Chapter 175: You or Me

Cha Wuyin had been observing Hidden Mirror for over ten days. It was almost New Year’s Eve, and he still hadn’t figured him out.

He felt that Hidden Mirror was doing inexplicable things.

Registering the elderly, weak, sick, and disabled, arranging daily patrols for different groups to ensure that no one froze to death in the cold winter months.

Centralizing food supplies and having everyone eat together in the dining hall every day.

They had taken over the entire Jicheng, yet with their small number, they couldn’t even enjoy a feast of meat and wine. It was truly unsatisfying!

They even planned to spread the word after spring, attracting the former residents of Jicheng to return and cultivate the land together.

Cultivate the land?

Cultivate what land? How could martial artists cultivate land?

I have martial power, so naturally, I should be robbing others of their food!

If Jizhou is gone, isn’t there still Jiangling?

If Jiangling is gone, there are other big cities!

The Jianghu is so vast, do they need to cultivate land?

Insane!

Indeed, he thought Shi Feizhe was insane.

As expected of someone chosen by Cult Leader Shi, truly extraordinary.

He had already contacted people from other surrounding cities, preparing to take down Jiangling together.

This joyless place, Jicheng, would be left to the insane Hidden Mirror.

Thinking about this, he flew out of Jicheng, heading towards the agreed-upon location outside Jiangling.

As soon as he left the city, Cha Wuyin saw Shi Feizhe sitting by the roadside.

“Where are you going?” Shi Feizhe asked softly.

“None of your business!” Cha Wuyin said. “Hidden Mirror, you want Jicheng, Jicheng is yours. We won’t interfere with each other.”

“You’re going to Jiangling, right?” Shi Feizhe said.

“Again, none of your business.” Cha Wuyin didn’t want to waste time on this insane Hidden Mirror.

But a sword Qi appeared in front of Cha Wuyin.

“Hmm?” Cha Wuyin frowned and said, “What do you mean by this?”

“You can’t go!”

“Heh… You want to stop me!” Cha Wuyin sneered. “Could it be that you’re from the Great River Sword School of Jiangling?”

The Great River Sword School was the largest sect in Jiangling City, with True Realm martial artists residing within.

“I have no connection to them, and their life or death is none of my concern. But the lives of the people of Jiangling are my concern.” Shi Feizhe shook his head and said, “The Jianghu is sick, but it can still be saved!”

“What sickness? I think you’re the one who’s sick!” Hearing Hidden Mirror spout nonsense, Cha Wuyin didn’t bother arguing. His Bull Demon True Martial Divine Image appeared behind him, and he threw a punch at Shi Feizhe.

He had long found this lunatic Hidden Mirror an eyesore.

White sword Qi also appeared out of thin air, rolling towards Cha Wuyin like a wave. Within the wave, a faint sword Qi was hidden.

It was “Cut the Intestines”.

Shi Feizhe had learned about Cha Wuyin’s past from both Cha Wuyin himself and others.

He was originally a wealthy young master who, after inheriting his family business, was tricked, losing his home, his wife was gambled away, and his child was killed. He was left with nothing but a massive gambling debt, forced to sell himself as a martial artist to barely survive.

His experience was worthy of sympathy, but his actions were not worthy of forgiveness!

When the Sacred Heart Cult captured Jicheng, Cha Wuyin went on a killing spree in the city, not only killing the City Lord and the merchants who had tricked him, but also the person who had bought his family home.

After that, he started killing aimlessly in the city, slaughtering anyone he saw until he grew tired of it. He was also the one who destroyed Jicheng’s city walls. Even now, the stench of the corpses beneath the walls hadn’t been completely cleared!

It could be said that Cha Wuyin was single-handedly responsible for the mass exodus of Jicheng’s people.

Afterwards, Cha Wuyin acted on his whims, turning the entire Jicheng into a chaotic mess until Shi Laomo personally came to restrain him, ordering him to stop killing and manage Jicheng.

✿✿✿

This kind of experience truly baffled Shi Feizhe.

What he couldn’t understand was that people in the Jianghu seemed to have no compassion or pity for the weak!

Shouldn’t someone who has been through the rain offer an umbrella to others when they have one? Isn’t this basic human compassion?

