Chapter 4: The Weight of the Mandible
The heavy wooden door of the hut scraped shut, the sound unnaturally loud in the dead silence of the night. Lin Yuan quickly threw the heavy ironwood crossbar into place, the solid thud providing a fleeting, illusory sense of security.
He took one step away from the door, and his legs simply ceased to function.
He collapsed onto the freezing dirt floor, his knees hitting the compacted earth hard. The burlap sack slipped from his numb fingers, landing with a heavy, wet squelch.
The adrenaline that had sustained him—that had turned his fear into rage and his weakness into a desperate, feral lethality—finally evaporated. In its place came a crashing, violently physical wave of absolute terror.
Lin Yuan scrambled backward on his hands and knees until his back hit the rough mud-brick wall. He pulled his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around his legs, and began to shake. It wasn't a mild tremble; it was a violent, uncontrollable shivering that made his teeth chatter so hard his jaw ached.
"Oh god," he gasped, his breath hitching. "Oh my god."
He squeezed his eyes shut, but the darkness of the hut only served as a canvas for his traumatized mind. Every time he blinked, he saw it. The towering, crimson armor of the Iron-Carapace Centipede. The massive, serrated mandibles dripping with black, smoking venom. The deafening, metallic screech that had vibrated in his very marrow. The feeling of the creature's armored tail slamming into his shoulder, the sickening crunch of his own ribs breaking.
He had almost died.
It wasn't a near miss where he had dodged a speeding car by an inch. He had been literally trapped beneath a Demonic Beast, his bones broken, venom sprayed directly into his face. If not for the passive Minor Toxin Resistance he had absorbed from the Frost-Vein Viper just hours prior, his face would have melted off his skull. He would have died screaming in agony on the freezing rocks, completely alone, his corpse left to be devoured by the very thing he had tried to hunt.
A wave of profound nausea washed over him. Lin Yuan rolled onto his side, coughing dryly into the dirt, his stomach heaving, though there was nothing left in it to expel.
He lay there for a long time, the cold seeping into his newly refined skin, listening to the frantic, erratic hammering of his own heart. He was a modern man, an architect who spent his days looking at CAD files and arguing with contractors over the phone. He wasn't a soldier. He wasn't a martial arts grandmaster. He was a normal, terrified guy who had been pushed into a meat grinder and somehow, miraculously, crawled out the other side.
Tears of sheer, overwhelming relief and lingering terror pricked the corners of his eyes, cutting tracks through the dried green ichor and dirt caked on his cheeks. He let them fall. He didn't try to suppress the emotion. He needed to feel it, to process the sheer psychological shock of the violence he had committed and endured.
"I'm alive," he whispered into the dark, the words a fragile, trembling lifeline. "I'm still alive."
Gradually, the shaking began to subside. The survival instinct that had kept him moving through the desolate crags slowly reasserted itself, pushing the panic down into a small, tightly sealed compartment in the back of his mind.
Lin Yuan sat up, dragging a dirty sleeve across his face, wiping away the tears and the grime. He took a deep, shuddering breath, filling his lungs with the freezing, dusty air of the hut.
He needed to focus. He couldn't afford to break down now. The Great Wu Dynasty wouldn't wait for him to process his trauma.
He turned his attention to the burlap sack lying in the center of the floor. Despite the dimness, his Heightened Olfactory Senses picked up the scent emanating from it immediately. It was a chaotic mix of the raw snake meat, the earthy smell of the grubs, and the overwhelmingly potent, slightly sweet aroma of the Demonic Beast meat, underscored by the sharp, acidic tang of the centipede's severed mandibles.
Lin Yuan forced himself to his feet. His body felt heavy, but no longer weak. The aches and pains of his previous starvation were entirely gone, replaced by the dense, thrumming vitality of the Skin Refining stage.
He moved to the hearth, his movements deliberate and slow. He couldn't risk lighting a fire just yet; the smell of roasting Demonic Beast meat would be like a beacon in the starving village. He needed to seal the hut completely.
Drawing upon his memories of the original Lin Yuan's father, he gathered handfuls of the damp, freezing mud from just outside his back window and began packing it into every single crack and crevice around the window shutters and the doorframe. He used his father's old, moth-eaten winter coats to drape over the windows, creating a crude but effective airtight seal. Only a tiny, heavily baffled vent near the roof was left open to allow the smoke from the hearth to escape without carrying the scent directly into the village square.
