In Yun'an City of the Great Wei Dynasty.
The early summer shower was like a petty thief who sneaked into a boudoir at night. It came in a rush with strong winds and heavy rain, and left in a hurry. All it left behind were the muddy water stains in the gullies and the pear blossoms on the tree still glistening with raindrops.
When the wind stopped and the rain ceased, the streets of the capital gradually came to life. The common people successively stepped out of their homes, and peddlers and porters were crying out their wares along the street:
"Steamed stuffed buns—"
"Selling coal..."
...
Amid the noisy sounds all over the street, a motorcade slowly came from the street entrance of Tianshui Bridge.
Behind were the carriages, and in front were thirteen armed men escorting the carriages. They all wore coir raincoats and bamboo hats, and had swords strapped behind their waists. They looked travel-worn.
In the important area of the capital, such a team with a strong sense of the martial arts world was really rare. Many passers-by cast sidelong glances at them. Then they saw that the leader of the motorcade was a young man.
Under the coir raincoat, the young man was dressed in a black robe. A big white bird was perched on his shoulder. He was tall, with fair skin. His black eyes glistened brightly, and his sword-shaped eyebrows added a bit of sharpness to his handsome face.
"Wow—Mom, look! That big brother is so handsome!"
"Shh~ Don't shout randomly. Aren't you ashamed?"
"That bird is so fat~"
"Jiji?"
"Hey? It can understand human speech!"
...
The young man in black seemed not to hear the praises from the young women and matrons on the street. Without looking to the sides, he led the team to the outside of Zhenyuan Escort Agency at the end of the street.
All the shops on Tianshui Bridge had the family emblem with the character "Pei", and the Zhenyuan Escort Agency was no exception.
The family that could buy a whole street in the expensive capital city was obviously not a small or insignificant one. It had great prestige. Outside the tall gate of the escort agency with yellow wood and green tiles, there were often two escort guards standing there to maintain the appearance.
Seeing an unfamiliar motorcade arriving at the door, one of the escort guards stepped forward, cupped his hands and performed a martial arts salute:
"Who might you be, sir?"
"Ye Jingtang."
The escort guard looked confused and swept a glance at the group of martial men with an imposing manner:
"I've never heard of your name, sir. Are you here to send goods by escort, or..."
"To challenge this place."
"..."
When these words were spoken, the street fell silent.
All the passers-by who had been strolling around gathered around. Even the hawker selling wontons by the street put down his soup ladle, wiped his hands on his apron, and stood on tiptoe to take a look:
"What's going on?"
"He's here to challenge. This kind of scene is really rare in the capital city..."
...
The two escort guards outside the escort agency saw that the young man in black came with ill intentions, and their faces all turned serious.
An ordinary hot-headed young man would probably shout to drive him away, but the thirteen riders outside all had swords with them, and their imposing manner was like they were here to wipe out a whole family. They were not easy to provoke. The escort guards still looked relatively polite. They cupped their hands and said:
"This is an important area of the capital. Private fights are strictly prohibited. Our master is an honest businessman who abides by the law. We can't accept the matter of a challenge. If you have a dispute with our master, you can beat the grievance drum and we can go to the yamen to reason..."
When these words were spoken, the onlookers immediately began to boo:
"Eee..."
"You're supposed to be a martial artist. Now that someone has come to your door to challenge, is it appropriate for you to tell them to report to the authorities?"
"That's right..."
...
The young man in black untied the saber from behind his waist and threw it to the person behind him. He stood there bare-handed and said:
"Tell your head escort to come out. I'll leave after a fight."
Seeing that all the neighbors had gathered around, the escort guards looked unhappy. One person beside them ran towards the street, looking like he wanted to report to the authorities.
Unfortunately, he had just run a few steps when he was blocked by the swordsman behind the young man in black.
"Hey! You..."
As soon as this action was taken, seven or eight people rushed out from behind the gate of the escort agency, holding swords and spears, with angry expressions on their faces.
From inside the escort agency, a powerful voice also came:
"Young man, it's okay to be young and full of vigor, but you should keep your eyes open..."
Everyone turned to look and saw a person walking out from the main room in the courtyard of the escort agency. He was wearing a brocade robe, had a burly figure, and was twirling two iron walnuts in his right hand full of calluses.
