Another New Year’s Eve arrived. Ergouzi sat alone before the earthen stove to tend the fire. A large pot of pork stewed inside, bubbling as it released a savory aroma.
On this day last year, his life had hung by a thread as he roasted a handful of rice in the freezing snow, barely managing to survive.
Now, he could finally eat large chunks of meat.
Always miserly and meticulous with his copper coins, Ergouzi had done the unprecedented and bought half a side of pork for the New Year.
Once tonight passed, he would be fifteen years old.
At fifteen, he owned Snake Mouth Mountain, as well as fifty mu of prime farmland at the base of the mountain.
Old Moneybags Huang had sold all fifty mu of that prime land to him.
Under normal circumstances, prime land close to a water source could not be bought even for thirty taels of silver a mu, but Old Moneybags Huang had sold it to him for only twenty-eight taels.
Fifty mu amounted to 1,400 taels of silver in total, still requiring payment over twenty years at seventy taels annually, with no option for early repayment.
Added to his previous forty taels a year, for the next two decades, Ergouzi would owe Old Moneybags Huang 110 taels of silver every year.
Old Moneybags Huang had taken this year’s seventy taels to bribe connections at the County Yamen. He had spent it all, yet still found no way to rescue his son.
Word was that in the end, Old Moneybags Huang had to swallow his pride and beg Zhang Youliang to step forward.
Zhang Youliang was on familiar terms with the runners and officials at the County Yamen. Once he intervened, he indeed managed to fish Huang Fugui out of the prison.
But Old Moneybags Huang had paid a tremendous price to convince Zhang Youliang to help.
He had bundled all of the Huang family’s remaining farmland and sold it to Zhang Youliang at a severely depressed price.
From then on, the vast majority of the fields in Snake Creek Village belonged to Zhang Youliang.
Now, all the tenant farmers in the village were rushing to his uncle’s house. Those offering sweet words and bringing gifts formed an endless stream, practically trampling the threshold, all begging to rent better plots of land.
After witnessing Old Moneybags Huang’s plight with his own eyes, Ergouzi felt a constant shadow of crisis looming in his heart.
Without enough strength to protect himself, no matter how much wealth he earned, he would not be able to keep it.
He decided that from now on, he would pour his main energy and wealth into practicing martial arts and then test for the Martial Scholar rank.
Only with the official status of a Martial Scholar could he sit on equal footing with the runners of the County Yamen. Even if the county magistrate wanted to convict him and take his head, the matter would first have to be reported to the prefectural government.
However, truly mastering martial arts required not only bitter daily practice, but the willingness to throw in vast sums of money.
Before the New Year, he had gone to sell Great Strength Pills again, bringing back over two hundred taels of silver. For now, he was not short on cash.
Because eating meat aided his martial arts training, he had already decided that he would eat a meal of meat every single day.
If he ate a jin of fatty pork every day, it would cost two or three taels of silver a month. For the current Ergouzi, this was affordable, but still felt overly extravagant.
Yet to improve his strength and become a Martial Scholar, Ergouzi decided to compromise slightly.
Fatty pork was too expensive, but lean meat and bones lacked grease, making them much cheaper.
He could buy leftover spare ribs and leg bones to eat, which would save a few taels of silver each month.
He felt spare ribs were actually quite good. There was no absolute need to eat fatty pork.
This winter, another dozen or so people had frozen or starved to death in Snake Creek Village. The fact that he could eat meat at all was an incredible blessing.
Ergouzi lifted the lid of the pot, poked the meat with a chopstick, and felt it was about ready.
He fished out a spare rib, blew on the steaming heat, and took a bite.
The meat had been stewing for so long that it separated from the bone; with a gentle tug, a large chunk of meat tore away.
Although the rib meat wasn’t dripping with oil, it was soft, glutinous, and incredibly fragrant.
Before stewing it, he had kept the meat stored inside the gourd for a few days, giving it a far better texture than ordinary pork.
Ordinary pork usually carried a rank odor, but that had completely vanished, replaced by a meaty fragrance mixed with a faint medicinal aroma.
After finishing the meat, he chewed thoroughly, slowly crushing the remaining bone to pieces before washing it all down into his belly with the meat broth.
The bones had cost copper coins too; there was no way he would throw them out.
After finishing the ribs, one ginseng root and a few scraps of meat and bone were left in the pot.
He scooped it all out and ate every last bit.
