Chapter 77

Chapter 77

The next morning, the rain had passed and the sky was clear.

Xie Licheng took his fishing rod to the village to fish—different fishing spots yielded different kinds of fish.

The pond on their farm could only yield a few types of fish, so Xie Licheng figured he might as well spend the morning fishing in the village.

He wanted to catch plenty of fresh fish so the wet nurses could make nutritious meals to keep his wife nice and plump.

In Xie Licheng's view, being a bit plumper was better for having kids.

More flesh meant more strength during childbirth.

While fishing in the village, he ran into the female physician he had rescued earlier.

Her injuries hadn't fully healed, and her face was pale and bloodless. She had gotten up at dawn to dig for herbs at the mountain's base, hoping to find more beyond the village.

Since Xie Licheng had saved her life, she saw him from a distance and felt she had to come over and thank him.

The female physician was named Lin Xiuniang. Xie Licheng noticed that many young women in Dazhou had names ending with "niang," meaning "lady."

For instance, there was Qing Niang before, Cui Niang from Chen Yaosan's household, and now another Xiuniang.

Lin Xiuniang was introverted by nature—she rarely smiled and didn't like dealing with people.

But since she was a physician, even though she disliked socializing, she had to force herself to deal with people.

Like right now: she really didn't want to come talk to Xie Licheng, but because he was her savior, she had to force herself to come thank him.

Lin Xiuniang stood on the riverbank and gave Xie Licheng a bow.

She said, "This humble woman's surname is Lin, given name Xiuniang. Thank you, Benefactor, for saving my life earlier."

Xie Licheng looked at her when he heard this. Seeing the gruesome scar on her face, he remembered how badly she'd been hurt back then. She was lucky to be alive—not only had she survived, but she could now get around on her own.

Xie Licheng: "Have your injuries improved?"

With talented people like her, Xie Licheng tended to be more patient and kind.

Lin Xiuniang replied slowly and calmly, "Much better now."

"That's good. Go ahead and get back to what you were doing."

When she heard Xie Licheng say that, Lin Xiuniang let out a small sigh of relief. She really wasn't good with people and was afraid that if she stayed any longer, she might offend someone.

As she walked off slowly with her basket on her back, she thought about how Xie Licheng had saved her and decided she'd find a way to repay the favor someday.

Someone like the Benefactor probably wasn't short on silver or food. If she wanted to repay the favor, she'd have to figure out another way.

Xie Licheng had no idea what she was thinking. He was completely focused on his fishing.

Before long, a few little brats gathered around him.

Leading the pack was, of course, Xiao Ruan, who had known Xie Licheng the longest and was the first to enter the pocket world. Compared to the others, she knew the place and Xie Licheng better, so she wasn't as scared of him.

When Xiao Ruan saw Xie Licheng had come to the village today, she immediately ran over, beaming with joy.

The other kids were close to Xiao Ruan, and seeing her dare to go up to Xie Licheng, they all tagged along one by one.

Xiao Ruan sat down next to Xie Licheng and asked, "Benefactor, next time you go out, can you take Xiao Ruan with you?"

Xie Licheng smiled at that. He looked down at her and asked, "Why? It's dangerous out there—why would you want to go?"

He had brought in many people over time, and even if Xiao Ruan and the others had never been outside, they could hear from those people what the situation was like out there.

With things so chaotic, it would be dangerous for a little kid like Xiao Ruan to go out.

Xiao Ruan: "I want to go out and help the Benefactor save people! Brother Xiao Yuan and the others said that going out with the Benefactor to rescue people is hard work, but you get gold when you return."

Xie Licheng chuckled softly. "So... you just want the gold, huh?"

Xiao Ruan was a bit embarrassed. She rubbed her little hands together, then smiled and said, "Not entirely. I do want to help the Benefactor save people. There are a lot of pitiful people out there, and I want to help bring them in."

Xie Licheng said, not really caring, "Alright. If it's not too dangerous a place, I'll take you out with me then."

Not everywhere in Dazhou was at war these days—the main fighting was in the north and the central plains.

The south's problem now was mainly floods and plague.

Floods were always followed by plague—that was why the south got so dangerous later.

Xie Licheng's defense stat was very high, so the plague was no threat to him at all.

But once the plague spread, it wouldn't be easy for him to rescue too many more people.

Xie Licheng: "By the way, do you want to go study?"

At the mention of studying, Xiao Zhuang quickly popped his head out from behind the others.

