Chapter Text
Shang Feiji wanted to cry when he got accepted to An Ding Peak at the ripe age of twelve. He didn’t understand what he did so wrong in the world- his previous world- to deserve this fate.
“There, I did it. What should I do next?” he asked softly to his system. Yes, system, because of course a transmigrating author was restricted by a fucking system. This is hell, Airplane was convinced so.
[Congratulations for the host to have been accepted to An Ding Peak!]
[Claim Reward!> Spirit Gathering Pills x1. Body Tempering Pills x2.]
[Next step is to be the succeeding disciple of An Ding Peak and seize the spot to be the next Peak Lord! (Reward for completing the mission: Unlocking access to character “Shang Qinghua”. Foundation Building Pill x1. Spirit Gathering Pills x5. Body Tempering Pills x10]
[Ding! Due to the absence of <Main Character> Luo Binghe, System will now enter a state of maintenance. Hoping for the Host to keep working hard until the Main Character is online*.]
[Going down on maintenance in 5…4…]
Shang Feiji gawked at the countdown. “Wait! Wait! What do you mean you’re going down until the protag is online? Do you know how long that is?! System!” he cried out anxiously.
[3…2…1…0]
Shang Feiji’s lips trembled, he clenched his hands nervously and timidly called out.
“System…?”
[System is under maintenance…]
“Seriously?” He went pale. “Are you fucking serious? Ha… ha…” he hyperventilated. “System?”
{System is under maintenance…]
Shang Feiji’s hope was dashed. He crouched down and cried pitifully.
‘Fuck my life!’
Shang Feiji was his name in this world. It was a fucking irony and tragedy mixed into one single huge joke someone up there arranged for him, he was sure. His penname was Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky, now his name was Shang Feiji. Truly fate playing a huge joke.
He was nothing impressive in his previous life. A NEET, failing in nearly everything, he couldn’t even hold a single job right. The cause of his death was because he just prepared a cup of ramen he intended to eat as his dinner. After all, it had been the end of the month and he wasn’t going to be paid for his last batch of chapters on his webnovel; Proud Immortal Demon Way, just yet.
Then he spilled the ramen, tripped on a wire, and woke up as a baby in the world he created through his novel with a system telling him he needed to fix the ‘undesired’ plots of his own story.
Now, after grueling twelve years together, in which Shang Feiji would be frequently threatened by a lightning strike for wanting to take the path of a rogue cultivator rather than following the trajectory of the character ‘Shang Qinghua’, his system just went offline, leaving him to do everything alone without any clue what he should do.
At first, he relaxed. After a year of no disturbance from the accursed system, Airplane was happily planning to go far, far away, and be instanced to a faraway branch working as a merchant disciple from An Ding Peak, away from the storm, absolutely.
But just when he wanted to raise his hand to volunteer, a great lightning flashed by and thunder boomed, making him collapse in terror.
A year later, when another selection to be sent outside occurred, Shang Feiji felt like maybe the previous time was just a coincidence and that perhaps someone talented from another peak just got their chance to break through. Feeling that cowardice would take him nowhere, Shang Feiji encouraged himself to be brave.
He raised his hand for this second chance and the originally sunny cloudy sky turned dark and seven lightnings flashed, accompanied by thunderous roars that terrified all the beasts bought from merchants that were put in the backyard area.
“…” Shang Feiji lowered his hand.
He didn’t dare to try the third time. Tearfully, he admitted he was stuck in An Ding Peak and stuck to follow the plot. Either way, the protag wouldn’t be online until after decades later. Mayhaps he could enjoy those peaceful decades before constantly harming himself when the main plot started. He might even outlive his age in the modern era in this life, so it might not be that bad.
‘Either way, let’s just live to the fullest until the protagonist is online.’ That’s his motto.
For now, it would be better to just finish the last mission the system assigned to him before it went under maintenance; be the succeeding disciple of An Ding Peak. That wasn’t an unrealistic goal, he could do this without the system… probably.
‘…Fuck, how did I get such a bad score?’ Shang Feiji wanted to cry when he looked at the papers containing his written test’s score. It took him two whole days to dare to open the damn thing and it betrayed him like this. He could understand he couldn’t be accepted to Tsing Hua University with his average grade but even in his own made-up world, he couldn’t ace a damn thing?
“I deserve this…” Shang Feiji sobbed slightly. He made this world but he couldn’t even recall what this world would call ‘basic knowledge’. He deserved this fate. He deserved to die so pathetically in modern times, he deserved to be abandoned by his system. He was such a pathetic author, wasn’t he? Why did he insist on writing so many stupid things into this world that wasn’t even necessary?
