Crossover anime/manga, immediately transmigrated after death

The air was filled with a pungent smell of coal smoke, mixed with the scent of sulfur and damp wood.

The streetlights in the distance appeared as blurry halos in the thick fog, as if viewed through frosted glass.

Grayish-black sewage flowed in the roadside drainage ditch, and piles of garbage that had not yet been cleaned up were stacked on the street corner.

The workers, dressed in tattered clothes, huddled under the eaves, their faces ashen.

Zhang Yang walked along the street.

We walked and looked around.

What did he see?

rail.

Railway tracks are everywhere.

The horses' hooves clattered on the gravel between the sleepers.

The railway stretches along the Thames, cutting the city into pieces.

In the distance, factory chimneys stood tall, like giant tombstones, spewing black smoke into the sky day and night.

The roar of steam engines came from all directions, mingling with the sounds of steam whistles, horses' hooves, and vendors' cries, forming a never-ending background noise.

This is the Industrial Revolution.

One of the greatest advances in human history.

Zhang Yang looked at a child squatting in a corner by the roadside, eating black bread.

The bread was as black as coal and looked harder than bricks. I glanced at the factory chimneys in the distance, which were faintly visible in the thick fog.

"That's progress."

It was hard to tell whether his tone was one of感慨 (gǎnkǎi, a feeling of deep emotion) or something else.

He continued walking forward.

A thought popped into my head—

The Industrial Revolution was destined to never happen on Chinese soil.

It's not a technical issue.

It's about cost.

This cost is not the cost of money, it's the cost of human lives.

How many generations of blood and sweat did Britain use to build these railroad tracks and chimneys?

Those who work twenty hours a day in factories and die on the assembly line, those child laborers who are three years old and die while cleaning chimneys, those miners who can go down into the narrow parts of mines are getting younger and younger, and the slums are full of workers who can only sleep and rest with a rope by their side...

They're eating people! They're eating people!

Compared to the hell before my eyes, the exploitation of the feudal dynasty seems so tender and gentle.

Zhang Yang shook his head.

Forget it.

Thinking about these things is useless.

He was now a translator for the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and in London in 1851, he should be thinking about how to complete his mission, not lamenting the course of history.

He didn't know how long he walked, but he walked all the way from the suburbs to the Thames. Perhaps because of his resurrection, he was not sleepy at all, but for some reason, he felt tired.

I'm exhausted.

I'm completely exhausted from watching.

Suddenly, my right eyelid twitched, as if someone had gently flicked it with their finger.

A twitching left eye means good fortune, a twitching right eye means good fortune...

Does a twitching right eyelid indicate a tendency to attract unwanted romantic attention?

Zhang Yang stopped in his tracks, wondering if his talent had been activated. Looking around, he indeed spotted a beautiful girl.

Deep inside the alley, there is an even narrower lane.

Four drunkards were standing in the alley.

They were all dressed like dockworkers, short and stocky, reeking of cheap beer, their faces flushed from alcohol, forming a circle as if they were blocking something.

Zhang Yang took a few steps closer and saw clearly the people surrounded in the middle.

A young girl.

She looked to be around sixteen years old, with light brown skin and delicate, cute features.

She wore a thick gray overcoat, and the bow tie peeking out from the collar was a black and white maid's bow tie.

Indian.

This is normal...

The girl stood among four drunk men, looking somewhat troubled, as if she had gotten lost and been surrounded, finding it very troublesome.

"Um, excuse me. I accidentally got lost and ended up here. Could I cross this road for a bit?"

The drunks ignored her.

They surrounded her even more closely, and some even tried to grab her arms.

"If I don't hurry back to work, it will be dawn..." the girl said timidly.

Still, nobody listened to her.

After witnessing this scene, Zhang Yang sighed, pulled his scarf down, and walked over.

"Hey."

The four drunkards turned their heads.

They saw a young man dressed in dark blue Hanfu standing at the entrance of the alley. He was good-looking, but he looked young and not very strong.

The girl saw him too, and her eyes lit up.

One of the drunkards waved at Zhang Yang and mumbled something, roughly meaning "Get out of here."

