Old Moneybags Huang lay bare-chested on the bed, his back covered in crisscrossing knife wounds. The flesh was peeled back, looking horrifying.
Each time the black shadow had caught up to them, it had slashed once or twice.
At this moment, Old Moneybags Huang’s face was deathly pale. His wife, concubine, sons, and daughters—the entire family—were gathered around the bed, weeping and wailing.
“Your father… isn’t dead yet… aiyouwei…”
“Master!”
“Master, hang in there! The doctor will be here soon!”
Old Moneybags Huang turned his head to look at Ergouzi.
Ergouzi had been running all night and was now completely exhausted, leaning against the door to rest.
With someone on his back serving as a shield, aside from being soaked in a stream of yellow urine, he was completely unharmed.
Right now, he was worried about whether Old Moneybags Huang would go back on his word. After all, that was three mu of land, worth sixty taels of silver.
Furthermore, Old Moneybags Huang was now half-dead. The matter of saving his life could only be considered half-finished at best.
Also, what if Old Moneybags Huang died before he could settle the matter of the land?
Ergouzi’s heart felt uneasy, anxious about his potential gains and losses.
“Ergou, you saved my life. From now on, those three mu in Stone Hollow are yours.”
Finally receiving Old Moneybags Huang’s promise, Ergouzi stood up from the ground in joy.
“Thank you! Thank you, landlord!”
From today onward, he was no longer just a tenant farmer. He too was someone who owned a piece of land.
It was his own land; he could work it however he pleased. He wouldn’t have to pay rent, nor worry about it being taken back. He could even build a tile-roofed house on his own fields.
“Aiyouwei…”
It was unclear whether Old Moneybags Huang was aching from his physical wounds or aching in his heart. He groaned and moaned for quite a while.
“You saved my life. These three mu of land are nothing!”
“I can also give you another great gift.”
As Old Moneybags Huang spoke, he looked at his children, his gaze finally settling on Second Daughter.
“I will give you two choices. You may pick one.”
“The first is to marry Second Daughter to you, with a dowry of twenty mu of good farmland.”
“Father…”
Hearing her father’s arrangement, Second Daughter’s face flushed with embarrassment. She lowered her head and secretly stole a glance at Ergouzi.
Hearing this, Ergouzi was also at a loss. Blushing, he lowered his head and sneakily sized up Second Daughter.
Their gazes collided in midair, then quickly darted away.
Ergouzi’s heart thumped wildly. Yesterday, he had thought the village beauty was far beyond his reach, yet today she was to be betrothed to him, complete with twenty mu of good farmland for a dowry.
He wondered what the second benefit would be. Could it even compare to this first one?
“These eight hundred taels of silver do not need to be paid all at once. You only need to pay forty taels each year, clearing the debt over twenty years.”
“Choose either of these two.”
After Old Moneybags Huang finished speaking, everyone in the Huang family stared at Ergouzi, waiting to see how he would choose.
Ergouzi felt deeply conflicted. In truth, he wanted both.
Marrying the village beauty that everyone in Snake Creek Village drooled over, and gaining twenty mu of good farmland as a dowry—he would have both the beauty and the wealth. He would be the son-in-law of the wealthiest family, able to swagger sideways through Snake Creek Village.
If it were before, in his subconscious mind, the absolute peak of life was exactly what Old Moneybags Huang had.
But this trip into the county seat had opened his eyes to a far broader world.
As the wealthiest man in Snake Creek Village, Old Moneybags Huang still had to dutifully pay the Tax Grain. In front of those yamen runners, even after being beaten, he had to carefully apologize.
When encountering King Zhao blocking the road, he had to pile on smiles and voluntarily offer up silver.
When facing the black-clad figure’s robbery and pursuit, if Ergouzi hadn’t pulled him along at the critical moment, he would never have made it back.
When Ergouzi looked at Second Daughter again, his gaze was much firmer.
A round face, a round waist, and a round bottom—it would be hard to find a second one like her in all of Snake Creek Village.
Being stared at so directly, Second Daughter lowered her head. Her flush spread all the way to the base of her neck as her fingers twisted the hem of her clothes, waiting for that final moment to arrive.
Ergouzi scrutinized Second Daughter several times over, but in the end, he reluctantly tore his gaze away and spoke slowly.
