“Well? You still know that this is your house?” Qiao Zhuang stood in front of Qiao Yu with a big stick.
Qiao Yu kept retreating until she hit the door and there was nowhere to go. She watched helplessly as her fourth brother, Qiao Liang, and fifth brother, Qiao Gang, walked towards her and pressed her down to bend over the bench. Qiao Zhuang raised his hand and brought the stick down.
“Ah! I was wrong, Father!” Qiao Yu screamed.
The other women in the family could not bear to see Qiao Yu get beaten up and they all turned around and closed their eyes.
“How dare you go out and say that I didn’t give you food!” Qiao Zhuang hit her again.
“Ah! I didn’t say that! Father, I really didn’t say that!” Qiao Yu sobbed and struggled.
Qiao Zhuang did not listen to Qiao Yu’s explanation. After a few strikes, Qiao Yu wailed and struggled in pain. It was already past midnight and the village was quiet. Occasionally, there would be miserable yells, but the sounds eventually stopped later.
The next day, everyone was discussing which family had carried out a beating, resulting in such miserable screams in the middle of the night. The person must have been beaten half to death.
These words quickly reached Qiao Mei’s ears. It had crossed Qiao Mei’s mind that Qiao Yu would get a beating, but she did not expect Qiao Zhuang to be so angry that he actually beat her up so badly. He really did not treat Qiao Yu like his own child. From what she heard, Qiao Yu would not be able to get up for at least a month or two. Qiao Mei did not feel any pity at all and only felt that Qiao Yu deserved it.
Qiao Mei was setting off for Gushan in three days’ time. There was still one last step to the cultivation of the wild ginseng, so she had to complete it quickly. It was an important thing to save people and it was best if there were no injuries. However, it was better to be safe than sorry so she still had to be prepared.
Qiao Mei returned to the cave again. The two remaining wild ginsengs from last time had grown quite well and looked good. Through the transmission of energy, Qiao Mei could feel that the two wild ginsengs were very happy to see her. She could already communicate with the plants and they could develop feelings for one another.
Qiao Mei carried on with the energy exchange. This time, she continued with the results from the last time and did another 500 rounds, making it a total of 1,500 rounds. In the end, the two ginsengs could not make it and wilted. Qiao Mei planted the small wild ginsengs she had brought into the ground which still contained the roots of all the wild ginsengs that had gone through the 1,000 rounds previously. After the flowers bloomed and withered for 1,400 rounds, there were still three wild ginsengs left.
Qiao Mei showed an excited expression and counted the three wild ginsengs one by one. She told them, “The three of you should try to make a good showing, work harder and see who can last until the end.”
The few wild ginsengs seemed to understand Qiao Mei’s words and rushed to grow up to compete with their own wild ginseng brothers.
Qiao Mei did another 30 rounds of energy exchange. One of the wild ginsengs could not make it and disintegrated into ashes to provide nutrients for the other two wild ginsengs.
“You two can do it!” Qiao Mei said and did 70 more rounds of exchange.
In the end, only one wild ginseng survived. Qiao Mei looked at the last wild ginseng happily and felt a sense of relief. She took a few ginseng roots and wrapped them in a red cloth. As for this ginseng king, Qiao Mei did not want to wrap it up. It would be too much of a shock if someone found out that there was a 1,500-year-old wild ginseng.
Ever since Qiao Mei began to grow wild ginseng by doing energy exchange, there was always a faint medicinal fragrance on her body. It was not obvious at first, but as she increased the number of times she exchanged energy with wild ginseng every day, the smell on Qiao Mei’s body became purer and more obvious. By now, there was basically no smell anymore. The smell was only obvious when she was close by and the fragrance was a very restrained one.
Not only that, but Qiao Mei also realized that she seemed to have obtained the characteristics of wild ginseng and became good at hiding.
People who had picked wild ginseng before would know that they could not be in a hurry to dig it up after discovering it. They had to tie a red string around it first, or else the wild ginseng would escape. If they did not tie a red string around it, it would be very difficult for the picker to discover it. The ginseng would diminish its presence so that no one around it could sense its existence.
These were not the only effects of the wild ginseng. Not only did Qiao Mei emit a strange fragrance and her sense of presence decreased, she also recently discovered that her body felt much better. Initially, she had a sore waist during her pregnancy, but now, her body felt good and she did not feel any discomfort at all.