Chapter 623
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Chapter 623: The Dragon-Eating Sparrow
The level of civilization in this world is low.
Poor people don’t know how to read, so they think life for rich people is very easy.
How can humans survive and thrive?
By using brute force.
By having more people.
Monsters and beasts are causing chaos on the land, while different countries are still fighting each other.
What is it like to be an ordinary person in this world?
The answer is… just staying alive is a victory.
Maybe realizing that this world isn’t very friendly to regular people, so as long as you can live past twenty years, you can get an A grade.
When Bai Wei arrived in this world, he was already fifteen years old, gaining consciousness, continuing memories, and happening to be in the middle of a selection ceremony.
As expected, he didn’t make the cut, performing at an average level.
This means he has to leave the village, fend for himself, seek out a new place to settle, because the village can’t support too many people.
Bai Wei’s ordinary abilities determined that he lacked natural talent for anything he did in his life. He could learn and learn well, but that was it.
In reality, he also had a skill in blacksmithing, but unfortunately, there was no opportunity for him to demonstrate it in the village, as there was no blacksmith shop and they used bronze instead of iron.
Bai Wei could work with iron, but not with smelting iron.
The bigger problem was that he couldn’t read the local language and had no way to accurately explain things to the villagers.
In the end, he was forced to leave the village along with other unfortunate folks, expelled and had to find a way to cross the five huge mountains in front of him, heading to other lands to make a living.
Twelve people left the village in total – six were young and strong, while the other six were old, weak, or sick. That same night, they encountered attacks from strange beasts and monsters, with more than half of them dying. Bai Wei found a waterway while running and, after washing away his scent, he walked continuously for three days and nights before leaving the village. Just as he had left the mountains behind, he ran into robbers and, from being a villager, became a wanderer and then a captive slave.
He was sold to work on a farm.
Faced with a group of illiterate peasant farmers who also worked the fields like him, Bai Wei tried to rally the farmers to stand up and overthrow the landowners. The others, after eating the food he had saved up, immediately agreed, but the next day they sold him out.
Because everyone here knew that working the land could at least provide a living for over a decade, with food, drink, and a place to stay. Leaving here, they might die within a few days.
When the landlord met Bai Wei and listened to his lengthy speech, he initially believed him. But when he found out that Bai Wei couldn’t read and was just a common villager, he lost interest immediately.
He was assigned to dig stones.
The death rate in the mine was very high, and the stones had to be moved using physical strength and simple mechanical devices.
Bai Wei designed a simple power module here, with some pulleys and leverage structures, to help the miners here reduce the physical labor. But no one liked him because increased efficiency meant they had to work longer, as the stones were never enough, and mining was always too slow. The only one benefiting practically was the head of the mine.
After working for two years, the area was attacked by strange beasts because a pair of miners dug through a large mountain, uncovering the nesting place of a mountain dragon and woke it up.
The entire mine suffered massive destruction, with countless casualties. Bai Wei also managed to escape, and this period of time left a lasting memory on him, making him realize that many of his talents could not be utilized and he had no chance to do so.
Sometimes a person can move up, but they need to be in the right place at the right time. For him, who didn’t even recognize words, it was destined to be difficult to integrate into society.
He started traveling around the world because of the influence of a mountain dragon. Bai Wei made some money, found many books on the way, learned some of the local language through them, then traveled to different places using his saved wealth. He also became a merchant selling goods. Unfortunately, he was alone on the road without his loyal wolf companion.
He didn’t earn much, just enough to eat and survive. Sometimes he even faced small losses, and was constantly threatened by thieves, robbers, and strange creatures on the road.
Even when he went to the capital city, he faced exploitation. Despite his business showing some improvement, he often ended up with only meager profits in his hands.
After years of being a merchant, Bai Wei gradually gained a lot of knowledge about the world. He chose to leave the local area and go further to seek new opportunities.
He planned to do business while also looking for a retirement place.
After turning twenty, in the year he turned twenty, Bai Wei experienced an event that led to another change in his life.
He was deceived and it was really unfortunate.
There were many who sought wealth at the cost of lives, but he didn’t expect everyone to be evil.
Schemes such as deceitful beauty, sacrifice, and manipulation were all played out, leaving him confused.
Finally, he stabbed and took his kidney as an offering to the so-called Dragon God in exchange for wealth and power.
Luckily surviving a great danger, Bai Wei vowed to seek revenge.
