Chapter 4: Jinjiang's First Publication Shows Its Initial Promise (Part 1)

If only things in the world were that simple. He was enjoying the resources his family provided, and his future was already predetermined...

Qi Mu couldn't help but silently pray: Could Yao... Sisi... be the key...?

Yao Sisi didn't care what others thought; she only wanted to improve her strength quickly. She looked through some of the talismans and started drawing the runes. Since she had calligraphy skills before, copying the runes was not difficult for her.

"I can write it, but I don't know what it will look like when I write runes infused with spiritual power..."

As the saying goes, everything is difficult at the beginning. She currently has nothing, not even her clothes belong to others, so it's naturally difficult for her to ask others for help if she wants to write or draw talismans.

Her gaze gradually sharpened, and she said to the artifact spirit, "Get ready, we're going out to catch a mystical beast soon!"

The spirit: "Hmm? Master, you haven't practiced any offensive spells yet, how are you going to capture mystical beasts?"

Yao Sisi: "What's there to be afraid of? If there's danger, we can just escape into the space. With such a cheat system, why would we need to be timid?"

She absolutely loves the wonderful thing called fighting.

Before the sun had even set, Qi Mu had just returned to the old house and listened helplessly to his father's nagging when he received a letter from the private residence's steward.

He frowned. People from the private residence almost never come over at this time unless there's a specific reason.

The butler rushed over and waited in a side room. He wiped the sweat from his forehead anxiously. Seeing that the man had finally arrived, he hurriedly said, "Young master, the lady you brought back has run away! She also... stole a cleaver used for demolishing houses."

Qi Mu's face darkened, and he inwardly sighed at the butler's incompetence: "Have you sent anyone to look for him?"

Butler: "We've searched, but we don't have enough manpower at the private residence. That person left through the side gate and has been gone for almost an hour. I wonder... if the young master could send some more people?"

A sense of irritation rose in Qi Mu's heart: "Isn't the side door usually locked?"

When Yao Sisi passed by the side door, the door was still locked. After she took the cleaver from the woodshed and put it into her spatial storage, the person delivering the vegetables happened to open the door and come in. She was too lazy to walk to the main door and went straight out the side door.

There weren't many people on the street when she first went out, probably because the street was a bit remote. Come to think of it, she had only learned about the current environment from other people's stories and books since she transmigrated so long ago, and this was the first time she had actually gone out on her own.

After walking for about fifteen minutes, she finally saw a lively street. There were pedestrians coming and going all around, and they all looked like ordinary people. Judging from their clothes, most of them were wearing plain linen clothes, just like she was wearing ordinary plain clothes. She quickly blended into the crowd as she walked on the street.

Instead of rushing out of the city, she strolled around the streets to see what was so special about this fantastical world.

The blue-gray steps and white tiles, pavilions and towers, from the streets to the shops, were ancient and grand yet exquisite, much more beautiful than the ancient streets visited in modern times. She curiously walked into a shop selling cultivation supplies. The items inside were very different from those in daily life. There were all kinds of materials she had never seen before, as well as weapons, potions and so on. She walked around and looked at the prices, silently calculating the difference between them and ordinary items.

According to the knowledge gained from books, an ordinary person only needs a few taels of silver a year, while most of the items in the shops require gold for transactions, and none of them are made of copper coins or silver coins used by ordinary people.

She walked around inside. The other items were fine, but she took a fancy to a long sword. It looked imposing and would look really cool to carry on her back. Most importantly, its blade gleamed coldly, and she could feel its chilling aura even through the counter.

What a fine knife!

It was far better than the wood-chopping knife she kept in her spatial storage. She glanced at the price and realized that what she needed wasn't gold, but a Xuanzhu (mysterious pearl).

Forget about Xuanzhu, she didn't even have a single copper coin, and she didn't even own a wood-chopping knife...

She left the shop with regret and hurried out of the city, while Qi Mu was puzzled as to why she had taken the wood-chopping knife. Compared to the things in her house, this wood-chopping knife was really worthless, and it was even a murder weapon...

Yao Sisi walked quickly to the outside of the city. Although the city gates here are open 24 hours a day and there is no need to worry about curfew, it is still not good to come back too late.

"Spirit, once we leave the city, go and check the location of the prey. Let's go as soon as possible and come back as soon as possible."

As darkness fell, the spirit's range of vision was limited, and she was also reluctant to venture deep into the jungle outside the city. It took her an hour to spot a blue-eyed antelope. It was not large in size but extremely fast. Yao Sisi was worried that it would run away, so she had the spirit put it directly into her space.

