Evening.
Chen Mu frowned as he carried two fish home.
He happened to come across a fisherman in the East Market and barely managed to snatch up the two fish for one hundred and forty copper coins.
Then a steward from a wealthy household appeared and bought everything, fish and basket included.
He couldn’t buy any more even if he wanted to.
“Two fish aren’t enough.”
Chen Mu was distressed.
The cured meat he had in his cellar was completely gone.
He could only rely on eggs to supplement his protein every day.
Shape Cultivation Technique consumed a lot, and eggs alone couldn’t sustain it.
“I need to find a way to get some meat to eat.”
…
The mountains behind Chen Family Village.
The dense forest exuded a faint smell of dampness mixed with decaying foliage.
Sunlight filtered through the leaves, creating a mottled pattern of light and shadow on the ground.
A crystal clear droplet of water fell from a green leaf and landed in a puddle the size of a palm.
Plop!
A large foot stepped into the puddle, immediately splashing muddy water everywhere.
Chen Mu looked around for a path, chopping off branches blocking his way with a machete, and continued to walk deeper into the woods.
He had been wandering through the mountains behind Chen Family Village the entire morning, trying to hunt game to supplement his meat intake.
The lack of nutrition was starting to limit the number of times he could practice his skills each day.
“It’s a pity I don’t know how to track game.”
Experienced hunters could identify animal trails and knew the approximate areas where various game would roam.
Chen Mu knew nothing and was blundering around in the mountains.
He’d thought by just going into the mountains, he would quickly encounter game.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have the luck of a protagonist.
He could only roam the mountain in search of prey.
“How great it would be if I could encounter a wild boar.”
With his current Third Rank Throwing Ability, combined with Screw Iron Lotus Seed, catching a wild boar would be easy.
In the evening, Chen Mu returned to the hunter’s cabin, carrying an unidentified bird about the size of two fists.
He begrudgingly plucked its feathers and cleaned it.
After a bit of hustle, it was eaten up in just a few bites.
If he hadn’t brought any dry food, he might have gone hungry!
“I refuse to believe this. I’ll continue tomorrow!”
…
Two days later.
Chen Mu left Chen Family Village with a basket of Qiansu Grass on his back and two wild rabbits in hand.
He had come to terms with his situation.
After wandering for two days, the game he caught was still not enough to eat.
The two wild rabbits he held were actually purchased from a hunter in the village!
“Nothing is ever that simple.”
Chen Mu thought dejectedly.
“If it doesn’t work out, I’ll just find a hunter to follow and learn for a couple of months.”
He had Proficiency; he was not afraid of learning new skills.
But two months was enough for him to advance the Shape Cultivation Technique to the Bone Transformation Realm.
Chen Mu hesitated a bit.
On the way, he passed a small river.
Walking on the bridge, he saw a fisherman on the shore and immediately went over.
He wanted to buy some fish, but instead, he encountered a fruitless fisherman.
How dare a fisherman come back empty-handed?!
If you can’t catch fish, why not throw a firecracker bottle to blast them?!
Chen Mu left with a look of disappointment.
As he walked, an idea suddenly struck him.
“If I can’t catch fish, not only can I blast them with explosives, but I can also catch them with medicine!”
He was a man skilled in Pharmaceutical Technique!
With just a little thought, he already had a vague plan.
Chen Mu hurried home, excited.
In the past half a month, his Pharmaceutical Technique had accumulated more than eight thousand Proficiency.
He gritted his teeth, deciding to dedicate a bit more time to Pharmaceutical Technique, to quickly break through to Second Rank.
Second Rank skills would undergo a qualitative change.
That vague plan might just become clear.
It was only a matter of three to five days; he could afford the time.
…
Then came the familiar part.
Chen Mu closed his door and went through dozens of medical books from beginning to end once again.
He made a special trip out, spending five taels of silver to buy several new medical books through Jie Jia’s channels.
Five days later, Chen Mu closed the last medical book.
A series of epiphanies appeared abruptly in his mind.
The properties of various medicinal materials, how to enhance certain medicinal properties, how to weaken certain toxicities, how to mix them to produce new functions.
He even saw through a thing or two about the Red Falcon Shape Cultivation Secret Medicine that had always eluded him.
“Now it’s truly done.”
…
Two days later, Chen Mu, carrying a large bamboo basket on his back and holding a jar of wine, arrived at the Bailang River outside Qingshan County.
He went straight to a deep-water bend he knew well.
Over the past two days, he had already deployed the special bait here.
It was all to attract more fish to come and feed.
He opened the wine jar he had been holding all this time.
Into the river, he poured the secret inebriating bait made with a mixture of wine, medicinal materials, and cooked white wheat.
This inebriating bait was a secret medicine he had concocted using Second Rank Pharmaceutical Technique.
It could quickly intoxicate the fish without killing them.
And it had no toxic side effects if consumed by humans.
A quarter of an hour later, the surface of the deep-water river bend was covered with fish belly up.
“Haha, scoop them up!”
Chen Mu grabbed the long pole net he had prepared and started working.
He didn’t stop until the big bamboo basket could hold no more.
At this moment, there were still plenty of fish on the water’s surface, flipping and thrashing as if they were drunk.
“If I had known, I would have brought an extra basket,” Chen Mu thought with a look of regret.
Fortunately, these fish would not die.
After a while, they would regain their strength and start jumping again.
Chen Mu packed up, sealed the basket tightly, and happily headed back to the city with it on his back.
…
At Ping’an Square, at the Chen Family’s place.
Only now did Chen Mu realize he had forgotten something.
What was he going to do with so many fish?
Even if he wanted to keep them, he didn’t have an aquarium.
And the journey back from the riverside was not short; half a basket of fish had already died.
If he didn’t deal with them quickly, they would soon start to stink and rot!
“Misjudgment, lack of thorough consideration,” he thought.
Without further ado, Chen Mu immediately emptied the rice bin.
He put the still-living fish into water to keep them.
The dead ones he quickly gutted, descaled, cleaned, salted, and lit a fire to smoke them. He had to make these fish into smoked fish to extend their preservation time.
After a busy round of work, he finally got everything processed.
“I wonder if this will work.”
It was his first time making smoked fish, and he was very unsure about it.
…
The next day, Chen Mu, smelling the strong salty fishy odor, looked dejected.
“It failed.”
He had tried his best.
Unfortunately, his culinary skills were still at First Rank, which wasn’t enough to assist in smoking the fish.
“At least there’s still some live fish.”
Next to the rice bin, there was now an additional water bin.
Both filled bins had plenty of fish swimming around in them.
“Seems I need to buy a few more water bins.”
The smoked fish currently didn’t seem reliable.
The best storage method, for now, was to keep them alive.
“What to do with these fish now? Throw them away?” Chen Mu looked at the half-finished smoked fish hanging on the wooden rack.
“I wonder if anyone at East Market would want them?”
Despite some fishy smell, they had been roughly preserved with spices and coarse salt and had not completely spoiled.
Even he could say that if they were placed in a spot with enough wind, they would dry quickly and turn into real salted fish.
Unfortunately, Chen Mu’s home environment obviously didn’t belong in that category.
…
Along the street of stalls in East Market.
Chen Mu wore a wide-brimmed hat and was dressed in worn brown clothes.
His face was also covered with a cloth.
He had stained his hands, neck, and skin with medicinal liquid to appear reddish-brown.
The entire disguise made him look like a fisherman weathered by wind and sun.
He found a cool corner, opened his fish basket, and shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Smoked salt fish, thirty copper coins each, first come first served!”