Time passed, and the weather turned colder.
After ten days, the Yellow Bud Rice was harvested, Chen Mu sighed as he looked at the five sacks of Yellow Bud Rice in front of the wooden hut.
“If this were in the Lower Courtyard of Tongtian River, these five acres could yield at least seventeen hundred pounds of Yellow Bud Rice.”
“Look at it now, we should be grateful if it’s even six hundred pounds!”
Old Man Yang, whom Chen Mu hadn’t seen in a while, put down the half-person-tall black pottery jar: “You should be content.”
Saying so, he glanced around, then pointed with his chin toward the hillside behind Chen Mu.
“Your neighbor over there, with more than eight acres, harvested less than five hundred pounds!”
Chen Mu couldn’t help but click his tongue: “Doesn’t that mean he has to give nearly twenty White Jade Coins to the Lower Courtyard just to cover the land rent?”
“That’s right. Half the money earned from half a year of reclaiming wasteland, just gone like that, tsk tsk…” Old Man Yang shook his head as he lifted the cotton cloth from the black pottery jar.
The rustling sound of insects crawling could be heard.
Chen Mu immediately stepped back two steps in disgust.
“You’ve seen these before, what’s there to fear?” Old Man Yang said irritably: “These little darlings are so adorable!”
Chen Mu shivered: “Not everyone has your strange fondness.”
Humming…
The grey swarm of insects, like shallow wave foam, rolled tumultuously towards the Yellow Bud Rice fields. The withered yellow leaves and branches were quickly crushed and returned to fill the soil.
“The harvest isn’t good this year. If you have some spare money, better stock up on some more Yellow Bud Rice,” Old Man Yang advised.
After some thought, he added softly: “You could also reroute a bit more of what you’ve grown yourself.”
Chen Mu nodded to himself, finding the advice sensible.
After returning from reclaiming the wasteland, he had specifically irrigated the fields with enriched spring water to rescue the crop, yielding just over a hundred pounds per acre.
Those completely left untended would fare even worse, no doubt.
A shortfall in Yellow Bud Rice was inevitable.
Shortfalls lead to price increases.
…
Evening.
Chen Mu sat under the window on the east side of the wooden hut, with five grey cloth bags, each as tall as a knee and containing a hundred pounds of Yellow Bud Rice, in front of him.
“Saved too little.”
After sending Old Man Yang away, Chen Mu immediately went to the Lengyue Fang grain store.
The price of Yellow Bud Rice was still a White Jade Coin for a hundred pounds, but each person could only buy two hundred pounds.
Together with the three hundred pounds he had diverted, he only had five hundred pounds on hand. It was enough to last him at most three months.
“I don’t feel secure about this.”
…
The next day, Chen Mu returned to the Lengyue Fang grain store.
“One hundred pounds for two White Jade Coins?” Chen Mu’s eyebrows raised; prices had gone up so quickly?!
“Give me two hundred pounds!” He didn’t dare hesitate, who knew if the price would continue to rise tomorrow.
“You can’t buy anymore, you’ve already reached your purchase limit for the month,” the grey-clothed shop assistant said casually as he handed the identification plaque back to Chen Mu and waved him away.
“Isn’t the limit just on the amount you can buy?” Chen Mu was surprised.
“New rules. Each person can only buy up to two hundred pounds a month.”
“Hurry on out, there are others waiting to buy,” the grey-clothed assistant said with an impatient look.
Were the grain store clerks really this arrogant now?
It was completely a seller’s market.
Chen Mu, being pushed out of the grain store, watched as more and more people came to buy grain, his heart sinking.
The Yellow Bud Rice had just been harvested yesterday, and now it was this expensive.
With a full year until next autumn’s harvest, how much more expensive would the rice get in the second half of next year?
An hour later.
Chen Mu, carrying a piece of cured meat made from the leg of an unknown Exotic Beast, walked out of the meat shop expressionless.
The price of Exotic Beast Meat had risen too.
Five pounds for a White Jade Coin; this leg of cured meat cost him nine White Jade Coins, previously it would have been at most four.
“The Lower Courtyard is as ruthless as ever!” Chen Mu pursed his lips.
This year, they had paid well for mountain clearing and land reclamation.
But now as the prices continued to rise, those White Jade Coins earned were just funneling right back to the Lower Courtyard.
“The Administrative Affairs Institute has some real talent!”
Although Chen Mu wasn’t short on money right now, being forced to pay high prices for grain and meat, he truly resented it.