Now he didn’t even remember more than 80% of it. Granted, fourteen years had passed since he ‘died’ and got transmigrated into this body so everything had turned blurry for him too. If it wasn’t because the system had given him a prop item called ‘exceptional author memory’, he’d probably forgotten nearly everything by now. The problem was, that the prop item was only good to recall exceptional timelines of the plot, it was utterly useless for anything before the plot and it certainly didn’t boost Shang Feiji’s personal memorizing skill since he still sucked at memorizing reading materials. Nor did it boost Shang Feiji’s own memory before he transmigrated…
He admittedly had forgotten his own modern self’s mother looked like. All Shang Feiji could imagine when he heard the word ‘mother’ was Shang Feiji’s mother, the common refreshing beauty who died just five years ago from sickness.
She was a gentle woman. He would always miss her. Same with his mother from the modern time, although she was far from the word ‘gentle’ that woman also cared for and raised him so he had boundless gratitude toward her as well.
A colleague from the same peak came over, curious at Shang Feiji’s plight or probably just wanted to remind him they had work to do. He looked over at the score and clicked his tongue. “So high! You should be in the top ten! Are you crying because you’re touched?”
Let it be said being at the top in An Ding Peak was nothing hard, it was as easy as flipping your hand to other peaks’ disciples. Let alone being in the top ten. Shang Feiji bit his tongue to hold himself back before he got told to quickly transport the goods they had to be sold.
An Ding Peak was usually the one doing the buying, but it wouldn’t be rare for them to do the selling as well. Other peaks were usually too disdainful to act like merchants for their own lesser products so they all got sent to An Ding Peak to manage. On the other hand, sometimes some goods can’t be bought with just cold hard money but by bartering it with something else the other side needs.
Shang Feiji didn’t recall much about this town aside from the fact they were going to barter some goods to the local big family here and dump all of their remaining goods there. Then resumed to the next town where they would need to make an advance order and bring home tons of spirit beast’s manure that Qian Cao Peak needed to enrich their soil. Yeah, you would think immortal farming wouldn’t use shit, but it did. Who was to blame? Naturally, it was Shang Feiji himself who thought it would be such a divine idea to incorporate real-life’s aspects of farming into a xianxia’s path to spirit herb planting.
Fuck his life.
With a grunt, he put the heavy box of goods down near the side courtyard and stretched his arms slightly. Since he had become a disciple of An Ding Peak, he had to admit his physical fitness developed amazingly. After all, no matter how lowly An Ding Peak was, it was still a part of the bigger Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, their training was still very decent and can be followed even with the lack of talent from the majority of An Ding Peak’s disciples.
When Shang Feiji straightened, he spotted a tear on his sleeve and he hissed. “Ah… tsk.” He cursed himself for that one paragraph he wrote in the novel saying every peak’s uniform was made with top materials except for An Ding Peak’s uniform. Why did he write that? He had forgotten why.
‘Sigh, so many things happen in fourteen years…’ he would need the system to remind him of the plot once it started.
Bang!
Shang Feiji looked over.
“You trash! How dare you steal food from the kitchen!”
“Ungrateful slave! You’re already blessed to even be alive, you dare to steal from your master?!”
Shang Feiji’s eyes widened when he saw a boy being pushed to the ground and beaten up by five to six bigger guys.
“Give it back!” one guy bent down and tried to snatch something from the boy’s hand but the boy held onto it tightly which only enraged the group of bullies further.
“You fucking trash! Let go!” The guy stomped on the boy’s stomach and Shang Feiji flinched seeing the brutality.
If even Shang Feiji, who was only witnessing it, flinched then what about the victim? Of course, the boy lost his breath and let go. When Shang Feiji saw what the boy stole, his heart sank. It was only a piece of plain bun that looked stale at best.
Shang Feiji reeled back. ‘Just over that?!’ he gawked. ‘Isn’t this town a prosperous town? Why is a plain bun worth a brutal beating?’
Just when the bun tumbled out of the boy’s grip, one of the guys beating him up bent down to snatch it. “Young master, we got the thing this rat stole!”
“Good.” A young man in a fancy robe walked over with his hands folded behind him. His expression was cold and he glanced at the boy full of despise. “You dare to steal? Haven’t my family provided enough for you?” he mocked. “Where’s the food he stole?”
“Here, young master.” The servant presented it with both hands and the young master slapped the bun off, letting it drop to the ground.
Instead of taking back the bun, the young man stomped on it, grinding it to the ground, and mixing it with the dusty dirt below his foot. Taunting the boy with the waste. As though telling the boy the food he stole was better crushed on the ground and fed to worms rather than fed to him.
