To make a living at the ferry crossing, you first need to buy a laborer's pass from the Ironback Gang. Each one costs thirty-seven coins. Without a pass, no one will hire you, and no one will feed you. Shen Mo had saved seventeen coins. Using a little skill he'd picked up working in a kitchen in his previous life, he rendered cooking fat into oil and scraped together enough to pay for the pass.
Once he had it, the gang demanded another two taels of silver as a contribution. Pay up within three days, or the pass would be taken back and he'd be out.
That night, a few lines appeared before his eyes: "Stand in the stake stance. Insufficient strength, unable to improve. Accumulation across ten thousand lifetimes, seventh life."
You need to eat to train. Only with a full stomach would he have the strength to stand in the stake stance, carry sacks, and make a place for himself at the ferry crossing, day by day.
Liu Sandao, the leader of Group Five South, was waiting to laugh at him. Old Ma, the man at the woodshed, was waiting for him to come back tomorrow.
Two taels of silver. Three days. He looked down at his hands, cracked by the cold.
I can earn that.
A low-martial-arts story about an ordinary man. No System, no cultivation. A ferry-crossing laborer trains by eating and climbs his way up, one step at a time.