Once he was satisfied, he struck his flint and steel, igniting a small pile of dried pine needles and wood shavings. As the flames caught, casting a warm, flickering orange glow across the room, Lin Yuan finally opened the sack.
He pulled out the centipede mandibles first.
They were terrifyingly heavy, each one nearly two feet long and as thick as his wrist at the base. In the firelight, the serrated inner edges gleamed with a deadly, dark crimson luster. They weren't just bone or chitin; the Demonic Beast's ambient Qi had tempered them into something resembling organic steel.
Lin Yuan carefully ran the pad of his thumb over the flat side of one mandible. It was smooth, almost glassy. He didn't dare touch the serrated edge. He knew without testing it that these organic blades were infinitely sharper and more durable than the rusted iron hunting knife he had left buried in the centipede's underbelly.
He set them aside reverently. They were his new fangs.
Next, he pulled out the chunk of pale meat he had cut from the beast's underbelly. It weighed roughly five pounds. Unlike the feral dog meat or the snake meat, this flesh didn't look entirely natural. It had a faint, almost imperceptible jade-like translucence in the firelight. It didn't smell like rot or blood; it smelled rich, earthy, and inexplicably appetizing, triggering a primal, watering response in Lin Yuan's mouth.
This was spirit meat. It was the condensed essence of a creature that had passively absorbed the spiritual energy of the world. In Qingshui Town, a single pound of this meat would cost enough silver to feed Black Mountain Village for a year.
Lin Yuan didn't bother with salt or ash-leaves. He skewered a large piece of the translucent meat on a clean wooden stick and held it over the glowing coals of the hearth.
The moment the heat touched the meat, it began to sizzle, releasing a few drops of clear, golden fat that hissed as they hit the embers. The aroma that filled the small, sealed hut was intoxicating. It smelled like roasting marrow mixed with the fresh, sharp scent of pine needles after a heavy rain. Lin Yuan's stomach gave a violent, demanding roar, the hunger of a newly forged martial artist asserting itself.
He watched the meat cook, his eyes glazed with exhaustion. He thought about the Feedback.
Seven years of lifespan. Massive Qi and Blood. Iron Carapace.
He pulled up his sleeve, staring at his forearm in the firelight. To the naked eye, it looked like a normal, slightly dirty human arm. But as he focused his will, tapping into the Iron Carapace skill fragment he had absorbed, he felt a strange, profound shift.
It wasn't a physical transformation; he didn't sprout scales or armor plates. Instead, it felt as though the very density of his flesh increased exponentially. The skin tightened, a subtle, metallic bronze sheen rippling across his pores for a fraction of a second before fading.
He reached over and picked up a sharp, jagged piece of flint he used for starting fires. He pressed the sharp edge against his forearm and dragged it firmly across the skin.
It left a faint white scratch, like dragging a fingernail across a piece of hard plastic, but it didn't pierce the flesh. There was no blood.
Lin Yuan let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. The Skin Refining stage, combined with the Iron Carapace passive, had turned him into something undeniably superhuman. A normal man swinging a sword at him might bruise the muscle underneath, but they would struggle to cut him.
He pulled the skewer away from the fire. The outside of the Demonic Beast meat was beautifully seared, a deep, caramelized brown. He didn't care if the inside was fully cooked. He brought it to his mouth and took a massive bite.
The taste was indescribable. It was rich, savory, and melted on his tongue like hot butter. But the true miracle occurred the moment he swallowed.
As the meat hit his stomach, it didn't sit heavy like the dog meat. It practically dissolved, instantly converting into a massive, surging wave of pure, refined spiritual energy.
Lin Yuan gasped, his eyes widening.
The wild, chaotic Demonic Qi and Blood he had absorbed upon the centipede's death had forcibly pushed him into the Skin Refining stage, but his foundation had been entirely unstable, like a house built on wet sand. Now, the pure, easily digestible energy from the spirit meat rushed through his body, acting like quick-drying cement.
