「Da Xuan Dynasty, Spring of the Third Year of Yuan Shou.」
The rivers flooded the plains, bringing great famine. People resorted to cannibalism.
The afterglow of the setting sun sprinkled across the long streets of Wuling City. Su Mu set the load from his back down in front of several men, his body, which had been bent at nearly a ninety-degree angle, finally straightening up.
"Su Mu, you chopped eighty-seven jin of firewood today. I'll round it up to ninety for you. That comes out to nine cents."
The man in the lead had someone weigh the load Su Mu had set down. Spitting on his fingertips, he flipped through a few pages of his ledger, gave it a glance, and spoke.
"Thank you for your consideration, Master Zhang."
Su Mu forced a smile.
That Master Zhang counted out a few copper coins and tossed them onto the ground, where they landed with a clear CLINK-CLANK.
Su Mu hastily squatted down and quickly gathered the copper coins scattered on the ground.
Seven copper coins.
The count was right.
Three trips out of the city, eighty-seven jin of firewood chopped, minus the two-cent customary fee, left him with seven cents.
...
'What is this damn place! This damn place! This damn place! Why is it so hard to stay alive!'
Su Mu walked along the muddy street, a hostile energy churning in his chest.
Two months had already passed, and Su Mu still couldn't figure it out. How could he, a graduate from a top-tier university with a bright future, wake up one day and find himself in Wuling City?
And as a complete vagabond, to boot!
"Liu" meant to be a drifter, without house or land; "mang" meant to be a layabout, without a proper occupation.
'Sigh, I'm even worse off than a vagabond. At least they have household registration. I don't even have that.'
Su Mu passed through a muddy alley and slipped into a dilapidated, drafty temple.
Several months ago, the body's original owner had his hometown hit by a great flood. He fled all the way to Wuling City, eventually dying from a combination of hunger and illness, at which point the current Su Mu took over his body.
To settle the displaced, the imperial court had shown some leniency, allowing refugees to register their households in Wuling. The condition: one household registration cost 500 cents.
Wuling City was one of the largest cities for hundreds of miles around. In normal times, a Wuling City household registration would be worth at least several tens of taels of silver.
Five hundred cents was already a preferential price from the court for the refugees.
But even so—
'Still short three hundred and fifty cents...'
Su Mu couldn't help but sigh. 'Damn that Chai Bang! Firewood in the city sells for three cents per ten jin, but they only pay us one cent per ten jin. And on top of that, they still take their cut. Even the most unscrupulous capitalists aren't this ruthless!'
His current body was so severely malnourished that he had almost no strength. Hauling seventy to eighty jin of firewood a day was his absolute limit. This earned him seven or eight cents, but after subtracting two to three cents for daily food, he could save at most four or five cents a day.
If it rained, he wouldn't even make those four or five cents.
When he had just woken up in this world, Su Mu had also thought of using his advanced knowledge to live a comfortable life, well-fed and well-clothed.
But before he could even begin to put his plans into action, he discovered this world wasn't as simple as he'd thought.
On his second day after transmigrating, he personally witnessed a man shatter a three-meter-tall boulder with a single punch.
From that moment on, he knew this was a world of Extraordinary power, where it was nearly impossible for an ordinary person to get ahead.
Besides, he was having trouble even being an ordinary person right now.
In Wuling City, if you wanted a proper job, you first needed a household registration.
Since Su Mu didn't even have that, his only way to make a living was to do the things "city folk" looked down on.
But even then, he had to endure the exploitation of the various gangs.
In this world, no matter what you did, you had to pay protection fees to the major gangs.
The Rice Gang, the Fish Gang, the Chai Bang...
Su Mu had no special skills. He couldn't fish or hunt, and he couldn't bring himself to beg.
He didn't even have enough strength to haul sacks at the docks.
Chopping wood was the only simple job he was barely capable of doing.
'We're both transmigrators, so why is the gap so huge? Other guys are born into the families of Princes or wealthy merchants, or at the very least become the live-in son-in-law of a prominent family. And me?'
Su Mu plopped down onto a pile of straw and pulled a hard, cold bun from his robes, slowly starting to gnaw on it.
A plain bun was one cent; a filled bun was three.
Right now, he could only afford plain buns.
He worked himself to the bone every day, not daring to get sick or slack off, yet all he could afford to eat were plain buns.
All the hardships he had never experienced in his past life, he was making up for them now in this one.
'It's all for nothing. I have this special power, but I still don't even know what it's for!'
As Su Mu gnawed on his bun, a thought flickered in his mind, and a semi-transparent panel appeared before his eyes.
Su Mu wasn't the only one in the dilapidated temple; several beggars were also curled up in their own piles of straw.
Su Mu paid them no mind, observing the panel before him.
This panel had been there since he woke up in this world, and no one could see it but him.
