Chapter 52 Code

Wherever rivers flow, wherever the sun and moon shine, it is the king's land.

But everything has its bright and dark sides. In this world, there are always some dark corners that the sun and moon cannot shine on.

In such dark corners, a set of social systems that cannot be seen in the light has grown, and even the laws of the Great Zhou Dynasty cannot reach here.

The black market is such a place.

In the past, Er Gouzi was always curious about where Sima Yi resold the Da Li Pills, and how he could get so many Pei Yuan Gu Ben Pills.

But the two of them have always been tacit, one didn't say it, and the other didn't ask.

Today, after seeing the bronze medal, Sima Yi hesitated for a while, and finally told him the secret.

It turns out that anyone who holds this token, finds the entrance, and matches the contact code can enter the black market to trade.

When Sima Yi told Er Gouzi this code, he made a small request.

Ask Er Gouzi to help him buy 100 stones of grain.

100 dan of grain, at the current grain price, needs 500 taels of silver, but compared with the value of this secret, it is not worth mentioning.

Er Gouzi found a remote alley according to the address provided by Sima Yi, and it felt a bit familiar here.

When he saw a woman standing behind a half-open door and waving at him, he finally remembered that he had been here once before.

The first time he followed Huang Laocai into the county to pay taxes, they camped nearby, and several tenants who were traveling with him said they would take him to see the world.

The specific address Sima Yi gave him turned out to be that small pharmacy.

There were not many medicines in it, and the doctor could only give women abortions, men kidney tonics, and treat some syphilis, a total of three tricks. (See Chapter 14 for details)

When Er Gouzi walked in, the old doctor was lying on a recliner, sipping tea, very leisurely.

"Do you need an abortion or a venereal treatment?"

"I want a venereal treatment!"

Er Gouzi pretended to be calm when answering, but his soy sauce-colored face still showed an embarrassing blush.

"What are the symptoms?"

"It's cauliflower-like, itchy occasionally, and it has recently started to ulcerate and ooze pus."

Er Gouzi cursed in his heart, not knowing which wicked person had given him such a set of contact codes.

"Take off your pants, I'll help you take a look."

"It's in public here, isn't it inconvenient?"

"Come with me to the room."

The old doctor then stood up, opened a door, and led Er Gouzi in.

In this small room, Er Gouzi showed the token to the old doctor, and then put on a black iron mask.

After the old doctor checked it, he lifted a piece of floor in the room, revealing a hole underneath.

"Go in, just walk forward along the hole."

Er Gouzi glanced inside and walked down the narrow steps.

After walking down two or three feet, there is a three or four foot wide tunnel below, with dim oil lamps hanging on the walls on both sides.

This tunnel is winding and winding, and finally I can no longer tell the direction, and I don’t know how far I have walked. Finally, I see a staircase leading up in front of me.

At the end of the staircase is a brass door. Er Gouzi reached out and knocked on it, making a dull sound.

It is actually solid copper. This door alone is worth a lot of money.

I gently pushed the door, but it didn’t move at all. I could only move my true energy to my hands before I pushed it open.

Behind the bronze door, there was a masked guard. He used the Qi-Looking Technique to take a look and found that he also had the cultivation of Qi Training Level 1.

The people behind this black market are indeed very profound.

"The admission fee is 10 taels of silver per person."

Er Gouzi took out 10 taels of silver from his arms and handed it to the tray in front of the guard.

No wonder they are so wealthy. The admission ticket costs 10 taels of silver.

Walking out of the bronze gate, you will see a street with shops and small vendors on both sides of the street.

It is no different from the ordinary market you see every day.

But most of the people coming and going here are warriors, some are immortals, and most of them wear masks to hide their true faces.

The items on the stalls are also very different. On a stall in front of you, there are actually several ginseng plants.

This is a very popular material.

Er Gouzi went up to ask, but the man refused to sell it even if he gave silver, and wanted to exchange it with Pei Yuan Gu Ben Pills.

On a neighboring stall, there were several pills, which looked crystal white and beautiful.

"What kind of pills are these?"

Er Gouzi asked curiously.

"This is a marching pill, two taels of silver per pill, buy a bottle of 10 pills and get one pill for free.

Eating one pill is equivalent to eating a bucket of rice."

Er Gouzi squatted down to check. He had seen it in the collection of books in Zhengwu Hall. It was said that it was made by cultivators. Three buckets of rice were needed to make one marching pill.

Because starting from the warrior, the higher the cultivation level, the more energy is needed to maintain the body balance every day, and more food must be eaten.

If fighting with others, the consumption is even greater.

With Er Gouzi's current cultivation level of the fourth level of Qi training, if he only eats ordinary rice, he will eat at least one bucket of rice a day.

Eating the rice with spiritual energy in the gourd, only two liters are enough.

Similarly, if you eat other ingredients rich in spiritual energy, you can also reduce your appetite.

Everyone has a big appetite. It's okay at home, at most you can eat more, but it's very inconvenient when you go out.

You can't hire a team to follow you and help you transport food!

