Chapter 2: The Third Kind of Card, Strength of a Thousand Jin!

"There's hope..."

"Kill Sun Jindong, there's hope!"

Chen Mu suppressed the excitement in his heart.

In this world, dead people were a common occurrence.

Gang fights, martial artists brawling, bandits running rampant, mountain robbers holding up the road...

Even the government would, every so often, behead criminals at the Caishi Kou!

One could say, corpses were never in short supply.

And near the city, the place with the most corpses...

The mass grave!

Almost in an instant, Chen Mu made his decision.

To the mass grave outside the city!

With a goal in mind, Chen Mu worked with even more vigor.

After applying medicine for Huang Feiyang, he went along with the others to deliver the bodies of the three gang members killed in battle back to their homes, one by one.

These were the ones with families.

Killed in battle, the bodies sent back, afterward there was a consolation payment of ten taels of silver.

The ones who were alone and had no family, even the ten taels of silver were saved; wrapped in a ragged mat, dragged outside the city, a hole dug at random, buried and done with.

The lives of those at the bottom were just that cheap.

Chen Mu, newly arrived, helped carry three corpses, and while there was some gloom in his heart, it also spurred his drive to grow stronger.

This was not only to dispel the obsession left by the original body's owner, but even more so to protect himself.

If he died again, who knew whether there would be another transmigration...

Nanyun Prefecture governed nine counties.

The prefecture city had the most population, with a permanent resident count of three hundred thousand.

Adding in the floating population, it directly broke five hundred thousand.

With so many people, the city gates naturally could not be few; four were opened.

This did not even count the inner city where high officials, nobles, and great clans resided, only calculating the outer city where the poor and commoners lived.

Chen Mu lived in the eastern district of the outer city.

Exiting from the east gate, walking northeast for several li, one reached the mass grave that few people ever set foot in.

In the afternoon, the sun was still hanging in the sky.

But in the Lin Zi of the mass grave, it was a gloomy stretch, with all sorts of stench drifting in the air, the Strongest Flavor being the rotting smell.

Chen Mu steeled himself, walking and weaving among corpses in various states of death.

Very soon...

【Corpse discovered. Pick up?】

"Yes!"

Chen Mu responded.

He reached into his pouch and took out a semi-transparent card about the size of a playing card, with fluorescent light coiling around its edges.

When leaving the city, Chen Mu had tested it, waving the function card in front of other people's eyes, and the result was that no one could see it.

This made Chen Mu even more at ease.

Stamina Card!

Another Stamina Card; Chen Mu temporarily stored it away.

【Corpse discovered. Pick up?】

"Yes!"

【Corpse discovered. Pick up?】

"Yes!"

Constant walking, constant card pickups.

Energy Card, Energy Card, Stamina Card, Energy Card...

Walking the whole way, it was either Energy Cards or Stamina Cards.

Chen Mu, whose joy from continuously obtaining function cards had originally kept his fear in check, was feeling a bit sullen from all this.

"It can't be that I can only pick up these two kinds of cards, right?"

Chen Mu frowned.

Energy Cards, Stamina Cards—too many of them were just decorations.

【Corpse discovered. Pick up?】

"Yes!"

He responded subconsciously and picked up another new card.

Strength Card!

Hoo~

Finally a new card!

Chen Mu stopped, holding the new card, and comprehended the card information that had newly appeared in his mind.

Strength Card — strengthens the body and increases power.

Increases power!

"Good!"

Chen Mu was overjoyed.

Although it wasn't a Divine Strength Card, the Strength Card wasn't bad either — it could continuously toughen the body and increase power.

The upper limit was temporarily unknown.

"Use!"

He recited it silently in his heart, and the Strength Card in his hand immediately transformed into a wisp of starry, speckled light that surged into Chen Mu's chest.

The next instant, Chen Mu's body tensed up; beads of sweat slid down his forehead, face, chest, and back.

The surge of powerful energy that drilled into his body was cool and gentle, spreading in an instant throughout his entire being — every limb, every bone — and every cell underwent a tempering baptism.

When it stopped, Chen Mu let out a long breath of stale air.

His strength had increased!

This, Chen Mu could feel clearly.

Only he didn't know exactly how much it had increased — that would need to be verified.

"Continue!"

Relaxing his body, Chen Mu lifted his foot and continued weaving between the casually discarded corpses, or simple graves.

After touring every corner of the entire mass grave, he had picked up another nineteen Strength Cards.

Energy Cards, Stamina Cards — a few of each.

During the picking-up process, Chen Mu discovered that not every corpse could yield a card.

Only corpses that had been dead for roughly three days or less, and had not yet rotted over a large area, could be picked from.

This discovery made Chen Mu understand.

The so-called function cards should have been picking up some ability the corpse possessed in life.

Apart from stamina and energy, what else did ordinary people have?

Wasn't it just a bit of brute strength.

To pick up other cards, he'd need to find martial practitioners!

