Hidden moth

Chapter 317 Traveling in the Human Realm, Still Carrying Wine

Zheng Yisi accepted the order and accompanied He Kao out, but instead of visiting the Pantheon, they strolled around the town outside.

The Ancestral Hall is merely a local shrine commemorating ancestors; it is not a ticketed tourist attraction and is not open to visitors on weekdays. When receiving wandering scholars like He Kao, they are only allowed in the first three courtyards and are not permitted to enter the more important areas within the second courtyard.

Once outside the ancestral hall, the town was bustling with activity.

Most of Fengwei Township is located in deep mountains and dense forests. It consists of only one township and eight natural villages, with a total registered population of over 11,000, while the permanent residents of the township seat number around 6,000.

Upon learning that He Kao had not yet eaten breakfast, Zheng Yisi recommended a local time-honored restaurant that served hot noodle soup with layered scallion and meat pancakes, a very unique dish.

You can order food by scanning a QR code. The restaurant was doing very well, and Zheng Yisi insisted on treating everyone, so He Kao let him pay the bill.

He found a table near the door and sat down. He found that the food here was indeed very good. He even drank all the noodle soup. But the real specialty was the thousand-layer scallion and meat pancake. It tasted especially delicious with one bite!
He Kao "identified" that the ingredients used in the pancake were not just ordinary scallions, but also a small amount of Lingzhi Yuzhi Bai, which looks and tastes very similar to scallions.

Although the amount of Jade Finger White in the cake is very small and its quality does not meet the standards for refining elixirs, the combination of fat and flour during steaming neutralizes its potent effects, making it suitable for ordinary people to consume. It also helps to improve blood circulation, making it a very good health food.

You simply can't find this kind of thing at other breakfast shops, not to mention that a pancake only costs 25 yuan. It may seem a little expensive, but it's definitely a reasonable price for ordinary people. He Kao was so embarrassed that he didn't buy any more after finishing one.

According to Zheng Yisi, this breakfast shop opens at 6:30 every day. The ingredients for the scallion and pork layered pancakes are limited and sold out quickly. If you come late, you won't be able to buy any... They were lucky today.

He didn't mention Zhao Ci, or even touch on the topic of magic arts; during the conversation, he only introduced the local customs and characteristics.

He Kao looked out the door and saw that the row of houses across the street were obviously ancient buildings, and not the kind of modern classical buildings found in many tourist attractions, but they were all very well maintained, as if they had been built in the last few decades.

These buildings would probably be protected cultural relics elsewhere, but here they are just ordinary shops along the street.

Across the street is a quaint and elegant old teahouse, where many of the customers are young people dressed in business attire, with open laptops beside them while they eat... Looking back at this noodle shop, there are also many such customers.

This is a scene often seen in places like coffee shops in big cities. Zheng Yisi explained that those people are locals who eat breakfast nearby before going to work.

As for the old teahouse across the street, it sells not only tea, but also a variety of unique tea snacks, which many young people like to eat for breakfast.

Of course, the most distinctive thing there is tea, especially the spiritual tea. Zheng Yisi suggested that after breakfast they take a walk first, and then go for a pot of tea to digest their food…

Fengwei Township has done a very good job in its tertiary industry. Many local township enterprises have quietly grown to a large scale and have offices and branches in many large cities outside the mountains.

However, they also specifically set up their company headquarters or other offices in Fengwei Township, including the township and surrounding villages.

Young people, whether local or from out of town, can settle down and work here, or take turns being stationed in Fengwei Township. Their children can also study here in the future... They actually prefer their children to go to school here.

Just then, another bus drove by, and He Kao asked, "There's a bus route here too?"

Zheng Yisi explained, "Fengwei Township has its own public transportation system, but it doesn't have as many services as in big cities."

There are three bus routes in the township, with one round trip each in the morning, noon and evening. The starting point is the township, and the terminal stations are Jinghua Village, which is the farthest in the west, Dengyun Village, which is the farthest in the east, and Caiping Village, which is outside the mountains.

There is another bus route that goes to the county seat, passing through the high-speed rail station. It runs one bus each way from Fengwei Township and the county seat at 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM every day.

The road from Fengwei Township to the county seat has been newly built in recent years, and the journey now takes more than two hours. Villagers who do not want to drive can take the bus.

There are no taxis in the village, but there are ride-hailing services that you can call using your phone. It's a part-time job organized by the township government for a group of villagers..."

He Kao sighed, "Life here is pretty good!"

Zheng Yisi: "Of course it's good. After all, it's the location of the headquarters of various sects, a place of beautiful scenery and tranquility since ancient times. It's just that the environment used to be very closed off, but now everything is convenient, even the internet speed is very fast..."

He Kao: "Senior Zheng knows this place very well?"

Zheng Yisi: "When I had just graduated from primary school, my grandmaster brought me here. We ate at this restaurant back then, and I have a very deep impression of it. My grandmaster wanted me to stay here to attend middle school, so he arranged for me to be in the class taught by Elder Zong."

Elder Zong was still very young then, just a junior high school homeroom teacher… but I, being so ignorant, was unwilling, and ended up going back to study under Master Dangguan in the county.”

There were some things Zheng Yisi was too embarrassed to say. Ever since his grandmaster Zhao Sanjin went into seclusion, unless summoned by the Clan Law Hall, the disciples of the Huailin lineage rarely stayed in Fengwei Township. He himself did not hold a formal position in the sect.