“I still haven’t prepared enough.”
I should have hoarded more Yellow Bud Rice and meat when I first came to Peng Yue Mountain!
“Who would have thought we’d be clearing the land for half a year,” Chen Mu lamented.
He had originally planned to hoard the Yellow Bud Rice he grew after the harvest.
Unfortunately…
…
In the following days, Chen Mu made several trips to Len Yue Fang.
Whether it was the rice shop or the meat store in the Lower Courtyard, or the free market east of Len Yue Fang, the prices of rice and meat had gone up.
The good news was that although the prices had doubled, they had not risen further.
The bad news was that although there was no increase now, no one could say for sure whether they wouldn’t go up in the second half of the year.
“Who would have thought that after starting on the path to cultivate immortality, eating would become a problem.”
Glancing at the more than twenty thousand White Jade Coins in his Five Ghosts Bag, Chen Mu felt somewhat relieved. At least he could still afford to eat.
“There’s no way to twist the arm that’s stronger than the thigh, so just focus on cultivating in peace.”
The weather turned colder, the land needed to recuperate, and the opening up and hunting were completed. The whole of Peng Yue Mountain, like a tree forest gradually turning yellow and quiet, slowly settled down.
Chen Mu also had ample time to grind for experience.
Stay updated through empire
…
A month later, in front of the wooden house, on the porch.
Chen Mu lay in a rocking chair, covered with a soft beast hide blanket on his knees.
In his left hand was a cup of hot tea that kept steaming, and in his right hand, he played with a hollow white bone sphere, his eyes fixed on a gray wall in the void.
“It’s nice not having to clear the land.”
Holed up at home for a month, Chen Mu, apart from eating and resting, would stare at the gray wall to grind for experience whenever he had free time.
There was no activity in the other items, but the Spirit Nourishing Curse, on which he had placed great hopes, had successfully advanced.
Spirit Nourishing Curse: 103/10000/Second Rank;
With a thought, he activated Qi Forbidden Hundred Miles.
Ten meters away, a fist-sized stone floated out of nowhere.
The next moment, like a bullet leaving its chamber, it tore through the air with a sharp whistling, charging straight toward Chen Mu’s forehead.
In almost the blink of an eye, it arrived three meters in front of him.
A wisp of black smoke appeared out of the void, but Chen Mu actively suppressed it.
The glowing white Spiritual Light had just emerged but was also dispersed by Chen Mu.
The Bone Sphere in the palm of his hand suddenly disappeared.
Inside the Jade Seed, the Spirit Nourishing Talisman, now a small tangle of threads, actively burrowed into the Primordial Talisman.
Bang!
A semi-transparent hemispherical White Bone Shield suddenly blocked in front of him.
The stone coming at great speed was instantly repelled.
“Spirit Nourishing Curse enhances the spirit of Magic Artifacts, so it allows the Yang Cuo to autonomously protect the body?” Chen Mu couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.
Other secret techniques originally required the chanting of Curse Words to form a temporary Talisman, which is then used to activate the secret technique or Magic Artifact.
Yang Cuo itself has the effect of a Jade Slip, and once infused with Mana, it can replace the function of Curse Words, forming a temporary Talisman.
It’s essentially replacing the chanting of Curse Words with the simple act of transferring Mana.
After entering the Second Rank, Yang Cuo gained sentience.
It could now actively detect attacks and automatically draw Mana into the Bone Sphere.
The steps involved in casting spells were further reduced.
The process was completely automated.
It even saved Chen Mu the trouble.
“Isn’t this just like a Magic Artifact version of the Spiritual Light Armor?” Chen Mu chuckled.
Upon careful examination, Chen Mu realized that, unbeknownst to him, he had equipped himself with several layers of defense.
First, there was the black smoke that came with the Spiritual Armor, followed by the Jade Seed Spiritual Light, then came the Yang Cuo White Bone Shield, and finally a layer of hardened muscles and bones cultivated through the Spirit Armor Technique.
Occasionally, he could also use Qi Forbidden Hundred Miles as a defensive force field.
“This layered defense… Haha!”
In the past, when he cultivated various Shape Cultivation Techniques, he wanted to layer armor upon armor, turning himself into a muscular hulk that could take hits and keep on fighting, but it never panned out.
Now, however, he had inadvertently created a different kind of layered armor.
Whether it could attack was another matter, but it certainly could take a beating.
“I guess this is a dream come true.”