Bab 1: Yu Nianzhen
"Little saint..., little saint...," Someone called as they shook a young boy who was sleeping against the wall of a filthy alley.
Yu Nianzhen heard the voice and felt the shaking, but he didn't connect the name with himself.
No one had ever called him a 'little saint'; in fact, almost everyone referred to him as a big demon or demon boss behind his back.
There was also the fact that 'little' couldn't possibly be used to refer to a thirty years old man who was more than one hundred and eighty-eight centimetres tall.
Having decided that the call had nothing to do with him, Yu Nianzhen prepared to go back to sleep but the caller wouldn't stop bothering him.
Yu Nianzhen irritably opened his eyes and immediately recoiled in revulsion as he instinctively pushed away the hand that was touching him, causing the person attached to it to fall to the ground in surprise.
"What's wrong with you little saint?" The person queried as they picked themself up from the ground.
'There was that name again.' Yu Nianzhen thought and frowned deeply, but he couldn't be bothered by that at the moment because the person was once again attempting to touch him.
The person was a boy.
He was wearing filthy, tattered clothes and his face was covered in so much grime that none of his features were recognisable.
The only reason that Yu Nianzhen could tell the other's gender was because the boy seemed to be at that awkward age when his voice was transitioning from childhood to adulthood.
Yu Nianzhen deftly avoided the boy's touch as he used the wall to stand up from the ground, but at this point, he realised that something was incredibly wrong.
It occurred to him that he had been sleeping on the ground, right next to a smelly dumpster at the end of a dirty alley!
As a clean freak, even the thought of a spot of dust on his pristine clothes was enough to cause him indescribable discomfort so it was very shocking to find himself in such a dirty place.
Yu Nianzhen looked around in barely concealed panic, but everything he saw raised more questions and provided no answers.
From his position at the alley, he could see the street beyond but none of what he saw made any sense.
The alley overlooked what appeared to be a brothel called the Pleasure Palace but this made no sense since brothels had long been outlawed and no one would blatantly disregard the law in such a high-profile manner.
There was also the fact that all the patrons who went in and out of the brothel were dressed in traditional Chinese outfits, similar to those usually worn in costume dramas.
Yu Nianzhen frowned as he analysed the situation.
Was this the set of a costume drama?
If so, what was he doing here?
The Yu family had invested in many industries, but it had never been involved with the entertainment industry so there wasn't any reason for him to be at the set of a costume drama.
That he would appear here meant that one or some of his people had betrayed him; otherwise, there was no way for an outsider to get close enough to pull this sort of strange abduction.
Yu Nianzhen seethed in anger as he thought about it and he turned back his attention to the young boy with every intention to question him, and that's when he registered the strangest thing of all.
He gritted his teeth, took a brave look at himself, and then shuddered slightly.
He was just as weirdly dressed as everyone else, of the same height as the boy in front of him, and most importantly, he was just as filthy!
Yu Nianzhen felt his mind go blank for a moment and then he desperately pinched his left arm, wishing to immediately wake up from the nightmare.
However, all was in vain, because nothing had changed even after abusing his arm badly enough to draw blood.
"Little saint…" The boy called again when he noticed Yu Nianzhen's strange behaviour.
"What?" Yu Nianzhen focused enough to ask.
He was very confused at the moment and for the first time in his life, Yu Nianzhen didn't know what to do.
He had a suspicion that he had somehow fallen into a coma and everything that was currently happening was a nightmare he was having in his comatose state.
This thought didn't offer much comfort but it was all he could think of given the strangeness of the current events.
For now, he needed to find a way out of the nightmare and his best lead was the boy standing in front of him.
"We have to go right now or we will miss the ceremony." The boy said impatiently and began to walk away without waiting for Yu Nianzhen.
Yu Nianzhen was hopeful when he heard that there was a ceremony happening, but he was also very apprehensive.
He wanted to find a place to clean up, but the boy didn't seem inclined to do the same, so Yu Nianzhen had to bear with the filth and follow the boy through the crowds of people on the street.
The streets and everything on them were reminiscent of ancient China, but once in a while, Yu Nianzhen would see something that made no sense whatsoever.
At one point, he had seen someone riding a flaming horse through the street and at another, he had collided with a green-faced child.
There were also the strange fights he had witnessed along the way and the more Yu Nianzhen thought about it, the more convinced he became that he was very sick.
He wasn't just in a coma; he must also be suffering from the effects of a hallucinogenic otherwise he couldn't explain this strange dream.
Yu Nianzhen had never been the artistic kind, so he was quite sure that his mind wouldn't naturally come up with such a fantastical dream
Now that he was certain that he was under the influence of drugs, Yu Nianzhen became even more determined to follow his guide and find a way out of this situation, everything else could be figured out after he woke up.