Kaka...
When the escort guards outside saw this, they quickly called out:
"Master Chen, this young man is causing trouble."
The onlookers became excited and chattered:
"Chen Biao has come out."
"Will this handsome young man be beaten to death?"
"How can there be a death in the capital? At most, he'll be beaten until he spits out blood."
"He's so handsome. It would be a pity if he's beaten until he spits out blood."
Shua—
Before the crowd could say a few more words, they suddenly heard a soft sound of breaking through the wind on the street.
Many escort guards and passers-by only felt a blur in front of their eyes. The young man in black who was originally sitting on the horse somehow exerted his strength and soared into the air. He leaped over the more than ten feet high gate of the escort agency and crashed into the courtyard of the escort agency.
Chen Biao, who had just walked out from the house, was so startled by this scene that he trembled. Instinctively, he threw out the two iron walnuts, but the young man in the black robe swept them away with a wave of his sleeve. Then, like an eagle pouncing on a rabbit, he grabbed Chen Biao's neck with one hand.
Peng—
In the blink of an eye, the tall and burly Chen Biao was pressed against the doorpost behind him, knocking off several black tiles from the eaves.
Patta—
The tiles fell to the ground and shattered into pieces, which also made more than ten escort guards in the courtyard tremble in fright, their eyes filled with horror.
Chen Biao was so frightened that his face turned pale, and he didn't even have the intention to resist. He shouted urgently:
"Sir, wait a moment! I'm just a head escort. If you have a grudge, go to our master. Don't come at me..."
Since Chen Biao could still speak, it was obvious that the young man hadn't used a deadly move.
The young man in the black robe grabbed Chen Biao's neck with one hand and tilted his head to signal an old swordsman outside:
"His name is Yang Chao. From now on, he will be the head escort, and you will be the second in command. Do you understand?"
Chen Biao was confused, but with his neck being choked, he didn't dare to retort. He just spread his hands and said:
"Sir, our business is a regular one that pays business taxes on time. It's not a martial arts stronghold. Without our master's consent, even if you beat me to death, I can't make the decision..."
"My father is Pei Yuanfeng, the younger brother of your master. He asked me to bring the family property here for you. From now on, they will be people of the Zhenyuan Escort Agency. If they are mistreated, I will hold you accountable."
Chen Biao was taken aback. He sized up the young man in black a few times and asked in surprise and doubt:
"Are you the son of the Second Master?! Why do you have the surname Ye?"
Ye Jingtang didn't answer. After saying these words, he took out a stack of official banknotes with a face value of one hundred taels each and slapped them on Chen Biao's chest, then turned around and left.
Outside the door, the neighbors were all stunned and whispered to each other:
"What amazing martial arts skills..."
"Is this the young master of the Pei family?"
"It sounds like it... There used to be a second son in the Pei family, but that was twenty or thirty years ago..."
...
The twelve escort guards who had followed had complex expressions. The leading Escort Yang handed the saber to Ye Jingtang who walked out of the door and advised:
"Young master, why do you have to do this? The old master liked to talk nonsense when drunk. You don't have to take it seriously. Now that you've left home with nothing, where can you go?"
"The martial arts world."
Ye Jingtang took the saber and put it back on his waist. He let his pet bird perch on his shoulder, looked at the rising sun in the distance, and took a gentle breath.
His figure seemed free and easy, but in his clear eyes, there flashed a trace of confusion that "although the world is vast, there is nowhere to find a place to settle down".
It had been eighteen years since he came to this dynasty named the "Great Wei".
When his memories gradually woke up at the age of two or three, Ye Jingtang had been living in an escort agency in a small border town of the Great Wei. He was an abandoned child picked up by the master of the escort agency, Pei Yuanfeng, during his escort mission. Because he had a loud cry, Pei Yuanfeng named him "Ye Jingtang" and adopted him as his foster son.
Pei Yuanfeng was injured in a fight when he was young. He never married for the rest of his life and had no children. He showed "great concern" for the growth of his foster son—beating him three times a day, and doubling it during festivals—He forced Ye Jingtang, who had the extravagant hope of becoming famous by "copying poems, brewing wine, and making soap", to become the top escort fighter in the escort agency through his frequent beatings.