Xiao Zhuang said to Xie Licheng, "Uncle Benefactor, do I have to go study?"

Xie Licheng looked at him. "Why not study?"

Xiao Zhuang: "I don't like studying. Studying isn't as fun as fighting. I want to go to the military camp and train in martial arts."

Xie Licheng: "Your dad won't let you train in martial arts?"

Xiao Zhuang nodded. He squeezed up to Xie Licheng, hugged his leg, and said, "He insists I study. He says I won't amount to anything if I don't."

Xie Licheng: "Then just go study. He's your old man—you should listen to him."

"But I don't want to study. I think that teacher is really ugly."

When he heard that, Xie Licheng laughed. He had seen that scholar several times. While the man wasn't exactly handsome, he definitely wasn't in the ugly category either.

Xie Licheng said disapprovingly, "If you don't like studying, that's fine, but you can't badmouth the teacher's looks. He has a fairly decent appearance, and with his scholarly air, many young ladies and gents would fancy him. If you want to win a pretty wife in the future, you need to know both martial arts and reading. Otherwise, it'll be very hard to find a pretty wife."

Xiao Zhuang's eyes widened in protest. "Why do I need to know all this stuff just to get a wife? And... Uncle Benefactor, aren't you a rough guy too? Don't you have a handsome husband? I can see Young Master Gu doesn't mind you. So why do you have to make me study?"

Xie Licheng really wanted to smack Xiao Zhuang's butt. He wasn't actually illiterate.

Before he transmigrated, he had been a college student.

His current rough and wild demeanor was because he had survived a brutal apocalypse and been forced to become this coarse and wild version of himself.

Also, he could read the local script.

He just didn't write much because he didn't know how to use a writing brush.

If the brush were replaced with a fountain pen or a pencil, he could still write a few traditional characters.

Xie Licheng's face darkened. "Shoo, shoo. If you don't want to study, go tell your dad. I'm not your father."

Seeing Xie Licheng's expression change, Xiao Zhuang didn't dare say anything more.

He moved aside a little with a wronged look, pouting and sneaking peeks at Xie Licheng.

Xie Licheng ignored him and turned his attention to Xiao Ruan.

Xiao Ruan smiled. "I... can I go study?"

Xie Licheng: "If you want to study, I can pay for your tuition."

Xiao Ruan paused, then carefully tugged at Xie Licheng's sleeve. "But I'm a girl. Would that be a problem?"

Xie Licheng looked at her. "No. You just need to answer if you want to go. Don't worry about the rest."

Xiao Ruan: "Then I'll go study. My parents always said studying is a good thing, but only boys got to do it. If it's a good thing, then I'll go study."

When Xiao Zhuang heard Xiao Ruan was going to study, he—who hadn't wanted to go—quickly spoke up. "Then I'll go study too, I guess."

The training grounds happened to be near the school, so he could still sneak over there to play every now and then.

Xie Licheng didn't waste any time. He stood up and put away his fishing gear.

He said to Xiao Ruan, "Go tell your grandpa, then wait for me at the village entrance."

Xiao Ruan nodded and hurried off.

When Xiao Ruan said that Xie Licheng was sending her to school, her grandfather was thrilled.

The grandfather said to Xiao Ruan, "Studying costs a lot of money. You must study hard in the future and not disappoint the benefactor who's been so kind to you."

Xiao Ruan nodded. "I know. He's been really good to me. I treat him like a dad."

Xie Licheng went back to get dried meat and grain. When Gu Zhangyuan heard he was heading to the school, he wanted to tag along and see.

Gu Zhangyuan asked, "Can I come along?"

Xie Licheng: "Sure, but your legs aren't doing too well. How about I bike you over?"

"Aren't you also bringing the kids? If you're giving me a ride, what about them?"

So in the end, they ended up getting a horse-drawn cart. Xie Licheng drove the horse cart, while Gu Zhangyuan, Xiao Ruan, and Xiao Zhuang sat inside.

When Xie Licheng brought Gu Zhangyuan and the others to the school, there was only one young boy from town inside.

The scholar was with his only student, making a sandbox for writing practice.

With paper and brushes hard to come by these days, he'd come up with the idea of such a sandbox to save on study costs.

Then at that moment, he saw Xie Licheng and the others arriving at the door and quickly got up from the ground.

The scholar bowed to Xie Licheng. "Young Master Xie."