After coming to that decision, Yu Nianzhen turned his attention to the young boy and was just in time to see him snatch a passer-by's waist pouch and stuff it into his robes.
Yu Nianzhen frowned and reluctantly grabbed the boy's collar, with every intention of asking the other to return the pouch, but the boy interrupted him even before he could speak.
"Little saint, it is impossible to survive in the sect without any gold, just overlook it this time around."
Yu Nianzhen was flabbergasted by the information he had just received.
From the boy's words, he had an idea of why the other called him a little saint, but what Yu Nianzhen was more concerned about was the other information.
Sect?
What kind of dream was this?
Yu Nianzhen didn't speak any more and continued to follow through the crowd, pretending not to see the occasional pickpocketing.
After walking for almost twenty minutes, the duo arrived in front of a huge stone gate.
The gate was open and through it, Yu Nianzhen could see a crowd of almost one thousand people standing in front of a very majestic building.
However, there was a great disconnect between the majestic building and the crowd, which made Yu Nianzhen frown in confusion.
This is because everyone in the crowd was just like him and the young boy.
They were all dressed in tatters, covered in filth, and the majority were missing one or more body parts.
Several of them were carrying small bowls for begging and Yu Nianzhen wondered whether this dream was some sort of messed up message.
As the heir of the Yu family, Yu Nianzhen had never lacked anything in his life.
He had gone to the best schools, eaten the best food, wore the most comfortable clothes, driven the best cars, and lived as luxuriously as he desired.
However, no one could deny that he had always been very hardworking and all the things he had were all well deserved.
Yu Nianzhen also had a clear conscience when it came to doing his part for society so there really was no reason for him to have this kind of guilt-tripping dream.
Did he subconsciously believe that he hadn't done enough?
Was this to let him build more schools and create more jobs?
Yu Nianzhen was caught up in such thoughts when sudden loud shouts entered his ears and interrupted his thought process.
He was currently standing at the back of the crowd and couldn't see what was happening at the front so he hurriedly moved to the edge of the crowd and began to squeeze his way to the front.
When he arrived at the front, he saw a group of people standing before the crowd.
These people were also beggars, but they seemed a bit different from the crowd because they all carried a varied number of pouch bags tied to a sash on their waists.
The only exception was the beggar standing at the C position who carried a dog beating staff.
Soon after Yu Nianzhen got to the front, the beggar at the C position took a seat on a putuan and everyone else including the crowd began to reorganise into neat queues.
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA 
Muthoni_Murira
Muthoni_Murira Hello everyone.
I have been wanting to write this novel for a while, and I have finally gotten to it.
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Bab 2: Beggars’ Sect
Yu Nianzhen had witnessed a lot of ceremonies in his thirty years of life, but nothing as bizarre as the one he had just experienced.
He had expected that the ceremony would be atypical given that it was being held by beggars, but nothing could have ever prepared him for what happened next.
After the beggars stood in a long queue that extended past the front stone gate, the first person on the line had walked up to the person seated on the putuan and spat on him.
Yu Nianzhen had thought that this was some kind of slight and had expected the crowd to protest in outrage but none of that had happened.
Instead, the second, third, and every beggar after that had walked up and done the same thing when their turn on the queue came.
Yu Nianzhen was severely disgusted, but for some reason, he couldn't bring himself to look away.
Three hours later, the spitting ceremony had ended and the man at the top of the stairs was covered in spit and his clothes were sticking on several parts of his body, making him appear as if he had been rained on.
From his position, Yu Nianzhen could even see several patches of coloured phlegm on the man's clothes which made him feel sick to his stomach.
Yu Nianzhen may have been fighting not to vomit, but the young lad who had followed him to the front seemed as excited as ever.
No, he seemed to be even more excited and Yu Nianzhen had a disturbing feeling that the boy wished that he was the one sitting at the top of the stairs being spat at by thousands of beggars.
This observation made Yu Nianzhen feel even more disoriented.
Was being literally drowned in other people's spit supposed to be a good thing?
Was there something wrong with this world?
Yu Nianzhen looked at the boy strangely, but the other didn't seem to notice or otherwise mind it.
"I heard that chief Zhang has broken through to the Qi transformation realm and is only slightly weaker than city lord Han." The boy said as he looked at the man sitting at the front with unconcealed admiration.
Yu Nianzhen didn't know how to respond to that.
If the man was so impressive, why wouldn't the beggars choose a different ritual to honour him? Yu Nianzhen could think of a thousand different and better ways to say 'congratulations' that didn't involve spitting on someone.
Also, what Qi transformation realm?
Yu Nianzhen was about to ask the boy about it, but the crowd had become excited again and he had no choice but to turn his attention to the front to see what was happening.
"The recruitment for the beggar's sect is about to begin." The boy said excitedly as he looked to the front.
