You're Strong But Now You're Mine-Chapter 73 - 72 Still Not as Good as Thousand Feathers Style

Chapter 73: Chapter 72 Still Not as Good as Thousand Feathers Style

As a coastal city, Star Engraving County was bisected by the Yideng River, which nourished the people on both its banks. The Yideng River flowed in from the north of Star Engraving County, exited through the east, and finally poured into Haizhu Port to enter the East Sea.

Under the starry night, the Yideng River shimmered with countless sparkles, and at a glance, it looked just like millions of lights twinkling—which was where it got its name.

Plop!

With a splash, a shadowy figure emerged from the waters of the Yideng River outside Star Engraving County. Once ashore, he stripped off his soaking-wet clothes, pulled a clean set from a burlap-wrapped backpack, changed into them, and then wrapped his head in a strip of black cloth to hide his hair.

Le Yuxin glanced once at Star Engraving County behind him, put on the Swift Blade Boots, and without looking back, sped along the riverside toward the north.

This was the escape route of Silver Yin Yin.

He didn’t take the roads; instead, he relied on the Yideng River to go against the current and leave Star Engraving County. Once ashore, he would put on the Swift Blade Boots and dash all the way; with luck, he could reach the northern small city of Chenfeng District before dawn.

On paper, it sounded easy, but the actual "going against the current" bit was pretty crazy, since the route had him leaving from the northern upstream entrance. In other words, Le Yuxin would have to swim upstream through a good chunk of the Yideng River within Star Engraving County itself. Honestly, swimming up half a river wasn’t the hard part. The fact that Silver Yin Yin even dared to make this plan meant his body could handle it.

The problem was, he was doing it at night...

After Le Yuxin plunged into the water, he was immediately swallowed by darkness—he couldn’t see a damn thing. On top of that, there were fish in the river. As he swam, something cold and scaly bumped into him—slippery friggin’ things—and a wave of suffocating unease shot straight to his pituitary gland.

Silver Yin Yin wasn’t scared of these things; hell, in his short but thrilling life he’d even tried eating sashimi mid-swim. "But Le Yuxin was terrified!"

"He ended up taking twice as long as planned just to get out of the Yideng River, and then ran into his second challenge: the Swift Blade Boots."

This was a piece of military equipment so rare that even Qian Yuliu had only heard of it but never seen it in the flesh. It was similar in function to ice blade boots, but built for different terrains: ice blade boots only worked on ice, whereas Swift Blade Boots could handle any land you threw at them—gobies, plains, deserts, heck, even swamps!

To use the Swift Blade Boots, you had to master an auxiliary combat technique kind of like the Lingxu Battle Technique. Once trained, a warrior could channel light onto the blade edges of the boots, so their blade—which was as thick as a pinky—became sharp enough to cut through stone or metal. With that, a warrior could skate across any surface, slicing through rocks or potholes, unstoppable wherever he went.

Before locomotives came along, Swift Blade Boots were hands-down the fastest way for army units to travel long distances—horses simply couldn’t compare to the stamina of a trained martial artist. Even today, with trains and four-wheel drives and other rapid transportation, Swift Blade units were still the trump card of every military force.

The reason: Swift Blade Boots not only gave martial artists high-speed movement but also allowed for agile dodges and inertia-charged power blitzes. "A martial artist speeding along in Swift Blade Boots could slice right through a battalion with a single sword strike—no cavalry or armed convoy could hope to match that level of power."

Swift Blade Boots were so tightly regulated not just because of their speed, but because their inertia built up so much force that even a scrawny wannabe could bulldoze through anything in his path.

On top of that, the light-concentrating blades needed a ton of pyroxene ore—which was getting harder to find—to make. The manufacturing cost was sky-high, and the process was so complex that these remained strictly military gear. You’d almost never see them in the market, not even Qian Yuliu—a star student at the military academy—had used them before.

And of course, both cities and army bases outright banned Swift Blade Boots, not just because of safety concerns but also because of how badly they tore up the ground. "If a crowd used Swift Blade Boots every day, they’d raise the earth three feet in no time."

