Seeing the clouds

Chapter 35 Chapter 34 Life is hard

In life, if you want to get ahead, in addition to your own abilities, you mostly have to rely on external forces.The so-called external forces refer to a person's birth background, luck, etc.

Of course, those who excel in all walks of life in this world, including martial arts, basically rely on the background where they were born and their own qualifications.With mediocre talents, it is too difficult to become a master by relying solely on so-called luck.

However, there are no absolutes in everything. After all, there are still a majority of people with mediocre births in this world. If these people are not willing to be mediocre, they can only try to see if they can find a good master or encounter some rare opportunities.

If you don't have any, then you can only take some evil ways that are extremely dangerous and despised by others.

The earliest temples were similar to today's rivers and lakes. If it were the Zhou Dynasty hundreds of years ago, if you had any idea of ​​joining the dynasty as an official, becoming a marquis and worshiping the prime minister, then first of all, someone in your family must be an official, and this official The hat is not allowed to be too small.Therefore, at that time, I would rather be a good-for-nothing good-for-nothing than a humble scholar with a lot of talent and five cars of books. This was the earliest Shiqing Shilu system.Later, the Emperor of the Zhou Dynasty discovered that most of the people in the imperial court were mediocre people, so he felt that the system of ministers and ministers was indeed not appropriate. He thought about it day and night, and finally came up with a way to let the imperial court Among them, capable and famous ministers or local governors inspected and selected talents. This was called the inspection system in later generations.As soon as the inspection and examination system came into being, those capable people and strangers who once had no choice but to find a way out emerged from the water like the princes crossing the river, and the entire court suddenly blossomed and hundreds of schools of thought contended.

But it can be vigorous and exhausted again and again.

Gradually, two problems were exposed in the inspection and examination system: there are always horses with a thousand li, but Bole is not always there, and there is collusion between famous families.

The heads of the famous families began to get rid of Confucius's imperial examination system, and began to engage in favoritism and malpractice. They recommended each other's successors to each other. In this way, the temple seemed to have returned to the Shiqing Shilu system of the past. look like.

When the Qin Dynasty was unified, the late emperor Zhao Zheng valued literature over martial arts and created the imperial examination system, which gave all scholars in the world the opportunity to serve as officials in the court. It also made the reading culture prevail throughout the Qin Dynasty, and everyone was proud of reading. , the literati were in the spotlight for a while.

But those warriors in the world were not so lucky.

Fortunately, this world laughs at poverty but not at prostitution, as long as you make money without breaking the law.No one cares where your money comes from, the same is true for martial arts.

However, the good and evil of martial arts moves do not represent the good and evil of those who use martial arts.The words good and evil are complicated and far from simple.For example, among the eight thieves and nine monsters among the Jianghu people, Lu Song, who is called the swordsman by the Jianghu people, and Kong Ling, the bloody master, are two sharp contrasts.The former was born rough, short and stooped, and his appearance was unattractive. The sword moves he used were also sinister and obscene and were despised by people in the world.But the disdain was only for Lu Song's eight moves of sword and wrist sword. Most of the heroes in the world still respected Lu Song's ancient way.Lu Song, a swordsman with a deer head, rat eyes, a sharp mouth, and monkey cheeks, who could never be compared to a good guy no matter how you look at it, is a famous hero in Chu's martial arts world and even in the world. Countless ordinary people have been helped by him.The other one, Kong Ling, one of the four young masters in the capital, who was known as the Blood Young Master, was exactly the opposite.Kong Ling likes to wear blood-red robes. He has a slender figure and looks like a jade tree in the wind. When he opens the iron fan in his hand, he looks like a heavenly being descending to earth.A female literary giant in the capital even wrote a line in a poem, "The beauty is like jade, unparalleled in the world" to describe Cheng Xiaoran, the jade master, and Kong Ling, the blood master, and their appearance and magnanimity can be seen from this.

Kong Ling looks upright, and his martial arts moves are relatively decent. If a passerby who doesn't know much about him sees his appearance, they will naturally think of him as a humble gentleman.In fact, Kong Ling fell into the hands of his enemies because of his family's decline in his early years. He suffered physical and mental torture, so he had a relatively gloomy temperament and was determined to retaliate.If a Jianghu man with high ambitions but low abilities meets Zhou Tong, who is recognized by the world as the best hero in the world, even if this heartless Jianghu man speaks rudely to Zhou Tong, with Zhou Tong’s status and magnanimity as the best in the world, he will naturally not treat him badly. He cares about his unbridled speech.Therefore, apart from being ridiculed for being blind-sighted in the future when word spreads about this incident, this Jianghu man will not have many consequences.But if you meet the bloody master Kong Ling, let alone seeking victory, as long as you can remain invincible under Kong Ling, then nothing will happen. Otherwise, if you lose in the hands of Kong Ling, unless you have extraordinary means and can escape from the golden cicada, most of the other consequences will be worse. miserable.It's okay to say that if you have a background, you will be tortured at most; if you are a Jianghu person without a background, you will usually be tortured to death by Kong Ling's extremely cruel methods.

