Qin Ming noted that his younger self dressed poorly. But soon the little book drew his gaze.
A very thin old tome. When opened, it proved to be silk manuscripts within.
The animal-hide cover had likely been bound on later — dark, coarse, tough, meant to guard the true scriptures within.
The first page recorded the "wild techniques" he knew far too well.
Then the callused hand turned the second page — partly new words and diagrams. Qin Ming memorized it all.
These were his faded childhood recollections. He was passing through a Second New Life; his body had surged, his spiritual awareness sharpened, brushing away the dust of time so he could glimpse the past once more.
Half awake, half dreaming, he wanted the third page. But the great hand did not open it.
He tried again and again, but the third refused to open.
So he studied his young self. That small figure wore ragged clothes.
His younger self had lived in poverty. The faded garments bore patches; the cuffs were worn; his little shoes had holes.
Two years ago he had collapsed outside Silver Elm Town and been carried back to Twin Tree Village.
"At fourteen..." his hand went to his head. Near the base of his skull there had once been a wound that bled profusely.
He was awake, not groping in a dream. His fingers touched the spot once drenched in blood. No scar — it must have vanished during his first New Life.
"My childhood self. My fourteen-year-old self. Two special junctures, sharply severed memories."
It was in his fourteenth year that he had drifted through hardship — why he was now more mature than others his age.
Qin Ming looked outward. The heavy darkness was receding.
In the courtyard, breathing the biting cold, he ran through his childhood memories once more.
Then he displayed the movements he had never practiced, and the methods for regulating breath and spirit.
It was a long while before he stopped. His body was still scalding, but it no longer glowed.
"That rough, great hand..." Its cuffs were worn, its palm thick with calluses — proof its owner had lived as plainly as his childhood self, worse off than he was now.
He wished to see that small hand and that great hand clasped together, to mend the regret of years without seeing his kin.
"The Second New Life isn't finished. Tonight I'll keep eating Blood Snake stocked with spiritual essence. As my body grows, my mind-power follows. In my subconscious dream I might see the past again."
These thoughts left Qin Ming brimming with energy. He weighed a stone millstone — it felt light!
He estimated he could now shoulder fifteen hundred jin.
Shallow Night arrived. Qin Ming rinsed his burning body. Today he wouldn't hunt; he would study the new scriptures.
"Why did she say it could never be practiced?" He hoped deep night would show him the reason.
The snowstorm stopped, and the night lightened — the "clear day" of an age without a sun.
Though he'd seen only two pages, the writing was dense. The second page held much entirely new to him — memories resurfaced, needing careful study.
"So exquisite. Too bad I can't compare it with the intermediate meditation art or the advanced qi circulation manual."
In this remote land, besides the tome, he had only read the Dark Night Meditation Art Primer.
The tome mentioned "Heaven Light," but only in passing, never explaining "Heaven Light Force" — much less the "Rulai Force" everyone exalted.
Qin Ming frowned. The tome was extraordinary — so why did it hold back on Heaven Light?
Reading with care, he finally guessed: the tome said more with the most economical words. If one practiced faithfully, Heaven Light would naturally be born in the flesh and blood.
Only that Heaven Light Force truly wasn't described anywhere.
"The tome talks of raising life's level, without any means of guarding one's path?" The guess left him stunned.
At noon, Qin Ming massaged his temples. A half-day's study had tired him, but he had grasped the new contents.
Practicing again, his motions were smooth and unblocked, fusing with his surroundings. Most important — the warmth inside surged. The silver ripples on his body crystallized, as if turning toward "silver mud."
The tome never said what level one would reach. So he couldn't judge how well he trained.
He stopped to rest. Even standing still, he looked natural and spirited.
"Xiao Qin, come out! Let's view the ruins." Xu Yueping came calling.
"What ruins?" he asked.
"The mountain patrol's outpost. Let's see what that brilliant mountain god — ah no, mountain freak — left behind." He lowered his voice: "Let's see if it left anything good."