The ginseng growing on the mountain wasn’t very large yet; it probably only carried five or six years of medicinal age.
But after having its Spiritual Qi elevated by the gourd, boiling it together with the pork still provided a bit of help for his cultivation. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
Full of food and drink, he sat in meditation and began cultivating according to the first layer of his method.
The food he had just consumed was gradually refined, producing thin, faint strands of True Qi.
This True Qi circulated forty-nine times through the Twelve Meridians before surging completely into his Conception Vessel.
The Conception and Governor Vessels were also known as the seas of yin and yang meridians, capable of storing the True Qi he cultivated.
Running along the front and back centerlines of the body, these two great vessels were far wider than the Twelve Meridians and could hold vast amounts of True Qi.
It had been several months since he achieved Qi Sensing. Eating the grain from his gourd every day, his cultivation progress had been reasonably fast.
Currently, his Conception and Governor Vessels were not yet connected, and he had only filled his Conception Vessel about a third of the way.
According to the manual, he needed to fill the Conception Vessel with True Qi, then break through the connection between the Conception and Governor Vessels. Only then could he cultivate the second layer of the method.
As for the third layer, he needed to completely connect and fill both the Conception and Governor Vessels with True Qi, then open his Lower Dantian.
After meditating and cultivating for two shichen, everything he had eaten was refined into True Qi and gathered in his Conception Vessel.
Only then did he stand up, lift the sword by his side, and begin practicing the Basic Sword Forms.
With his recent advancement in cultivation, his physical strength had grown considerably. The eleven-jin heavy sword he had originally purchased now felt slightly too light.
The next time he went to the county town, he would have to exchange it for a heavier one.
Early the next morning was the first day of the Lunar New Year, the time when relatives and friends would visit to offer New Year greetings.
Ergouzi had no relatives to visit; he only had one master.
Carrying a cut of pork, a package of candied fruit, and a jar of wine, he went to pay his New Year respects to Li Banxian.
Li Banxian was also a lone bachelor. After so many years, this was the first time anyone had paid him a New Year’s visit, and he was quite pleased.
He specifically stewed some pork and kept his disciple there for a meal.
Along the way, he performed his signature trick of crushing a stone into powder once again.
Although Ergouzi had seen it many times, he was still deeply shaken. He secretly swore to redouble his efforts; if he could learn even one or two-tenths of his master’s ability early on, it would be more than enough to become a Martial Scholar.
As Ergouzi left, Li Banxian gave him a bag of red dates, harvested straight from the jujube tree in his own courtyard.
On the road home, Ergouzi made a detour to drop in on Old Moneybags Huang for a New Year’s greeting.
In past years at this time, all the tenant farmers in the village would come to pay their respects to Old Moneybags Huang. Even if Ergouzi had wanted to, he wouldn’t have been able to squeeze through the door.
This year, however, sparrows could be caught at the gate. The estate was desolate and quiet, without a single guest in sight.
One of Huang Fugui’s leg bones had been snapped. Although a doctor from the county town had been hired to set it and apply poultices, he was still entirely unable to get out of bed and walk.
Ergouzi took out a package of Great Strength Pills and gave them to Huang Fugui to take, figuring it should offer some help to his recovery.
When it was time to leave, Old Moneybags Huang had his Second Daughter bring a large bag of dried persimmons from the inner room to give Ergouzi as a return gift.
As Second Daughter handed the dried persimmons into Ergouzi’s hands, her lips moved slightly, as if she wanted to say something, but in the end, no words came out.
Ergouzi said nothing either. Clutching the dried persimmons, he bid his farewells and left.
Returning to Snake Mouth Mountain, he dug the seeds out of the red dates and dried persimmons and planted them in the crevices between the rocks, in places where the land could not be plowed.
After the New Year passed, everyone had to busy themselves with the spring plowing, securing their livelihood for the year to come.
Ergouzi rented out all fifty mu of land at the foot of Snake Mouth Mountain. Following the old rule, he collected fifty percent for rent.
Out of that fifty percent rent he collected, he would have to take three parts and send it to the County Yamen as tax grain, leaving himself with two parts of the harvest.
During this time, however, something else happened in the village.
Now that the majority of the land in Snake Creek Village rested in Zhang Youliang’s hands, the tenant farmers had no choice but to rent their fields from him.
But in his very first year of taking over, Zhang Youliang raised the rent, bumping it from fifty percent to sixty percent.