“Now that is worthy of you. Eat it.”
Shang Feiji winced but he was petrified on his place as the boy went through abuse.
“You’re hungry? Eat it. You should be grateful that you can even live in my family’s land.” The young man sneered and stepped back. “Teach him more lessons, but don’t damage his face too much. That’s about the only good thing about him. Let Jianluo teach him for that later.”
“Yes, young master!”
“Hey!” Shang Feiji exclaimed.
Seven pairs of eyes turned to him and for a second Shang Feiji was at a loss. However, he had seen enough. In righteous anger, he forgot this wasn’t Cang Qiong Mountain Sect let alone An Ding Peak. Those people were too much! Shang Feiji never considered himself a good guy, and he probably would never meddle out of consideration that the boy did steal but to proceed to throw away the food he stole like trash instead of letting him eat was a new level of scumbag behavior.
“Who are you?” The young man frowned.
Shang Feiji stomped over. “Is your family poor?”
They all looked at him in confusion.
“If not poor, is your family retarded?” Shang Feiji spat.
Their eyes widened and glared at Shang Feiji in fury. “What did you say?! Young master, I’ll take care of this bum!”
“So you are retarded. Can’t understand human’s words?” Shang Feiji snapped again. “You acted like a ghost with just one stolen bun but after you retrieved it you wasted it away, is this not a poor and retarded behaviour? A bunch of wastrels!”
“Do you know who I am?” The young man glared murderously at Shang Feiji.
“Good-for-nothing is still good-for-nothing!” Shang Feiji said heatedly.
“Watch your mouth!” One servant stomped over, followed by several others. Shang Feiji’s heart skipped a beat but when he sensed these servants had little to no cultivation, he raised his fists with courage.
The servant threw a punch and the ones behind him rushed to mob Shang Feiji but Shang Feiji pulled his hand back and punched the first one, sending him flying against his friends and tumbling like bowling pins.
“You only dare to fight in a group. Think I’m weak?” He was weak! So weak by the sect’s standard. A random disciple from any other peak could slap him to half-death, but that was the Sect, not the outside world. Towards this group of mortals with barely any cultivation, he could beat tens of them at a time with some efforts. “Have some shame to your mom and dad’s name! Their children grew up to be weaklings who can only mob a person? Ah, maybe that’s why they sold you out as servants! They already saw failures in all of you!”
Initially, being punched by a cultivator was really painful, but those words were even more poisonous! All six servants coughed, four of them coughed out blood.
“Who are you?” The young master asked again with a frown on his face. His eyes flicked to what Shang Feiji was wearing. An Ding Peak’s uniform was never as impressive as other peaks were, the clothes they wore when they were working outside the sect were even more unimpressive. After all, who wanted to wear good and fancy clothes when transporting manure?
“A trader,” Shang Feiji said simply. Number one rule as disciple of An Ding Peak, do not bring up the sect’s name when getting troubles outside to flaunt, you’ll only embarrass the sect. this was specifically a rule for An Ding Peak’s disciple which was described as the bottom of the barrel in the sect.
“A mere trader dares to meddle?” The young man spat. “I could have your family’s livelihood ruined in seconds!”
“Of course you threaten livelihood, because you can’t beat me,” Shang Feiji mocked. “Moreover, if your family is so poor that even a single bun is indispensable, then what good is it to trade with your family?”
“You-“ In the end, they all were rendered speechless in rage and could only glare with despise before a maid came running in and informed the young man that he had been summoned by his mother. The young man shot a glare towards Shang Feiji and spat. “Today is your lucky day. Come on.” With a flick of his sleeve, the spoiled young master pretentiously left.
Once they left, Shang Feiji hurried to help the boy on the ground. He inhaled deeply when he saw his condition. He was incredibly pale, his eyes were dark and his pupils were large, on the verge of passing out, yet despite his unfortunate condition, it didn’t hide his handsome and beautiful appearance. “Are you okay?” Shang Feiji asked and helped him up, under his palms, he could feel the boy’s rib bones. ‘So thin…’ he frowned.
Yet when Shang Feiji was distressed, he was suddenly shoved off by the boy. He froze when those dark eyes glared at him. “I don’t need your help.” The slave boy spat.
Shang Feiji froze.
The boy turned around, attempting to leave, but was proven to be too weak to. He swayed and was about to fall again but Shang Feiji quickly propped him up. “Let’s sit under that tree,” He suggested in concern only to be shoved away again, now Shang Feiji was getting annoyed.
“I don’t need your help!” The boy heaved. “So meddlesome!” he spat and stubbornly stepped away. He fell on his butt almost immediately, writhing.
