Don't farm, cultivate immortality!

He used to be underdeveloped and could only watch from the sidelines, unable to do anything. But now it's different; he's a talking child who can communicate with his parents.

He sat on his little wooden horse, rode it a couple of times, and pondered what he could do.

Anyway, let's tidy it up first. He hunched over and looked outside. His mother had rolled up her sleeves and was holding a bamboo basket. She was putting coarse hemp fibers one by one onto the bamboo poles that had been set up to dry.

Judging from this, Mother probably won't have time to deal with him for the time being.

He then picked up his little wooden horse, tiptoed, and quietly ran into the house.

He took off his shoes, stepped onto the little wooden horse, climbed over the crib railing, and took out stacks of bamboo strips from under the crib.

The bamboo strips were tied together with straw ropes and categorized by subject, with Chinese characters indicating "Mathematics," "Physics," "Chemistry," and the last subject being "Poetry Appreciation."

He thought for a moment, then took out three stacks of bamboo strips, which represented mathematics, physics, and chemistry.

These bamboo slips are few in number and do not involve any profound content; they are basically all engraved with just a name.

He was just doing classification. His memory was excellent now; he could recall related knowledge just by seeing keywords. He pondered the names on the bamboo slips, thinking about which pieces of knowledge could be put to use.

They seem to be good at arithmetic. When their parents do the accounts, they count on their fingers, tie knots with a string, and count little by little. They can quickly calculate addition and subtraction within ten based on experience, but when the amount is large, such as when their mother keeps a total account at the end of each month, they are very slow to calculate and sometimes make mistakes.

If we can teach them arithmetic, maybe we can apply for a job as an accountant or something with the village chief.

However... how to teach them is a problem. If we don't teach them and let them perform on their own, it would be too astonishing for a child who is almost a year and a half old to be so talented.

So, it seems we can only consider things from a physical perspective after all?

In terms of both risks and benefits, the appropriate approach would be to communicate with my father and create some handicrafts that could generate income.

For example, making soap from alkali or distilling and purifying wine to produce small batches of goods and selling them in the village, or by asking an old hunter to take them to the city to sell, can greatly alleviate the family's financial burden.

Once his family becomes a little wealthier, he can leave production and focus on training himself. If he has extra money, he can buy some of the same spirit fish as that winter from the old hunter and stew it to nourish his body.

He felt that his line of thinking was correct. Novels say that cultivating immortality requires wealth, companions, methods, and environment, with wealth always being the most important.

It seems we have no choice but to cultivate this land.

He nodded and put the bamboo strip away.

Before deciding what to do, he needs to do some research in the village. Otherwise, if he creates something that already exists, it will be a waste of effort and he'll be laughed at.

Chapter 24 Field Research

Since it's a survey, the first thing to do is definitely to go out and take a look.

Using only his own family as a reference is far too small a sample size; he needs to first understand the specific living standards of the entire village.

So the next day, Zhuang Xing pestered his father.

"I want to play with Daddy," Zhuang Xing said in a childish voice, hugging his father's leg.

If you directly ask to go outside to play, you will most likely be refused. After all, he is only one and a half years old, and parents usually do not want such a young child to leave their sight, or at least to be within their sight at all times.

This is the art of language; by rephrasing it, the meaning changes from "the child wants to go outside and get covered in mud" to "the child misses his father."

See, Mother is now in a dilemma.

She rubbed her forehead, looked at the child's father, and frowned slightly.

"Xiao He, let Zhuang'er come out with me. I'll take good care of him."

The father rubbed Zhuang Xing's head and picked him up in one arm.

Zhuang Xing took the opportunity to climb onto his father's shoulders. Of course, he wasn't just playing around; as the saying goes, "the higher you stand, the farther you see," and once he was on his father's shoulders, his field of vision immediately broadened considerably.

Before, when he looked up, he had to stand far away to see what was on the stove, but now he could clearly see the wooden hair bun on his mother's head. The child's perspective had suddenly become that of an adult.

Mother hesitated for a moment, but finally nodded.

"Okay, but you can only play until noon."

