Chen Fusheng, being a Martial Artist, was the first to regain his composure. He spoke slowly.
"Chang Sheng, you can’t joke about this!
"Red Blood Ginseng Seeds cost fifty taels of silver each. In a ravine like Chen Family Village, not even one out of twenty seeds would survive.
"Furthermore, it takes half a year to sprout, half a year to grow, and two years to mature! The cycle is very long!
"Once mature, it’s worth five hundred taels. For every additional ten years of age, its value increases tenfold!
"If you can give me one mature Red Blood Ginseng, I’ll have a chance to break through to the Middle Stage True Qi Realm within two years. I’ll do whatever you ask!"
Chen Changsheng stood up, patted his shoulder, and spoke with a smile.
"Rest assured! I’ve already discussed this with the Clan Leader. He will also come over to help when the time comes!"
Chen Fusheng said no more. He plopped back down into his chair, picked up his wine cup, and downed it in one gulp. He then looked at Chen Changsheng with a solemn expression.
"Chang Sheng! I’m in!"
Chen Shuisheng, Chen Chusheng, Chen Changfeng, and Chen Changqing finally snapped out of their daze. They exchanged glances, their eyes filled with a burning desire for the Celestial Cyan Grass.
Celestial Cyan Grass also took two years to mature and had a similar half-success survival rate. Its seeds were slightly cheaper, costing twenty taels each. However, this Spiritual Medicine could help a Martial Artist break through the bottleneck of the True Qi Realm, allowing them to leap into the True Qi Realm.
If a martial practitioner had not polished their foundations to the absolute limit, they would need twenty-year-old Celestial Cyan Grass. But these four were already infinitely close to the True Qi Realm. They only needed two-year-old mature Celestial Cyan Grass to have an eighty percent chance of breaking through and becoming true Martial Artists.
The four of them bowed to Chen Changsheng, cupping their hands in salute almost simultaneously, and spoke in unison.
"Chang Sheng, if you give me one mature Celestial Cyan Grass, I can give you anything except my wife and children!"
"Chang Sheng! I’ll listen to you. If the Barbarians come, we’ll just kill them all!"
"Chang Sheng, if anyone dares to come steal or rob, I’ll kill their entire family!"
The next day, there were far more people on the hillside than just the few who had drank together last night. The Clan Leader, Chen Fusheng, and the others had mobilized all the available clan members to help, all for the sake of healing injuries and breaking through realms. They even brought their own dry rations!
It was just that these people all thought Chen Changsheng was preparing to plant Mountain Ginseng. They believed it was to prepare medicinal baths for the children’s future martial arts training, increasing the chances of Chen Family Village’s clansmen breaking through to become Martial Artists. Of course, this excuse was fabricated by Chen Changsheng. Besides, Mountain Ginseng was indeed going to be the most abundantly planted crop in this medicine garden. The few types of Spiritual Medicine would merely be mixed in, and in the future, only the few of them would know about it.
The three Martial Artists divided their labor: one dug a pond at the quarry on the mountaintop, another cut bluestone blocks, and the last transported them. Hundreds of clan members, ranging from eight-or-nine-year-old brats to elders in their sixties, were all busy on the hillside.
As the sun rose and the moon set, Chen Family Village was a hive of activity. They were busy in the paddy fields, busy in the mountain fields, and busy on the Southern Slope of Yellow Earth Mountain.
As Chaoyang rose, Chen Changsheng sprinted up the hillside carrying a thousand-jin boulder. The sound of arguing ahead made him stop in his tracks. Looking closely, he saw it was his eldest daughter scolding Tong Wu.
"Wu! Are you here to help, or are you here to sleep?"
Chen Tongwu hung his head and argued in a low voice.
"Yuyao, I didn’t want to either! But I just couldn’t help it!"
"Forget it, forget it! Go take care of our little sister!"
Chen Yuyao waved her small hand, directly telling Chen Tongwu to get lost.
Chen Changsheng did not interfere. He carried the bluestone block and inserted it onto the enclosing wall. Both the top and bottom of the bluestone blocks had been carved with mortise and tenon grooves by the three Martial Artists. Therefore, the masonry was very simple; they just needed to align the grooves vertically and insert them.
At noon, during mealtime, Chen Changsheng noticed a strange scene. He saw his third child, Tong Wu, keeping his head buried in his bowl, CHOMP CHOMP, wolfing down his food. He couldn’t help but smack Tong Wu on the head with his chopsticks and spoke in a deep voice.