Silver Yin Yin had a pair of Swift Blade Boots, for obvious reasons—it was vital to his job. Other assassins could hide after killing someone, but for him, a Hidden Sword Technique warrior with a head full of white hair, hiding just wasn’t an option. The only move was to run, and among single-person mobility gear, Swift Blade Boots were the first pick for an assassin.

But here’s the snag—

Le Yuxin, in his past life, had never learned to roller-skate or ice skate.

Even if Silver Yin Yin’s muscle memory was there, Le Yuxin couldn’t just slap on the Swift Blade Boots and expect to balance right away. "Good thing skating wasn’t that hard," and after giving Silver Yin Yin’s pretty face a few good bruises, he finally got the hang of it and sped across the wide-open land.

Leaving behind the noise of Star Engraving County, out there on a seemingly endless country road, bathed in starlight, "Le Yuxin’s frenzied and tense heart finally began to settle."

He could finally catch his breath and check out what he’d gained and lost tonight.

"Name: Le Yuxin/Silver Yin Yin"

"Number of Deaths: 2"

"Available Points: 1"

"Qian Yuliu’s Trial (Completed): Acquire a new trial?"

"Innate Skills: Basic Concealed Sword Fighting Technique (+), Basic Inner World Battle Technique (+), Ice Blood Physique (not activated)"

"Eternal Skills: Death for Substitute, Intermediate Biting Battle Technique (Qiadao School) (+)"

"Challenges (refreshable): Waste 10,000 hours of someone else’s time, Difficulty: ☆☆.

Reward: 3 available points, and 1 chance to upgrade an eternal skill from scratch (lets you upgrade any system-ready ability to a basic skill)."

"How to put it—the biggest win, of course, was that Le Yuxin hadn’t died. His soul had moved from the dead body of Qian Yuliu into Silver Yin Yin’s."

"And the way the ’Number of Deaths’ and ’Available Points’ changed proved it was tied to his deaths, but it still didn’t prove if each death would get him an extra point—was it only after finishing a trial and dying? Only after Crossing the Tribulation? Or completing a challenge?" freёnovelkiss.com

"He’d need to die a few more times to find out."

"There was new intel under ’trial,’ too. Before, after finishing Qian Yuliu’s trial, it just updated to ’completed’ and nothing else changed. But after switching bodies, the system prompted him to acquire a new trial."

"No doubt, this new trial was Silver Yin Yin’s, but it also revealed a system quirk: you could only have one active trial at a time, but Le Yuxin could pick which trial he wanted."

"Say Le Yuxin hadn’t finished Qian Yuliu’s trial yet, that he just needed one last meal freeloading off his little sister, well, he could choose not to start a new trial, book it to Yanjing, eat with his sis, and still fulfill the system’s Crossing the Tribulation requirement."

"Honestly, this was pretty user-friendly. Life’s like chess and people are unpredictable. What if Le Yuxin’s trial was 99% complete and then he suddenly died? If changing bodies swapped the trial, wouldn’t all his previous effort be a waste?"

Then there was Silver Yin Yin’s innate skills. "Gotta say, the system’s skill validation standards were way too strict. Silver Yin Yin was a stealth, spy, and healer all-in-one—that’s some serious versatility—but the system only approved of his Hidden Sword Technique and Inner World Battle Technique. The Hidden Sword Technique, sure, no comment; but as for the Inner World Battle Technique, that was basically his hemorrhoid-and-toothache healing technique."

"On the plus side, an ’Ice Blood Physique (not activated)’ showed up among his skills, which stumped Le Yuxin a little." He’d expected that after swapping bodies, the Ice Blood Physique would be gone, since he’d made Biting Battle Technique his eternal skill, so when Qian Yuliu died, that fully-leveled Ice Blood Physique went to the grave with him anyway.

"’Ice Blood Physique (not activated): Your understanding of Ice Blood Physique is so deep that you’ve found sympathetic factors even in your new body. You can spend 1 point to activate this body’s Ice Blood Physique.’"

"Basically, Le Yuxin had been beaten up so much, even in a new body he could sense the M gene inside. All he had to do was pay a small price to get his MT Overlord Body all over again..."

