Chapter 5

Translated by Oedon Edited by Phantom0408

“Do you mean the Blackwater Gang? It was annexed by the Horned Serpent Gang a few days ago and now…” Cheng Shaojiu shook his head, expressing his powerlessness.

“As for the matter of Chen Biao, I got some information on him from my cousin.”

Cheng Shaojiu’s clan was prosperous and well-informed, so he can be regarded as the most important person in and around Feiye City’s towns.

In addition, he has many friends since he was generous, and because of that he has people from all trades as his source of news, so one can expect to hear all kinds of news from his mouth. [1]

“What is it?” Wei He asked in a deep voice.

“He’s just a bastard that has joined the new rising Horned Serpent Gang, right now they’re expanding their territory by force every day, and it’s very lively,” said Cheng Shaojiu, looking at Wei He, “just, why are you asking about what some thug is doing? Do you have a grudge against him?”

“It’s nothing, thanks a lot. Can you keep an extra eye on Chen Biao for me? I’ll help you finish your homework,” Wei He negotiated.

Another reason why he was able to get close to Cheng Shaojiu was that this guy’s dad had hired a teacher to give him one-on-one lessons, and every few days would assign him homework; this gave him a headache.

Cheng Shaojiu was just a playful person who likes to join in the fun and make friends, he can’t sit down and be pedantic. [2]

So after discovering that Wei He was able to do homework on his behalf, he decisively requested Wei He to do it; unexpectedly the homework written by Wei He was good, and he was even praised by his teacher.

Although the handwriting was only praised as neat and strong, it was still much better than his own.

So the two will often take what they need and complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

“That’s good! I was waiting for those words, no kidding. Chen Biao is it? I will help you keep an eye on him!” Cheng Shaojiu patted his chest and promised.

“Thank you Third Senior Brother.” Wei He nodded.

Suddenly a boy ran out from inside of the courtyard’s room and called to him. “Wei He, Master wanted to see you inside.”

“All right.” Wei He put down the rock and quickly entered the room.

Inside the room, Old Man Zheng was shirtless while an old pharmacist behind him was putting a medicine paste onto his back.

The room was filled with the pungent smell of traditional Chinese medicine.

Aware of Wei He entering, Old Man Zheng didn’t lift his head and merely glanced at him. “Go buy me 50 Taels of Sappanwood, Dahurian angelica, Paeonia sterniana, and 6 maces of Chinese figwort. Use your money. I’ll compensate you after you return.” [3]

After discovering that Wei He was literate and understood arithmetic calculations, Old Man Zheng often assigned him to do such errands.

Bringing a cloth medicine bag, Wei He went out through the side door and walked along the street towards the other town.

The town where Zheng’s Mountain Fist was located was near the inner city, which is a very prosperous area, while the shop that he was looking for was near the outer city.

There are more than ten towns in Feiye City, each of which was equivalent to a self-sufficient village. They contain many households, shopping streets, and also various features unique to each town.

All the towns surround and connect to form a big square with the inner city being the center of the square.

The sun has just risen.

Wei He walked quickly through the street.

The shops and stalls on the street were not yet open, and there are only a few bun shops with doors half-opened; one can faintly see the silhouettes of people moving things inside through the doors.

Through a stone bridge between towns, he soon arrived at a shabby medicine shop.

Zhaoji Medicine Store (赵记药铺).

Four characters were written on the plaque above it.

He was just about to knock on the door when suddenly, a rustling sound came from the right side of the street.

“Reborn in bliss, smell the incense to cross the sea…”

“Reborn in bliss, smell the incense to cross the sea…”

The one who seemed to be the leader ceaselessly chant in a low voice, followed by a group chanting together.

Wei He’s heart tightened, he hurriedly knocked on the door.

The medicine shop was quiet, but soon the wooden door was half-opened, and a middle-aged man with a black round hat pulled him inside. [4]

“Come in quickly! The Incense Seeker Cult’s people are here again!”