"What’s wrong with you? Why aren’t you eating properly?"
Chen Tongwu raised his head. Instead of yelling and complaining after being hit like he usually did, he pursed his lips. With red eyes, he whispered.
"Dad... talk to Yuyao for me. Let me go to the mountain to help tomorrow!"
"Chen Tongwu, hundreds of people are helping our family build the medicine garden, and you actually fell asleep on the slope!
"What will others think? You’re not going there to help; you’re just holding us back!"
Chen Tongwu didn’t say a word. He just looked at Chen Yuyao, and then at Chen Changsheng, with pleading eyes. Chen Changsheng didn’t know whether to laugh or cry! After some comforting, he finally managed to get Chen Yuyao to agree to take Chen Tongwu up the mountain to help the next morning.
After half a month of busy work, the crowds dispersed.
Chen Changsheng and the others stood by the pond, which was hundreds of zhang wide, on the ridge of Yellow Earth Ridge, looking down at the medicine garden below. The eight-hundred-zhang-long slope had been carved into ninety-nine crescent arcs. Each arc was connected by bluestone blocks. Vertically, there were winding water channels. The newly turned soil, cleared completely of even grass roots, was a vast expanse of yellow. Surrounding it was an enclosing wall three zhang high and half a zhang wide. At the four corners of the wall, four arrow towers were set up.
The next step was to fertilize and nourish the soil. This was a step Chen Changsheng really didn’t want to do himself. Fertilizing in the ravines meant carrying manure from the dry latrines to the garden and thoroughly soaking the soil scoop by scoop. It wouldn’t take three Hours, nor would it take one Hour—just half an Hour was guaranteed to make you reek inside and out. He really couldn’t stomach doing such a crappy job!
Fortunately, Chen Changsheng had planned ahead. He looked at the Clan Leader and spoke.
"Clan Leader! The County School is about to start, and the Spirit Medicine Seeds haven’t been bought yet. I plan to go to the county town for a few days and return before the twenty-eighth of the fourth month. I’ll have to trouble you to help out with the fertilizing and the other seeds here!"
The Clan Leader, Chen Xuan, suppressed the urge to roll his eyes and finally agreed helplessly.
"Fine... You brat... Sigh!"
Back in the day, the Clan Leader had fought head-on against a Late Stage True Qi Realm Martial Artist from the Barbarians. Relying on a courage that traded a life for a life, he had managed to drive the opponent away. However, the Clan Leader suffered severe internal injuries. His Dantian was shattered, and his Cultivation could never advance again.
A fifty-year-old Red Blood Ginseng could heal a damaged Dantian. Moreover, it could increase the success rate of a Late Stage True Qi Realm breaking through to the Postnatal Realm by thirty percent. Even a Postnatal Realm Martial Artist could use a fifty-year-old Red Blood Ginseng for Cultivation to rapidly increase their Cultivation base. A fifty-year-old Red Blood Ginseng would take at most ten days of Refining. The total amount of True Qi gained would be equivalent to a Martial Artist meditating in Cultivation for an entire year.
Chen Changsheng simply told the Clan Leader that an expert had made a deal with him: three five-year-old stalks of Red Blood Ginseng plus forty five-year-old stalks of Blood Coagulation Flower could be exchanged with the expert for one fifty-year-old Red Blood Ginseng.
The Clan Leader didn’t believe it, and Chen Changsheng didn’t need him to believe it, because he would use facts to prove that his lie wasn’t a lie. In the future, no matter how outrageous the things he pulled off were, the Clan Leader wouldn’t easily doubt him again because of this incident. Having an expert backing him would sooner or later become the Clan Leader’s only explanation for all the unexplainable things about him. The lie would naturally become the truth!
Taking Chen Hanwen and their luggage, Chen Changsheng rode on horseback toward Great Fog County.
Following the old rules, he carried two boxes of pastries and visited County Captain Li first. County Captain Li was still very busy. After chatting for a few sentences, he picked up his teacup to see the guest out.
Next, they visited the teacher at the County School, handing over the pastries and tuition fees! The teacher, named Huang Nanqing, was over sixty years old and had always been fond of and taken great pride in Chen Hanwen. Seeing Chen Changsheng’s sincere words this time, and knowing of his dazzling performance last month, coupled with the fact that Chen Hanwen had played a trick when he left—only saying he was taking a half-year leave of absence—the teacher didn’t make things difficult for Chen Changsheng and his son. He accepted Chen Hanwen on the spot.