"It felt kind of weird, but better than nothing—plus, it was basically a bonus eternal skill that wasn’t even on the list. One point was a bargain."

"If you asked him, all the body-swap changes so far he’d mostly expected, but this new challenge had him totally baffled."

"The challenge required him to waste 10,000 hours of other people’s time?"

"What the hell did that mean?"

"What even counted as wasting time?"

"Was he supposed to play cards or mahjong with them?"

"Or was he supposed to copy-paste a cheesy overpowered novelkiss and get 10,000 people to read it for an hour apiece? ’I Became a Bestseller in Another World’ or something like that?"

"Compared to simple, straightforward challenges like ’Survive 15 Days,’ this new two-star challenge left Le Yuxin scratching his head. Still, you could always refresh a challenge, so if he didn’t figure out a shortcut after a few days, he’d just roll a new one."

"On the other hand, that ’zero-foundation eternal skill upgrade’ reward in the challenge was super tempting. He really wanted to learn Lingxu Battle Technique and Blossom Shooting Technique—after all, rather than going full psycho and just ’biting’ people, he’d prefer to roll in with a light rifle, blast the enemy, toss out a ’times have changed, old man,’ and peace out in style."

"But neither Silver Yin Yin nor Qian Yuliu had ever learned those two battle techniques. Le Yuxin couldn’t add points to ’em, and even if he could, swapping bodies would erase them anyway. As a seasoned driver, Le Yuxin understood: no matter how great the racecar, everyone wipes out in the end—putting all your upgrades into a supercar is like betting the house on cabbage or US stocks: total dead end. Eternal skills were what he could really count on."

After he fiddled with the interface, the system page changed to this:

"Name: Le Yuxin/Silver Yin Yin"

"Number of Deaths: 2"

"Available Points: 0"

"Silver Yin Yin’s Trial: Regain White Night’s approval for Silver Yin Yin (0/50)."

"Innate Skills: Basic Concealed Sword Fighting Technique (+), Basic Inner World Battle Technique (+), Ice Blood Physique"

"Eternal Skills: Death for Substitute, Intermediate Biting Battle Technique (Qiadao School) (+)"

"Challenges (refreshable): Waste 10,000 hours of someone else’s time, Difficulty: ☆☆."

"Le Yuxin mentally ran through the possibilities and his face immediately darkened."

Damn it!

"Earlier, Silver Yin Yin had sounded all smug—like he could just treat everything that happened in Star Engraving County as water under the bridge. But the truth was, Silver Yin Yin had no plan for dealing with White Night at all!"

"No, that’s not right—he did have a plan, but it was just an escape plan. Silver Yin Yin knew that after what happened, White Night would definitely send people to kill him, so everything in his head was ’how do I dodge the hit squad?’ He’d planned to worry about the future after the heat died down."

"He did have some self-awareness, I guess. But that left Le Yuxin with nothing but days of running for his life on Silver Yin Yin’s schedule."

"Life was better as Qian Yuliu!"

"Qian Yuliu had a family, a sister, lackeys; a car when he left, a meal when he got back; nice bosses, polite subordinates; and time off to play battle cards."

"Le Yuxin hadn’t appreciated it before, but after seeing the contrast, he realized he’d been living the dream."

"Why couldn’t my murderer have been some rich, ripped bastard with a harem and zero responsibilities?"

"Just thinking of Qian Yuya, Le Yuxin couldn’t help but wonder,"

"Should I go to Yanjing and check on her...?"

"But he quickly shot down that thought. Forget what kind of identity he’d even show up with—’Hey, I’m your brother’s soul-jumper’—the bigger problem was his white hair. The moment he set foot in Yanjing, he’d be dead meat."

"Yanjing wasn’t Star Engraving County. As the last stronghold and pride of the Imperial Court, its security was airtight. In Silver Yin Yin’s memories, their assassin organization would never accept a job inside Yanjing—the white-haired weren’t easy to hide there."

"And they couldn’t just shave their heads, either. Le Yuxin only found out after reading the memories that Sword Concealers grow ’light-storing’ hair. Mutated hair could store a massive amount of light, and Silver Yin Yin’s mid-length, choppy white hair held almost as much light as the rest of his whole body. In short, if a Sword Concealer shaved their head, their power would drop by at least a third. The time they could erupt in darkness would fall even further."