“You clearly need help!” Shang Feiji said in annoyance. He picked the boy up, throwing him over his shoulder almost too easily with his strength.
“Agh--!” The boy gasped in agony and Shang Feiji froze.
‘Damn, he seems to be injured on the stomach just now, right…?’ Shang Feiji was rendered in panic and guilt, he quickly ran to the tree and put the boy down carefully. True to Shang Feiji’s worry, the boy was clutching his stomach like he was on his last breath.
“Sorry, I forgot! Ow, damn,” Shang Feiji winced and took out the painkiller salves he had on him. Every An Ding Peak’s disciple carried at least one because they were prone to accidents. He opened the boy’s raggedy robe with no inhibitions and inhaled deeply when he saw the forming deep purple bruise on his stomach alongside other bruises, new and old. The boy was too weak to stop him and he lathered the salve on the boy’s worst bruise. “Bear with it. It’s painful at first but it’ll get better,” he comforted but the boy didn’t flinch which surprised Shang Feiji.
After carefully rubbing the salve on the bruises, his eyes wandered to the boy’s protruding ribs, a sign of malnutrition. He hesitantly touched the boy’s ribs and hissed. “I don’t think that is meant to dent like that…” he eyed the boy’s right side.
“I’m fine…”
Shang Feiji would have believed that if the boy hadn’t used up all his breath to say that. He hesitated briefly before touching his wrist, sending a wisp of qi to check for internal injury just like he learned from seeing Qian Cao Peak’s disciples. His intuitive sense immediately told him that the boy was not only starving but also had many hidden injuries so bad he never saw anyone with such injuries being anywhere but in bed.
The boy’s labored breath slowed down when the salve settled, cooling and numbing the surrounding area of where it was rubbed. There way more places he was hurt but Shang Feiji didn’t feel it was appropriate to do more so he put the salve container in the boy’s hand. “Here, for you,” he said softly.
The other boy’s eyes jumped wide, the way he looked at Shang Feiji changed from pity to surprise and then confusion.
Shang Feiji coughed. “I got more with me, you can keep it. You look like you could use it more…”
The dirty hand holding the salve tightened a little and the boy didn’t refuse. For some strange reason, Shang Feiji could feel the boy was not the kind to accept help and by accepting help right now meant he was really desperate. His heart stung for some reason.
The wounded servant finally spoke up again, “You shouldn’t have… bothered with them.” He gazed at Shang Feiji with intensity any boy his age shouldn’t have. “Mind your own business next time.”
Shang Feiji frowned. “Well, I can’t. They’re unreasonable. So you’re a thief and stole a bun, but after getting you they just threw away the food, that makes no sense at all.” He prided himself as an indifferent coward, he had nurtured a certain degree of apathy after living in this world for fourteen years old. Being too sympathetic would kill you in this world. But unnecessary violence was still unnecessary violence.
The boy snorted derisively. “I’ve touched that bun, of course they don’t want it anymore.” He hissed as he held his abdomen. “And letting me eat it means rewarding me for stealing.”
Shang Feiji paused and looked at the boy incredulously before he snapped out of it and narrowed his eyes with pity. ‘He’s used to it…’ His hand absently rummaged his pocket and he took out a bundle and opened it. There were three meat buns left inside and he took them with him to sit down beside the injured servant. He glanced at him and saw his eyes followed the buns with great longing so Shang Feiji didn’t hesitate. “Want some?”
The servant boy hesitated even less. He grabbed the bun out of the unfolded wrap and scarved it down like he’d never eaten in his entire life. He used his entire palm to shove it into his mouth like somebody was going to snatch it from him and only his mouth was a safe place to keep it.
Shang Feiji was caught off guard. “Slow down! You’ll choke.”
The boy didn’t slow down, he covered his mouth with his hands, and his cheeks were bulging and moving. Shang Feiji frantically untied his water gourd but when he looked back the boy was done chewing and swallowing the bun and already eyeing the rest of the buns in front of Shang Feiji. Shang Feiji immediately guarded the remaining two buns.
“No!”
A glint of disappointment appeared in the boy’s gleaming eyes but he quickly covered it up.
“I won’t give you more unless you promise you won’t scarf it down like that again.” Shang Feiji picked up the two buns by the leaf wrap and made the servant boy promise to not eat dangerously.
Surprise shone in those dark eyes. “Okay.” He agreed quickly.
“Remember, bite, chew, swallow before going for another bite.” Shang Feiji felt like teaching a toddler how to eat but he didn’t want to repeat the earlier experience.
