Chapter 13: Couldn’t Stand to See the Suffering in the Mortal World
After returning to his own room, Yan Qing casually placed his mask on the table and let gravity pull his body onto the soft, fluffy bed.
Although he hadn’t done anything, he still felt worn out.
The midday thieves’ meeting had given him a sense of going to work, but what was harder to bear was that the others could return to their homes in the main world, whereas he could only return to the room provided by the Thieves’ House.
Though in reality it made no difference—they would all return to their rooms before entering the hall tomorrow—the environment of ‘stepping out the door straight into the workplace’ still gave Yan Qing a bit of post-traumatic stress.
Lunch was still roasted lamb leg and wrapped vegetables, and at most Yan Qing could only reheat them a little.
For some reason, he somewhat missed ice cream and cake—he hadn’t liked sweets before, but after seeing Red Snake eating those pastries today and licking the glutinous rice powder off his fingers, Yan Qing couldn’t help swallowing.
Spirit Jade purchasing power should be quite good—once he reached any safe zone in a main city, he could shop in peace…
Yan Qing shook his head like a rattle drum, trying hard to shake the thoughts out of his mind.
As long as he didn’t take risks, there would be no danger.
As long as he didn’t go out, there would be no accidents.
Improving one’s life was something only those with no worries could think about—their only concern now was to survive with all their might.
Not to mention anything else, he wasn’t even a first-stage messenger yet.
When talking with Black Wolf and the others, he always felt like a husky mixed into a wolf pack, afraid to let them notice something was off.
Luckily, Black Wolf suggested ending the meeting, or Yan Qing would’ve been so nervous he needed to pee urgently.
After eating and brushing his teeth, Yan Qing lay on the bed and turned on the Naise game console.
“Messenger, activate!”
In the character interface, only “Yan Qing” remained—“Yan San” had already disappeared without a trace.
Actually, after Yan Qing killed Wu Wanliu, he had felt a bit regretful.
After all, the Lord of Lecheng had promised him that he could run the dungeon every day, which meant at least 2,000 Spirit Jade plus a token and various foods as stable daily income.
If Wu Wanliu had knelt and kowtowed in apology, perhaps Yan Qing would have let it go and they’d still be friends.
Who knew Wu Wanliu wouldn’t give him face.
We single‑player gamers are like this: if we hate a character, we kill them; if we can’t kill them, we go online, download a mod, and kill them that way.
In my game, there cannot exist a single character I dislike.
But Yan Qing quickly came up with a backup plan, because he heard the Lord of Lecheng tell someone that the loot from the secret realm would usually go to the Pingcheng military camp, and once accumulated enough, it would be sent to Buye Tian.
So Yan Qing could easily create a thief character, find a way into the military camp, and steal the stockpiled pills and Spirit Jade—and he’d get over ten thousand Spirit Jade in one go.
One theft could basically cover the fine for failing a thief mission.
As for how to break into the camp and where they stored the loot, Yan Qing didn’t worry—at worst, he could blaze a trail with dozens of new accounts and gather specific intelligence…
A stroke of inspiration flashed through his mind, vaguely connecting to something.
But at that moment, a new prompt popped up in the game, capturing all his attention.
“Detected that your other true‑mode character has max‑level skills. Would you like to enable the ‘Talent Inheritance’ feature? Note: after activating this feature, you may only create new characters in True Mode.”
“Talent Inheritance: limited to activation by True Mode characters. To honor players’ great achievements in True Mode, when creating a new character, the player may pass on an existing character’s talent to the new one.”
“Details: the existing character’s max‑level skills will become the new character’s ‘Talent Skills’, granting an additional 100% experience bonus, and stacking with comprehension bonuses.”
Yan Qing’s eyes flashed—‘existing character’s max‑level skills’ should refer to his maxed basic Footwork skill.
That meant his new character, when learning basic Footwork, could get a 100% experience bonus?
With such a great feature, of course he’d enable it!
Basic Footwork was hard to train—it could only be practiced through dodging and long‑distance movement, and ‘Yan San’ had never even reached level one by the time of death.
And it seemed that beyond basic skills, advanced skills could also be inherited, such as Thunderclap Blade Technique.
Advanced skills mostly had only beginner manuals; higher levels had to be enhanced through combat. With Talent Inheritance, as long as Yan Qing had one advanced character, he could easily train other low‑level accounts to high levels.
Isn’t this a bit overpowered?
Yan Qing then thought that this was probably a scheme by the company to lure more people into True Mode.
With such an overpowered mechanism for raising alts, maybe many casual players who didn’t try True Mode would give it a try.
Once they fell into this pit, it would be easy to persuade them to buy another month’s subscription…
Yet when Yan Qing created a new character, his mouth twitched as he cursed the game planners.
Because on the creation page, a new field “Inheritable Talent” appeared, and naturally it only had Basic Footwork as an option.
And behind Basic Footwork, there was a price!
“Basic Footwork Talent: 12 hours of game time”
“Your total game time so far: 21 hours, available game time: 21 hours”
The currency for purchasing talents wasn’t in-game currency, nor real-world money, but game time!
Twelve hours didn’t seem expensive—Yan Qing could afford it—but the problem was, if Basic Footwork talent already cost twelve hours, wouldn’t advanced skill talents start at one hundred hours?
At the rate Yan Qing burned through low-level accounts every day, no amount of game time would be enough for him.
So should he try a new gaming style and carefully nurture low-level accounts?