This was no whim. The village heads, having resolved to stop planting Black Moon, decided together to check that outpost.
"Let's go!" Qin Ming nodded.
These days, even New Lifers dared venture deeper only in small groups. Alone, the forest was too dangerous.
Not everyone was like Qin Ming, who could walk the mountains alone.
"There's a stash of fine wine here." Qin Ming knew this outpost well — the glint of blades that snowy night still floated before his eyes.
Xu Yueping and Yang Yongqing rushed over, overjoyed.
Old Liu laughed his old face into a bloom and shot over with a spring of half a zhang.
Qin Ming laughed. "Uncle Liu, see? Yesterday I said I'd offer you ten jars, and today we find a pile. Let's split it."
"Good, good, good!" Old Liu itched to crack the seals.
"Coming to the patrol's grave to dig — don't I feel wonderful, heh." Xu Yueping couldn't stop laughing.
In the end, Shuangshun Village carried off thirty-odd jars, and the rest was split among the others.
Though Qin Ming had found it, he couldn't hog it all — otherwise someone might cause trouble.
In fact, the patrol's investigators had found the wine before, but passed it over: duty pressed, and they scorned the vintage.
When word spread, the outpost was "dug" by all sides.
"Could this man have killed everyone in the patrol?" Qin Ming was surprised, seeing a portrait after returning from the mountains.
It was that man with the green-black visage. The way he held his sword and slew the Blood Snake carried real flair.
Silver Elm Town had sent out portraits, warning each village to report any sightings.
The patrol wasn't a soft target. Its top man was an important figure from Redcloud City.
"Wang Nianzhu. He looks dashing — I never imagined." Qin Ming hadn't expected to learn the man's name after killing him.
"You didn't die in obscurity. At least every town is posting your portrait." He glanced a few times and left.
"Which house, which organization — I hope the patrol finds out." Then he thought of Golden Ridge and the Three-Eyed Church.
Deep in the night, after eating Blood Snake flesh, his body turned scorching and began to glow — much as before.
At last he slept in his "Golden Thread Jade Garment."
Qin Ming saw his younger self again. Though poor, with tattered shoes, the boy seemed full of perseverance, practicing the tome's method over and over.
"If it had an extraordinary origin, why couldn't it be practiced?" The little boy was stubborn.
"Long ago, a remarkable person practiced the tome's method — and trained himself to death. And he was one of its founders." The great hand stroked the cover.
"Huh?" Little Qin Ming was baffled.
"Some paths are too glorious. Others promise nothing ahead. Several old fellows studied together, wanting to rival those brilliant roads. But in the end they set aside their achievements, switched to this method — and died, or were wounded, or walked off into the dark ends of the earth. They couldn't practice it. How could anyone after them?"
"If it can't be practiced, why leave it behind?" the child asked.
"The parts that failed were torn away. Only a little over half remains — and even that needs someone who practiced it to help one enter. So this tome is just to look at."
"And the big part that was torn off?" He wouldn't give up, because this was the only fine method he could obtain.
"Burned."
Little Qin Ming fell silent, staring at his little shoes with the toes poking out.
Shallow Night came. Qin Ming woke. He'd thought he'd won a celestial scroll. It seemed he'd wished for too much.
But then he grew distracted. No one had helped him, yet he had still practiced the first two pages.
"And what if I did succeed? The rest is burned. The founders struggled with it till death. The others should be long gone too."
Qin Ming rose, feeling his own changes. This Second New Life, aided by spiritual essence, had been swift and fierce — and he had succeeded.
He felt even a single arm carried a thousand jin of strength.
Two days later, word came: the high-ranking would hold a final negotiation with the top-tier aberrants at the mountain's entrance.
By then, many were already waiting.
A donkey came strolling over the snow, unhurried.
"This must be some big shot's mount from Redcloud City, right?"
As it drew near, people saw its back wasn't empty. A creature sat cross-legged there — but it was not human. It was a pure-white weasel, utterly still, meditating like an old monk in trance.
The first being to appear was already so strange that many dared not speak.