As the saying goes, it is difficult to distinguish jade from stone, and it is difficult to distinguish between dragon and snake.It is too superficial to use martial arts moves to judge a person's good and evil.

As for the so-called Eight Thieves and Nine Monsters in the world, most of them are people who were born in the rough market and have no background and have become famous all over the world through their own efforts. Of course, it doesn't matter whether they are good or bad.

Sitting under an old tree at this time, Tong Hanshan, who is known as the Yin-Yang Demon in the world, is also the same.

Regarding Tong Hanshan's birthplace, I'm afraid very few people in the world know about it now. Even he himself can't remember clearly after going through so many things. He only knows that it was probably in Yandi.

Tong Hanshan was originally a child from a poor family. He traveled all over the country and did many menial jobs, but he was not exposed to martial arts at first.When Tong Hanshan was about [-] years old, he came to Yanjing alone to work hard. Because he was born in an ordinary age and had never studied, he could only make a living by moving grain in a grain station.By chance, I got a fragment of the Demon Sect's Book of No Interpretation from a customer who came to the grain station to buy food. Out of curiosity, I started practicing this set of exercises according to what was shown on the scroll.

During this practice, Tong Hanshan discovered that the secret book was true, but half of it was missing. Tong Hanshan's practice was destined to have a beginning but no end, but he did not want this effort to turn into a basket of water, so he had to do it himself Slowly deduce and guess.Once upon a time, Tong Hanshan's level of strength skyrocketed like a carp leaping over a dragon's gate, but the disadvantages brought about by half-hearted existence also followed.

The so-called non-appearance refers to "no self, no one, no sentient beings, no lifespan", and non-existence is the practice based on this.What Wuxiangsheng pays attention to is to downplay all living things in the world, including oneself. After practicing to a certain level, you can use yourself as the furnace and Wuxiangsheng as your work. Other moves are copper and mutually generated and transformed, so that other moves become Invisible and traceless, its power is greatly increased.

Although Wuxiang was born, Tong Hanshan transformed from an ordinary man with brute strength but never practiced martial arts to a rare first-class master in the world in an instant.However, due to the lack of half of the book, there was no way to resolve the contradictions in the practice. Over time, Tong Hanshan became a little obsessed. In the process of practicing non-interaction, he over-diluted all things, and his own yin and yang began to gradually merge. Finally, Even my own gender is a little unclear, becoming neither human nor ghost, neither male nor female.

From then on, there was a strange man in the world who was eight feet tall and full of beard, but loved to apply rouge and gouache on his weather-beaten face.Because of this, Tong Hanshan ranked eighth among the nine monsters and was nicknamed the Yin-Yang Demon.Although Tong Hanshan is practicing the classics of the Demonic Cult, he suffered too much in his early years. Even if he became a first-class master, he usually only buys rouge and gouache silk robes and goes to some special brothels to find the pretty young husband. , and rarely take the initiative to do evil.However, he couldn't be called a good person. He recruited some warriors who were not as powerful as himself, but were still good, and they secretly did some dirty work of assassination or kidnapping in order to make a living.

However, because Mo Sha is the big brother in this industry, there are not many jobs that Tong Hanshan can take, and usually they are jobs that Mo Sha is unwilling to take.Fortunately, because of his fame, the jobs he could receive were all big and well-paying jobs. Even Dou Siyuan, a second-level master under him who was good at using a bamboo whip, once joked that this business really didn't open for a year. , opened for one year.

Tonight, everyone is about to welcome the big event that Dou Siyuan calls "opening for a year."

In this transaction, Tong Hanshan actually didn’t know who the buyer was. He only heard from Li Fu, the youngest in his group, that a young man with a strange face brought an ordinary-looking box. Before Li Fu could speak, that name The handsome young man had left without a trace.

Tong Hanshan asked Li Fu to bring the box, and then opened the box and found some documents and a lot of banknotes inside.