“I want to buy Snake Mouth Mountain!”
“You! You…”
Second Daughter viciously stamped her foot, covered her face, and ran out of the room.
Old Moneybags Huang glanced at Second Daughter leaving in a huff, but he didn’t say much.
“Good. From today onward, Snake Mouth Mountain is considered sold to you. But you must pay exactly forty taels of silver each year—not one tael more, not one tael less, and you cannot pay it off early.”
“Aiyouwei… the pain is killing me!”
“If by the end of any year you cannot pay off that year’s forty taels of silver, I will take back Snake Mouth Mountain.”
“When my injuries heal, I will go with you to the County Yamen to draw up the contract…”
…
Ergouzi walked out of Old Moneybags Huang’s house in a daze, still having not recovered from his enormous joy.
He couldn’t figure out why Old Moneybags Huang would set up such a strange contract.
Considering he was poor right now and couldn’t pull out eight hundred taels of silver all at once, splitting the payment over twenty years made sense.
But why was he forbidden from paying more each year, or paying it off early? This, he couldn’t understand.
He just felt a bit sorry toward Second Daughter. He hoped she wouldn’t resent him and would find another good family instead.
With his head full of random thoughts, he had unknowingly walked to the foot of Snake Mouth Mountain.
From today onward, he too was a man who owned land.
Although it was nothing but rocks here, with very little barren soil and a lack of water, it did have one advantage: it was remote enough that no one normally came around.
Before, he had had reservations about farming here. Now that it belonged to him, he could fence off certain areas to keep outsiders from entering.
On his very first day back, he moved several large rocks to completely block the only path up the mountain.
From now on, going in and out of Snake Mouth Mountain would require scaling the cliffs.
Anyway, he now possessed great strength and agility; this wouldn’t trouble him in the slightest.
In the future, he would build a large house on the mountain and open up all the wasteland that could possibly be cultivated.
He would plant the mountain full of grain and precious medicinal herbs, and plant all sorts of delicious fruit trees.
He would also raise some chickens, ducks, and geese. In his memory, the last time he had eaten a chicken leg was on his fifth birthday.
It was a pity he couldn’t raise fish on the mountain. Fish meat was delicious too.
At this moment, Ergouzi was brimming with energy. He shouldered his hoe and went straight to clearing wasteland.
Currently, the only cultivated land on the mountain was the three mu in Stone Hollow, planted with rice and a small amount of Little Chicken Leg wild vegetables.
This time in the county seat, he had successfully bought three types of medicinal herb seeds: Cistanche, ginseng, and Solomon’s Seal. He needed to clear a new plot of land to plant them.
If they grew successfully, he planned to cultivate these medicinal herbs in large quantities in the future.
Although grain was hard currency and easy to sell, the yield was simply too massive. He couldn’t eat that much himself, and lugging it out sack by sack to sell wasn’t very convenient.
Right now, there were still over a hundred shi of rice stored in his gourd. Even eating three or four meals a day, he couldn’t get through it all.
He could only make it into Great Strength Pills and slowly sell them off.
He now possessed immense brute strength, making him perfectly suited for clearing wasteland. He could pick up rocks weighing over a hundred jin with both hands and casually toss them aside.
He dug out weeds and tree roots with just a few swings of his hoe.
In just a few days, he had cleared three fen of empty land.
He planted the ginseng, Solomon’s Seal, and Cistanche separately, dedicating one fen of land to each, and then watered them with water from the gourd.
Just a day or two after planting, the ginseng and Solomon’s Seal had already sprouted into seedlings.
Only the patch planted with Cistanche showed no signs of sprouting or growth.
Over the next few days, aside from diligently practicing his cultivation, Ergouzi’s routine consisted of checking on the medicinal herbs in the field.
The ginseng and Solomon’s Seal were growing excellently. Only that Cistanche showed no activity whatsoever.
Perhaps he had been swindled by that unreliable old man, or perhaps his planting method was wrong.
He had never planted medicinal herbs before and knew absolutely nothing about cultivating them. He could only rely on the miraculous effects of the gourd.
The only thing he could do was water them daily. The ginseng and Solomon’s Seal seedlings grew much larger, but there was still no sign of the Cistanche sprouting.
The Cistanche planting had likely failed.