Beyond obtaining certain rewards, completing specific achievements also unlocked the ability to purchase a portion of the items in the store.
After opening the store, Lu Xuan did indeed find that several grayed-out items had their purchase permissions unlocked.
It was just a pity that the list did not include a storage space.
He made a sound of disappointment with his tongue, checked the other newly unlocked items, and after determining there was nothing he was particularly interested in or in immediate need of, he closed the page languidly and lay back down.
Yunlu Village was not a safe base like in the apocalypse; it had no towering walls to provide a sense of security, but by the same token, there were no zombie hordes that could attack at any unknown moment.
Through the half-open window, he could clearly hear the chirping of insects outside. The air carried no scent of decay, only the faint, fresh fragrance of soil and plants.
In the apocalypse, Lu Xuan had always kept his nerves taut and unable to relax—he dared not relax. Lying on the bed now, feeling the hard-won peaceful atmosphere, he slowly let his body loosen in the darkness. Feeling drowsiness gradually take over, he allowed himself to drift into a deep sleep.
The next morning.
With the experience from yesterday, Lu Qing made a full pot of rice porridge and white buns made from refined flour. They were paired with the crunchy, sweet, and spicy radish pickles the Zhang family had sent over the day before, along with two fried eggs for everyone. The meal was not as rich as yesterday’s, but the family still ate very contentedly.
However, the viewers who received notifications and entered the livestream were not very satisfied.
[We want to see you eat a feast! Since we can’t eat it, can’t you at least let us watch more of it!]
Lu Xuan ignored them entirely.
What decent family eats big fish and meat first thing in the morning?
Light porridge, small side dishes, buns, and eggs were the breakfast menu that best suited a Chinese stomach.
After breakfast, Lu Xuan went to the kitchen and emptied the basket that had been holding the wild pheasant eggs.
Seeing this, Lu Qing asked, “Are you going up the mountain again today? Why don’t you rest for a bit?”
Lu Chen, who was still busy gnawing on a bun, felt his eyes light up once again.
Lu Xuan gave a hum of affirmation. “I plan to buy new bedding and cotton. I spent too much silver on rice and flour yesterday, so I couldn’t buy them. If I go around again today, I should be able to get them.”
The Lu family didn’t own much land under their name. After Lu’s parents passed away, aside from the portion left for Lu Qing as her dowry, the rest had been rented out to others to farm, with the rent just enough to scrape by.
Lu Xuan, who didn’t need to labor in the fields from dawn till dusk, had plenty of free time. While he could help his brother-in-law Lei Yan, who had to handle the farm work alone, it was clearly more valuable to help improve the family’s living conditions.
Before heading out, Lu Chen grabbed Lu Xuan’s lapel and said with expectation, “Big Brother, can I go with you? I want to go hunting and kill wild boars too.”
Lu Xuan chuckled. “You little bean-sprout, if you really ran into a wild boar, would you be killing it, or would it be goring you to death? Stop messing around; just wait for me to bring back some good food.”
Lu Chen frowned, somewhat dissatisfied that he was being underestimated, but after looking down at his own short legs, he fell silent.
Seeing the little fellow looking disappointed, Lu Xuan reached out and poked his forehead, reminding him: “You should still have quite a bit of the candy I gave you yesterday, right? Don’t you plan on sharing it with your friends?”
In the original owner’s memories, whenever children from other families in the village ate candy or snacks, Lu Chen could only hide his envy while yearning for them.
It was rare that he could make others envy him for once; shouldn’t he hurry off to show off?
Sure enough, once Lu Chen heard this, he was instantly invigorated and didn’t mention going up the mountain again.
Going up the mountain was not as important as showing off in front of his friends!
Having pacified Lu Chen, Lu Xuan finally set out.
On the way, he met several groups of villagers as usual, and they all greeted him enthusiastically.
“Ah Xuan, going up the mountain again today?”
“You look so sharp in that outfit; I almost didn’t recognize you.”
“The clothes you bought yesterday, right? They look really good!”
When Lu Xuan returned to the village yesterday, the timing was such that he didn’t run into other villagers, so they hadn’t known immediately that he had bought many things after selling the wild boar meat.
But the later gifts to the Zhang family and the village chief couldn’t be kept from the neighbors, so many people had received the news today.
In ordinary times, finding out that Lu Xuan was willing to spend money on non-essential ready-made clothes would have inevitably invited some catty remarks, but today the situation was different.
It wasn’t just the Lu family that had eaten well last night.
Since it was rare to have cheap wild boar meat to trade for, some people planned to turn the pork into cured meat to save for the autumn harvest, while others used it to improve their family’s meals immediately. At dinner time, the smell of meat had been inescapable throughout the entire village.
In the past, some children in the village would habitually call him an idiot—without malicious intent, but out of habit. Today, likely having received warnings from their families beforehand, they all obediently called out, “Big Brother Lu Xuan,” when they saw him, licking the corners of their mouths as they remembered the taste.
“Big Brother Lu Xuan, can you catch a wild boar again today?” a child asked him expectantly.
Lu Xuan waved his hand. “Even if I catch one, I won’t be trading it.”
Those who wanted meat had already traded for it yesterday; even if he caught more, there wouldn’t be many people left who could afford to trade, so it would be better to just sell it.