It flooded his meridians, sinking deep into his newly toughened skin, solidifying the breakthrough. He felt an intense, comforting warmth radiating from his core, spreading to his fingertips and toes. The lingering soreness in his muscles vanished completely. His breathing naturally slowed, falling into a deep, rhythmic cadence.
He ate the rest of the meat ravenously, not caring about the grease coating his chin and hands. He was starving for the energy, his body eagerly absorbing every single drop of vitality to reinforce his new realm.
When he finished, he sat cross-legged by the hearth, closing his eyes. He didn't need to practice the Black Bear Forging Posture right now; the energy from the meat was docile, naturally nourishing his body without the need for violent physical exertion.
He sat there for hours, simply enjoying the sensation of feeling truly, deeply alive. For the first time since transmigrating into this hellish world, the gnawing, ever-present specter of death had stepped back from his shoulder. He wasn't invincible, but he was no longer prey.
Morning came with the usual bitter, howling wind, rattling the shutters and seeping through the tiny cracks in the mud seals.
Lin Yuan opened his eyes. The fire had died down to white ash. He felt incredibly well-rested, a sharp contrast to the exhausted, starving boy who had woken up in this very bed just two days ago.
He stretched, his joints popping with loud, satisfying cracks. He felt light, powerful, and utterly grounded.
He stood up and unsealed the door, stepping out into the frigid morning air. The sky was the same bruised, oppressive grey. The village was just as silent, a graveyard waiting for the dirt to be thrown over it.
He needed to maintain his routine. He couldn't just vanish into his hut for days, or people would talk. He gathered his frayed burlap sack, intending to walk toward the woods to feign gathering firewood. He rubbed dirt onto his face and hands, consciously slumping his shoulders and adopting the dragging, pathetic limp he had perfected.
As he shuffled down the frozen dirt path toward the village square, a weak, rasping sound caught his attention.
It was coming from a dilapidated hut to his left, the roof partially caved in from a heavy snowstorm two winters ago.
Lin Yuan paused. His Heightened Olfactory Senses picked up the distinct, sickening sweet smell of advanced human decay and the sharp tang of fresh blood.
He recognized the hut. It belonged to Auntie Liu, an elderly widow. In the original Lin Yuan's memories, there was a vivid scene from five years ago. The original owner had been a young boy, crying in the dirt because he had tripped and scraped his knee. Auntie Liu had hurried over, wiped his tears with a surprisingly clean cloth, and pressed half of a warm, baked sweet potato into his hands, a rare treat even before the famine.
"Grow strong, little Yuan," she had said, her eyes crinkling with a warm smile. "The mountain needs strong men."
Lin Yuan felt a painful twinge in his chest. It was the original owner's emotion, blending seamlessly with his own modern empathy.
He slowly approached the broken wooden door, which was hanging precariously off a single leather hinge. He peered through the gap.
The inside of the hut was practically bare. The furniture had likely been burned for warmth long ago. Lying on a bed of dirty, freezing straw in the corner was Auntie Liu.
She didn't look human anymore. She was a skeleton wrapped in paper-thin, grey skin. Her eyes were sunken so deeply into her skull they looked like empty sockets. But what made Lin Yuan's stomach violently churn was her arm.
She had gnawed through her own forearm.
The flesh around her wrist was mangled, the bone exposed and splintered. She was delirious, her jaw working weakly, the primal, overriding instinct of starvation having finally shattered her mind, driving her to cannibalize herself in a desperate, futile bid to silence the agony in her stomach.
"Auntie Liu," Lin Yuan whispered, the sound catching in his throat.
Her sunken eyes rolled toward the door, fixing on his silhouette, but there was no recognition in them. Only a glassy, hollow emptiness.
"Hungry..." she rasped, the word barely a breath, blood bubbling on her cracked lips. "So hungry..."
Lin Yuan stepped back from the door, his heart hammering against his ribs. The cold logic he had forged in the rocky crags waged a violent war against the humanity he was desperately trying to hold onto.
Walk away, the cold logic demanded. She is already dead. You cannot save her. If you give her food, the smell will attract the neighbors. They will tear her apart to get it, and then they will come for you. You will expose yourself for a corpse.
She gave you a sweet potato, his humanity screamed back. She smiled at you. You have a sack full of snake meat. You have salted dog meat. You are a Skin Refining martial artist. Are you going to watch an old woman eat her own arm and do nothing? What is the point of power if you lose your soul?