This kind of marching pill was originally used by the army as military rations when they were on the march, and it was more convenient to carry.

Later, when civilian monks went out, they also began to buy marching pills for the convenience of carrying them with them.

Er Gouzi had a gourd, so he naturally had no use for this thing.

However, out of curiosity, he still spent 20 taels of silver to buy a bottle and took it back to study.

He put the marching pills in his arms and continued to walk along the street while looking at things that he had only seen in books and had never seen in reality.

Looking along the way, there were many items on the stalls that would not sell even if given silver, and only accepted Peiyuan Guben Pills.

Obviously, Peiyuan Guben Pills are the hard currency here and can be used instead of silver.

On two stalls, he actually saw that they were selling Dali Pills.

Ordinary Dali Pills sold for 100 coins per pill, and the ones with Polygonatum and Cistanche sold for 180 coins per pill.

Sima Yi bought the pills from him, and after several changes of hands, the price actually doubled.

Seeing the huge price difference, he was even tempted to set up a stall in the black market to sell the powerful pills.

Selling directly by himself means making twice as much money.

But he quickly gave up this idea.

First, he didn't have so much time to set up a stall here.

Second, Sima Yi could sell in large quantities, and no one dared to trouble him because he was the young master of the Sima family.

It might not work for Er Gouzi.

Third, Sima Yi seemed to have only this one profitable way to make money.

In fact, he could also not tell himself the secret of the black market.

It was just that code that made him figure it out by himself, but he couldn't figure it out no matter how hard he tried.

At this moment, there was a rice shop on the street that attracted Er Gouzi's attention.

He promised Sima Yi to help him buy 100 stones of grain.

Walking into the grain shop, there were more than a dozen large buckets filled with rice, sorghum, paddy, wheat, buckwheat and other grains.

They are all ordinary grains that look similar to those in the rice shops outside, but when you see the labels on them, you will know that these grains are sold at least 100 shi.

There are also two small buckets placed in the innermost part, which looks a bit different.

These two buckets are filled with rice and paddy, and they are sold by liter.

"How much is this paddy?"

"My guest, we have the authentic Dingjiazhuang Crescent Moon Spiritual Rice here, and the spiritual rice is sold at 100 taels of silver per liter."

It turned out that this is the spiritual rice produced in Dingjiazhuang, and the price is really expensive.

Er Gouzi visited Dingjiazhuang last time and ate rice mixed with spiritual rice.

He always wanted to get some seeds back and plant them himself, but he didn't expect that they were sold here.

"Can this rice be used as seeds?"

"Yes, but it can only be planted in spiritual fields. The mortality rate is high in places with thin spiritual energy, and the yield is very low. It's not worth the loss."

The shop owner's words are a warning, so that if you buy it back and can't plant it, you will complain about his seeds.

There are only a few spiritual fields in the whole Anchang County, which have long been controlled by several major families. Others do not have spiritual fields.

"Oh!"

Er Gouzi calculated the area to be planted. One mu of land requires about one dou of seeds.

100 taels per liter, one dou is worth 1,000 taels of silver.

"How do you sell these ordinary grains?"

"100 shi is sold for 500 taels of silver. After the transaction is completed, you can go to the county government office to collect it with the ticket."

"County government office?"

Er Gouzi thought he had heard it wrong.

"Yes, just go to the county government granary to collect it."

Sure enough, the background of this underground black market is not simple. It can directly withdraw grain from the county government warehouse.

He needs to buy a dou of spiritual grain to make seeds today, and also buy 100 shi of grain for Sima Yi.

A total of 1,500 taels of silver will be spent.

He has sold a lot of Dali Pills over the years, but he has replaced them with Peiyuan Guben Pills and eaten them, so he didn't save any money.

Moreover, he came here on short notice, didn't know the situation here, and didn't make any preparations.

There was a lot of food in the gourd, all of which contained spiritual energy, and should be able to sell for a lot of money.

There were also some red dates and dried persimmons in the gourd, which should also be able to sell for some silver.

"Do you accept this thing here?"

Er Gouzi reached out from the bag behind him for a while and took out a handful of red dates.

The rice shop owner took a look and sensed the spiritual energy contained in the red dates, and his eyes lit up.

"Of course, but the spiritual energy of your spiritual dates is not enough, it is still worse than spiritual rice."

"I can only offer 20 taels of silver per liter."

This price is still acceptable. Anyway, I can't eat so much, and I will keep it to feed the geese.

"This price is okay. I didn't bring it with me today. I'll come back in a few days."

Er Gouzi left the grain store and went directly out of the black market and entered an inn. Then he poured out two large sacks of red dates from the gourd.

He carried the sacks and re-entered the black market.

The store owner didn't expect Er Gouzi to return so soon after saying he would come back in a few days.

Two large sacks, with a total of 15 dou, were sold for 3,000 taels of silver.

However, he bought a dou of spiritual rice seeds and 100 dan of ordinary grain in the store, spending 1,500 taels.

When he came out of the store, he was already carrying a dou of spiritual grain, 1,500 taels of silver, and a bill in his arms.