The Pingxi Prefecture Martial Arts Academy was situated on Mount Thousand Pine of Pingxi City. Naturally, the ones eligible to enroll here were outstanding youths from all parts of the empire. The students who attended the martial arts academy were required to seek accommodation outside by themselves and take care of their own food, clothing, and other needs. Because of this, the hills on the other side of the Mount Thousand Pine not far from the martial arts academy had already grown into a lively street market. It was for the sake of meeting the demands of the audience, similar to how countless cyber cafes had opened up near high schools in his previous life.
The lively street market was known as Three Yuan Street. The entire Three Yuan Street was more than a thousand meters long, in the shape of a 'Z' on the hill of Mount Thousand Pine. There were all kinds of stores below the buildings that were built on either side of the street along the hill—weapon store, medicine store, blacksmith store, tailor, restaurants, eateries; they were all too much for the eyes to take in.
Similarly, there were also all kinds of inns and private houses for rental at the Three Yuan Street, mainly for students from the martial arts academy.
Through a broker who acted as their intermediary, Yan Liqiang and Shi Dafeng found two neighboring courtyards to rent together somewhere in the Blue Ox Alley close to Three Yuan Street.
The monthly rental of their courtyards cost them six maces of silver. The courtyard was a neat and airy self-contained unit which consisted of a small two-story house, a yard of several dozen square meters, and a basement which provided ample privacy for martial arts training. The broker told them that the previous tenants were wealthy students from the martial arts academy, and they had only left last month. A rental of six maces of silver was considered quite expensive in Pingxi City. There were other cheaper rooms and inns in Three Yuan Street which cost only a few copper coins. Quite a number of students from the martial arts academy would opt for those cheaper rooms and inns.
The courtyard was located in a very strategic location, less than a li away from the martial arts academy. Beyond the Blue Ox Alley was Three Yuan Street, which had all kinds of places that provided feasts and entertainment.
Shi Dafeng came from a wealthy clan, so the rental hardly affected them. Although Yan Liqiang wasn't from a wealthy clan, he still chose this place for the sake of convenience. It ensured he could practice the Muscle Tendon Changing and Marrow Cleansing without being interrupted by anyone. He could still afford to pay at least eight taels of silver a year. Even though Yan Liqiang was usually thrifty, he was never frugal when it came to things that were truly worth spending money on.
They immediately paid the rent for a whole year in advance. The broker who brought them here was so happy that he could hardly conceal his happiness. This was because the easier he could collect the rental, the more he'd receive for his commission.
After their accommodations were settled, both of them changed the lock for the entrance to their courtyard, swapping it for a new one. They then found a bedding store in Three Yuan Street and bought a bedding set along with some daily supplies. In the afternoon, they tidied up their courtyard and kept themselves busy until nightfall. By night, their small courtyard was finally ready to be lived in and they could now be considered as having settled down in Pingxi City.
After being occupied for the entire day, Yan Liqiang really felt like he was a new student reporting in at the university.
Yan Liqiang woke up early the next morning and practiced two rounds of Muscle Tendon Changing and Marrow Cleansing. By the time he came out, the sky had only brightened slightly. When he was about to go out for breakfast, a series of knocks rang out on the door of his courtyard.
He went over to open the door and discovered that Shi Dafeng was standing outside.
"Hm, looking good. Were you training?" Shi Dafeng took a look at Yan Liqiang from top to bottom.
"Of course. Mornings are precious, so how can I afford to waste them? Weren't you also practicing your Full Arm Boxing technique early this morning? Though you were in the basement, I could hear your movements from this side."
