Martial Arts Awakening, Bloodfire Fist Master

Zhangjia Village in Xiaoqing Township is a small mountain village nestled at the foot of Xiaoqing Mountain. It is about 30 miles from Qingshui City, which is not far.

Especially for a martial artist like Zhang Qingshan with his superb physical strength, this short distance, even when carrying heavy loads, is a journey he can take with ease. Martial artists and ordinary people are practically two different species.

The village has more than 30 households and more than 200 people. Except for the village chief's house in the middle of the village, which has blue bricks and black tiles, most of the other houses are thatched houses built of mud and stones.

The houses were all similarly constructed: a few mud-walled, thatched-roof houses, with a dry toilet and pigsty or chicken coop on the edge or side. There was also a yard surrounded by a fence of moderate height, with a field on one side and either a small vegetable garden or a few scattered fruit trees on the other.

Those with slightly better conditions might have kept one or two mongrels, which were also skin and bones.

Oh, and many of these places also feature hunchbacked, thin old men and women pulling weeds, and little kids with thick snot running down their noses.

That afternoon.

The sun was shining brightly. Under the big locust tree at the village entrance, several elderly people who were no longer able to work were basking in the sun on the bluestone circle, squinting at the sky. It was hard to tell whether they were reminiscing about the past or waiting for death.

Not far away, a group of children were either playing with pebbles or observing ants.

The boys and girls were dressed in tattered and dirty clothes, thin and underdeveloped, with dry and scabbed hair. Their bodies, barely visible, were all skin and bones. When they played, a breeze would blow out a string of yellow snot that was about to fall into their mouths. Then they would sniff it, and the long snot would be sucked back into their noses.

Numerous children, one breath in and one breath out, creating a spectacular scene.

Suddenly a child looked up, his eyes wide with surprise, and shouted, "Someone's here! Go get help!"

During this period, it is said that natural disasters and man-made calamities have occurred one after another in the deeper territories of the Great Yan. Even though Zhangjia Village is remote, refugees occasionally pass through. Therefore, the adults have long warned these children to be careful if they encounter strangers coming to Zhangjia Village.

"Hey, those people carrying things aren't beggars, they're peddlers. I need to ask my parents to buy me something."

"I think I've seen this person before."

Hearing the noise of her friends around her, six or seven-year-old Zhang Xiaocao curiously looked up.

then!

He opened his mouth, snot almost dripping into it. This person looked just like his third brother, but his third brother wasn't this tall, this strong, his eyes weren't this bright, he wasn't this energetic, and he didn't have as much stuff, nor could he afford such nice clothes...

His clothes, which looked rather shabby in the martial arts school, were considered by the people of Zhangjia Village to be the most respectable of all.

I rubbed my eyes and watched the person getting closer and closer.

And that familiar smile, *whoosh*, with a forceful twitch of the nose, the snot flew back.

"Third Brother!"

She happily pounced on it.

Zhang Qingshan hesitated for a moment, then supported his little sister's forehead with one finger. He looked around the roadside and found a soft leaf before helping her blow her nose.

He then scooped up his younger sister, hoisted her onto his shoulder, and pulled out a piece of candy. "Let's go home."

"Candy? This is candy?" Zhang Xiaocao was completely dizzy, her eyes squinting with joy. What a wonderful day it was that she actually got to eat candy.

When they passed by the big locust tree, they saw the drooling looks on other people's faces. After thinking for a moment, they gave each of the children and the elderly there a piece of candy before taking Zhang Xiaocao home with a happy expression.

Zhang Qingshan's family wasn't very large. His grandparents had passed away. His father's generation consisted of two brothers and one sister: his father, Zhang Dagui; his second uncle, Zhang Ergui; and his aunt, Zhang Xiu.

My second uncle never got married for some reason. In his generation, there were four sisters in his family: the eldest sister Zhang Xiaolian, the second sister Zhang Xiaoyan, and the youngest sister Zhang Xiaocao.

It was obvious that Zhang Qingshan was the only boy in the family, so he was quite spoiled from a young age.

When he said he was going out to make his way in the world, his family tried to dissuade him, but then prepared his luggage, food, and travel expenses.

He spent ten coins a day learning boxing while doing manual labor, and he didn't send any money back home. His family not only didn't complain, but they would also occasionally ask someone to bring him snacks and dry food.

The eldest and second eldest sisters were limited by the times and had no concept of boxing. Instead, they took great care of the only son of the Zhang family to carry on the family line, and felt it was only natural. Even though the eldest sister had married into the family, she would still occasionally send things back. If it were before the time travel, she would definitely be a brother-supporting demon.

Although his family was poor when he was young, Zhang Qingshan never really suffered from hunger or cold.

Watching Zhang Qingshan carrying his younger sister on a shoulder pole.

