful and credible than the Historical Records《》 written in a literary narrative style.
3 Adding his twenty-four years on Earth, he lived exactly five hundred and twenty-four years in total, with five hundred of them calculated by the Divine Dragon calendar.
4 Today’s harvest was not small. Yun Ce specially went to the stall selling beast meat, bought half a wild boar, and a bag of rice. Seeing the sky dense with dark clouds, he prepared to make a delicious braised pork for E Ji and the others to eat, lest the heat in their bodies be insufficient and they always think of climbing into his bed.
4 When he returned to the guesthouse, Feng An had already eaten, but he looked very tired, lacking spirit—this was probably the consequence of going through the noble lady’s door. Later, sending the guesthouse shop assistant to get him two fierce beast whips or something would replenish him.
4 Liang Kun was lying on the bed, his face full of injuries, his waist and legs unsteady. Hearing his groans as he narrated, Yun Ce learned that early this morning, he had tricked a large group of students into going to the Inspector’s Yamen to sit in silent protest.
4 As a result, the Inspector didn’t come out to comfort them; instead, a large group of ferocious yamen runners came out, swinging sticks at their bodies, specifically targeting their faces.
4 After beating them, they didn’t even explain, just threatened that if they dared come again, they’d beat them again.
4 Seeing Liang Kun furious and about to rebel, Yun Ce hurriedly comforted him, saying he had already obtained Grand Master Rank recommendation letters through certain channels—three of them!
4 Feng An, leaning on the bed, said weakly: “It’s nothing but money or sex. Power has nothing to do with us, Lord. For such humiliating things in the future, the two of us can do them, but you cannot.”
4 Yun Ce said seriously: “Don’t be so extreme in the future. There are still good nobles in this world. I killed her father, E Ji killed her four brothers, and I shot through her thigh with one arrow in the wasteland. Even so, she still thinks I’m an unparalleled genius.
4 Worried that without recommendation letters, I’d be blocked from opportunities to shine for the court, she earnestly begged me to accept the recommendation letters she personally wrote. Seeing I wasn’t very satisfied, she wrote yours and Liang Kun’s as well, to be delivered this evening.”
4 “Zhang Min?”
5 This time, not only beyond Feng An and Liang Kun’s expectations, even E Ji let out a sharp cry while hugging her hair.
5 “Impossible!”
5 Yun Ce chuckled lightly, left the room full of fools, and went briskly to the kitchen to prepare his specialty braised pork.
5 After opening the rice bag, Yun Ce was stunned for a moment. He didn’t think any white rice grains could be as big as peanuts. Now, seeing them with his own eyes, each crystal clear—obviously very rich in sugary substances.
5 Yun Ce put the rice into the steamer, then began processing the pork. After he deboned the wild boar belly pork, he couldn’t help frowning—the pork was too lean, the muscles too coarse, would get stuck in teeth.
5 The Dragon Pearl still had some leftover piglet meat uneaten. Those piglets were carefully selected by him, tender and fatty. Even without belly pork, the braised pork would surely be delicious.
5 While stewing the meat, he checked inside the Dragon Pearl again. The stock from Earth—bagged soy sauce powder—was running low; he’d have to use it sparingly in the future.
5 One piglet, meat and bones together only about ten pounds, plus Great Han’s special beans, barely filled a large pot.
5 When he lifted the steamer lid, he casually grabbed a grain of rice to eat. Sure enough, as he expected, this rice had a faint sweet taste in the mouth, plus a fresh autumn chrysanthemum fragrance.
5 When the braised pork came to a boil, the aroma was overwhelmingly dominant. Not only was the kitchen helper An Ji drooling, but the little maids’ eyes were filled with longing for the food.
6 Feng An, disregarding his weak body and feeling embarrassed to stand with a group of women and children, supported himself with one hand on the door frame. Watching Yun Ce’s busy back, he seemed to see a god.
6 The two little girls helped Liang Kun from the bed to the stone table in the courtyard. Looking at the mountain of dark red meat chunks in the basin, they swallowed saliva and said to E Ji: “If we had such food every day, our monthly allowance could be less.”
6 E Ji filled a bowl of meat for each little girl and sent them away. Just as she was about to sit down to eat with Feng An, Liang Kun, and the others, a clear voice came from the courtyard gate.
6 “Add another set of bowl and chopsticks. I want to eat too.”
6 What Yun Ce said before cooking—after Feng An, Liang Kun, E Ji, and the others discussed, they thought it impossible and took it as a joke.
6 Unexpectedly, Zhang Min personally came to the door, casually placed the three prepared Silk Manuscripts on the table, took the rice that E Ji had already prepared for her, picked up a piece of braised pork with chopsticks, placed it on the rice to inspect for a moment, then picked up the rice bowl and fiercely dug in.