Specifically, martial practitioners who had only recently died.

"Looks like I'll need to wander around the city more too…"

Chen Mu mused.

With twenty Strength Cards used and stacked on his body, he had no idea how much power he now had.

Seeing that it was getting late, Chen Mu left the mass grave and returned to the city.

There was also a mass grave on the west side of Wulong Fucheng.

Tomorrow he'd go wander the west side!

……

Back in the city.

Chen Mu took a roundabout route and entered a street with few pedestrians.

Looking left and right, and taking advantage of the moment when no one was paying attention, Chen Mu walked to a corner, spread his legs apart, and gripped with his right hand a stone lion placed at the base of the wall.

"Lift!"

With a low grunt, the muscles of Chen Mu's arm bulged, and he steadily hoisted the stone lion with one hand, then gently set it back down.

Throughout the whole process, he barely made any strange noise.

"Ha~"

Pulling his hand back, Chen Mu rubbed his wrist, the corners of his mouth turning up.

This stone lion weighed a full three hundred jin, and he could lift it easily with one hand — his strength was at least a thousand jin.

A force of a thousand jin!

The efficacy of the Strength Card was indeed remarkable.

Martial arts cultivation is divided into the Acquired Realm and the Innate Realm.

Each realm is further subdivided into the First to Ninth Stage.

The strength of the First Stage of Heaven of the Acquired Realm is precisely possessing a force of a thousand jin!

Chen Mu had merely made a trip to the mass grave, and already possessed this level of strength.

Of course.

Strength is strength.

The overall power of an Acquired martial artist also includes the sum total of cultivation methods, martial techniques, weapons, real-combat experience, battle awareness, and so on.

Chen Mu's strength had now reached the mark — he had successfully taken the first step.

Cultivation methods? Martial techniques?

Sooner or later he'd pick them up!

……

East District, Changping Ward, Red Date Lane.

Taking advantage of the dusk, Chen Mu returned home.

In the cramped little room where the oil lamp had not yet been lit, besides Huang Feiyang, there was also a plainly dressed, gentle-tempered, pretty young woman standing beside a table missing a corner, taking food out of a carrying basket.

Hearing the footsteps, the woman turned her head to look, smiled, and said, "Huzi is back — go wash your hands quickly and come eat."

"Alright, Sister-in-law." Chen Mu nodded, called out once, and went to fetch a gourd ladle to scoop water.

"I told you to call me Sister Xiuxiu — you forgot again?"

The woman's pretty face flushed slightly as she scolded him, but the corner of her eye stole a glance at Huang Feiyang.

"Next month it'll be that anyway."

Huang Feiyang said calmly, "Calling you early, getting used to it isn't bad either."

Those words made Miao Xiuxiu's face blaze red all at once, and the roots of her ears burned along with it.

"What 'getting used to it,' I don't know what you're talking about."

Flustered, she took out all the food, set it on the table, then picked up her basket and bolted.

"You two brothers eat first, I'll… I'll come back later to clean up."

Finishing in a trembling voice, she darted out the small courtyard gate like she was fleeing, and vanished.

"Brother, you've finally seen the light."

Chen Mu, having washed his hands, walked over and said in a deadpan tone, "If you don't marry her, wait till next year when I've saved enough money — I'll marry Sister Xiuxiu myself."

"Get lost!"

Huang Feiyang swore irritably, "Why are you talking so much today? Usually you can't even squeeze a fart out, right?"

"Eat!"

"…" The corner of Chen Mu's mouth curved up. He said nothing more, picked up his chopsticks, and ate dinner.

Miao Xiuxiu was Huang Feiyang's childhood sweetheart — they had grown up together.

After Chen Mu, whose parents had both died, was rescued by Huang Feiyang and taken in as a distant cousin, Miao Xiuxiu had also been very good to him.

These two could be said to be the most important family Chen Mu had in this world.

……

The next day.

Before dawn, Huang Feiyang, as was his habit, rose early to help Miao Xiuxiu grind tofu.

The latter had set up a tofu stall on the street of Changping Ward.

Chen Mu didn't try to stop him either.

Huang Feiyang's injuries looked frightening, but in reality they were only flesh wounds.

His other, undamaged arm could still push the millstone just fine.

Poor folk aren't that delicate.

Chen Mu lay in bed until dawn, then freshened up a bit, went out to the street, drank a bowl of soy milk, and ate two steamed cornbreads.

Then he greeted Huang Feiyang and headed straight for the city gate, making for the mass grave mound to the west.

Passing through a street intersection, he suddenly heard a commotion.

"Who is this guy? Died so miserably."

"The one who did it was too vicious — look, his belly's been stabbed to mush."

"None of those jianghu types meet a good end, sooner or later they end up corpses in the street — this proves it."

"…"

All sorts of discussion drifted into his ears, and Chen Mu's eyes lit up.

A jianghu martial artist had died?