The elderly people stared wide-eyed.

"This kid hasn't been out for long, how come he's gotten so strong?"

"Didn't you say you went to do manual labor? You're eating so well. Wait a minute, I have relatives who have done it too. I heard it's really tough there."

Back in my familiar fenced yard, everyone in the family had gone out to work.

There are three earthen bedrooms, a central hall, and a kitchen, toilet, and pigsty with a shed next to it. When someone appears in the yard, the pigs in the pigsty grunt, indicating that they want to eat and be let out.

The pigs of this era had no feed or sweet potatoes or cornmeal to eat, so they were not very big and were quite thin. Occasionally, when there was free time, they would be let out to look for food.

When Zhang Qingshan first awakened his innate wisdom, he thought this pristine rural village was an ordinary world. Little did he know that outside Zhangjia Village lived a world of terrifyingly powerful martial arts masters who could lift a thousand pounds, foreign demons, and extraordinary industries.

Thinking about all this, I sighed inwardly. If it weren't for the storms from the outside world, these villagers could stay here, even if they couldn't have enough to eat every day, they could still survive. In some ways, they would be slightly better off than the poorest people in the city.

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a secluded paradise. There are gangsters and thugs in the market, wealthy families in the village, bandits in the next village, and migrants passing by. Even those who gather herbs, chop wood, and hunt in the mountains are exploited by the mountain gangs.

Even if you don't deal with these, there are still government officials and tax collectors, exorbitant taxes, and forced labor levies.

Everyone is living life to the fullest.

Looking at the virtual light screen that appeared in front of me, I would have felt gloomy and hopeless if it weren't for the golden finger that gave me hope.

News travels fast in the small village; someone was already excitedly shouting, "Da Gui, your child is back!"

A while later, my parents, second sister, second uncle, and others rushed back.

The fastest to run were his father and second uncle. They thought something had happened to Zhang Qingshan, otherwise why would he come back instead of working?

Seeing that he was all safe and sound, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Then they noticed that he seemed to have changed into a completely different person, both in his demeanor and clothes, as well as the things piled up in the main room of his house.

Zhang Dagui's eyes widened. "Qingshan, you...you didn't do anything bad, did you?"

My second uncle also said with a serious expression, "You must never lend money to loan sharks in the city. Someone in the next village borrowed money from the city, and now their whole family has been arrested. I heard they're going to be skinned alive and dismembered to pay back the money."

The second sister, who rushed back later, also looked happy. She touched Zhang Qingshan's clothes with her rough hands, pinched his arm, and compared their heights.

"Little brother, is the food outside that good? It's only been two months, how come you've grown so tall?"

Seeing her younger sister rummaging through those things, she asked, "There's so much stuff here. How did you manage to pick it all out? Wait, Uncle said you've lost some weight the other day. Is this the effect of practicing boxing? What kind of boxing is that? Does it really have martial arts?"

Before Zhang Qingshan could answer any of the questions, Liu Fa, a neighbor who had been watching the commotion, couldn't hold back any longer. "Not everyone in Zhangjia Village has the surname Zhang," he said.

"Da Gui, Er Gui, Xiao Yan, didn't you see? Your Qingshan just carried one or two hundred pounds of stuff, with some grass on his shoulder, walking with such a brisk pace! That strength, wow!"

He gave a thumbs-up and said, "With this strength, Qingshan will definitely be a good worker in the future and won't lack wives."

Finally, he rubbed his hands together and laughed, "Qingshan, look, Dalong grew up with you. The dockworkers' job is so good. You can learn boxing, grow taller, and buy clothes and other things. Why don't you introduce Dalong to them too?"

Not only him, but other neighbors who were watching the spectacle were also eager to try it out. They were all full of longing for manual labor and other similar industries, as if, based on Zhang Qingshan's example, they thought that the gangs in the city were great philanthropists.

Zhang Qingshan thought about it and worried that they might misjudge the situation and be led astray.

So, while drinking the cool well water, they began to tell stories of the laborers who were whipped and drowned, the boatmen who died from exhaustion, the water ghosts who died without a complete corpse, and the cart drivers whose lungs exploded...

Hearing the group of people shouting and screaming, their faces turned pale with fear, and they no longer had the idea that working in the city was like picking up money.

Of course, some people have questioned this, citing Zhang Qingshan's example.

Zhang Qingshan then fabricated a series of stories about how he narrowly escaped death under Master Ma's oppression, how he accidentally discovered that he had some talent for martial arts, how he accidentally received funding, and how he underwent a series of tests, all of which involved a great deal of risk before he was able to enter the martial arts school.

Then, the news that Zhang Qingshan had entered the legendary martial arts school to learn martial arts spread, causing an even greater sensation throughout the village.