They have ancient Taoist temples and medicinal gardens in the Bashan area, and in recent decades they have also run various businesses. They live a very comfortable life and are happy to enjoy their leisure time. They do not participate much in sect affairs, or rather, they do not make much contribution.

Although they sometimes provide the sect with some rare spiritual herbs, those are all paid tasks... otherwise, the Sect Law Hall wouldn't have produced a whole batch of Pure Yang Pills today, and Zhao Ci wouldn't have gotten a single one. After breakfast, the two strolled around Phoenix Tail Township. He Kao felt that it was very much like a tourist attraction, the kind of place that hadn't undergone commercial development or been hyped by internet celebrities, retaining its original ecological atmosphere.

In fact, there are quite a few "tourists" here, and the locals are used to it. For example, the town has 6,000 permanent residents, but the total population is nearly 10,000, of which 3,000 to 4,000 are migrant workers.

There is only one hotel in the area, which is the former township government guesthouse, but there are also several hundred rural homestays.

Almost everyone who comes here is not a tourist in the conventional sense. There are no tour groups, and most people stay for at least ten days to half a month, or even several months, which can be considered an in-depth experience.

If you ask them what they're here for, they'll usually say they're here for vacation. They often have acquaintances in the area, such as colleagues from the same group company.

The number of registered disciples in the sect has seen explosive growth in recent years, for various reasons. The first large-scale census of disciples in the sect showed a total of about five thousand disciples, while the latest data has exceeded seven thousand.

The number of sorcerers permanently residing in Fengwei Township is less than a thousand; most other disciples of the sorcery sects are scattered throughout various places. Besides them, there is an even larger group: the Zhiyuanke, whose total number exceeds one hundred thousand, with a potential number likely in the hundreds of thousands.

Among these people are many wealthy and well-informed individuals who know the location of the sect's headquarters. Even if only a small number of them occasionally come to Fengwei Township for a "vacation," the area will still attract a steady stream of tourists year-round.

The practitioners would instead advise these people not to always come in large groups, so as not to disturb the normal lives of ordinary villagers.

So the towns and villages are always bustling, and most shops are doing good business. He bought a lot of local specialties, initially packing them in his backpack, but later the backpack couldn't fit anymore, so he bought a large bamboo double-shoulder basket and put the backpack in the basket as well.

He bought not only dried mountain products that are easy to preserve, but also some fresh fruits, vegetables and wild game from the market. Before he knew it, his bamboo basket was full, and it was piled up so high that it was hard to carry without some strength.

He bought a lot of local specialties that looked like both food and medicine from various shops. Eventually, his basket was so full that he had to carry a large soft rattan basket in his hand.

Zheng Yisi was dumbfounded. Had he come here to buy goods?
There are indeed many good things to sell locally. Some shops are even run by sorcerers, so they don't worry about customers not knowing their stuff. And most of those things aren't as cheap as the scallion pancakes I just ate; they're quite expensive.

He Kao wandered around here, feeling like a mouse falling into a rice jar, as long as he didn't care about the money. Before long, he had another large basket in his hand, and the baskets in both hands were almost completely full.

I spent less than a morning shopping and bought some local specialties from the countryside. It was quite an exaggeration to have spent nearly 200,000 yuan.

Zheng Yisi asked with some curiosity, "Young friend He, it's one thing to buy those semi-processed spiritual materials, but why did you also buy fresh vegetables and meat?"

He Kao: "When we go back to Jinghua Cave later, I'll cook a meal for Elder Jiang and Junior Sister Wei... By the way, do you sell wine here? I mean, the kind that's low in alcohol, mild, and tastes good."

He Kao's "neutral nature" means that it has a miraculous effect, but it is not specifically designed to supplement or treat a certain aspect. Rather, it has a balanced moisturizing effect that even ordinary people can take.

Zheng Yisi: "Are you also trying to say that it's best if it's suitable for women to drink?"

He Kao nodded: "Yes, yes, you understand what I mean."

Zheng Yisi: "I know a place that sells good Osmanthus Rice Wine. They have both regular rice wine and their special Baiyan Valley Wine... But how are you going to carry so much stuff?"

He Kao: "Elder Jiang brought me here on a three-wheeled motorcycle. It stopped outside the Zongfa Hall. We'll put everything in the truck bed and take it back later."

Zheng Yisi lowered his head and rubbed the tip of his nose, feeling a little reluctant to speak. He then took him to buy wine, purchasing two 10-jin white plastic jugs on the spot and filling them both with Bai Xian Gu brew.

After buying the wine, the two finally went to the teahouse they had seen at breakfast to rest.

The tea snacks here aren't expensive, but the tea prices vary greatly. There are teas for the general public, but the menu also shows teas that are ridiculously expensive, costing at least two zeros more than other teas.

Things like this are usually just printed on price lists by businesses to show off and make their stores seem high-class. If a customer actually orders them, they're just being ripped off... But things are a little different here.

Zheng Yisi then took the initiative to order the most expensive pot of tea. He Kao discovered that this was the same tea that Lingxi Sect had used to entertain Zhao Sanjin in Jinghua Cave yesterday, and he had even brewed it himself.

This place not only sells tea but also tea leaves, so He Kao bought three catties of tea leaves from the owner.

Just after buying the tea, Zheng Yisi received a notification to go to the Clan Court to retrieve his disciple. It seemed the elders had already made their disciplinary decision, and Zheng Yisi breathed a sigh of relief; being able to retrieve him meant at least the disciple was unharmed.

**
PS: I actually updated twice today! (Mainly because both chapters are slow-paced stories describing my experiences in Phoenix Tail Village.)

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(End of this chapter)