At the front, chief Zhang-who Yu Nianzhen now knew was the leader of the beggars' sect had moved to the side and in his previous position, there was a table and on top of it, someone had placed a clear coloured crystal ball that had a diameter of about ninety centimetres.
"What's that?" He asked the boy as he pointed at the crystal ball.
"It is an origin test stone." The other answered excitedly but the words meant nothing to Yu Nianzhen since he didn't know what an origin was.
"We will be able to join the beggars' sect if we pass the test." The boy continued and Yu Nianzhen felt his blood chill in his veins.
He was desperate to wake up from this bizarre dream but not even that was enough motivation to let him join the beggars' sect.
After everything that had happened, Yu Nianzhen had come up with a few truths about the beggars' sect.
One, being filthy was a way of life for the members of the sect and the very thought of it made Yu Nianzhen feel sick to his stomach.
Second, if he somehow excelled and became chief in the future, he would have to suffer the spitting ceremony.
"Our life will be set if we can join the sect."
Yu Nianzhen was of a different opinion, he felt that his life would be over if he dared to join the sect.
His legs worked faster than his brain and when the other lad wasn't looking, he slipped into the crowd and quickly made his way out of the front gate and away from the beggars' sect.
In his mind, he had already decided to either find a different way to exit the dream or find a more dignified way to exist within the dream.
Yu Nianzhen made his way through the streets; carefully taking in his surroundings and the more he walked, the more he noticed the strangeness around him.
He had always been a considerably strong person but even he had his limits.
At first, Yu Nianzhen only sighed in admiration when he saw a woman carrying what looked like several hundred kilograms of goods but the sigh turned to shock soon after.
It was somewhat normal to have one incredibly strong person in one area, but Yu Nianzhen had seen more than twenty in a stretch of about one hundred metres.
Some looked to be only five to six years older than his current self, but they could easily carry hundreds of kilograms without breaking a sweat. Even the old people were incredibly strong which gave Yu Nianzhen a very surreal feeling.
Strength was not the only strangeness.
Yu Nianzhen had seen a young lady sinking her right hand in the ground and soon after, a seedling had sprouted from the same place.
It was all very strange but Yu Nianzhen was in no position to further investigate because his stomach was grumbling loudly and the afternoon sun was causing him to lose strength even faster.
Yu Nianzhen entered a side alley off the main street to hide from the sun and while he was there, he took the opportunity to rummage through his tattered clothes.
In his exploration, he discovered a small pouch hidden in a secret pocket in his robe's chest area and to his delight, there were fifty gold coins within.
Yu Nianzhen didn't know the worth of the gold coins and didn't expect them to be of much value since his current self was a street child. However, he hoped that it was enough to buy some food since his stomach was literary touching his back.
Other than the pouch, Yu Nianzhen also discovered several scraps of torn paper in the sleeves of his robes.
The writings on the papers were in a foreign language, but strangely enough, he could read them without a problem; just like he had been able to speak the local language without actually knowing the language.
The pieces of paper contained information about some menial jobs like cleaning this and that stall or weeding a certain flower garden. There were also rewards corresponding with each job which helped Yu Nianzhen understand how his current self had amassed fifty gold coins.
After taking out a gold coin from the money pouch, Yu Nianzhen returned the rest, including the torn papers to their previous locations and left the alley.
Luckily, it turned out that Yu Nianzhen had been worried for nothing because a gold coin was more than enough money to feed one person for an entire year.
This discovery was, however confusing for Yu Nianzhen.
If one gold coin was so valuable, why did his current self insist on living on the streets when he had fifty gold coins?
Yu Nianzhen didn't understand the rationale and because he didn't, he didn't dare to be careless with the gold coins.
He only used one gold coin to buy several steamed buns, three new robes, a pair of shoes, one geography book, one history book, and a map.
Unfortunately, none of the cheap inns were willing to give him a room because of how filthy he was, so he followed a line of carriages and left Han city.
After leaving the city gates, Yu Nianzhen used his new map to navigate and eventually found the Han River that flowed just outside the city.
It was already late in the evening and he knew that the city gates would soon be closed so Yu Nianzhen planned to find an isolated place to take a bath and then return to the city before the gates closed.
With this in mind, he hurriedly walked along the river's bank and after ten minutes of walking, he followed an inlet and eventually arrived at a small cove beneath a cliff.
The cove was well hidden which would allow him the privacy he desired and when he was satisfied that there was no one around, he cautiously entered the cove but froze in shock before he could make his way into the depths.
"You…" He called in surprise, but a sudden splitting headache forced him to cease his words and close his eyes in pain.
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA
Muthoni_Murira
Muthoni_Murira
Hello everyone,
I am still working hard and hoping for some feedback.
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