'Seeing the world's darkness for myself is far worse than hearing about it in my mother's stories,' realized Fu Anwen as he paid the shopkeeper for the sturdy, child-sized leather backpack he was purchasing.

  He originally hadn't intended to stop by this shop, but he'd used coming back as an excuse to get close enough to send a message to the city magistrate.

  It really was a nice backpack, though. The only problem was that it was far too rge for him, as he was still only a bit over two feet tall. Even for a two-year-old, he'd be small enough to make people worry. Now that he was six, it was clear that there was something seriously wrong with his body.

  Now that he was healthy, though, he was sure that he wouldn't stay small for much longer.

  After paying, he hooked the backpack's straps over his shoulders and walked off, ignoring the fact that the bottom of his new backpack was bouncing on the ground with each step.

  "Do you want me to carry it?" Mei, stifling a smile, asked after seeing his predicament.

  Due to not wanting to damage his new purchase, and definitely not out of embarrassment, Fu Anwen quickly agreed. After handing his backpack over, he squinted up at the sun and saw that it was nearing noon, which was the time that his mother had arranged for everyone to meet for lunch.

  Ten minutes ter, the two of them arrived at the door of the Heavenly Cleaver Pavilion. The round building made of polished, white stone was four stories tall. Its design was very sleek and elegant, even to the point of feeling somewhat out of pce among its surroundings.

  Fu Anwen's mother had informed him that this restaurant was part of a chain that spanned across many kingdoms, though she didn't know if its reach also spread all the way to other empires.

  What struck him as being odd was the name, which sounded more like a weapon shop than it did a restaurant chain.

  After Fu Anwen and Mei waited for about ten minutes, Fu Qingyu showed up alongside Murong Xinyi, Jing, Hua, and Ying, and the hungry group quickly entered the restaurant together. Once inside, they were greeted by a young hostess wearing a bright smile.

  "Welcome to the Heavenly Cleaver Pavilion! Do you have a reservation?"

  Murong Xinyi stepped forward and fshed the hostess a medallion. "No reservation. We'd like a room on the top floor."

  "One second," the hostess replied, still wearing the same smile. She quickly returned to her podium and pulled out a small book. After quickly flipping through a few pages, her eyes widened slightly, though Fu Anwen felt that she did a decent job of controlling her reaction.

  Now wearing a smile a little brighter than before, the hostess gestured toward the stairs. "Please follow me," she requested politely, then turned and started leading the group up the stairs.

  Fu Anwen had noted two things during the interaction with the hostess.

  The first was that the medallion his Aunty Murong had used was listed as "Highest Level Royal Guard" in the hostess' book, which meant that he and his mother's new guard was probably a fair bit stronger than he had previously guessed.

  The second was that the shifty character who had been following his mother's group when they'd arrived had quickly run off after they'd entered the restaurant.

  'Is he somebody's ckey?' Fu Anwen wondered.

  He shook his head. It didn't matter who the shifty man was. His Aunty Murong was no doubt already aware of the situation. Anyone who tried to mess with him or his mother with their new guard around would be in for a very bad time. If they happened to run into people who even she couldn't handle, Fu Anwen could always try to pop their heads off with his ability. It had worked perfectly when he'd pulled out bits of that old man's bones and nervous system, and he assumed a head would probably come off just as easily.

  Speaking of that piece of trash, Fu Anwen remembered that he still had a few parts of the old man's body inside his inner space. With a couple of quick thoughts, a block of stone popped into his inner space, and the old man's body parts found their way into the stone's old home hundreds of feet underground.

  ~-o-O-o-~

  Upon seeing the menu, Fu Anwen's mouth immediately started watering. In fact, if he hadn't worked hard to control himself, he might have even cried.

  While living in the Jade Court, he'd never given any thought to his meals. He'd just always assumed that what he was eating was what everyone ate.

  The past two weeks had been an eye-opener, to put it lightly. Switching from food that he now knew cost multiple gold coins per pte straight to dried travel rations was so cruel that it should probably be considered a crime.

  His sympathy for the poor and others who couldn't afford the same food eaten by royalty had increased by dozens of times on that first day, and it had only grown rger since.

  What tragic lives those people must lead.

  He'd immediately updated his pns to help rectify that situation. While his original pn was to create a martial arts organization devoted entirely to farming after he reached the Grandmaster rank, he would now start recruiting disciples for the sect as soon as they reached Big Tree Vilge.

  His original intention had been to eliminate starvation in the kingdom, but now his main priority was allowing even the kingdom's poorest citizens to eat the same quality of food that he'd grown up eating.

  It wouldn't be all that difficult for him to accelerate his pns, since he'd already created all of the necessary Body Refining and Internal Energy arts, plus skills that would aid with farming tasks like plowing, weeding, and eliminating pests.

  The only reason he'd originally pnned to wait was so that his personal strength would be enough to keep the disciples in check in case he accidentally recruited any hidden snakes. To get around that problem, he'd just recruit five-year-old children instead of older teenagers whose bodies were already developed enough to start practicing martial arts.