Zhang Yang didn't leave; instead, he went inside.

As the drunkard approached, he reached out to push him.

Zhang Yang sidestepped, raised his right hand, and slapped the drunkard on the shoulder.

The force originates from the feet, passes through the waist and hips, over the shoulders and elbows, and reaches the edge of the palm.

Cheng Ling Shuang's body had already memorized what she had been taught over three days.

Of course, without internal force, the power of this palm strike is so-so, but it's still enough to hit the shoulder of a dockworker who's been drinking half the night.

"what!"

The drunkard screamed in pain, his entire arm went numb, and he staggered back a few steps before crashing into the wall.

Bang! Spirit

The man groaned and bent over.

He swung his elbow and struck the third person in the chin.

Before the last person could react, Zhang Yang had already moved to his side and pushed him in the lower back, causing him to stumble and fall to the ground.

Four drunkards lay sprawled in the alleyway; some were groaning and clutching their shoulders, others were coughing and covering their chests.

A window inside the room was opened, someone glanced out, and then slammed it shut.

Zhang Yang withdrew his hand and patted off non-existent dust from his sleeve.

Finish work.

"Wow, that's amazing!"

A girl's voice came from behind.

Zhang Yang turned around, and the Indian girl was standing two steps away, her hands clasped together, looking at him with bright eyes.

“Thank you!” she bowed. “Thank you so much! My name is Elsa, and I work as a maid in London.”

"Extroverted".

"Are you from the Qing Dynasty?" Aisha immediately switched to Chinese. "Thank you for saving me!"

Zhang Yang asked, somewhat puzzled, "How do you speak Chinese?"

"I'd like to express my sincere gratitude to you. Would you like to have a cup of tea and chat for a while?"

Aisha smiled brightly, as if the incident of being surrounded by four drunkards was already a thing of the past.

She brushed the wall dust off her gray coat, turned to a deserted corner deep in the alley, and said, "Okay, it's alright now! You can come out with me if you want!"

Zhang Yang was stunned for a moment.

Who is she talking to?

"You were able to find me?"

It's a very pleasant sound, like the plucking of a moon lute.

Chapter Twenty: An Encounter with a Martial Arts Legend

A Han Chinese girl walked ahead, her pace neither fast nor slow, her gray dress swaying gently in the mist.

Zhang Yang followed behind, his gaze fixed on her feet.

My footsteps made no sound on the wet stone pavement.

There was no dull thud of footsteps, no rustling sound of shoes scraping against the stone surface, not even the soft rustling of clothing.

He had seen the same thing in Cheng Ling Shuang.

He completely focused all his strength, without revealing a single bit of power, and even the sound of the wind generated by his movements disappeared.

Cheng Ling Shuang calls this "no beat".

The girl in front of him, who looked to be about the same age as him, had reached this level.

I go!

So this is the person I met by chance in the martial arts world.

Right, right, the art style is finally right.

The three walked through several alleys and turned into a narrower street.

At the end of the street was a two-story building with a wooden sign hanging at the entrance, bearing Chinese characters.

A Han Chinese girl pushed open the door.

Inside was a bar with seven or eight tables, and the lighting was dim.

Several bottles of whiskey and some Chinese baijiu were displayed on the shelf behind the bar, and a calligraphy scroll with the character "義" (righteousness) hung on the wall.

There were about ten people sitting in the bar, all of them Han Chinese.

Zhang Yang glanced at it. Although he was still a novice in martial arts, he had been beaten for three days and had at least learned how to tell "who is a trained fighter".

Everyone here is a master.

The Han Chinese girl ignored them and went straight to a table in the corner to sit down.

Elsa followed and sat down opposite her quite naturally.

Zhang Yang hesitated for a second, then sat down as well.

A waiter approached carrying a tea tray, his hands trembling. The teacups clinked softly against the tray.

He placed a cup of tea in front of the Han Chinese girl, took two steps back, lowered his head, and dared not look at her.

"How did that matter go?" the Han Chinese girl asked.

"The...the...the...there's no progress yet..."

The waiter stammered, his voice growing softer and softer.

The Han Chinese girl did not speak, but simply nodded slightly.