After years of hard struggle but gaining nothing, he felt disillusioned with the absurdity of the world.
Just trying to survive was not enough. In order to live better and safer, he thought it was okay to lower some standards.
… standards of behavior.
Bai Wei chose to retaliate in the same way.
It took him six months to set up a trap, luring the other party, carefully planning and finally catching them.
When he captured all of them so easily, Bai Wei even thought it was too easy, without any difficulty.
When the woman who had deceived him the most knelt down and begged for mercy, Bai Wei didn’t feel much pleasure either.
Instead, the joy brought by deceit made him slightly addicted.
Deception is a survival skill. If the lies are cleverly told and woven skillfully, he can gain profit effortlessly.
Moreover, there are so many villains, too many to count!
Bai Wei started traveling the world and also started deceiving people, using all the tricks he learned and came up with to target the nobles and wealthy landowners.
He may not necessarily need to gain wealth. As long as he can find happiness, he is willing to do it. Sometimes the money he gets will be snatched away by the poor, but he doesn’t mind.
Since then, he completely let go and became a carefree person.
As for the initial idea of uniting all of humanity to change the world, that thought had completely vanished.
Because I don’t deserve it, who am I to deserve anything!
The ones who establish rules and order in the world are the real powerful ones, something that Bai Wei couldn’t achieve, as it is shallow to gain such knowledge from just books.
In comparison, being a carefree person means having less burden.
The world was already in a terrible state, not suitable for an ordinary person to survive. In order to live better, one had to stand out. Bai Wei chose to arm himself with lies, weaving deception to appear mysterious and indestructible. However, he knew that these disguises were just a facade, easily exposed. He was just an ordinary person, lacking resources and time to grow stronger.
He was very weak, without power.
Only by constantly weaving lies could he make himself sound strong enough.
Being able to help the people, resolve local conflicts, or warn of upcoming attacks by monsters was the most he could do. Of course, these actions were also risky and brought little benefit, often attracting unwanted attention. Slowly, as his humanity faded, Bai Wei cared less about being hated by others. Many had suffered because of him.
Good and evil are opposites, not simply black and white.
Carefree people naturally don’t care about such matters.
Bai Wei just wanted to survive until he was thirty-five, then leave this world early. Living each day felt like counting down his life, so to alleviate the boredom, he tried many things but found his symptoms worsening.
When he was twenty-seven, he by chance passed through the bustling streets during a festival, with lanterns hanging high.
In this peaceful scenery, just across the street, under a crumbling wall, there was a little girl kneeling, selling herself to bury her father.
Bustling prosperity contrasted with poverty and suffering, with some living in luxury while others sold themselves to survive.
Bai Wei saw many of these things, not paying much attention, but as he was about to leave, he heard the crowd yelling and cursing.
The girl had a piece of jade on her, which caught the attention of some thugs nearby. The jade remained on her father’s body, and people around immediately wanted to snatch it upon seeing the green light. Bai Wei knew this was an ancient burial custom where putting a jade in the deceased’s mouth ensured they would rest in peace, otherwise they would turn into evil demons and seek out their close relatives.
The little girl was powerless to fight back, the jade was snatched by the thugs, leaving her kneeling on the ground in tears. Her crying became so loud and piercing that it annoyed the thugs, who kicked her in the stomach, changing her cries into vomiting.
Amid the jade commotion, it fell at Bai Wei’s feet. He picked it up, glanced at the inscription on it, paused briefly, then covered his forehead and burst into laughter.
The thugs rushed towards him with fierce looks. Bai Wei directly swung his sword to chop off one person’s arm and behead another. The nearby crowd dispersed like birds and beasts, some perhaps going to inform the authorities, and some not.
Bai Wei approached the girl, handed her the jade. Despite the pain, the little girl placed the jade in her father’s mouth and wiped away her tears.
He seemed to have found some purpose in life, smiling he said. I will help you bury your father, and you will follow me from now on.
The girl sniffed, nodded cautiously, and had frostbites on her hands and feet. If she exerted a little force, her wounds would open up, flowing fresh blood. The harder she rubbed her face, the dirtier it got.
After burying the deceased, the girl knelt in front of the grave for a long time. She went from being lost in thought to sobbing loudly. After crying several times, she gradually calmed down.
"What’s your name?" Bai Wei asked the first question.
"Lingque."
"Nice name, but too weak," Bai Wei said. "Your family was killed by a dragon. From today on, your new name is Longque!"