After bidding the villagers farewell, Lu Xuan entered the mountain, familiar with the route from yesterday, and took a glance at the livestream.
From the time he started the stream during breakfast until now, the number of people in the channel had reached over 5,000—several times more than when he first started the stream yesterday. In the chat, many were asking if he was going to continue hunting today.
Lu Xuan said, “I’ll definitely be hunting, but today I plan to try a different direction to see if there are any other gains.”
Besides buying new bedding, what the Lu family really needed was to build a new house.
The Lu family’s home was a mud-brick house built when his parents married. Over twenty years later, despite a few repairs along the way, it remained dilapidated. It leaked rain in the summer, let in wind in the winter, and the walls had cracks in many places—it was a bona fide condemned structure.
If he wanted to improve his living environment, tearing it down and rebuilding was imperative. He planned to build a new, spacious, and beautiful blue-brick house, following the layout of a traditional courtyard house.
The price of blue bricks was certainly not low. To build a new house would cost at least eighty to a hundred taels of silver. After finishing the house, he would need to add new furniture, and for convenience in travel, it would be best to buy an ox, or perhaps even a horse-drawn carriage.
Having a house and a carriage was the kind of life a winner should live.
But all of this required money.
Relying on hunting to save up enough to buy a house and carriage, he didn’t know how long that would take. It would be best to find other ways to make money.
Yesterday, Lu Xuan’s focus had been on prey, but today he changed his mind and began to pay attention to plants.
As before, he first spotted a suitable tree to jump into as a vantage point to search for targets, and before long, he successfully found several types of common medicinal herbs.
Dandelion, plantain, large thistle, and small thistle—these were all plants that even modern people who knew nothing about traditional Chinese medicine could recognize.
However, many people in the livestream didn’t recognize them.
[What is the host doing? What are those things? Can you eat them? Wild vegetables?]
[I’ve watched other ancient-era streamers; does that look like traditional medicine?]
Lu Xuan said, “Eating them as wild vegetables is fine, but they are indeed Chinese medicinal herbs. They have anti-inflammatory, detoxifying, hemostatic, and blood-cooling properties. The effects are quite good, and they can be sold to pharmacies.”
It was just that because they were too common, they couldn’t be sold for a high price.
A while later, he found a few stalks of Ophiopogon japonicus in another area. Ophiopogon was considered a relatively precious medicinal herb, but only to a limited extent, and the quantity was too small. One could only say it was better than nothing.
Lu Xuan thought: It feels like this isn’t as fast as hunting.
He made a sound of dismissal in his heart, but his hands didn’t stop as he collected every single herb into his basket.
Just as he was thinking about whether to focus exclusively on hunting, he paused, his ears twitching slightly, and he suddenly turned and headed in another direction.
[? What did the host find?]
[Is it prey!? Is it a wild boar! Will we get to see the host show off his skills today?]
[I was recommended this stream by a friend and missed the scene yesterday where the host kicked the wild boar away. Will I be able to see it today? I’m really looking forward to it!]
As the viewers were discussing it heatedly, Lu Xuan arrived at his destination.
There was no wild boar as the audience expected, nor any other prey. What there was, was a stream about two meters wide flowing down from the mountain. The sound of the gurgling water had been masked by the rustling of leaves; it was only when he got close that he could hear it.
The depth of the stream appeared to be no more than one meter, and he could faintly see many fish swimming inside—and they looked quite large, too.
The corners of Lu Xuan’s mouth finally curled upward.
Yunlu Village had a stream, but it was much shallower than this, and there were basically no big fish there. The boys in the village would go there to catch fish and shrimp whenever they had free time; catching a fish the length of a finger was considered a huge haul.
But here, with just a casual sweep of his eyes, Lu Xuan discovered several big fish the size of two palms.
The viewers in the livestream also spotted the shadows of the fish, and they all became excited.
[Are we going to catch fish today!]
[The taste of fish is no worse than meat, I want to eat it! Ahhhhh! I especially love eating fish! Host, hurry up and catch them! I’ve already seen several big ones!]
[Braised, steamed, or you could make creamy fish soup… slurp… the tears of greed are flowing from the corners of my mouth.]
Lu Xuan said in a good mood, “You can also make sliced fish porridge, boiled fish, or fish with pickled mustard greens.”
The people in the livestream couldn’t take it anymore and shouted in unison: [Stop talking! Hurry and catch them!]
Compared to the impatient audience, Lu Xuan was quite calm. “No rush. I’m definitely going to catch them, but not here.”
The viewers were confused: If you aren’t catching them here, where are you going to catch them?
Lu Xuan didn’t answer, simply heading upstream.
Half an hour later, the sound of water gradually grew louder, and a small “waterfall” about a meter high appeared in front of Lu Xuan. The water cascaded down, forming a pool below about two or three hundred square meters in size. One corner of the pool connected right where the stream Lu Xuan had just discovered flowed into it.
Lu Xuan walked to the edge of the pool and took a look down.
This place was much deeper than the stream from earlier, at least five meters deep. A casual scan of the fish inside showed they were more than half an arm’s length; they could easily weigh ten jin (5 kg).
This was the big fish he wanted!
This time, he didn’t need the audience to urge him. Lu Xuan casually put the basket aside, stretched his limbs slightly, and then leaped into the pool.
With a loud “splash,” Lu Xuan’s figure instantly disappeared from the livestream.