It was dark in the shop, only faint lights shone through from the cracks of windows and the door.

Wei He and the middle-aged man didn’t speak, they stood at the door and waited till the sounds of chanting slowly moved away and disappeared.

Only after that did two men breathe a sigh of relief.

“The Incense-Seeking Cult’s people have appeared more and more frequently these days. I don’t know when it will end.” The man exhaled a long breath.

“Boss Qian, just now those people…” Wei He had seen those insane cultists before, and although the sudden encounter was a bit frightening, they didn’t seem to cause any trouble.

“That’s the Incense-Seeking Cult, a cult that has only begun spread in the city recently, they will force people they met to give them incense and money. At first, it only brought together some poor people but gradually with the tempting offer of shared earnings, it got bigger and bigger. I don’t know why the government hasn’t done something about it,” Boss Qian said helplessly.

“If you happen to meet them and don’t give them money, they will start to instruct their people to stand in front of your door and block your business every goddamn day.”

“…” Wei He was speechless.

He bought and packed the medicinal materials he wanted from the shopkeeper, then calculated the amount of money used and exited the shop.

As he walked back, he saw the cultists from the distance. They were crowded at a glance with at least two hundred people in a long line forming something similar to a long snake.

At this time, these cultists were confronting a few guards who came forward to reprimand them.

The cultists at the front were constantly being pushed around and they seemed about to be arrested and taken away.

A vague odd aura is rising, in the rest of the cultists.

Wei He glanced at a distance but didn’t dare to look any longer. He hurriedly walked back toward Mountain Fist’s courtyard.

He hadn’t gone far when he suddenly heard a scream from behind him

“Murder!!!”

Then there was a flurry of angry curses, yelling, and screaming.

Wei He quickly ran as fast as possible heading back.

He has only been practicing Mountain Fist for three months and has barely finished familiarizing himself with the basics of Mountain Fist, besides he has never fought in actual combat.

In case he got caught up in it, who knows what will happen.

He ran back to the courtyard and delivered the medicine to the inner room. After calculating the money, Wei He walked out, only to find that he was sweating really bad.

He wasn’t sure if it was from the running or fear.

As a person who had lived more than one life, he was most aware of the dangers that such cults may pose after they rose to power.

“Why are you sweating so much?” asked Cheng Shaojiu, somewhat bewildered on why Wei He was sweating so much just from doing an errand.

“Probably the weather,” Wei He whispered. “Let’s continue.”

He walked back to his position and lifted the rock again.

…….

At dusk.

After Wei He finished his training, he drank the medicinal soup and put on his clothes, preparing to collect homework.

Collecting others’ homework once in a while can also be considered his long-term business.

It’s just that today he was particularly upset, he kept thinking about the incident that he saw yesterday, the long line of cultists.

“I must become strong as soon as possible.” He subconsciously touched the tattoo of the Pojing Bead on his chest.

The bead has been accumulating energy for so long, and yet only half of it has turned black, the rest was still transparent.

On the way back from the Lecture Hall, he happened to pass by a medicine shop.

Recalling the medicine given to his master before, Wei He’s heart stirred, he turned around and entered the shop.

Inside, the shop was filled with an intense medicinal smell, which was quite suffocating.

A middle-aged woman in her forties wearing a long, black, and gray dress was using a mortar and pestle to grind something within.

A fellow on the side was lazily wiping the counter with a rag.

“Boss, is there any ready-made prescription for daily tonic?” Wei He asked loudly.

“A ready-made tonic prescription?” The middle-aged woman scratched her head and put down the things in her hand.

“Usually people who are not knowledgeable would just go to a doctor or a pharmacist for a prescription, who will come to a medicine shop to ask directly?” Her voice was a little hoarse and didn’t sound like a woman’s voice, but rather like an old man’s.

