Chapter 138 Day 2 of Transmigrating into an Imperial Examination Novel

Chapter 138: Day Two of Being Transmigrated into an Imperial Exam Novel

With that done, An Yi turned and walked toward the creaking wooden door that looked ready to fall apart.

He reached out and slowly pushed it open.

"Creak——"

The afternoon sunlight streamed into the room, a little too bright, chasing away some of the gloom, and bringing with it the unique air of the courtyard, mingled with the earthy scent of grass and soil—much better than the stifling, bitter smell of medicine that clung to the room.

He stepped out of the small house and stood in the tiny courtyard.

The yard was just as run-down, with weeds growing unchecked in the corners and piles of junk against the walls—clearly neglected.

An Yi tilted his head back slightly, letting the warm sunlight fall on his face, and took a deep breath of the air—tinged with poverty, but incredibly real and free.

A new world, a new identity.

The road ahead was unknown, but... that was okay.

An Yi narrowed his eyes slightly, his long, thick eyelashes casting faint shadows beneath them, fully drinking in the warmth of the sun on his skin.

Warm and comforting.

An Yi pushed open the equally shabby wicker gate—a crude thing lashed together with twigs of different sizes, and stepped into the village—a place both strange and, thanks to the original owner's memories, vaguely familiar.

It was mid-afternoon, and though the sun generously poured over the land, it seemed to skip this narrow dirt road, leaving it gloomy and empty.

On both sides of the dirt road, low adobe houses were scattered here and there, occasionally showing a slightly better stone brick dwelling, all with their doors tightly shut.

From deeper in the village came distant roosters crowing and dogs barking, only making the sheer quiet around him more stark.

Now and then, a villager coming from or going to the fields, hoe over shoulder and mud on their pant legs, would glance at An Yi as he stepped outside. Their looks were complicated—curious, appraising, but mostly filled with undisguised pity.

An Yi paid them no mind.

Look all you want.

Unruffled, he strolled around the courtyard, making mental notes of where the nearby houses stood, the village well, and the trails out of the village.

Just as he was about to head back, a commotion unlike the usual sounds of field work erupted up ahead.

With his supernaturally sharp hearing, he easily picked out the details: a young man's sharp curses, the muffled thuds of fists, and a stifled, pained groan.

The sound of a fight.

A brawl already, his first day here?

An Yi stopped, listened for a second, and quickly pinpointed where it was coming from.

The racket grew louder, the curses more distinct, and… from the direction, it sounded like it was right behind his house.

He mulled it over for a moment.

A fight right at his doorstep — he had to go see.

At the very least, he needed to make sure this mess didn't spill over into his already rickety little house.

This was his property in this world.

He owned a house as soon as he got here.

An Yi followed the sounds, quietly weaving around tall haystacks and piles of junk, until he reached the back of his house.

The scene before him confirmed what he had heard.

Sure enough, it was a beating.

Six half-grown boys around twelve or thirteen years old, dressed in coarse cloth, were surrounding a figure in the center, landing punches and kicks while hurling filthy curses:

"Kill the Lone Star!"

"Freak who brought death to your whole family! Get out of our village!"

"Still daring to stare at me! I'll beat you until you call me grandpa!"

"We'll make you just like your paralyzed uncle!"

The boy trapped in the center looked no older than fourteen or fifteen—slightly taller than his attackers, but thinner and frailer.

He wore a patched, faded coarse shirt, his messy hair partly concealing his face. His body and face were caked with dust, his lip split, with blood seeping out sharply against his pale skin.

Yet, surprisingly, it was the attackers surrounding him who appeared more injured and disheveled.

One was clutching an eye and howling, tears streaming; another was hopping on one leg, holding his shin and grimacing; a third bore fresh bloody scratches across his face, as if clawed.

The reason was simple—the boy in the middle fought like he didn't care if he lived or died.

He barely tried to defend himself. He just took the punches and kicks like a cornered wolf cub, only counterattacking, aiming straight for the most painful spots—kicking shins, ramming chins, even using his nails to scratch, headbutting... using every dirty trick he could.

That ferocity made the half-grown boys encircling him hesitant, unwilling to really hurt him badly.

An Yi's gaze cut through the flying dust and chaotic crowd, and for a split second, he met the boy's eyes through the gaps in his messy black hair.

What kind of eyes were those?

There was no fear, no pleading, not even anger—only a primal, icy brutality and ferocity, like a poisoned dagger, fixed on every one of his attackers, as if ready to lunge at any moment and tear out their throats at any cost.

He had seen that look in many people before, all of them desperate outlaws.

At almost the same moment, fragments of the original owner's memories of the boy surfaced in An Yi's mind.

Qin Cang.

A child even more unlucky than the original owner—seen as an even bigger jinx by the villagers.

An Yi's mind quickly flashed through the original owner's scattered memories of Qin Cang.

Originally, Qin Cang was the only son of the village's most skilled carpenter, Carpenter Qin, and his family was fairly well-off by village standards.

But his fate had been cruel. Shortly after his birth, his parents—because of their exceptional skills—were summoned by a wealthy household in the town to work on a project. They must have offended someone, for soon after, both died in an "accident," and the family's fortunes went downhill from there.

He was left to be raised by his elderly grandfather, still a baby.

But fate didn't stop there.

When he was eight years old, the grandfather who had raised him with such hardship also died from overwork and illness.

Those relatives who had never shown up before came swarming like vultures catching the scent of carrion, circling the Qin family's remaining fields, house, and meager savings, eager to carve them up.

At the time, only eight years old, Qin Cang somehow pulled out a rusty hatchet, his eyes bloodshot, like a wolf cub's, and stood guard at the broken door of his home. He screamed and roared at the scheming adults, threatening to hack anyone who came near.

That desperate ferocity actually scared off those bullies who preyed on the weak.

In the end, the fields were taken by those relatives under various pretexts of "safekeeping" and "looking after the family," but the ancestral house and the last bit of cash were preserved, thanks to the self-destructive ferocity of this eight-year-old child.