It was another New Year's Eve. Ergou sat alone in front of the earthen stove, cooking a large pot of pork in the pot, bubbling with fragrance. On this day last year, he was on the verge of death, barely surviving by roasting a handful of rice in the snow. Now, he can finally eat a big piece of meat. Ergou, who has always been stingy and calculating, bought half a pig for the New Year for the first time. After tonight, he will be 15 years old. At the age of 15, he owns Shekou Mountain and 50 acres of good farmland at the foot of the mountain. Huang Laocai has sold all 50 acres of good farmland at the foot of Shekou Mountain to Ergou. This kind of good farmland near the water source cannot be bought at a price of 30 taels of silver at ordinary times, but Huang Laocai only sold it to him at 28 taels per acre. 50 mu, a total of 1400 taels of silver, still required to be repaid in 20 years, 70 taels per year, no early repayment. In addition to the previous 40 taels per year, in the next 20 years, Ergou will pay 110 taels of silver to Huang Laocai every year.
Huang Laocai took this year's 70 taels of silver to the county government to make connections, and put it all in, but still had no way to rescue the man. It is said that in the end Huang Laocai had to be shameless and ask Zhang Youliang to come forward. Zhang Youliang was familiar with the officials of the county government, and he really got Huang Fugui out of the prison. But Huang Laocai also paid a huge price to ask Zhang Youliang. He sold all the remaining fields of the Huang family to Zhang Youliang at a low price. From then on, most of the fields in Shexi Village belonged to Zhang Youliang. Now, tenants from the whole village are running to the uncle's house, saying nice things and giving gifts, and the doorsteps are broken, just to rent better land. After Ergou witnessed what happened to Huang Laocai, he always felt a sense of crisis. If you don't have enough strength to protect yourself, no matter how much money you make, you can't keep it. He decided to spend his energy and money on martial arts in the future, and then take the exam for martial arts scholar. Only with the title of martial arts scholar can he be on an equal footing with the officials in the county government, and even if the county magistrate wants to punish him and kill him, he has to report to the state government. However, if you want to learn martial arts well, in addition to daily hard practice, you have to be willing to invest a lot of money. A few years ago, he sold a big piece of meat again and got more than 200 taels of silver, so he is not short of money for the time being. Because eating meat is helpful for martial arts training, he has decided to eat meat every day in the future. If he eats one pound of fat meat a day, it will cost more than twenty taels of silver a month. For Ergou at present, it is a bit too extravagant to afford it. But in order to improve his skills and take the martial arts exam, Ergou decided to compromise a little. Fatty meat is too expensive, but lean meat and bones are much cheaper because they are not oily. You can buy some leftover ribs and ribs to eat, and you can save a few taels of silver every month. He thinks ribs are actually pretty good, and there is no need to eat fat meat.
More than a dozen people died in Shexi Village this winter, and it is good that he can still eat meat. Ergou opened the lid of the pot at this time, poked it with chopsticks, and felt that it was almost done. He took out a rib, blew the hot air, and started to bite it. The meat had been stewed until the bones and meat separated. With a light bite, a large piece of meat could be torn off. Although the ribs did not have much oil, they were soft and sticky, and especially fragrant. He put the meat in a gourd for a few days before stewing it, and the taste became better than ordinary pork. In particular, ordinary pork has a fishy smell, which has now disappeared, and what is left is the aroma of meat mixed with the aroma of medicine. After eating the meat, he chewed the remaining bones for a while and then swallowed them all into his stomach with the broth. The bones were also bought with money, so it was impossible to throw them away. After eating the ribs, there was still a ginseng left in the pot, as well as a little bone and meat residue. Take all of these out and eat them. The mountain ginseng is not very big now, and it may be equivalent to six years of medicinal age. But after the gourd raised the spiritual energy, cooking with pork was still a little helpful for cultivation. After eating and drinking, he began to meditate and practice according to the first level method. The food he had just eaten was gradually refined, producing a little bit of true qi. After these true qi circulated in the twelve meridians for seventy-seven to nineteen weeks, they all flowed into the Ren Meridian. The Ren and Du Meridians are also known as the sea of yin and yang meridians, which can store the true qi he cultivated. These two large meridians are located in the front and back midline, which are much wider than the twelve meridians and can accommodate a large amount of true qi. It has been several months since he felt the qi, and he has been eating the food in the gourd every day, and his cultivation progress is quite fast. At present, the Ren and Du Meridians are not open, and only the Ren Meridian is filled with about one-third of it. According to the book, he needs to fill up the Ren channel with true qi, and then open up the Ren and Du channels, and then he can practice the second level of the method. As for the third level, he needs to use true qi to completely open up and fill up the Ren and Du channels, and then open up the lower Dantian, and then he can practice the third level. After two hours of meditation, the food he had just eaten had been refined into true qi and merged into the Ren channel. Then he stood up, picked up the sword beside him, and began to practice basic sword styles. As his cultivation level improved during this period, his body weight increased a lot. The eleven-jin heavy sword he bought at the beginning now seemed a little lighter. Next time I go to the county town, I should change to a heavier sword. The next morning was the first day of the new year, and relatives and friends would greet each other. Ergou had no relatives to go to, only his master.