Wei He was taken aback by her voice, but he reacted quickly. “I recently felt that the food I ate was not enough to satiate my hunger, so I thought I’d come and find out if there was anything I could eat once that would satiate me for a long time.”

“Meat, it’s the best food to satiate hunger. I have some fresh wild game here, but the price is quite expensive, see if you want.”

The shopkeeper turned around and asked the man to go to the backroom, who then brought out black lean meat strips.

Pa!

She put the meat strips on the table.

“A black white-speckled snake meat, ten Taels of silver per catty, this is a fixed price.”

Ten Taels of silver…

Wei He froze. Ten Taels of silver were enough to feed a family of three for five days.

“This is fresh snake meat, in addition to wild boar meat, bison meat, yellow-haired monkey meat, gold worms, centipedes, scorpions…” The middle-aged female shopkeeper named various kinds of meat.

Some were dry, some were fresh.

Wei He pondered.

He bought a little bit of everything which in total cost twenty Taels of silver.

In one breath, he spent all of the money he had saved.

When he came out, he had a head-sized package in his hand, which was full of different kinds of dried meat pieces.

With different kinds of meat, he returned to his home near the Mouse Alley.

He started dabbling with cooking ever since his second sister Wei Ying started living in the room inside Mountain Fist’s courtyard.

He was the only one who came back here to live in his old home, so it was very quiet here.

After some tricks, Wei He made minced meat from each of them which was then cooked in different bamboo tubes and served in bowls.

There were twelve kinds in total.

He began to try eating it bit by bit while observing the changes on the Pojing Bead, this was so he could determine which meat was the most cost-effective in increasing the Pojing Bead’s energy.

This way, he ate two servings every day and then recorded them. Soon, Wei He found out, with the same amount of servings, the one that raised the Pojing Bead the fastest was the gold worm meat.

This kind of meat was very rich in energy and could satiate one’s hunger for a long time. It was generally used for patients who needed Yin nourishment.

The price was not very expensive, it is one Tael of silver per catty—quite a bargain.

After he tried out the gold worm meat, he returned to his daily strength training.

……

In the blink of an eye, time flew by and half a year had passed.

The energy in the Pojing Bead kept accumulating, and finally, under his persistent accumulation, it almost turned completely black.

And Wei He had grown taller, from 1.7 meters to 1.8 meters tall. In addition, his body’s muscle lines also became more prominent.

The lines were connected piece by piece.

He also finally passed the stage of strength training and had formally begun the technique practices.

He became one of those strong men in the courtyard who sparred all day long.

After reaching this point, Old Man Zheng had finally started teaching him the method of polishing his skin and flesh specifically made for the Mountain Fist. This was something one could use to turn their fists into a special state of thickness and toughness.

1. People from all trades, it’s Chinese idiom (三教九流) translated literally as the Three Religions (Daoism, Confucianism, Buddhism) and Nine Schools (Confucians, Daoists, Yin-Yang, Legalists, Logicians, Mohists, Political Strategists, Eclectics, and Agriculturists) Source: https://bit.ly/3rwVt9x

2. To be pedantic, it’s the translation of the idiom 舞文弄墨 (Wǔ Wén Nòng Mò) if translated literally means “to dance around with words and play with the law”. Source: https://bit.ly/2YV1Xmh

3. Tael or Liang (两) not to be confused with Shi Liang (a new standardized unit equivalent to 50 gram) is a Chinese’s old mass unit of measurement which is roughly equivalent to 37.5 gram, while a mace is roughly equal to 1/10 of Tael or Liang, both are usually used in Chinese herbal medicine stores as well as gold and silver exchange. (Source: https://bit.ly/3juLdff ). F.Y.I those plants that Old Man Zheng listed exist in real life, just Google it if you don’t know.

4. Black round hat, I’m not sure about this… but the author is probably referring to mandarin hats, just Google it for how it looks, again I’m not sure about this, sorry ;-;

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