The space was very small at the moment. The blue-eyed antelope was suddenly in an unfamiliar environment, and the hair on its body stood on end. Its eyes warily surveyed its surroundings, and finally its gaze settled on Yao Sisi. It crouched down, ready to attack at any moment.

She scoffed dismissively, but the thought of finally drawing blood made her blood boil; she felt as if she were born to fight. She turned sideways, raised her knife, and approached the blue-eyed antelope step by step. The veins on her hand gripping the machete bulged, as if she couldn't wait to dismember her prey.

Yao Sisi launched the first attack, her graceful figure slashing at the blue-eyed antelope with each stroke, as if she were dancing with the antelope. However, the scene was somewhat bloody. She leaped up with a light touch of her toes, stepping on the antelope's body with one foot, and the blade sliced ​​across the antelope's tail.

"Clang!" The antelope's tailbone was injured, and its tail, which was about to fall off, hung limply behind it as it ran.

The antelope cried out in pain, and its horns gleamed faintly, as if it were preparing some powerful attack.

Yao Sisi sighed that the machete was too weak. If it were an ordinary antelope, she would have killed it long ago, but it only had a few light wounds, and the blood that flowed out only moistened its fur.

The blue-eyed antelope's attack was complete, and blades of wind formed above its head. Yao Sisi dodged the incoming wind blades, but while her body dodged them, her hem of clothing did not. In an instant, the hem of her clothing was cut off by the wind blades. The wind blades were quite powerful, and after cutting through her clothing, they continued forward and struck the thatched hut in the space.

She heard the spirit of the artifact wail, "Master, you should go outside and fight!"

Yao Sisi glared at him, "What are you afraid of? It doesn't have much power left to condense wind blades."

The two, one human and one beast, grew stronger with each kill, but the blue-eyed antelope was a herbivorous mythical beast with no sharp claws or teeth other than its horns, and it was slowly worn down to death by her blade.

Yao Sisi learned martial arts for a short period of time when she was a child. She only learned some basic skills. It was because of these skills that she was able to fight back against the fast-running blue-eyed antelope. If it were an ordinary person, they would probably have been killed by it.

Unfortunately, her parents felt sorry for her because learning martial arts was too tiring, so they enrolled her in a dance class to fool her. When she arrived, they were practicing sword dancing there, and her movements were graceful and her swordplay was perfect.

He assumed it was a combination of light-footedness and swordsmanship, and his eyes lit up as he asked his parents several questions until they confirmed it was martial arts before he stayed to learn.

But she never expected that her "heartless" parents would deceive her, a child who was not even ten years old. In addition, her family was willing to spend money, and she received one-on-one instruction from a master. There were no friends to ask questions, and she learned for several years in a daze...

The past is too embarrassing to mention, but because she truly loves martial arts, she even developed deadly moves from ordinary dances. And because of her years of practice, her flexible body allows her to perform wide and sweeping movements, making the blue-eyed antelope run around in circles in this small space.

She got up, wiped her machete, and then walked over to the thatched hut that the wind blade had struck to examine it. The hut had been there when she first came in; it was very dilapidated, but she hadn't noticed that the wind blade had scratched it.

She raised her cleaver and slashed at it, and the spirit howled again, "Master, stop slashing, waaaaah..."

Yao Sisi: "Nothing's wrong at all, what are you yelling about?"

***

When the blue-eyed antelope died, she carefully kept a few patches of its wool.

The antelope was stored in her spatial storage, which didn't delay her journey. Even so, it was completely dark by the time she returned to the city, and she had missed dinner at the manor. It seemed she would have to rely on the hunted antelope for food. As she approached the city gate, she found a secluded corner, released the antelope, and carried it on her back.

She had already processed the antelope, removing its horns and other parts. She weighed it in her hands; it was still quite heavy. She then removed a few more pieces of meat from its body, tied it up with branches, and carried it on her shoulder with a stick. As she walked towards the general store, she estimated its value.

These low-level mystical beasts weren't cheap to sell, but she didn't sell them all. She kept two pieces of the best meat and a small lamb chop for the shopkeeper to wrap up. As the saying goes, it's only polite to reciprocate, and the meat would have other uses.

Without the heavy burden of the antelope, she felt light as a feather when she returned. She headed straight for the gate of the private residence along the street. From afar, she could see that the house was brightly lit, quite different from usual. She couldn't help but quickly carry the meat and hurry into the mansion.

"What happened? Could something have gone wrong?"