He brought a piece of pork, a bag of preserved fruit, and a jar of wine, and wished Li Banxian a happy new year. Li Banxian was also a bachelor, and it was the first time in so many years that someone wished him a happy new year, and he was very happy. He also specially stewed pork and invited this apprentice to have a meal. By the way, he performed the unique skill of crushing stones into powder again. Although Ergou had seen it many times, he was still shocked. He secretly vowed to work harder and learn one or two percent of his master's skills as soon as possible, so that he could pass the examination for martial arts. Before leaving, Li Banxian also gave Ergou a bag of red dates, which were exactly the ones grown by the date tree in his yard. On the way home, Ergou stopped by Huang Laocai's house to wish him a happy new year. At this time of year in previous years, tenants from the whole village would come to Huang Laocai to pay New Year's greetings, and Ergou would not even be able to squeeze in. This year, however, the place was deserted, with not a single guest. Huang Fugui's leg bone was broken, and although he asked a doctor in the county to reconnect it and apply medicine, he still could not get out of bed and walk. Ergou took a bag of big shavings and gave it to Huang Fugui to take, which should help him recover from his injury. Before leaving, Huang Laocai asked his second daughter to take a large bag of persimmon cakes from the inner room and give it to Ergou as a return gift. When the second daughter handed the persimmon cakes to Ergou, she stammered a little, as if she wanted to say something, but in the end she said nothing. Ergou did not say anything either, and left with the persimmon cakes in his arms. After returning to Shekou Mountain, he dug out the seeds from the red dates and dried persimmons and planted them in some cracks in the rocks that could not be cultivated. After the New Year, everyone was busy with spring ploughing and planning for the year. Ergou rented out all 50 acres of land at the foot of Shekou Mountain, and according to the old rules, he collected 10% of the rent. In the future, he would need to pay 30% of the 10% rent to the county government, and he would still have 20% of the grain left. However, during this period, the village also had something else happen. Now most of the land in Shexi Village is in the hands of Zhang Youliang, and the tenants in the village can only rent land from him for cultivation. But in the first year that Zhang Youliang took over, he raised the rent from 10% to 60%. The tenants were certainly not happy, but they could only complain behind their backs. If you don't plant, there are plenty of people who will do it. Ergou never thought of making a fortune by exploiting the tenants. He now puts most of his energy into cultivation. Recently, he stews a pound of pork and ginseng every day, and his cultivation progress is pretty good, and his energy has also increased a lot. Now he has tied stones to his sword, adding at least 20 pounds. But he still can't crush the stone. Ergou feels that his cultivation progress is still too slow. So after the beginning of spring, he went to the county again.
He sold a stone of big glutinous rice and got more than 200 taels of silver. What surprised him a little was that the two enhanced versions of big glutinous rice were actually very popular. Sima Yi of Huichun Hall offered 80 yuan per pill and ordered a stone from him. Ergou took the more than 200 taels of silver and went directly to Hong'an Hall. Unfortunately, Hong'an Hall only had a few pills of Peiyuan Gu. Ergou spent 80 taels of silver and bought all the remaining pills. Then he went to the sword shop and made a 30-jin heavy sword. At the same time, 140 long iron sheets were made to match this heavy sword. Each iron sheet weighed a few jins and could be tied to the sword to increase the weight of the sword. This time, because a large amount of iron was used and it was custom-made, the cost was very high, and 100 taels of silver were spent. The silver that had just been bought was only a few dozen taels left. The road to martial arts is really not something that ordinary people can afford. And he only bought 8 pills of Peiyuan Gu. If he took one pill a day, he would finish them in a day. After returning to Shekou Mountain, he took out a pill of Peiyuan Gu from the gourd and took it three days later. He took the pill of Peiyuan Gu in his hand and carefully sensed it. Indeed, judging from the richness of the spiritual energy, it was far better than his big pill and the six-year-old ginseng in his hand. When the pill entered his mouth, a medicinal fragrance blended with the fragrance of honey, which was quite delicious and not bitter at all. After swallowing the Peiyuan Gu, he began to circulate and refine it. After about an hour, the spiritual energy in the pill had been completely refined by him. Another wisp of true energy appeared in the Ren Meridian. Er Gou made a comparison and found that the amount of Qi he gained from refining this pill was equivalent to eating pork stewed with ginseng for half a month. Of course, this effect can only be achieved after using the gourd to improve his spiritual energy. Next, he ate a pill of Pei Yuan Gu every day, and his cultivation improved by leaps and bounds, one day at a time. The Qi in the Ren Meridian became more and more abundant, and finally after he refined the seventh Pei Yuan Gu pill. A stream of Qi flowed through Tiantu, Lianquan, Magpie Bridge, Chonglou, and entered the top of the head, then went down the Du Meridian along the spine, passed the Mingmen, passed Changqiang, and entered Huiyin... At this moment, his Ren and Du Meridians were completely unobstructed, breaking through the second level of the Wuming Method. The Qi went from Huiyin to the head, connected to the Du Meridian, and went down along the Du Meridian and returned to Huiyin, and so on. With each cycle, the Qi increased a little bit, and the body felt stronger. After practicing for a long time, Ergou jumped up and jumped more than a meter high with ease.
He felt that he had entered a new realm, and at this moment, he was stronger than ever before. He picked up a stone from the ground, held it in his hand and squeezed it... Used... His face was flushed, but the stone was still not crushed and did not move at all. Still not working? Ergou felt a surge of stubbornness and poured all the Qi in his Ren and Du meridians into his fingers, suddenly producing a powerful burst. "Bang" The stone broke in his hand. Although he did not crush it into powder as easily as his master, it was a huge improvement for Ergou. "Hahaha..." "I finally made it!"