Chapter 55 18 Years Old (1/2)

It’s a new year, a new beginning, a new atmosphere, and Ergouzi is 18 years old.

This time during the Chinese New Year, he was no longer alone, but had a lively celebration with more than 300 people.

Because they couldn't buy pork during the disaster year, Ergouzi caught a few big fish from the gourd, mixed them with some dried wild vegetables, and cooked a large pot of fish soup.

Everyone even fished out the fish scales and bones in the soup, chewed them up and swallowed them. Nothing was wasted.

Last winter, he took action one after another and bought more than 300 people back in one go.

Half of them are children under the age of 10, who are not very good at working and are the cheapest. Most of them can be bought for one or two buckets of grain.

Huanghua has more than 50 eldest daughters, more than 50 eldest daughters-in-law, and only more than 30 men.

A group of families could no longer survive, so they first sold their women and children.

He bought so many people, and the total cost was less than 1,000 taels of silver.

It costs nothing to buy people, but to feed more than 300 mouths, it costs a lot of food.

If you eat sparingly, you can eat a stone of rice in a day.

The dozens of stones of rice stored in his warehouse would not last long at all.

For this reason, I went to the black market and bought 200 shi of grain.

It originally required more than 1,000 taels of silver, but he used the Hundred Refined Silver Essence and spent only a dozen taels.

For Ergouzi, the expense is not too big.

It's not appropriate for such a large group of people to be idle all the time. We have to find something for them to do.

After letting everyone eat for several days, their bodies gradually regained their strength.

After careful consideration, Ergouzi decided to let everyone dig out mud to make adobe bricks and build a house.

The houses were built for them to live in.

As for the location to dig out the mud, he chose a few acres of land in a relatively high position.

If these acres of land are dug out, they can be transformed into ponds to store water and raise some fish.

This time of severe drought, only Dingjiazhuang in Anchang County was not affected, and the grain harvest was normal.

This is because there is a particularly large mountaintop reservoir in Dingjiazhuang, which usually stores water and releases it to irrigate the fields during severe droughts.

Ergouzi doesn't have as much land as Dingjiazhuang. He only designated five acres of land and transformed it into a pond to water his dozens of acres of land. It should be no problem.

There was no snow last winter, so there will definitely be a drought this year.

So after celebrating the New Year, everyone continued to dig mud to make bricks and dig ponds, and everyone worked in full swing.

These people all come from poor families, and no one is lazy. As long as they have food to eat, they are not afraid of hardship or tiredness in any work they do.

It’s just the New Year and the weather is still cold.

The adults are responsible for digging the soil and watering it, while the children cut off some straw, sprinkle it into the mud, and then step on it repeatedly with their bare feet.

The mud has to be trampled until it is soft and glutinous, and there are no clods or stones in it. Then it is shoveled into the wooden box mold and made into clay blanks.

After drying, children are responsible for carrying it while adults build walls.

More than 300 people are working at the same time, and the efficiency is quite high. Two adobe houses were built a year ago.

The roof was temporarily covered with straw, but it was also covered with several layers and mud.

Everyone was working on building a house with bricks. Ergouzi only visited occasionally and did not participate.

He farms, practices and reads in the mountains every day.

He has mastered the rejuvenation technique, and now every time he uses the rejuvenation technique, he can force out some poisonous blood from the wound.

By performing the Rejuvenation Kung Fu five times a day, coupled with the detoxifying pills, most of the corpse toxins in the body have been eliminated.

If this continues, the detoxifying pill can be saved.

On this day, he prepared some Dali Pills and went to the county seat.

Since he discovered that Hundred Refined Silver Essence could be used on the black market, he no longer needed to sell Dali Pills to make money.

But he didn't need it, Sima Yi really needed to sell Dali Pills and make a profit.

Now that there are more and more victims of the disaster, even if he only cooks very thin porridge, he still consumes a lot of food every day.

There is still a long queue at the door of Huichun Hall.

Er Gouzi waited until dark before entering the Huichun Hall.

"Ergou, you came just in time. I have good news to tell you."

Sima Yi said with a smile as soon as they met.

"What news?"

Ergouzi really can't think of any good news these days.

"Do you still remember the bottle of Drought Corpse Qi you got last time?"

"Of course I remember, you handed it over to the county government for me."

Er Gouzi originally had no hope for the officials in the county government, but now that Sima Yi said this, is there really any hope?

"The county government felt that it could not deal with Han Bao, so it handed over the bottle of corpse energy to the county."

"There are many experts in the county, and some are good at tracking. They actually found a cult nest based on this bottle of corpse energy."

"The county government dispatched experts to destroy the cult's nest. They killed three leaders of the cult on the spot during its foundation-building period and dozens of members during its Qi-training period."