  Only those disciples who demonstrated good personal character as they grew up would be allowed to learn the sect's martial arts. In addition, because he would be at least a year older than any of the disciples he recruited, his training would also be at least a year ahead, so it shouldn't be difficult for him to rub any troublemakers' faces in the dirt.

  After deciding what to order, Fu Anwen looked up at the hostess, who had already sent a repcement downstairs so that she could personally attend to their group. "I'll have two orders each of the spicy tofu, phoenix-fried vegetables, and fire dragon rice."

  "Young master, please be aware that each of those dishes is extremely spicy," the hostess advised.

  "Thanks, but I'll be fine," he replied with a smirk. Back in those beautiful days before he'd even known that travel rations existed, Mei had always made their food extra spicy whenever it was her turn to cook. Those meals had always been his favorites.

  The only other dy who ordered a spicy dish was Ying, who also asked for a pte of spicy tofu. Fu Anwen noticed that his little maid kept throwing gnces his way, but he couldn't tell if she was trying to challenge him or impress him.

  'If it's a challenge you want, just wait and see how badly you get crushed,' he smugly bragged to himself.

  ~-o-O-o-~

  An hour ter, the group walked out of the restaurant. Mei and Jing were each carrying two full takeout boxes.

  "You know you don't have to eat it all, right, baby?" Fu Qingyu said with a hint of amusement in her voice as she stroked her son's hair.

  Fu Anwen, tears streaming from his eyes and mucus oozing out of his nose, retorted, "I fie. Ih nothah ha ayway."

  It was uncertain whether any of the dies could actually understand the words he was mumbling past his swollen tongue, but the older women all smiled when they heard him try to speak.

  "What a cutie," his mother doted.

  Ying, meanwhile, was walking in the back with a proud look of victory on her face.

  ~-o-O-o-~

  That night, Fu Anwen y in bed pondering the terrible situation he'd stumbled upon that morning. That had been his first time seeing a person who could reasonably be called a vilin in real life.

  While his mother had told him plenty of stories about how terrible almost every member of the royal family was, the few days he'd spent searching through the royal estate for buried treasure hadn't revealed any of the dark secrets he'd been expecting.

  From what he could tell, the Royal Pace wasn't actually full of vilins. Instead, it seemed to be filled with a bunch of perverts like his mother and his three Aunties. Some of the things he'd witnessed people doing inside their homes had even put the four women to shame.

  That's not to say there weren't any evil people at the pace, only that any viliny that existed must have been hidden well below the surface.

  When Fu Anwen had crippled the old man and reported the situation to the city magistrate, he'd known that his actions had risked revealing his secret. However, he simply didn't care. While he would remain cautious if it was reasonable to do so, sometimes caution had to be set aside to do what was right.

  Fu Anwen finished off the night by pnting a few of each of his new seed varieties in his inner space. Some of the earlier seeds had already sprouted and were growing well. He thought a few of the fastest-growing berries might even bear fruit by the time the group reached their destination.

  Eventually, he fell asleep while happily inspecting his crops.

  ~-o-O-o-~

  The rest of their stay in the city was uneventful. If the sketchy character from outside the Heavenly Cleaver Pavilion had ever come back to try anything, Fu Anwen must have slept through it. He could only guess that his Aunty Murong had resolved the situation one way or another.

  Over the next few weeks, the group continued their travels. Fu Anwen was now spending each day riding with Hua and Ying in the rear wagon. Most of each day was spent continuing the two girls' reading and writing lessons, which they unenthusiastically participated in.

  Fu Anwen's guqin had long been relocated to the rear wagon, and he still pyed it off and on each day.

  Every morning, he used the distance his tiny arms could reach across the strings to judge how much his newly healthy body was growing. While there were still no signs of growth so far, he knew that he wouldn't have to wait long before his height started shooting up like bamboo.

  'Seven feet tall,' he thought with a smile, his imagination filled with scenes of him looking down at little Ying and Hua as he patted them on their tiny heads.

  Back in reality, he looked over at the two studying giantesses who were now roughly twice his height and frowned.

  'Seven feet tall,' he reassured himself with a nod, soon sinking back into his music.

  Once the song ended, he id back on some boxes and closed his eyes. His attention turned to the new guest that had recently moved into his inner space.

  Two days earlier, he'd noticed a starving fawn hiding under a bush deep inside the nearby woods. Taking a risk he normally wouldn't, he'd quickly brought the baby deer into his space after making sure the surrounding woods were empty.

  Thanks to an endless supply of potatoes and mushrooms, the fawn was no longer hungry. It's existence inside the space had also shown that the air was now breathable.

  Fu Anwen was excited for the day they finally reached the vilge, which was no longer all that far off. He couldn't wait to go inside his space and carry out all of his long-pnned tests. The fact that he had such a cute baby deer to py with only made him look forward to it that much more.

  He'd spent some time studying the fawn's internal biology ever since he'd first pulled it inside his space. What he found interesting was that the fawn's body and a human's body overpped in almost every way. That was especially true when it came to Body Refinement.

  As far as he could tell, the only thing preventing this deer from becoming a martial artist was its low level of intelligence. There were also no Body Refining or Internal Energy arts suitable to be practiced by a deer, obviously, but Fu Anwen was confident that he could whip up an appropriate technique in a few days at most.