This time, the other boy ate slowly. Shang Feiji leaned back on the tree, watching him like a hawk. “Better than breathing it in, right?”
“Mmf…” The other boy savored the bun. “It has so much meat.” He wasn’t as hostile and cold as earlier.
“Yeah.” Shang Feiji eyed him. The other boy could use more meat on his bones. Food wasn’t usually good in An Ding Peak but it was filling and generally enough. Though meat was always delicious even with no spice. He somewhat missed eating burgers from modern times. If only the system and missions were not a very genuine problem, he would probably want to open a restaurant to satisfy his cravings.
The servant boy began to calm down, his tense expression relaxed a lot as he took bite after bite. “Thanks, but fair warning, those people are begrudging.”
“I don’t care. I don’t live in this town anyway,” Shang Feiji said. He paused and turned to him in concern. “What about you?”
“Me?” The servant boy sucked his own fingers, unwilling to part with the taste of food. Shang Feiji absently pushed the last bun to him and his eyes lit up.
“What about you? Those scums absolutely are going to give you a hard time.” Shang Feiji asked as he watched the other boy devour the bun.
The boy paused but still chewing. “You care so much.”
The boy’s wording sounded awfully sarcastic but his eyes were blank, almost indifferent. It was more like an astute observation rather than a sarcastic remark. “Well, I would be if that means they would just double or triple your punishment because they’re not satisfied just now.”
The boy shrugged. “I don’t care.”
Shang Feiji arched his brows. “Really? You said those people are begrudging.”
“Oh, I know. Just let them beat me up more and they will leave,” he said.
Shang Feiji frowned and looked at him with pity. “What’s your name?”
The boy lifted his head. “They called me Xiao Jiu.”
The harsh autumn wind blew out the fallen wilted leaves on the ground. The eaves of tree above them rustled with a white noise symphony that went unadmired by the two boys sitting beneath it. Shang Qinghua pushed back his stray strand of hair that was blown by the wind and smiled.
“That is a typical servant name. Do you have an original name?” Shang Feiji asked curiously.
“No.”
“I see…” his smile faltered and Xiao Jiu looked at him with curiosity.
The wind stopped blowing and the rustling symphony above them ceased to a stop, Shang Feiji realized Xiao Jiu must be waiting for his name.
“I’m Shang Feiji.” He offered him his hand on instinct and Xiao Jiu gazed at the calloused hand of the other teenager in confusion.
Xiao Jiu then hesitantly put back the wrap of the buns into Shang Feiji’s hand.
Shang Feiji blinked and laughed. “No, in my hometown we introduced ourselves with a handshake.” He shook his head. “I forgot people never do that here.” He sighed wistfully and crumpled his hand around the leaf wrap. He really missed modern times. Even though he had forgotten many things, some mannerisms still stayed with him.
Surprisingly, before Shang Feiji could retrieve his hand, Xiao Jiu grabbed it. Xiao Jiu pried away the leaf wrap easily and held Shang Feiji’s hand straightforwardly.
“Is it like this?” Xiao Jiu asked seriously while holding onto Shang Feiji’s right hand with his left hand.
“Pffft…” Shang Feiji chuckled. Xiao Jiu’s posture was right but he used the wrong hand. “I gave you my right hand, you should have given me the same hand. If it’s left hand, then we’re not doing a handshake, but just holding hands.”
Xiao Jiu switched hands studiously and shook Shang Feiji’s hand seriously. “I’m Xiao Jiu.” He introduced himself. His voice was crisp, and because he had more strength after eating three full meat buns earlier, he didn’t sound as weak. But the broken rib definitely still made him sound breathless.
Shang Feiji nodded. “It’s nice to meet you, Xiao Jiu. I’m Shang Feiji."
"As in flying chicken?"
"N-no... Fei as in flying in the sky, Ji as in opportunity, not chicken.”
“Good name,” Xiao Jiu said.
“Thank you. You have a good-sounding name too. Number nine is the luckiest number.”
A gust of autumn wind blew past them again, it took countless wilting orange leaves from the tree where they perched weakly, bringing them into their last dance of existence. Fleeting like memory.
When Shang Feiji returned to the caravan and helped his fellow disciples to re-stock to go back to An Ding Peak, he felt like he had forgotten something important.
“Feiji." Elder Shun, the leader of this expedition, called out to Shang Feiji and he turned around respectfully. "Some of you will have to do this route again next time, I'm looking for volunteers, do you want to do it? I know you're young, but learning early is important."
Shang Feiji's lips twitched but then he remembered that slave boy who devoured his three meatbuns and his eyes shifted. "Yes. I will do it."