"The great achievements made this time were reported to the imperial court, and the county, city, and government offices all deserved the credit. Even though you didn't participate in the war, you should still have a share of the credit."

"It won't be long before the rewards will be distributed."

Ergouzi really didn't expect that the people in the government were not only good at plundering people's wealth, but their fighting power was also terrifying.

In just one battle, three foundation-building monks and dozens of Qi-training monks could be killed.

You must know that there is not a single strong foundation builder in the entire Anchang County at present. That is a legendary existence.

"However, the zombie with Drought Demon bloodline escaped. The bottle of corpse energy you handed over has been used up, and its whereabouts cannot be found now."

Sima Yi added another sentence.

Sure enough, we can't expect too much.

"What is the strength of that zombie? If it runs around everywhere, wouldn't it be more dangerous?"

Er Gouzi felt that this was equivalent to poking a hornet's nest.

Once a strong man of that level loses his scruples, no one in the local area can deal with him.

"I heard that it has the blood of Hanba, and its specific strength may be stronger than that of an ordinary foundation-building cultivator."

"During the encirclement and suppression battle, this Hanba tore a foundation-building cultivator to pieces and then broke through."

Er Gouzi has a deep understanding of the power of zombies. The zombie he encountered last time was as powerful as him.

"Okay, what will the government reward me?"

Er Gouzi asked with a little curiosity. The zombie thing is far away, so he wanted to ask about the benefits in reality.

"I heard that the leaders who participated in the war in the county government were promoted, and the others were rewarded with pills. We should be able to get one or two here."

"Pills?"

At this moment, Er Gouzi also looked forward to this reward.

After chatting with Sima Yi for a while, Er Gouzi said goodbye and left Huichuntang. He went to the black market again and sold a large bag of red dates for more than 1,000 taels of silver.

He found that it was still the easiest to make money from cultivators. As long as anything had a little spiritual energy, the price could be multiplied several times.

When he came out of the grain store, a street vendor shouted at a corner stall.

"Sir, take a look. Authentic elixirs are for sale."

Er Gouzi was curious. When could authentic elixirs be bought on street stalls?

"You really have elixirs for sale here. They can't be fake, right?"

"It's impossible. You'll know after you take a look."

The stall owner took out a white jade bottle from his arms and poured out a blood-red, crystal-clear pill.

"You smell this rich spiritual energy. If the price of raw materials hadn't plummeted this year, how could you have the opportunity to buy such a good pill."

window._taboola = window._taboola || ; _taboola.push({ mode: 'thumbs-feed-01', container: 'taboola-below-article-thumbnail---300x250', placement: 'Below article thumbnail - 300x250', target_type: 'mix' });

"Eating one pill is equivalent to your meditation and hard work for a year."

"As long as you have 1,000 Peiyuan Guben Pills, you can exchange for one pill, or you can exchange it with other spiritual objects of equal value."

The stall owner was still introducing his pills eloquently. Only 1,000 Peiyuan Guben Pills were equivalent to 10,000 taels of silver, which was indeed very cheap.

"Excuse me, where did you get this pill from?"

Er Gouzi asked sincerely, and handed over a large bottle of Pei Yuan Gu Ben Pills.

But the stall owner was very alert and took the Xue Po Pill into his arms.

"If you don't want to buy it, forget it. Don't disturb me doing business."

Er Gouzi walked around again, found nothing else, and left the black market.

After that, he rushed back to Shekou Mountain overnight.

The distance from Shekou Mountain to the county town, when he had no cultivation, he needed to walk for a whole day.

Now if he uses the wind control technique to travel, it will take at most half a day.

But if there is no urgent matter, he will not work so hard and walk slowly at a normal speed.

Along the way, he saw many refugees, all walking in the direction of Dingjiazhuang.

After listening to the crowd, it turned out that everyone was saying that the owner of Dingjiazhuang was a kind man and was giving out porridge during this period.

In addition, Dingjiazhuang also needs to recruit a large number of civilians to repair the reservoir.

According to these refugees, Dingjiazhuang is going to recruit a group of strong servants to guard the house.

Er Gouzi has been to Dingjiazhuang, where they can be said to have no doors locked at night.

As long as they guard the entrance in the mountains, people from outside can't get in, and recruiting so many servants is actually useless.

After hearing about Dingjiazhuang's actions, Er Gouzi's good impression of the owner of Dingjiazhuang deepened a little bit.

He and Sima Yi are just like children playing house in front of the owner of Dingjiazhuang.

This is a person with great courage and great things, who can at least feed thousands of people.

He only has 50 acres of land now, and even if he wants to imitate Dingjiazhuang, it seems that he can't do anything.

The rest of the land in the village is in the hands of Zhang Youliang.