Seeing Gu Zhangyuan behind Xie Licheng, he should have addressed him as Xie's husband. But recalling that Gu Zhangyuan's situation was different, he hesitated and cautiously addressed him as Young Master Gu.

Xie Licheng: "I'm sending these two to study. Here's their tuition."

Xie Licheng had only prepared Xiao Ruan's tuition; Xiao Zhuang's was paid for by Chen Yaosan.

With so much tuition at once, the scholar felt much more at ease—at least he wouldn't starve anytime soon.

Xie Licheng said to the two boys at the school. "You're boys. Don't bully the girl. If I find out you bullied her, I'll throw you into the mountains to feed the wolves."

Xiao Zhuang wasn't afraid of Xie Licheng at all. He chuckled and grabbed Xiao Ruan's hand.

Xiao Zhuang: "I won't bully her. I came to study so I can protect her."

Gu Zhangyuan glanced at Xiao Zhuang. The boy wasn't even as tall as Xiao Ruan—how was he supposed to protect her?

After that, Xie Licheng took Gu Zhangyuan for a quick look around the school.

Gu Zhangyuan had never been here before. As they walked around, he couldn't help but say softly, "If I weren't so busy, and still preparing to have a child, I'd really like to come here and teach the kids to read."

Xie Licheng said, "The school only has three kids now. You'd better not steal the man's job."

Gu Zhangyuan had no intention of stealing anyone's job, but Xie Licheng's mention of it reminded him that the Gu family had once run a paper mill.

Gu Zhangyuan turned back to look at Xie Licheng. "There are a few plots of land outside the county town that look good. I want to buy them and set up two properties. One for growing herbs, and one for a paper mill."

Xie Licheng nodded at that. "Alright, pick whichever spot you like. I can help you build them. I build faster, so it'll be more convenient than doing it yourselves."

Gu Zhangyuan blinked in surprise. "Then I'll pay you for your work."

Xie Licheng was about to say he didn't need payment, but then he remembered this was for the Gu family. The wages for him building the properties wouldn't be too high, and it wouldn't be a big deal for the Gu family. Besides, Gu Zhangyuan was proud—if Xie Licheng helped him without taking anything, he'd probably be too embarrassed to ask for help again in the future.

Xie Licheng thought it over and said, "Alright, when do you want to start building?"

"No rush. The Gu family has bought fields outside the county town, and they're busy planting these days."

When planting came up, Xie Licheng suddenly remembered he still had ten packs of sweet potatoes to plant.

So the two walked around a bit more, and then Xie Licheng brought him back to the village.

Ten packs of sweet potatoes could plant ten mu of land (about 1.6 acres). Doing it alone would be too slow and tiring for Xie Licheng.

He went back to get the sweet potatoes and fertilizer, then came to the village to hire some temporary workers.

Xie Licheng: "I need ten people to help me plant. The pay is a hundred jin of sweet potatoes (about 110 pounds)."

A woman from the village quickly asked, "What are sweet potatoes?"

Xie Licheng: "Sweet potatoes are like the corn from last time—they're food, like a grain."

The woman: "Can I help out?"

Xie Licheng glanced at her. "As long as you don't mind working hard, sure."

Farming is always hard work. He was hiring ten people, one person per mu.

If she wanted those hundred jin of sweet potatoes, she'd have to work harder than the men. As long as she didn't mind the hard work, Xie Licheng was willing to let her try.

He didn't care who worked for him—as long as they were diligent and hardworking, he'd give them a chance.

The woman: "I don't mind hard work. I used to farm before—this is easy for me."

They spent a day planting the sweet potatoes. Thanks to the fast-growth fertilizer, the sweet potatoes would be ready to harvest in just fifteen days.

After that, Xie Licheng spent five days helping the Gu family build a farmstead and a paper mill.

The land needed for the farmstead and paper mill, the fields the Gu family had purchased, and the labor fees for Xie Licheng's construction work all added up to nearly three thousand taels of silver.

This sum was not a small amount for the Gu family either. However, thinking about how they would grow medicinal herbs in the future and could also make money from papermaking, Gu Zhangyuan didn't feel too distressed about it. Silver was something that could be earned as long as one had the skill, and he believed that with him around, the Gu family would only get better and better.

The paper mill was not rushed into operation. At present, most people in the pocket world could barely even put food on the table, so no one would be buying paper for studying at a time like this.

