The Smiling, Proud Wanderer: From the Moment He Picked Up Qu Feiyan

Li Qingde was like a walking corpse, almost entirely driven by instinct to mechanically and rigidly complete every task.

Inspecting the venue, checking procedures, paying attention to the development of equipment, reviewing the list of attendees...

He was so busy that he barely had time to rest, as if doing so would make him forget everything, forget that his death was just a few days away.

Indeed, in his view, the day the sword-testing tournament was held would be the day his death would come.

In fact, the bigger the accident and the more disgraceful the sword-testing tournament becomes for him, the safer he will be. If it were just a problem with the Hundred Refinements Workshop, it would be fine, but this time it will be the entire Songshan Mountain that loses face.

No one would pin such a huge blame on a mere outer disciple like him. Just like how the biggest accidents are less likely to be blamed on temporary workers—that's just fooling idiots, right...?

Li Qingde could already foresee that after this incident, his promising senior brother Shen, due to his arrogance and the disgrace he had brought to the sect, would be ordered to return to Mount Song to be punished. All his talent and ambition would be lost in an instant, and he would probably never have another chance to rise to prominence before he truly mastered martial arts.

Due to his talent in iron forging, management, and business, coupled with his familiarity with Hengyang, he continued to stay at Hengyang Bailianfang to assist the next Songshan disciple who came to take charge.

Life can still go on. That's good, isn't it?

But he couldn't accept it.

Let us drink and sing, for life is short.

For example, the morning dew has a lot of suffering.

Please forgive Li Qingde's arrogance. He is by no means comparing himself to Cao Cao; he simply has some... similar sentiments with the ancients.

At that moment, he felt that he understood, to a limited extent, the feelings that Cao Cao had when he wrote that sentence.

In his youth, he worked as an apprentice in a blacksmith's workshop. Life was tough; he endured the scorching heat of the fire and the beatings and scoldings from his master every day. At that time, he thought that this was how life would be. He would eventually get paid, save up some money, get married, and have a healthy baby boy. That way, he would have done right by his ancestors.

The turning point came when Songshan annexed the blacksmith shop where he worked.

No, we can't use the word "merger"; that would be too kind of an understatement for that little blacksmith shop. It happened naturally, like a drop of water flowing into a river, and no one noticed anything amiss.

The Songshan disciple who was in charge of those blacksmith shops was very reluctant. He felt that dealing with these mundane affairs was a waste of his life, and he was too lazy to even look at the accounts. He would rather spend that time practicing his sword a few more times.

So, the young and clever Li Qingde helped him with those trivial matters. With his ability to read people and his relatively young age, he gained the favor of that disciple and even caught up with the formalization of the expansion of Songshan's industries—bringing those in charge of management into his fold as outer disciples.

From then on, he learned some basic martial arts skills and gradually rose to become the de facto head of a ward.

But once he gained a higher perspective and witnessed the true martial arts world and the magnificent world of Jianghu, his ambitions were no longer as simple as just getting married and having a son.

He wanted to climb higher, to have those high-ranking inner disciples and those famous heroes in the martial arts world look at him with respect, and to have everyone respect him, "Manager Li," who came from a blacksmith background.

But how easy is that?

In this world of martial arts, without martial arts skills, who would respect him?

He thus wasted nearly twenty years in the position of outer disciple and head of a workshop.

No matter how good his swords were, or how much money he earned, he couldn't elevate his status in the slightest.

In other people's eyes, he was ultimately just a... somewhat useful servant.

Until he met Shen An.

A young man with good martial arts talent, an extremely intelligent mind, who, despite being the sect leader's personal disciple, showed no arrogance and was even... not a bad person.

Having spent half his life struggling at the bottom of society, Li Qingde was well aware of the wickedness of human nature. Lacking sufficient martial arts skills to rely on, he would never dare to entrust his life and fortune to a cold-hearted and fickle tyrant. Therefore, after getting to know Shen An, he decided to stake his entire future on him, and everything seemed to be moving towards a brighter future.

But why did it turn out like this?

Li Qingde didn't understand. All he knew was that he was probably the man in the world who hated Tian Boguang the most.

Shen An was well aware of the changes that had occurred in Li Qingde, but he was unable to explain them.

Could it be that he's already mastered his divine skills and will kill that little maid with a single sword strike?

Li Qingde probably thought he had really gone mad.

Trust cannot be forcibly instilled through words.

Fortunately, it won't be long, and he should be fine after the sword-testing tournament.

Shen An didn't say much, but simply delegated more tasks to Li Qingde to keep him busy. He himself, on the other hand, devoted all his attention to another matter.

On the desk in front of him lay a thick stack of files. These were all intelligence reports about Tian Boguang that Feng Changrong had illegally obtained through the Songshan Sect's intelligence network.

In truth, Feng Changrong's responsibility this time is even greater than Li Qingde's. Li Qingde's actions, after all, were still within the scope of his duties, at most a misjudgment. Feng Changrong, however, genuinely violated the sect rules and abused his power.

Shen An originally asked Li Qingde to collect as much as possible, but unexpectedly, Junior Brother Feng took it over himself after learning about it.

This trust made Shen An feel somewhat ashamed.

He flipped through the pages one by one.

Feng Changrong thought he would focus on Tian Boguang's martial arts skills and fighting style, but that was not the case. Shen An was mainly looking at Tian Boguang's crime files.

In the winter of the fourteenth year of the Hongzhi reign, a newlywed woman from the Lin family in Qingzhou Prefecture was humiliated on her way home to her parents' home. Her husband was unable to catch up with her and committed suicide by the roadside.

In the summer of the fifteenth year of the Hongzhi reign, the daughter of a salt merchant in Yangzhou was violated. The thief left a letter saying "we will meet again in a month." The daughter was terrified for more than a month and committed suicide in her boudoir.

In the autumn of the fifteenth year of the Hongzhi reign, the daughter of Zhou, the head constable of Luoyang, was humiliated on her wedding night. Zhou chased after the culprit, but had both legs broken, and died in resentment.

In the summer of the sixteenth year of the Hongzhi reign, a young nun at a nunnery on Mount Tai was humiliated in front of a Buddha statue. She banged her head on the ground, and her brains splattered out.

In the spring of the seventeenth year of the Hongzhi reign, the Wu sisters of Suzhou Prefecture were captured while out at night. The thieves insulted the younger sister in front of the elder sister, causing the elder sister to die of anger and the younger sister to go insane.

In the autumn of the first year of the Zhengde reign, the daughter of the headmaster of an academy in Wuchang Prefecture was humiliated. Her undergarments and engagement hairpin were thrown into the bustling market by thieves, and the father and daughter jumped into the Yangtze River together.

In the spring of the second year of the Zhengde reign, a young woman in Kaifeng was humiliated. The thieves destroyed her wedding dress, and the next day she committed suicide with a hairpin in her bridal sedan chair.

In the summer of the third year of the Zhengde reign, in the Qin family of Hanzhong Prefecture, a thief insulted the mother in front of the son and then left. The entire Qin family committed suicide.

……

The handwriting on the case file, cold and objective, depicts a series of heartbreaking human tragedies.

Shen An's anger grew stronger as he looked at it, wishing he could skin it, eat its flesh, and suck its blood.

Yes, he's building up his strength.

He will surely kill this scoundrel.