Lin Yuan squeezed his eyes shut, his hands balling into fists so tight his knuckles popped. The conflict was agonizing. He hated this world. He hated the Black Tiger Gang, the Immortals who ignored the mortal suffering, the very heavens that allowed the rain to stop.
He opened his eyes. The cold logic won, but it was a bitter, hollow victory.
If he gave her meat now, in broad daylight, she wouldn't even be able to digest it. Her stomach would rupture. And even if it didn't, the starving villagers who lived in the adjacent huts would smell the meat. They would swarm her like locusts. He would be condemning her to a violent, terrifying death at the hands of her neighbors, and he would put a massive target on his own back.
He couldn't save her life. The famine had already claimed her.
But he couldn't let her suffer like this. He couldn't leave her to eat herself in the cold dark.
Lin Yuan looked around the deserted path. No one was watching. He reached into his tunic, pulling out a small, sharp piece of flint. He stepped quietly into the freezing hut.
Auntie Liu didn't react as he approached the straw bed. She was murmuring incoherently, her bloody lips continuing their weak, chewing motion.
Lin Yuan knelt beside her. He didn't speak. He didn't want to startle her or draw her attention to the reality of what was happening. He reached out with his left hand, gently but firmly grasping her mangled, skeletal arm, pinning it to the straw so she couldn't bring it back to her mouth.
With his right hand, he pressed the edge of the flint against the carotid artery on the side of her neck.
He hesitated. His hand, which had brutally slaughtered a Demonic Beast without a second thought, trembled violently. Slaying a monster in self-defense was one thing. Euthanizing an innocent, starving old woman who had once shown him kindness was a psychological burden of an entirely different magnitude.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice cracking, hot tears blurring his vision. "I'm so sorry, Auntie Liu. Sleep now. It won't hurt anymore."
He pressed down and pulled the flint sharply.
The cut was clean and deep. Auntie Liu gasped, a soft, wet sound. Her body tensed for a brief second, and then, mercifully, the terrible, frantic energy of starvation left her. Her eyes slid completely shut, and her head lolled to the side.
The quiet of the hut was absolute.
Lin Yuan knelt there in the dirt, the bloody piece of flint slipping from his fingers. The Feedback surged.
Target killed: Starving Mortal (Liu Mei).
Feedback acquired: One-half of target's remaining lifespan (Three minutes).
Feedback acquired: Trace vital Qi and Blood (Negligible).
Feedback acquired: Skill Fragment - Embroidery (Basic).
The system notification, utterly devoid of empathy, felt like a cruel, mocking slap to the face. Three minutes. She had been three minutes away from dying naturally, and he had absorbed a minute and a half of her agonizing final moments. The trace Qi was so miniscule he couldn't even feel it. And the skill fragment—Embroidery—a stark, heartbreaking reminder that this corpse had once been a woman who created beautiful things.
Lin Yuan let out a choked sob, burying his face in his hands. He wept bitterly, mourning the loss of Auntie Liu, mourning the cruelty of the world, and mourning the piece of his own humanity he had just sacrificed on the altar of mercy.
He stayed there for ten minutes, until his tears ran dry, leaving behind a cold, hollow emptiness in his chest.
He stood up, his face devoid of expression. He used a piece of clean, dry straw to carefully wipe the blood from her neck, arranging her torn clothing as best he could to cover the horrific bite marks on her arm. He pulled a frayed, dirty blanket up to her chin. In death, her face looked surprisingly peaceful, the lines of agony finally smoothed away.
Lin Yuan turned and walked out of the hut, pulling the broken door shut behind him.
He didn't feign his limp anymore. He walked with a stiff, rigid posture, his eyes fixed dead ahead. The fear that had plagued him was gone, burned away by the sheer, unadulterated tragedy of the Black Mountain Village.
He was done hiding in his hut. He was done being entirely reactive.
If he wanted to survive, if he wanted to ensure he never ended up like Auntie Liu, eating himself in the dark, he needed more than just raw stats. He needed combat ability. He needed weapons. He needed to prepare for the Black Tiger Gang.
He strode purposefully past the village gates, heading into the outer woods. He wasn't looking for firewood today. He was looking for a secluded place to forge his arsenal.