The tenants were naturally unwilling, but all they could do was grumble behind his back. If you refused to plant, there were plenty of others desperate enough to snatch the fields away.
Ergouzi had never considered growing rich by wringing his tenants dry. Right now, all his focus was poured into his cultivation.
Lately, eating a jin of pork stewed with ginseng every day, his cultivation progress was decent, and his strength had mounted substantially.
Yet, he still could not crush a stone with his bare hand.
Ergouzi felt his cultivation progress was simply too slow.
And so, after the start of spring, he made another trip to the county town.
He sold a shi of Great Strength Pills, gaining over two hundred taels of silver.
To his mild surprise, those two enhanced versions of the Great Strength Pills were actually quite popular.
Sima Yi of Rejuvenation Hall offered eighty wen per pill, ordering an entire shi from him.
Taking these two hundred taels, Ergouzi went straight to Hong’an Hall.
Unfortunately, Hong’an Hall only had eight Origin-Nourishing Foundation-Fortifying Pills in total.
Ergouzi spent eighty taels of silver to buy all eight remaining pills.
Then he went to the weapon shop and specially ordered a thirty-jin heavy sword.
At the same time, to accompany this heavy sword, he had a hundred and forty rectangular iron plates forged. Each plate weighed five jin and could be tied to the blade to increase its overall weight.
Because of the sheer amount of iron used this time, and because it was a custom order, the cost was exorbitant. It set him back one hundred taels of silver.
The silver that had just touched his hands was spent down to a few dozen taels.
The path of martial arts was truly not something an ordinary person could afford to sustain.
Moreover, he had only managed to buy eight Origin-Nourishing Foundation-Fortifying Pills. If he took one a day, they would be gone in eight days.
Returning to Snake Mouth Mountain, three more days passed before he finally took a Origin-Nourishing Foundation-Fortifying Pill from the gourd and consumed it.
Holding the pill in his palm, he carefully felt its presence.
Indeed, judging solely by the density of its Spiritual Qi, it far surpassed his Great Strength Pills, and it was stronger than those five- or six-year-old ginseng roots in his possession.
As the pill entered his mouth, a medicinal fragrance merged with the scent of honey. It was actually quite tasty, lacking any bitterness.
Swallowing the Origin-Nourishing Foundation-Fortifying Pill down, he immediately began circulating his method to refine it.
About four shichen later, all the Spiritual Qi within the pill had been refined by him.
Another wisp of True Qi manifested in his Conception Vessel.
Ergouzi made a quick comparison. The amount of True Qi gained from refining this single pill was equal to eating pork stewed with ginseng for half a month straight.
Of course, this was only possible because the gourd had elevated its Spiritual Qi first.
From then on, he ate one Origin-Nourishing Foundation-Fortifying Pill every day. His cultivation advanced by leaps and bounds, changing noticeably with each passing day.
The True Qi in his Conception Vessel grew richer and more abundant, until finally, after refining the seventh Origin-Nourishing Foundation-Fortifying Pill…
A current of Qi flowed through Tiantu, crossed Lianquan, bridged Queqiao, traversed Chonglou, and ascended to the crown of his head. Then, following the Governor Vessel along his spine, it descended past Mingmen, passed through Changqiang, and entered Huiyin…
At this instant, his Conception and Governor Vessels became entirely unobstructed. He had broken through to the second layer of the Nameless Cultivation Method.
The True Qi rushed upward from Huiyin, connected to the Governor Vessel at his head, swept down the Governor Vessel, and returned to Huiyin, cycling over and over.
With every cycle, the True Qi grew by a fraction, and he could feel his physical body strengthening alongside it.
After cultivating for a long time, Ergouzi leaped up, easily springing over a zhang into the air.
He felt he had entered an entirely new realm, more powerful now than he had ever been before.
He picked up a stone from the ground, grasped it in his hand, and squeezed hard…
Squeezed harder…
His face flushed red with the effort, but the stone was not crushed. It did not yield in the slightest.
Was it still not enough?
A surge of stubbornness flared within Ergouzi. He channeled all the True Qi from his Conception and Governor Vessels into his fingers, suddenly manifesting a terrifying burst of explosive power.
“Bang!”
The stone fractured into pieces in his hand.
Although he hadn’t effortlessly crushed it into powder like his master, for Ergouzi, this was already a monumental leap forward.
“Hahaha…”
“I finally did it!”