How could they hold an umbrella and kick someone in the rain?

Even under the Confucian rule of feudal dynasties, there was at least a facade of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom. This chaotic Jianghu was too dark, even worse than the feudal dynasties!

Therefore, he felt that his previous treatment of martial artists was too lenient.

He had believed that those who had experienced hardship as “oxen and horses” would empathize with ordinary people and sympathize with those weaker than them.

But it turned out that the goal of these “oxen and horses” martial artists was only one: to stop being “oxen and horses”.

Or rather, as long as they themselves were no longer “oxen and horses,” what did the life and death of others matter to them?

Why should they sympathize with ordinary people when they had already become martial artists? They were no longer on the same level as ordinary people, how could they sympathize?

Ordinary people who didn’t become martial artists were simply not hardworking, not striving, lacking luck, or lacking a good father.

Ordinary martial artists were like declining scholar-officials. Those with inheritance and sects were like aristocratic families.

In the current Jianghu, there were no commoners among the elites and no scholar-officials among the lower classes.

If you were not a martial artist, the Jianghu naturally had no place for your voice.

The thousand-year-old, or even millennia-old, ingrained mindset of the Jianghu people was not something Shi Feizhe could easily change alone!

Just like Old Man Fan, decades of ingrained thinking could not be easily changed by attending a few classes or listening to a few words.

If Shi Feizhe hadn’t transmigrated and lived to be sixty or seventy years old, if someone told him to restore the feudal dynasty and rebel with a certain someone to gain merit by supporting the new emperor, Shi Feizhe would probably look at that person as if they were an idiot.

The gap between his and Old Man Fan’s thinking was that vast, and so was the gap between him and the Jianghu!

Shi Feizhe thought carefully, even in his previous life, some bosses wouldn’t even pay for social security, let alone give raises. They would even deduct a few hundred yuan from salaries as a “perfect attendance bonus.”

At the end of each month, they would find ways to deduct this and that, taking the exploitation of employees for granted. If you talked to such people about improving employee benefits, they would think you were crazy. It was all their money!

In his previous life, no one knew martial arts, and even in the 21st century, the gap between people was still quite large.

Not to mention in the Jianghu, he had previously thought of the martial artists in the Jianghu too simply!

Shi Feizhe had thought of those who had experienced hardship as “oxen and horses,” but he didn’t realize that these “oxen and horses” martial artists considered themselves martial artists, not “oxen and horses.”

Perhaps with prolonged influence, Old Man Fan’s thinking might change, but that would take too long!

The Jianghu no longer allowed Shi Feizhe to bring people to his side and change them one by one. He needed faster and more efficient methods to change the Jianghu!

He lacked both the means to criticize their thinking and the weapons to criticize their actions.

Therefore, he would first deal with the matter at hand.

No matter how many flaws Jiangling City had, it was still better than having you few True Realm martial artists go on a killing spree!

After killing Cha Wuyin, he would go and kill all those True Realm martial artists!

The surging white sword Qi didn’t make Cha Wuyin feel threatened. He keenly sensed a special sword Qi among them.

But by the time he noticed it, it was too late.

Shi Feizhe had fully recovered from his injuries, and he saw no need to hold back against Cha Wuyin!

Cha Wuyin only felt a faint chill pass through him, then he was cut in half.

“How is this possible!” Cha Wuyin couldn’t believe that Shi Feizhe was actually this strong!

He couldn’t even block a single move.

“You have cultivated the 《Sacred Heart Manual》 for so long, yet you don’t even know its origins!” Shi Feizhe looked at him and said, “You have broken through to the True Realm, yet you don’t even know why!”

“I am the true creator of the 《Sacred Heart Manual》!”

“I am the true Shi Feizhe with world-shaking wisdom!”

Cha Wuyin stared at Shi Feizhe with wide eyes.

The bitter history of working: The boss clearly has plenty of money, yet still deducts 300 yuan as a perfect attendance bonus. Taking a single day off means losing both the day’s wage and the bonus, resulting in a significant pay cut. People are afraid to take leave, even when sick, and have to persevere. Tragic. （No matter where, it’s difficult for different classes to understand each other!）