Deep in the woods, far from any prying eyes, Lin Yuan found a small clearing surrounded by dense, dead brush. He dropped his burlap sack and set to work.
He pulled out the massive centipede mandibles. He had brought his father's old whetstone, a block of coarse grey sandstone, and a thick piece of cured boar leather he had found in the root cellar.
He sat cross-legged on the frozen ground and began the arduous process of turning the Demonic Beast's fangs into usable weapons. The material was incredibly hard, making a high-pitched, ringing sound as he ground the base of the mandibles against the sandstone to flatten them out, creating a makeshift tang for a handle.
He worked for hours, his newly refined skin and boundless stamina allowing him to grind the incredibly tough chitin without his hands blistering or his arms giving out. He was completely focused, channeling all of his grief, his anger, and his lingering fear into the repetitive, rhythmic motion of the grinding stone.
By midday, he had managed to flatten the base of both mandibles sufficiently. He took the cured boar leather, cutting it into long, thin strips with his rusted hunting knife. He wrapped the strips tightly around the flattened bases, pulling the leather as hard as his Skin Refining strength would allow, binding it securely to create solid, comfortable grips.
When he finished, he held up his creations.
They were essentially short swords, roughly eighteen inches long. The handles were rough black leather, contrasting sharply with the glossy, crimson, serrated blades. They were brutally heavy, perfectly balanced for a martial artist, and radiated a faint, menacing aura of Demonic Qi.
Lin Yuan stood up, holding one of the crimson blades in his right hand. He gave it an experimental swing.
The blade cut through the freezing air with a sharp, lethal hiss. It felt entirely different from holding the rusted hunting knife. The knife was a tool for skinning animals; this was an instrument designed exclusively for slaughter.
He approached a dead pine tree, roughly the thickness of a man's thigh. He planted his feet, drew his arm back, and swung the crimson blade horizontally with all his might.
He didn't use any fancy techniques; he simply poured his Skin Refining strength into the swing.
Thwack!
The serrated edge of the mandible bit into the dead wood, shearing through the frozen timber with terrifying ease. The blade didn't stop until it was halfway through the trunk.
Lin Yuan yanked the blade free, staring at the deep, clean cut in astonishment. The edge of the mandible wasn't even slightly dulled. If that had been a man's torso, it would have cut him entirely in half.
He had the weapons. He had the physical strength and the defensive toughness of a Skin Refining martial artist.
But as he stood in the clearing, looking at his crude swings, a sobering realization settled over him.
He was a thug with a sharp stick.
He had no footwork. He didn't know how to parry, how to dodge efficiently, or how to read an opponent's intent. His fight with the centipede had been a chaotic, desperate brawl won entirely by luck and his passive toxin resistance. If he went up against Zhao San, a man who had likely spent years fighting in the streets and learning proper saber techniques, his raw strength might not be enough. Zhao San would outmaneuver him, find a weak point, and bleed him dry before Lin Yuan could land a solid hit.
Raw stats were useless if he couldn't apply them. He needed combat experience. He needed to learn how to fight, not just how to ambush sleeping snakes or desperately stab thrashing bugs.
Lin Yuan sheathed the second crimson blade in a makeshift leather loop on his belt, keeping the first one firmly in his hand.
He looked toward the deeper, darker sections of the Hundred Thousand Mountains. The areas his father had explicitly warned him never to enter. The areas where the truly dangerous beasts roamed—the apex predators that hadn't starved, but had grown vicious and cunning in the famine.
The sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, painting the sky in bloody hues of orange and red. The shadows in the forest grew long and sinister.
Lin Yuan took a deep breath, the cold air filling his lungs, smelling of pine, decay, and the faint, musky scent of wild predators waking up for the night hunt.
He didn't feel the paralyzing fear he had felt yesterday. The death of Auntie Liu had burned away his hesitation. He had a profound, crystal-clear understanding of his reality.
He was in a world that ate the weak. If he wanted to live, he had to become the thing that did the eating.
Lin Yuan tightened his grip on the crimson blade, stepped out of the clearing, and walked silently into the encroaching darkness of the deep woods. Tonight, he wasn't hunting for survival. He was hunting for war.