Just last month, Pei Yuanfeng was addicted to alcohol. After getting extremely drunk, he died at the dining table.
When Ye Jingtang was handling the aftermath, he found a letter among Pei Yuanfeng's belongings.
The letter was written in advance in case of an accident. It only stated three things:
First: Pei Yuanfeng was not an ordinary person. He used to be a renowned martial arts master in the martial arts world. He had planned to teach Ye Jingtang the "peerless saber technique" after he reached adulthood and he could see his true character. But if Ye Jingtang could read this letter, it meant that he didn't have this luck. Since they were father and son for a while, Ye Jingtang had to find his own way to practice the saber and seek revenge from the person who had injured Pei Yuanfeng back then.
Since Pei Yuanfeng was already dead, whether he was really a master or not didn't matter anymore. It was only natural for a son to avenge his father, and Ye Jingtang had no objection to this.
Perhaps afraid that Ye Jingtang had no place to learn advanced martial arts, Pei Yuanfeng also told him a secret, which was the second thing—when the previous dynasty was destroyed, Pei Yuanfeng's master took the opportunity to sneak into the imperial palace and stole the incomplete scroll of the "Minglong Tu".
It was rumored that the "Minglong Tu" was a supreme secret manual, recording nine kinds of mysterious and strange secret techniques. Obtaining one of them could make one overpower ordinary people, and learning all of them could lead to immortality and ascending to become an immortal.
But at that time, the battle was too fierce, and he couldn't take it out of the imperial palace. He buried it on the spot under a ginkgo tree in the "imperial harem". Pei Yuanfeng told Ye Jingtang that if he had the opportunity, he must enter the palace to retrieve it.
When Ye Jingtang read this, he was quite speechless.
Judging from the description, the "Minglong Tu" should be the "cheat code" or "golden finger" that he had been longing for for eighteen years.
This kind of unique and precious treasure in the world, of course he wanted it, but it was buried in the "imperial harem" of the imperial city. How could he, a grown man, go to get it? Was he supposed to castrate himself and sneak in as a eunuch?
To practice this skill, one must first castrate oneself?
This was like saying nothing. The thing that had the greatest impact on Ye Jingtang was the last thing:
Pei Yuanfeng left home when he was young and never returned until his death. He felt that he owed his parents. He asked Ye Jingtang to sell the property of the escort agency and send it to the Pei family in the capital city, without mentioning leaving a single penny for him.
If Ye Jingtang hadn't seen the letter, he wouldn't have known that his lonely and helpless adoptive father had a brother.
After all, they were father and son for a while. He hadn't fulfilled his filial duties, and he had also worked hard at home for so many years. Directly asking him to leave home with nothing and giving the family property to his relatives really seemed that Pei Yuanfeng didn't regard him as a son.
An ordinary person would definitely ignore this letter, since no one else knew about it.
But Ye Jingtang was different. His previous life was already in the past. In this world, he only had one family member. Although they had no blood relationship, Pei Yuanfeng picking him up and raising him to adulthood was already showing the utmost kindness and righteousness to him. He hadn't even had the chance to repay his kindness and fulfill his filial duties.
In the end, Ye Jingtang still followed the will. He sold the escort agency in the small border town, exchanged it for one thousand taels of silver, and brought twelve escort guards who were willing to follow and their families all the way to the capital city of the Great Wei.
Ye Jingtang was a man of seven feet. He couldn't live under someone else's roof.
Now that he had settled down the old people under his adoptive father and handed over the family property to the Pei family, Ye Jingtang had completely bid farewell to the past and became a wandering martial artist in the martial arts world with no one to rely on and able to adapt to any situation.
He didn't know where he came from in the past, and he didn't know where he would go in the future. There was only one person, one bird, and one saber left. He said he was going to the "martial arts world", but standing at the street corner and looking around blankly, where was the "martial arts world"?
Ye Jingtang led a black horse, passed through the bustling crowd, and walked along the street aimlessly, looking a bit distracted.
But he had just walked a few steps when two crisp sounds suddenly came from beside him.
"Dangdang—"
A support rod that held up the open window fell from the second floor and rolled to his feet.
He raised his eyes and looked at the window on the second floor, and then a charming and graceful figure came into his sight...