"More importantly—even being bald made you a person of interest in Yanjing. Sometimes, they’d even make you drop your pants to check your armpits; way worse."

"With White Night watching out for her, Qian Yuya should have a much better future ahead... for now, he didn’t need to worry about her."

"Le Yuxin had calmed down, but he still hadn’t nailed down what to do next, so he decided to follow Silver Yin Yin’s escape plan for now. He touched the black steel bracer on his right wrist, thinking his second biggest prize tonight was probably this Saint’s Relic."

"The best thing about a Saint’s Relic was that it could be transformed into any tool of equivalent mass. Le Yuxin turned his into a black steel bracer—nothing suspicious there—and could shift it back to the Soul Purification Fiend Sword in battle."

"The Soul Purification Fiend Sword currently had two main effects: (1) Soul Purification—when the sword hit a target, it could dispel a random buff, like Qian Yuliu’s Ice Blood Physique; (2) Profane Evil Power—once the sword hit someone, it siphoned their life force into the blade, which could be fed back to the wielder or handed off to someone else."

"No question, the sword-form relic was the weaker version, but even so, it had Le Yuxin stunned. He’d thought battle techniques and Spiritual Power were already wild enough—never expected there were even crazier Divine Weapons out there."

"It was hard to explain his feelings—unlike Silver Yin Yin, who’d gotten his Divine Weapon and thought, ’Finally, there’s hope for my medical problems,’ Le Yuxin felt more like, ’Ha! I just jacked the server’s one and only rare artifact.’"

"Death for Substitute didn’t make him happy. Escaping from Star Engraving County didn’t make him happy. But randomly scoring a Saint’s Relic—a lot of his depression really did melt away."

Ha, men.jpg

Soon, dawn was just starting to break, and Le Yuxin checked his position—he wasn’t even halfway there yet.

Moving in Swift Blade Boots during the day was risky. If anyone saw him and told the local army, he’d be in for a search or blockade. Normally, you’d take public transit by day and only use Swift Blade Boots to slip between towns at night.

Not far off was a small town called Streambank. Le Yuxin took off the Swift Blade Boots, stuffed them in his backpack, and apart from the black headband, looked just like any other traveler. Outside the village stood a tea shed and some carriages. A sign by the carriages read: "To Haigen Town, stopping at Chen Family Village and Shuitou Village—ten coins."

The standard transportation out here was the horse-drawn carriage. Haigen Town was at the far north of Chenfeng District, which happened to be where Silver Yin Yin’s safehouse was, so Le Yuxin went over and asked the driver, "When are you leaving?"

"We leave when the carriage’s full," the burly middle-aged coachman said, "pay up first."

Le Yuxin peeked into the open carriage and saw plenty of villagers already seated, even a well-dressed young man. He fished out ten big coins from his pouch, handed them over, and the coachman pointed to the tea stall. "Anyone riding the carriage gets a bowl of iced tea."

Le Yuxin thought the guy had decent business sense—running carriages and a tea stall combo. He just happened to be thirsty, so he grabbed a bowl of tea and let the chilly liquid flow down his throat, immediately feeling a wave of comfort wash over him.

Hugging his backpack, he climbed into the carriage, nodded at the young man across from him, and closed his eyes to rest.

...

...

He had no idea how much time passed.

Le Yuxin opened his eyes, his mind heavy and tired. He heard a rushed voice from across the carriage, "Hey, hey, you’re finally awake!"

Le Yuxin looked up and saw that, including him, there were only four people left in the compartment. Across from him was a young man with his hands chained together; beside him sat a tear-streaked, hand-bound boy, and next to Le Yuxin was a man whose mouth had been gagged.

Without exception, every one of them was tied up.

Le Yuxin lowered his head and saw that his wrists and ankles had also been bound.

This bizarre scene triggered an uncanny sense of déjà vu in Le Yuxin. He shook his head and asked, "What happened?"

The young man, gritting his teeth, said weakly,

"We got caught by human traffickers!"