Beyond Fear

Alas......

Old Wang heaved a sigh, then lamented: "Oh, this world! Us common folk can't do much about it!"

Old Wang helped the beggar drink some more water. The beggar's distant gaze seemed to regain some clarity.

The beggar asked: "You...you are?"

Kindhearted Old Wang felt sorry for this young man and said: "I'm the fisherman from this village. Young man, you're from the north, right?"

The beggar didn't reply, but at the word "north", tears flowed from his eyes again.

Old Wang said: "We're all unfortunate souls. Listen, young one, you stay here and I'll go get you something to eat."

The beggar revealed gratitude that seemed to have been absent from him for a long time. He nodded repeatedly and said: "Thank you, thank you...kind elder, I, I...have no money."

The beggar was emotional, and his timid voice revealed his yearning for "food" and his fear of the harsh reality of poverty.

Old Wang of course believed him. He helped the beggar lie down, then went to fetch food.

......

......

Zhang San's peerless acting skills were fully revealed in this scene.

That's right. If someone thought this was the pinnacle of Zhang San's acting, then they would be wrong.

Incidentally, for the sake of his professional career, Zhang San was highly skilled in all kinds of abilities apart from martial arts and lightness skills - abilities like controlling his vocal chords, carpentry, masonry, and so on...

But out of all those skills that seemed completely unrelated to his work as a killer, Zhang San was most confident in his acting.

Zhang San claimed to be the most steady killer in Dawu Country (and the number one actor in Dawu Country).

After Old Wang brought over some steamed buns, Zhang San fully demonstrated what it was like to be someone who hadn't eaten for three days.

That biting, that swallowing.

Who would dare to say he wasn't starving?

When Old Wang asked if he wanted more...

That rejection, with yearning in the refusal, hope in the yearning, and subservience again in the hope of not asking for too much more.

If he wasn't a beggar, who was?

The two chatted for a while. Old Wang asked: “What’s your name?”

Zhang San replied: “Li San.”

“Where are you from in the north?”

“Lang Prefecture, Black Wolf County.”

“That’s a chaotic place!”

Zhang San nodded. Inwardly he thought, no kidding, if it wasn’t chaotic I wouldn’t have brought it up.

“What about your family?”

“All dead.”

If a long-starved person suddenly eats too much, it can easily cause stomach pain.

Zhang San, with his theoretical knowledge and practical experience, did not neglect these details. After eating, he writhed in pain on the ground for a while. Old Wang helped bring him back to his lodgings.

......

......

That night, Zhang San was temporarily taken in by Old Wang and given a mat on the floor to sleep on.

The sleeping Zhang San murmured: “Mother, your child misses you......”

Old Wang had just finished up and was about to go to bed himself when he heard those words. Tears rolled down his face and he sighed again. They were all suffering souls.

In the dead of night, Zhang San slowly opened his eyes.

His gaze gradually sharpened!

As a steady killer, observing the target and determining their true strength from those observations was extremely important. After all, in a country of martial arts practitioners like Dawu, how could you know if the other person wasn’t some expert hiding out in rural areas? These days even immortals could descend into the mortal realm, play dead, then beat the gang leader to death. With circumstances like that, how could anyone guarantee that the Old Wang from the neighboring village wasn’t the previous generation's White Sect leader who had retreated into the fishing village to live in seclusion because the White Sect had declined?

So Zhang San’s sharp gaze gradually faded away. He would have to wait for the perfect opportunity. Although in the past Zhang San would have definitely chosen to watch from afar using his self-invented “telescope”, this time was different.

His target was a “fisherman”, in short, a fisher.

This had been Zhang San’s greatest fear for the past twenty years. To overcome that fear and surpass himself, becoming a capable killer once more, this was a necessary step.

To overcome fear, you must first embrace fear!

Therefore, Zhang San, possessing intermediate-stage Earth rank martial arts, Heaven rank lightness skill, and unparalleled acting, came to Old Wang’s home.

So now...

What reason should he use to stay by his side and observe him tomorrow?

Lying on the straw mat, biting his thumb, Zhang San pondered this question.

......

......

How should a killer observe in order to determine a target's true strength?

Zhang San had asked that very question to his master when he was young.

His master punched him in the head, then scolded him for always messing around instead of properly practicing his martial arts. He said if you practiced your martial arts to the Heaven rank, would you still need to worry about the other person’s strength? Just kill them with one palm strike. How could the other person be an immortal?

At the time Zhang San really did want to say that yes, the other person could indeed be an immortal. But his master’s iron fists truly hurt, so Zhang San didn’t ask further and chose to figure it out himself instead.

Of course, after 20 years as a killer, Zhang San knew that he had to be realistic. The chances of running into an immortal were too low. But for the sake of a steady career, observing a target’s abilities was still essential.

So the money-grubbing Zhang San, even though his master ate a lot, still managed to pinch quite a bit of money from his master’s meals every year. Along with his income from 20 years as a killer, Zhang San should have had substantial savings. Yet why was the present Zhang San still so poor?

The reason was simple. Zhang San had used over half his money to buy secret manuals.

But he didn’t buy the manuals to cultivate from them, rather just to read them.

Because most martial arts in the world boiled down to inner energy combined with practicing fist or weapon techniques over many years, while lightness skills also utilized inner energy plus legwork and steps. But it was vital to realize that in the path of martial arts, specialization was paramount.

For instance, a master who focused on fist techniques, in order to advance from the Earth rank to the Heaven rank, would certainly continue honing his own fist style instead of picking up a sword technique.

Masters like that who specialized deeply in a certain martial arts skill for decades and achieved some success - as long as your foundational martial arts knowledge was solid enough, just by observing them you could infer a high chance of estimating their strength.

For example, someone who cultivated Iron Palm skill didn’t seem anything special if they only practiced for ten years. But if it was over twenty years, and they reached at least the Earth rank, then the coarseness of their palms would absolutely exceed that of an average farmer, and according to Zhang San’s research on the Iron Palm manual, by the Earth rank one’s skin would be so tough that even an ordinary person slashing with a knife would have great difficulty drawing blood, without even using inner energy.

As another example, someone with average fist and kick skills but extraordinary inner power, such masters had very distinct breathing. No matter how heavy the labor, their breath would maintain the same volume, and even after an intense fight they would prioritize regulating their breathing and calming their inner energy over tending to wounds, except for fatal wounds of course.

Many masters thought themselves safely hidden amongst common folk in rural areas or concealed within mundane city life, believing their strength cleverly obscured, even from some other masters.

They might think they had disguised themselves well, but in truth they had just not met cautious people like Zhang San.

He had wasted twenty years, not even ranking first on the killer leaderboard, just for the sake of researching the various sects’ martial arts, all in order to train himself to have discerning eyes!