"Hahaha, I had no choice. My Full Arm Boxing technique follows the strong path. So the movements take a lot of space. I didn't expect your Tiger Roaring Consecutive Fist technique to be this laid-back. Perhaps if I could someday train the Full Arm Boxing technique to its pinnacle, I'd be able to keep the noise down!" Shi Dafeng laughed. "Let's go get breakfast together. The beef soup and steamed bun shop looks good. And after breakfast, maybe we can explore Pingxi City? I've only been there twice with my father before, and both trips had been short. There are a lot of interesting places in Pingxi City, like Chongsheng Temple, Jade Pearl Spring, and Nine Dragons Bridge. I've never been to all these attractions yet!"
Yan Liqiang was initially thinking of refusing the invitation and telling him that he wished to stay in his courtyard to train. But then he recalled how those Shatu people were hooting about taking their revenge on him. "Alright, let's explore!" He nodded in agreement.
He had just arrived in Pingxi City, and as a newcomer, it was necessary for him to familiarize himself with Pingxi City rather than staying ignorant and clueless about his surroundings. He figured that he might as well find out the Shatu people's current state of affairs in Pingxi City so that he could be a little prepared. After all, one could only escape unscathed through a hundred battles if he knew his enemies as well as himself.
After replying to Shi Dafeng, Yan Liqiang turned around and went upstairs to retrieve his money bag. He then locked the door of his small courtyard and left the Blue Ox Alley with Shi Dafeng.
After taking a left turn in the Blue Ox Alley, the steamed bun shop was around a hundred meters away. Despite the earliness of the morning, business was already rolling in the steamed bun shop. The fragrance of the shop's steamed buns and its beef with pickle soup could be smelled from afar.
Upon arriving at the shop, they both ordered a basket of steamed buns each, took a bowl of beef with pickle soup, and then proceeded to savor the delicious food.
To be honest, the steamed buns served in this tiny shop by the street were better than the ones Yan Liqiang had eaten at a five-star hotel from his previous life. The flour of the buns here was simply flour and the minced meat inside it was just simply minced meat. Everything in the flour was authentic, without any bleaching agents or additives like bulking agents. The steamed buns were slightly yellowish with a natural aroma of wheat. The minced meat inside contained pork, mushroom, and some cabbage. The pork didn't contain a leanness-enhancing agent, and the mushrooms and cabbages were all natural. The fillings were seasoned before they were stuffed into the bun, and they were neither too greasy nor too fatty. Upon biting into the bun, its aromatic fragrance exploded inside the mouth. And to go along with the steamed buns was a marinated vegetable soup that was stewed with beef bone broth and some vegetables. The experience of taking a bite of the bun and then drinking a mouthful of the soup was simply a pleasurable moment to enjoy...
After enjoying the steamed buns in the small shop, Yan Liqiang and Shi Dafeng left Three Yuan Street. With large strides, they hurried on to their next destination in Pingxi City.
The distance from the east side of Pingxi City to the west was less than ten thousand meters, and seven or eight thousand meters from north to south. It had taken many years for Pingxi City to build up to this size and scale. The history of Pingxi City wasn't that long, only about five hundred years. The city's population was less than 900,000. Compared to other magnificent prefectures and provinces in the Great Han Empire which easily had a history of a few thousand years, Pingxi City was nothing but an underripe entity.
Yet this city, which could hardly be considered large, was the best place to be among the entire Pingxi Prefecture. Its liveliness and the number talents gathered in the city far exceeded other county towns.
Yan Liqiang explored many places in the city within half a day, and the experience had been quite an eyeopener.
...
By evening, close to dinner time, Yan Liqiang and Shi Dafeng had arrived somewhere near the Nine Dragons Bridge in Pingxi City. They chose a four-story-high restaurant at the Nine Dragons Bridge, and picked a table by the window on the topmost floor to enjoy their dinner.
Sitting beside the window, they glanced outside. Somewhere not far from a bridge was the region where the Shatu people in Pingxi City were gathered.
The area was very huge, occupying about the size of a town in the eastern part of Pingxi City. From afar, one could see the buildings among the Shatu community were of a totally different style compared to the ones in Pingxi City. The Shatu people could also be seen walking around in that area.
