Chapter Zero: Xia Ya Lei Meng

  Overall, Xia Yeli is a standard "turtle".

  The term "Tu Bie" refers to someone who is from a humble background, or more bluntly put, he is an uncouth and unsophisticated person born in the wilderness.

  For example, he would not eat a meal without meat, his best skills were chopping wood and hunting, and until he was sixteen years old, he still thought the most beautiful woman in the world was Sophia, the vegetable seller in the town who had two children and a waist as thick as a barrel.

  His name is Xia Yaliang.

  This name seems to have a mysterious oriental flavor, but in fact, when Xiayalei was three years old, he didn't have a name. One day, his father got drunk and suddenly remembered his responsibility as a father. He looked up at the sky, which happened to be summer and thundering. Thus, Xiayalei had his own name...

  It can be imagined how irresponsible this father is. Fortunately, on the day of naming, it was only thundering, if it was hailing or sandstorming... Maybe he could only bear the name "Spring Sandstorm" or "Winter Hail" and live a shameful life in some mountain cave.

  At the same time, Xia Yalai's vulgarity is also reflected in his view that coarse linen is better and more durable than silk - of course, a very important reason is that Xia Yalai is so poor that he can't afford silk. This mentality can be understood as the sour grapes mentality of not being able to eat grapes.

  Of course, one of the main reasons he was so poor was that most of his hunting income had to be spent on buying wine for the old man - the old man being Shaya Lirien's father, although at the age of eight, Shaya Lirien already knew that this old man was not his biological father. At the age of eight, he was still young, but at least he knew some common sense, and from a genetic point of view, it was absolutely impossible for this blue-eyed old man to have a black-eyed son.

  So after he was eight years old, he refused to call the old man "Dad" anymore.

  As for Xia Yalai's origin, the old man couldn't explain it clearly. In his words: "Many years ago, on a dark and windy night, I was roasting in the wild, just roasted a pheasant, turned around the big tree to pee, when I came back, I saw you little guy lying beside my bonfire, a roasted chicken leg only left half. Do you know what the first thought that came to my mind when I saw a small guy with only a little bit of size holding a half-eaten chicken leg?"

  Every time he gets to this point, the old man will deliberately shake his head twice and then look at Xia Yareng with a disdainful expression: "What I'm thinking is... you little brat, so young and able to eat so much, in the future you'll definitely make me poor!"

  By the way, the old man is an old drunkard, and Xia Yalai is a young drunkard. The reason for this phenomenon is that when Xia Yalai was young, he cried loudly due to extreme hunger, and the shameless old man actually used wine to feed him in order to be lazy. As a result, before Xia Yalai was weaned, the old man had already started his plan to raise him as a drunkard. This reason made Xia Yalai's alcohol tolerance increase extremely terrifyingly, and at the age of 13, the old man could no longer drink more than him. It also led to two years ago, when this poor family really couldn't afford to support two heavy drinkers at the same time, the old man shamelessly declared a ban on Xia Yalai's drinking.

  By the way, one of Xia Yaren's most proud skills is chopping firewood.

  But this is also an important reason why he despises old guys.

  The reason is that the old man always boasted that he was a great swordsman on the mainland, but Xia Yaliang had never seen him use a sword in his life. In fact, there wasn't even a sword in their home, and among all the things at home, the thing closest to a sword in shape was the blackened fire fork thrown into the furnace.

  When he was a bit older, boys generally liked to dance and wield swords. As a result, Xia Yalai listened to the old man's boasting and expressed his desire to learn from him. At first, the old man put on airs, but couldn't resist Xia Yalai's persistent requests, and finally reluctantly agreed. Thus began a decade-long miserable life.

  What's the point of standing on a stake, challenging water, and beating bones? As for taking a bath with a kind of stinky herb that can directly make people dizzy every day, Xia Yali has also endured it.

  What he resented most was that the old man claimed to be a master of swordsmanship but refused to teach him how to wield a sword!

  The tavern in the town once had a down-and-out traveling poet who told legendary stories of famous swordsmen from all over the continent, which made young Xia Yaler drunk with excitement at that time, and dreamed of being like those proud and noble swordsmen in the story, wearing white clothes like snow, black clothes like iron, holding a sharp long sword, enjoying the pleasure of revenge... How cool is that!

  The old man claims to be a master of swordsmanship, but the only weapon he can teach Xia Yaler is: an axe!

  Don't get it wrong, it's not those halberds or axe guns used by those high-ranking officials in legends.

  It's that kind of axe sold in the iron shop in town for six copper coins, a standard equipment for villagers to chop firewood on nearby mountains.

  As for how to practice the axe technique, Xia Yalai didn't know either. The old man had said before that the axe technique he taught Xia Yalai was actually a reversal of simplicity and complexity. Most people who use axes emphasize accuracy and ruthlessness, but the old man told Xia Yalai: "When you can wield an axe with 'cleverness', then you've reached home."

  Accurate and ruthless, Xia Yali knew what it meant. At the age of thirteen, he could chop off the tail of a running rabbit with one axe from fifty steps away.

  But what exactly constitutes mastering the "clever" technique is a matter of opinion. At least, according to the old man, it means being able to carve a chrysanthemum on tofu with an axe weighing over 20 kilograms - which is obviously making things difficult for people.

  Actually, Xia Yali had always been somewhat skeptical of the axe skills that Lao Jiu taught him, because every day's practice consisted entirely of: chopping firewood, cutting tofu, and additionally dissecting the hunted animals that were brought back, separating tendons from meat and chopping bones.

  Although he had doubts in his heart, Xia Yalai still practiced this set of "axe skills" for a full ten years. He practiced very diligently, but every time he practiced, the old man never made any comments, at most holding a wine bottle and squatting beside him to drink while watching, with no praise or dissatisfaction in his eyes, always being drunk and dazed.

  It wasn't until more than a year ago, when the old man was on his deathbed, that he finally condescended to comment on Xia Yare's martial arts skills. However, what he said at the time left Xia Yare thinking for three days without being able to determine whether the old man was praising him or indirectly scolding him in a roundabout way - and Xia Yare himself suspected it was the latter. Because during the period when the old man was bedridden with illness, Xia Yare had refused his request to drink wine, considering the old man's health - also because they were really too poor to afford it.

  It probably invited the old man's indignation.

  Yeah, the old man said so before he died.

  At that time, he looked at his adopted son with a complex gaze and sighed:

  "This set of 'Breaking a Thousand Armies' can be practiced to this extent by you, it's also considered creative - after I die, don't touch the axe, other knives, guns, swords and clubs are all fine, just don't touch the axe, or else I won't be able to rest in peace."

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