...
[Name: Su Mu]
[Status: Woodcutter (Refugee)]
[Points: 15]
...
When he first woke up, his status on the panel was Vagabond.
After Su Mu started chopping wood, the "mang" was dropped from his status, but the "liu" remained.
Over the past two months, Su Mu had studied the panel's functions whenever he had free time.
At first, he thought he was going to use his special power to defy the heavens and change his fate. 'My fate is in my hands, not in the heavens!' he'd thought. 'The world is so big; is it too much to ask for just a small piece of it?'
But two months had passed, and he still hadn't figured out how to use these Points.
The only attribute on the panel was his Status, and the Points couldn't be allocated to it at all.
'What I've confirmed so far is that the Points are related to my Status. The higher my Status, the faster they increase. It's like one's starting point in life. Some people are born in Rome, while others are born to be beasts of burden,' Su Mu mused.
Back when his status was still Vagabond, he would gain one Point every ten days.
After he became a Refugee, it changed to one Point every five days.
'Do I really have to learn this world's Martial Arts before I can allocate my points?'
Su Mu couldn't help but sigh.
He had secretly made some inquiries. It wasn't that there were no avenues to learn martial arts. Wuling City had martial arts schools, and it only cost ten taels of silver a month to enroll.
There were also some Jianghu sects that would periodically open their gates to recruit disciples.
At the very least, you could buy Martial Arts manuals from the city's Pawnshop for a few tens of taels of silver.
But no matter the method, for the current Su Mu, all of them were as difficult as ascending to the heavens.
He hadn't even saved up the 500 cents for his household registration yet. Where was he supposed to get the money to learn martial arts?
Even knowing a grand path to greatness lay just around the corner, he could only sigh in vain.
...
"HUUFF—"
Su Mu drew the rusty, dilapidated wood-chopping knife from his side and swung it fiercely, venting the frustration in his chest.
"Someone's been killed!"
Just then, a terrified scream shattered the night's tranquility.
Su Mu froze. 'I just swung my knife once. Can I kill people from a distance now?'
The next moment, he heard a beast-like roar.
Immediately after, the beggars in the temple, who had been lifeless just moments before, all leaped to their feet and fled outside, their faces filled with terror.
'Damn it, a demon!'
Su Mu's heart sank, and a chill ran through him as if he'd been plunged into an icy cavern.
He had previously gathered information about this world by casually chatting with the surrounding refugees and beggars, and he had heard them speak of legends about demons.
According to the stories, this very temple had been attacked by a demon before. The people of the entire street had been slaughtered, which was why the area had fallen into ruin and become a gathering place for refugees and beggars.
As for what demons actually were, none of the refugees could say for sure. They were just described as green-faced and long-fanged, bloodthirsty and brutal, with limitless strength—capable of tearing wild beasts apart with their bare hands. Besides powerful Martial Artists, any ordinary person who encountered a demon was as good as dead.
Recalling these legends, Su Mu jumped up without hesitation and ran, following the crowd.
Life was bitter, but he had no desire to die in a demon's mouth and become its food.
'There's still hope as long as I'm alive. If I die, it's all over. And who knows if I'll get another chance to transmigrate if I die again?'
The beast-like roars grew closer, and Su Mu ran even faster.
One by one, he overtook the sallow-faced, emaciated refugees and beggars.
'I might not be able to outrun the demon, but I can definitely outrun you lot!'
This was no time for lofty principles.
Soon, Su Mu realized how naive he had been.
Outrunning the others was useless. Demons weren't tigers; they were a hundred times more terrifying!
On the long street, a figure nearly five meters tall leaped high over the crowd and crashed down onto the ground with a THUD.
"CRACK!"
The refugee running at the very front was snatched up by the demon like a chick. The demon brought the man to its mouth and bit down, snapping his neck.
Casually tossing aside the refugee with the broken neck, the demon charged into the crowd, baring its fangs and brandishing its claws. With every swing of its limbs, a refugee was sent flying.
Some of the unluckier ones were grabbed directly by the demon and bitten to death.
This was a one-sided slaughter!
A deep chill washed over Su Mu. Faced with a five-meter-tall giant of immense power, he couldn't even think about fighting back; he couldn't even escape.
'Is this my destiny? To die at the hands of a demon?'
The demon drew closer and closer. Su Mu could even smell the foul, bloody stench from its mouth. His heart pounded faster and faster.
'If this is my fate, then I refuse to accept it!'
The THUMP-THUMP-THUMP of his own heartbeat was all Su Mu could hear. A ferocious light glinted in his eyes. 'Even if I die, I'll make sure to splash some of my blood on you!'
He tightened his grip on his wood-chopping knife, took two running steps, and leaped high into the air.
With a single strike, he hacked at the demon's knee.