Gu Zhangyuan, with Gu Yangxue in tow, focused on the farmstead first. The first step was to hire some farmers from the village to do the planting. Quite a few landless villagers were willing to come work as long-term laborers at the Gu family's farmstead.

Working as a long-term laborer at the Gu family's estate included room and board, and they could also receive some grain and silver each year. The Gu family treated their workers fairly and never deliberately mistreated them, so for many people, this was a good job opportunity.

While Gu Zhangyuan was busy with the farmstead matters, Xie Licheng went into the mountains alone.

He knew Gu Zhangyuan would be busy these days, and since he didn't know much about farming, he didn't tag along.

He hadn't been up in the mountains in a while and wanted to check things out.

If the wild beasts on the mountain were left unchecked for too long, they would keep breeding.

If there were too many beasts on the mountain, it would pose a serious threat to the village below.

Xie Licheng didn't want a bunch of NPCs from the mountain to run down and harm the actual humans at the foot of the mountain.

He ended up staying up there for several days, hunting plenty of beasts and bringing back a lot of good stuff.

On the day Xie Licheng finally came down from the mountain, Gu Zhangyuan had already returned from the county town a day earlier.

If he hadn't come back from the mountain by then, Gu Zhangyuan was planning to use the bond teleport to go to his side.

When he saw Xie Licheng finally back, Gu Zhangyuan asked curiously, "What have you been doing up in the mountains all these days?"

Hearing that, Xie Licheng set down his bamboo basket. Gu Zhangyuan leaned over and peeked into the basket.

Gu Zhangyuan asked, "What's all this stuff?"

So he could get a better look, Xie Licheng dumped everything out. Before Gu Zhangyuan could even get a clear look at what was there, Xie Licheng went into the Joy Garden and brought out several plastic buckets.

Xie Licheng's basket was stuffed with all sorts of good things: a wild ginseng, about a dozen mushrooms, a bunch of honeysuckle, a bunch of plantain, a bunch of mugwort, and a large pile of assorted wild vegetables and wild fruits.

Gu Zhangyuan reached out and picked up the wild ginseng, then asked Xuan Cui, who had just come out, to find a box for it.

This was a rare treasure, and being wild-grown, it was far more valuable than the herbs they cultivated. Good items like this needed to be properly preserved, as they might come in handy in the future.

Then Yuan Qiao came over with a maid and began to sort through the herbs and wild plants on the ground.

At that point, Xie Licheng started pulling things out of his portable backpack.

His backpack slots had increased as he unlocked more maps.

He used to have just ten slots, but after unlocking Peach Blossom Town, he found he could upgrade his backpack at the player shops there.

Peach Blossom Village also had player-only shops, but the items sold there weren't as plentiful as those in the town.

The village shop only sold things like farmland, seeds, and flowers.

The town shop sold a slightly richer variety of items, including town fields, seeds, flowers, lanterns, trees, and even portable backpacks.

Upgrading the backpack required spending gold coins, which could be purchased with gold, silver, and jewelry.

When he'd sold town fields earlier, he'd taken the chance to upgrade his backpack.

The player shop in the town let him upgrade his backpack to fifty slots.

Xie Licheng didn't want to deal with the hassle, so he maxed out the slots in one go, and now he had fifty slots.

He hadn't gotten around to checking the player shop in the county town, so he didn't know whether he could upgrade his backpack there as well.

If he could upgrade it further, it would be best to expand the backpack more to make carrying things easier in the future.

Xie Licheng took everything out of his backpack, which included rabbit meat, chicken, venison, snake meat, wild boar meat, wolf meat, among other things.

Xie Licheng first took out the furs. The prey was processed through the system, which made them much cleaner and more intact than if he had skinned them himself.

By now, everyone knew that the animals and humans in this world weren't real, since they had seen with their own eyes that the bandit NPCs who were killed had vanished after death.

Xie Licheng said they were all fake, and even the animals and plants here were fake, so when Gu Zhangyuan saw so many prey items again, he didn't think Xie Licheng was being cruel.

Gu Zhangyuan picked up a piece of animal hide and said, "It's really amazing. When we try to do it ourselves, we can't make them look this good."

The animals felt just like real ones in their hands, and handling them was a pain to deal with.

But in Xie Licheng's hands, with just a light touch, the prey would clean itself.

The skin came off clean, the meat was separated, and the bones were intact.

The furs were even specially cleaned. In any case, it was all very magical.