However, in front of Shekou Mountain is Shexi Village, and behind Shekou Mountain is also a large barren mountain.

He used to go there often when he was chopping wood, and there was no one living within a range of more than ten miles.

I heard that this piece of wasteland belongs to a nobleman in the county.

These noblemen have the habit of hoarding land. When they have spare money, they buy some land and leave it there for their descendants.

You can ask Sima Yi to help find out if you can buy this piece of land.

Er Gouzi returned to the top of Shekou Mountain and looked at the large wasteland behind the mountain.

If he imitated Dingjiazhuang, he could also build a large reservoir between those mountains, and then level the low-lying areas to turn it into a fertile farmland.

Anyway, labor is cheap now, as long as he can have a meal.

But the land belongs to someone else, so he can only think about it now.

In the next period of time, Er Gouzi practiced on the mountain every day, and the corpse poison in his body was continuously discharged, and he was almost recovered.

Due to the drag of corpse poison, his cultivation level has not increased much during this period.

But his control over the sword move that releases his true energy has improved a lot.

Every time he used this move in the past, all the energy in his dantian would be drained.

Gathering the whole body's true energy and using it in one move, the power is indeed powerful and astonishing.

After just one move, I will become extremely weak and cannot even be defeated by ordinary warriors.

After repeated practice and speculation during this period, I finally made one step further.

He can emit a sword light through the sword blade.

This sword light will only consume half of his true energy, and it can fly out from the sword blade at an extremely fast speed and hit targets far away.

The power of the sword wasn't as powerful as a full-strength strike, but it was extremely sharp, and he could still retain some power after one strike.

These are all things he figured out bit by bit on the mountain based on his master's previous teachings.

However, the dazzling light of his sword is still far behind the master's kind of outwardly releasing true energy, invisible and traceless, and controlled by the heart.

Young people are always full of imagination, and he suddenly had an idea recently.

He can ride on the back of a big white goose and shoot a sword from the sky at the enemy's head.

You can hit the enemy, but the enemy can't reach the goose flying in the sky.

It's a pity that he can only display two sword rays at most, which is a bit less.

Maybe, you can also get some throwing knives and rocks and throw them down from the sky.

You may not be able to hit the enemy, but the enemy will always be hit and unable to fight back.

Anger can also drive people to death.

Among the people who bought it this time, there happened to be a few strong men, so they could learn blacksmithing and help them make some swords.

However, when he found these dozens of men with the "Hundred Arms Manual" and asked them one by one, none of them could read.

Not even the men can read, and none of the women or children can read.

There were more than 300 people, and all of them were blind.

He had to practice every day and had no time to teach them how to read and forge.

When Er Gouzi was feeling worried, Huang Laocai appeared in front of him.

In the village, Huang Laocai was well-known for being literate, able to write and do calculations.

In the past, when a villager gave birth to a child and was uneducated and didn't know how to name it, he would ask Huang Laocai to give him a nice name.

Er Gouzi now owes Huang Laocai 110 taels of silver every year. From this point of view, he is not an ordinary calculator.

As long as Er Gouzi is still alive, their family will not go hungry for at least 20 years.

"Huang Laocai, can you help me?"

"Master Zhang, if you have anything to do, just ask me."

Huang Laocai bent over and held his hands in his hands, smiling. Since the great changes in his family, the former richest man in the village always looked humble when meeting others.

Bending, cupping hands, and smiling, these three actions seemed to be imprinted in his bones.

Especially when facing Er Gouzi, he looked even more humble to the core.

In fact, he was completely over-concerned. It was only natural to pay back the debt, and Ergouzi was not the kind of person who would kill his creditor.

"Look at this book. Can you help me teach it to my men?"

Huang Laocai took the Hundred Arms Manual and looked through it, with a ray of light shining in his dim old eyes.

"Master Zhang, do you want to train a blacksmith and make weapons?"

"Well, yes, I want to make some swords and the like, but among the hundreds of people, none of them can read."

Ergouzi said truthfully.

"I'm also a little dim-sighted now, and I can't see some words clearly. How about asking my son Huang Fugui to come over?"

"If Mr. Zhang doesn't mind, let him be a blacksmith under you. That will also be his blessing."

When Huang Laocai should be humble, he could humble himself into the dust, but his shrewdness has never been affected in any way.

This book was what Ergouzi got from the little fat man, and it contained many secret techniques for weapon forging.

For ordinary people, being able to learn this secret method of forging weapons is enough to make a living.

He is already old and will definitely not be able to swing the hammer, but he can let his son Huang Fugui do it.

And he can take the opportunity to get close to Ergouzi and kill two birds with one stone.

Ergouzi naturally had no objection to this, and it would be better if Huang Fugui came.

They all grew up in the same village and have known each other since childhood.