That Shatu man at the city gate had claimed that there were a hundred thousand Shatu people gathered in Pingxi City, which had sounded like an exaggeration at the time. But now that he had seen the size of the Shatu community here, it was quite possible that there were at least seventy or eighty thousand of them here.
Yan Liqiang was planning to call for a horse carriage to bring them for a tour around the Shatu community. However, the coachman refused to take them there, even when Yan Liqiang offered to double the payment. In the end, the coachman was only willing to send them to the eastern side of the Nine Dragons Bridge but was unwilling to go any further than that.
With his talent and capability, Yan Liqiang was feeling confident, even though he had just offended the Shatu people a few days ago. Even though it had barely been a few days since the incident, he still dared to wander into the Shatu community to understand more about them. Yan Liqiang believed it might be true that the Shatu people did intend to take revenge on him, but it was unlikely that they'd be able to get ahold of his whereabouts in Pingxi City in such a short amount of time. Even in his previous life, it wasn't easy to pinpoint someone's whereabouts without the help of technology, let alone in this current situation.
Throughout the entire day he'd spent exploring Pingxi City with Shi Dafeng, Yan Liqiang hadn't sensed anyone stalking or peeping on his movements either. Therefore, he felt at ease in taking a closer look at the Shatu people's current condition here.
Situated at such a lively area around the Nine Dragons Bridge, the business of this restaurant should have been prosperous during the dinner hour, yet Yan Liqiang realized that this restaurant and a few others restaurants nearby weren't doing so well. Among the dozens of tables in the entire fourth floor, only three were occupied, including the one he and Shi Dafeng were sitting at.
"Waiter, why is the business so slow in this restaurant?" Looking away from the gathering place of the Shatu people, Yan Liqiang asked the waiter as he served the dishes they'd ordered.
"It'd be strange for business to be good here, considering how close we are to the gathering place of those Shatu people!" The waiter sighed. "Our business was so much better before those Shatu people expanded their community all the way here to the Nine Dragons Bridge. But now, this is basically how things are around here. You'll still see some people around during the daytime. But when nighttime comes around, you won't see a single soul outside on the road!"
"Why is that?"
"Sir, are you a newcomer to Pingxi City?"
"Well, yes…"
"No wonder!" The waiter shook his head. "It's still alright during the daytime, but when nighttime comes around, there'll be quite a lot of Shatu people pretending to be drunk. They move around in groups and deliberately cause trouble by throwing bottles, yelling, and harassing the pedestrians and merchants on the street. Because of that, the number of people on the eastern side of the Nine Dragons Bridge will gradually thin out by nightfall, and our business becomes more difficult to run. All of this is just a ploy acted out by those Shatu people. They hope to slowly ruin our businesses until we can no longer sustain ourselves because no one dares to come. And then they'll come to us with an offer, like renting our place at a cheaper rate or buying over our restaurant. If we refuse, they'll just use more underhanded tricks, and become even more aggressive in the end. Everyone in Pingxi City knows about their dirty tactics…"
"The Law Enforcement Office didn't bother to do anything about it?"
"Under the protection of the 'Writ of Grace', law enforcers usually let small mistakes slide. If they catch any Shatu people, then countless more will come out to cause trouble. Both the authorities and the Law Enforcement Office won't dare to lay a finger on them. If any conflicts happen between us and those Shatu people, the authorities will just take their side and have us tolerate them, even though we're getting the worst end of the stick from their outrageous behavior. The merchants on this street can only form our own association in self-defense, and prevent those Shatu People from expanding their territories to the eastern side of the Nine Dragons Bridge…"
"Has it been like this all these years?"
"Yes. Otherwise, those Shatu people wouldn't have been able to use all their dirty tricks to get their way in Pingxi City this whole time, and they wouldn't have dominated such a huge territory through their tricks…"
Upon hearing the waiter's words, the expression on Yan Liqiang's face gradually turned into a frown...