Once upon a time, Du Chengfeng loved reading those fantasy novels.
In those wild fantasies, he could see protagonists transforming into dragons, cats, pandas, or all sorts of strange and bizarre creatures. This feeling of viewing the world from another perspective made Du Chengfeng quite addicted for a time.
So, what would it feel like to turn into a knife?
Du Chengfeng had never considered this question, but now he didn't have the energy to think about anything else.
The first thing he experienced was round after round of hammering. A heavy hammer struck him again and again, shattering his shell, peeling off layer after layer of dross. The immense force tore his sinews, twisted his bones, and then roughly pounded them together, forming something more solid and hard.
The intense pain penetrated deep into his bones, nailing into his soul, making it difficult for Du Chengfeng to breathe at one point.
Does a knife also breathe?
Indeed it does, only because he had just been thrust back into the furnace again after the hammering.
The scorching fire was even more painful than the thousand strikes. Du Chengfeng felt his entire body melting and deforming. But just when he thought it was all about to end, he was pulled out from the furnace again and thrown into cold water.
The icy water soothed Du Chengfeng's nerves, but the penetrating pain never ceased. In just a moment, his body had become harder, like stone.
Then came the repeated grinding.
By this time, Du Chengfeng was numb, letting fragments of flesh fall from him. Under the friction of the stone, his body began to become smooth, and a sharp edge was exposed on his face.
At this point, he truly became a knife, a knife that could cut things open.
The blade was as long as two feet three inches, the hilt a full one foot eight inches, the blade thick and heavy, the edge sharp. Anyone who saw it would say, this is a fierce two-handed war knife—if there was a flaw, it would be that it's too heavy, and the balance point is too far forward.
But the transformed Du Chengfeng would never admit this was a flaw. If it can't be used properly, it only shows the user's incompetence, having nothing to do with him at all.
So, in this era of low productivity, a two-handed war knife like him must be invaluable, right?
"Two hundred coins for you."
"Alright, take the knife."
Until he was carried all the way home by the burly man, Du Chengfeng couldn't believe that a fierce two-handed war knife like him was only worth two hundred coins.
What a joke, that small courtyard at the Yang family fortress cost him five hundred coins, and that was because Carpenter Li was kind enough to help him, an outsider migrant. And now, a well-forged knife like him only sold for two hundred coins?
"The iron material is poor, ultimately just for show… but it's enough."
The burly man evaluated the knife in this way, making Du Chengfeng wish he could cut the idiot with it.
But this Yang-named burly man wasn't an idiot; rather, he was a clever person. As the town butcher, he always dealt with pig slaughtering. However, as an outsider, Yang the fat man, though skilled, didn't have the connections to purchase pigs directly like the local butchers, who could run their own pig and meat shops. As a new arrival without such opportunities, he had to wait for someone in a nearby village to slaughter a pig and lend a hand to earn some hard money.
As the saying goes, "A good wine fears no deep alley," Yang the fat man knew he had decent skills, but with pig slaughtering, you'd bind the pig and stab the heart. Any skilled butcher could do this, so why should anyone hire him?
So, after much thought, the burly man spent two hundred coins hiring a blacksmith to forge an exaggeratedly styled, cheap knife.
From then on, the burly man's story changed, claiming to be the descendant of a famous butcher. As to where this butcher's fame lay, it was that while others tied and bled the pigs, he beheaded them directly.
At first, people laughed at Yang the fat man's claim, as everyone familiar with pork knew that slaughtering involved bloodletting, and hacking a pig's head seemed ostentatious. But amidst the ridicule, some people found Yang the fat man's claim interesting and invited him over just to watch the spectacle.
This was exactly what Yang the fat man wanted.
With a quick movement, the massive pig head was split with one stroke, and even Du Chengfeng, the war knife, was impressed by the clean and swift action.
The crowd gathered to watch the pig slaughtering had never seen such a scene before. Suddenly, Yang the fat man became well-known. Soon, the whole town of Ji knew that a butcher's descendant was in town with his unique pig slaughtering method. There were even rumors that the pigs slaughtered by Yang the fat man were different, with meat that was more tender and could potentially boost one's strength.
With this reputation, more and more people sought Yang the fat man's services, and quickly he had enough savings to start his own pig farm and meat shop, living a better and better life.
This made Du Chengfeng secretly admire him. After all, his situation was somewhat similar to Yang the fat man's. Both started as wanderers, but Yang the fat man turned the situation around with only two hundred coins. Honestly speaking, if it were him, he might not be as resourceful as Yang the fat man, nor have such an inventive mind.