  Still, the intelligence requirement wasn't exactly easy to overcome. He'd have to think on that a bit more...

  While investigating the fawn's body, he decided to also take a deeper look at his own body's internal structure.

  Back when he'd first gained his ability, he'd seen many body parts of the women in his house that he really hadn't wanted to see. He'd quickly learned to automatically start 'fuzzing out' everyone's body, including his own.

  This was a case where ignorance truly was bliss.

  Fu Anwen realized that, aside from a cursory gnce on the day when he'd gained his ability, he hadn't paid any attention to the internal structure of his own body.

  For the most part, everything he saw seemed to line up with what he'd seen in anatomy books and inside other people's bodies. The only real difference was that his body seemed a bit more perfect than everyone else's.

  This wasn't a case of Fu Anwen being vain or arrogant, either. His body was simply fwless. It was almost like he'd been sculpted as an example of the perfect human form.

  Strangely, every single part of his body, from his face to his skeleton, was perfectly symmetrical. Even organs like his spleen and rge intestine had a certain beauty and elegance to their structure.

  'How odd...'

  While he'd read that a cultivator's body would become more perfect as their cultivation increased, Fu Anwen was still a mortal. For that matter, he didn't even have a spirit root!

  After seeing the perfect state of his body, it was hard for him to say that there was something wrong with it. While he was unhappy with his height, maybe that was also somehow perfect just like the rest of him.

  As soon as he had that thought, Fu Anwen quickly shook his head.

  'No. My height's definitely a problem that needs to be fixed.'

  Even if his height was deemed perfect by some rule of nature or a higher power, Fu Anwen would be the first to stand up and disagree. In this world, at least, where everyone around him was a giant in comparison, being short was simply tragic.

  Fu Anwen also wondered if his body had always been in its current state or if it had changed after the awakening ceremony.

  While he had no way of knowing what he'd been like on the inside previously, he at least knew that the outside of his body hadn't changed. His best guess was that he'd already been different from others from the start, and the orb at the Awakening Ceremony had only fixed whatever problem his body had and activated his tent ability.

  He made a note to look further into his body's strange characteristics when he found an opportunity in the future.

  ~-o-O-o-~

  After seven and a half weeks of grueling travel by wagon, the group finally reached Big Tree Vilge. They even managed to arrive half a week earlier than expected due to a run of good weather.

  It was early in the evening when they arrived. By the time the wagons pulled up to the edge of the vilge, it seemed like every single vilger was already out waiting for them.

  Fu Qingyu leaped off of her wagon before it could even stop, immediately running over to a middle-aged couple with her arms spread wide.

  "Mama! Daddy!" she yelled before wrapping them up in a hug, tears of joy streaming down her face.

  "It's good to see you again, honey," her mother, Fan Xinyan, choked out, her eyes also full of tears.

  Her father, Fan Cheng, a refined-looking schor, had better control over his emotions. He only patted his daughter on the back, but it was clear that he was also happy to have her home.

  Fu Anwen walked up behind his mother and cupped his fists in greeting, "Grandfather, grandmother."

  "Oh my goodness, he's so tiny!" his grandmother cried out in a shocked voice, her hand covering her mouth. "Qing'er, are you even feeding this boy?"

  She hurriedly ran over and picked him, pulling her grandson into a tight hug.

  Fu Anwen had gotten used to people's surprised reactions to his size during the trip. There was nothing he could do about it, so he'd learned to ignore it.

  "He's fine, mama. He's just growing a little slower than other children." She looked over at her son and asked, "Seven feet, right?"

  He nodded back confidently, "Seven feet!"

  The newcomers were quickly introduced to the assembled vilgers. After the introductions were over, everyone sat down around a handful of tables that had quickly been brought out and pushed together for an improvised feast.

  Fu Anwen was surprised to find out that the only two people in the vilge with surnames were his grandparents, and even that was only because his grandfather had been a member of a retively wealthy family before he'd eloped to Big Tree Vilge to get married.

  "This is the best we can do, honey. We thought you wouldn't show up for at least another week," Fan Xinyan apologized to her daughter.

  "It's fine, mama. I'm just happy to see everybody again. Until two months ago, I didn't think I'd ever be able to come back home." Fu Qingyu chatted happily, clearly enjoying being back together with her parents.

  Fu Anwen, on the other hand, was impatiently waiting for everyone to go to sleep so that he could get started with his pns. Tonight, his new life would begin, starting with completing his new house.

  First, he was going to test out his blinking ability on himself, even though he was already positive that it would work. After that, he'd zip through the nearby forest collecting trees and anything else that was useful.

  With how fast he expected his blinks to go combined with his quick construction speed, it wouldn't even take an hour to finish building his new house!

  He stifled another yawn and looked around at the many new people he would be living with from now on. Blinking his eyes, he leaned back in his chair and continued waiting for the night's festivities to end so that he could get to work.

  Eventually, once the gathering wound down, his mother picked up her little sleeping beauty who had passed out in his chair and carried him off to their new home, where he soundly slept the entire night away.