Tong Hanshan himself was illiterate, so he asked Dou Siyuan, who had attended private school for several years and knew a few words, to take a look at it.Dou Siyuan carefully read the page filled with regular script and even illustrations several times, and excitedly told Tong Hanshan that there was a big deal.Although Tong Hanshan has become both male and female due to practicing martial arts over the years, and his rough face is matched with rouge and gouache, no one who is "fortunate" to meet him once will not find it scary.But after all, he is still an impatient man with a man's body, even if he occasionally speaks in a voluptuous and charming tone, which makes people feel uncomfortable.

Dou Siyuan carefully explained the content on the page. The buyer paid 2000 taels of silver to assassinate two young masters from aristocratic families. The 1000 taels in the box was a deposit, and the other half required Tong Hanshan to hold the heads of the two young masters. level to change.The two young masters, one named Li Jingxuan and the other named Zheng Baiyu, said Dou Siyuan and handed two pieces of paper with portraits of Li Jingxuan and Zheng Baiyu to Tong Hanshan, as well as some papers recording some of their characteristics.Tong Hanshan took the paper and looked at it. He had heard of this man named Li Jingxuan. He seemed to be the second son of the Han Dynasty public family who was jokingly called "the best loser in the world". He had a bad reputation and was a dandy. As for Zheng Baiyu , it was written on the paper that he was the eldest son of Jincheng Governor, but he had never heard of it.

But after much thought, Tong Hanshan decided that this customer was crazy. He wanted to spend 2000 taels of silver to kill two young men who probably only had the strength to bully women?
2000 taels!You must know that the Great Qin Dynasty's annual tax revenue is only 2000 silver. These [-] taels are close to the entire Great Qin's monthly tax revenue. For an ordinary family, it is enough to live for several lifetimes.

Great temptation.

But in this world, there are no good things like pie-in-the-sky, let alone gold and silver. Moreover, assassinating the prince’s son can easily lead to a nasty mess if you are not careful. Why did you find yourself instead of looking for someone else? The more famous Mo Sha?Tong Hanshan felt something was unusual, so he asked Dou Siyuan if there were any special conditions.

Dou Si looked far and wide, but did not find any strange conditions. He only mentioned that the two men were accompanied by fifty elite cavalry, a second-grade retinue, and a man of unknown origin who was about the same age as the crown prince. Scholar.

Upon hearing this, Tong Hanshan's mind started to spin rapidly, analyzing the pros and cons. Tong Hanshan turned over the page and interrupted: "Oh, I missed a strong young man, but on paper he is a fool, so it shouldn't be a cause for concern."

Tong Hanshan nodded and thought about it again, but no matter how he thought about it, he felt that this job was a good thing where the benefits far outweighed the risks.

Although fifty cavalrymen are troublesome, as long as they don't have the mentality of killing them all, and with the second-grade Dou Siyuan beside them, it is always easy to deal with and block them; and the second-grade retinue is even less of a concern. Well, the other brothers and sisters around him, such as Zhou Laohu, Shi Yajin Sanniang and his wife are all second-grade strength. Even Li Fu, who is good at archery in his early 20s, is also close to second-grade strength. When the time comes, just find someone. Just entangle him; and that scholar of unknown origin, who is about twenty years old, how powerful can he be, no matter how powerful he is?Tong Hanshan's only worry is that on paper, the boy is described with just a few words: strong and stupid. Tong Hanshan doesn't know who the buyer is, so it is difficult to judge what the so-called strong on the paper means.

Tong Hanshan thought about it again and again, and felt that this job was acceptable. Even if his mistake was exposed or the court counterattacked after he succeeded, Tong Hanshan, who stayed in the world all year round, was not very worried.If it doesn't work out, I'll go hide outside the customs for two years. If it succeeds, the 2000 taels of silver will be enough for the brothers to live happily for a while.Dou Siyuan communicated with Tong Hanshan for a while and felt that it was feasible, so he went out to call his brothers to discuss the matter together.

The result of the discussion was that a few men said such crude words as "the dark moon kills people at night, the wind is high and the sky is set on fire", "beautiful people cannot live up to money" and other such nonsense that cannot be put on the table.

At this time, Tong Hanshan didn't feel any panic because of the robbery that was about to happen in front of him. He was even thinking in his mind that the young man who delivered the box earlier was said to be quite handsome, but it was a pity that Li Fu could not leave a drink. Make friends over tea and have a heart-to-heart talk.

I don't know what the scholar mentioned on the paper looks like, or whether he can sneak in at night and have an "intimate" communication with me.

　Finally updated... finally updated... I was so moved that I cried bitterly. This month is actually very busy. July should be better, and there should be a big outbreak by then. I hope you don't miss it.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)