Yan Qing rejected that idea.
Even if he wasn’t crazy and tried to be careful, the low-level accounts could still die unexpectedly.
And compared to the loss of “game time” as a virtual currency, what truly mattered was the actual time he had spent—if a long-played character died, most of the time spent on that character would go to waste.
Even one’s real life could be wasted—virtual losses were hardly worth mentioning.
After a short consideration, Yan Qing decided on his play strategy: invest in talents when necessary, be generous with low-level accounts, but don’t get attached.
If he became too invested in a character and didn’t dare take risks, it would completely defeat the purpose—he made low-level accounts precisely because he didn’t want to take risks!
So he quickly created a tall, strong character with 13 Vital Energy and Blood, and assigned the Basic Footwork talent.
While customizing the character’s appearance, Yan Qing recalled the prejudice people like Wu Wanliu held against Central Plains folk.
This time he was going to steal—if he used a Central Plains face to stir trouble, they might take it out on innocent people.
With that in mind, Yan Qing created a new character with a Northern appearance and named him “Ye Si.”
“Buye Tian’s Starter Village,” start the game!
As soon as he spawned, he headed straight for Pingcheng with practiced ease.
On the way, Yan Qing noticed something different—passersby would actively avoid him, even stop and wait for him to pass, despite “Ye Si” wearing nothing more than common clothes.
There wasn’t much change at Pingcheng’s gate.
Civilians still lined up on the left for the guards’ slow inspection, while a few guards idled and chatted on the right.
The only difference was—it wasn’t the same guards as yesterday.
Yan Qing didn’t bother with niceties and walked directly toward the right.
Seeing the man in coarse clothes without even shoes, the guards instinctively wanted to shout at him—but when they looked up and saw “Ye Si”’s face, the words got stuck in their throats.
“Got a pass?” one of the guards asked.
“No.”
Yan Qing stood at the gate, watching them, ready to beat them up at any moment.
His original plan had been to force his way in and find a place to lie low until nightfall before sneaking into the military camp.
But the guards exchanged glances, unsure about the identity of this Northern hulk, and ended up stepping aside.
Perks like this?
Just as Yan Qing was about to go in, he heard a commotion nearby.
He turned his head and saw an old woman arguing with a guard in the left-hand queue.
“I-I only have five coins… before it was always five coins…”
“You’re coming to do business, so you have to pay the city tax,” the guard pointed at the basket she was carrying. “No tax, no entry!”
“I’m not doing business—I’m delivering these to my son who works as a waiter at the inn… the Chen Inn…” the old woman lifted the cloth covering the basket, revealing warm reddish eggs. She muttered, “My son loves our eggs back home. I’m delivering eggs, not selling them. Five coins should be enough…”
The guard glanced at the eggs and took the five coins she offered.
“Alright, go in.”
“Thank you, thank you sir… ah, give that back!”
“You said you’re not doing business—then you can’t bring in the eggs. Move along, don’t block the way!”
“Please, sir, have a heart. My son works hard, eats poorly, sleeps worse—I just want to give him some eggs to nourish him—”
“Get lost!”
In the struggle, two eggs rolled out of the basket and cracked on the ground, rich yellow yolk oozing onto the dirt.
Annoyed, the guard shoved her hard—she fell backward onto the ground.
He felt slighted and cursed as he stepped forward, stomping the eggshells to bits, then lifted his foot to kick her.
“Didn’t I tell you to scram? You won’t drink the toast, huh—”
Thud!
“Ye Si” punched the guard into the wall—13 Vital Energy and Blood smashed his teeth out.
Before the guard could react, “Ye Si” grabbed the back of his head and slammed him into the ground!
“Didn’t you want eggs? Eat, don’t waste them. Eat all you want.”
Although the ground at the gate was leveled with few stones, “Ye Si”’s power was immense.
Soon the eggshells were ground into powder, and the guard’s face was a bloody mess.
None of the other guards dared to stop him—someone seemed to run off to alert the Hundred-Ward, but Yan Qing didn’t care.
Perhaps this was the real reason Yan Qing didn’t dare to go out into the real world—Master Yan had a kind heart and couldn’t bear the suffering of mortals.
He was the kind of person who’d walk the long way around beggars, because he couldn’t tell if they were real or fake, and he had little money himself.
If he saw someone truly miserable, his empathy would surge but he’d be powerless to help, and it would make him feel awful.
But the game was different.
It was precisely because he couldn’t express himself in reality that he projected his desires into the game.
If he was framed, he’d seek revenge day and night.
If he was angry, he’d take action immediately.
What was the point of being cautious in a game?
“You keep going and he’s going to die.”
“Ye Si” turned his head and saw an old general slowly approaching on an old horse, followed by several Ghostly Knights.
As they appeared, everyone near the city gate backed away.
The old woman on the ground was terrified and scrambled away.
“Let go and I’ll spare your life,” the old general said calmly.
Yan Qing remembered him—the game system remembered too.
Displayed above his head was the name:
“Hundred-Ward Supervisor · Gai Louxian”
When Ying Ru Shi promoted Yan San, she had placed him under this old general’s command.
The Hundred-Ward had one Commander, three Supervisors, and eighteen Banner Leaders—all Banner Leaders were first-stage Messengers.
As for the Supervisors, they were all second-stage Messengers.
Yan Qing glanced at the old woman’s fading figure in the distance, and without hesitation, crushed the guard’s throat with one hand.