"Great!" Zhuang Xing shouted.

"Don't cause your father any trouble." Mother chuckled and stepped forward to tighten Zhuang Xing's shoes.

"Mhm." Zhuang Xing nodded repeatedly.

The mother straightened the father's clothes: "Safety first, don't lose your son."

"Don't worry, Xiaohe." The father said, picking up the sickle and walking out of the yard. "Then I'll go out."

"Okay, slow down, don't fall." Mother watched them walk into the path.

Zhuang Xing waved to his mother across the fence, and his mother, standing under the eaves, smiled and greeted him back.

After walking through the bamboo grove, the father looked back, but could no longer see his mother.

"Son, do you know what it feels like to ride a horse?" the father asked mysteriously, tucking a sickle under his arm.

"I know!" Zhuang Xing replied, "I rode the wooden horse my father gave me!"

“Father didn’t mean a rocking horse, Father meant a real horse.”

"But I've never ridden a real horse."

"Would you like to give it a try?"

Zhuang Xing roughly guessed what his father wanted to do; sure enough, his father had a rebellious streak deep down.

Well, now that we've created this atmosphere, let's shout it out with full force!

"Yes!" Zhuang Xing shouted loudly.

"Then hold on tight!" His father pressed his arm down on his leg and suddenly ran off.

Zhuang Xing felt a refreshing breeze blowing in his face. He squinted at the outside world. The spring sun was shining brightly. He saw green buds sprouting on the withered trees, moths fluttering their wings, and villagers carrying water on shoulder poles passing by him. A family was feeding chickens, and the rooster's feathers shone with a colorful hue under the sunlight.

He suddenly felt a little nervous and instinctively hugged his father's neck tightly.

He had never ridden a horse before, but he thought that riding a Ferghana horse across the grasslands must be just as exhilarating.

After running for a while, the father stopped.

"Son, do you like riding horses?" the father asked.

"I like it!" Zhuang Xing replied.

This time, he wasn't shouting according to the atmosphere; his voice was filled with joy.

"Then tell your father that you mustn't tell your mother when you get back, and your father will take you riding a horse one more time."

Okay, he has a bit of a rebellious spirit, but not much.

Zhuang Xing imagined the scene of telling his mother about this. He estimated that nothing serious would happen, but his father would not be able to go to bed tonight and would probably have to kneel on the washboard for several hours.

Not only that, but going out again will be even more difficult in the future.

"Okay, okay, I won't tell Mother." Zhuang Xing made an agreement with his father.

"Good son," the father smiled.

He then led Zhuang Xing on a run, the father and son's figures passing through the village houses. Acquaintances greeted the father, who responded with a hearty laugh.

While playing, Zhuang Xing carefully observed the terrain of the village and what was in the courtyards of each household.

Brooms, straw mats, haystacks, dried orange peels, chickens, ducks, geese, clotheslines, hoes and sickles, straw hats, firewood, a big yellow dog...

They were all very common items: sickles and hoes, like those used by Zhuang Xingjia, were all rusty iron tools. However... I still didn't see a stone mill...

He followed his father around the village, but didn't see any house with what looked like a stone mill.

This thing should be considered an essential household item. Rice, wheat, beans, and anything with a shell can be processed with a stone mill. The resulting bean flour can be used to make soy milk, and gypsum can be used to curdle tofu. But so far, he has never eaten tofu, though he has drunk soybean soup.

The most common tools are stone mortars and wooden mallets, which are used to process millet.

Compared to wheat, millet is much simpler to process. Millet grains are smaller, so after harvesting, they are dried in the sun, then placed in a stone mortar and broken up with a hammer to remove impurities before being cooked and eaten.

The Zhuang family also had a special stone mortar and wooden mallet for processing millet, which suggests that millet was not only a staple food in their home but also in the village.

However, considering the village's terrain and rainfall, wheat can definitely survive. Moreover, wheat can be sown in winter and can survive in temperatures as low as -12 or -13 degrees Celsius, allowing for an extra harvest. There's no reason not to plant wheat.

Either the wheat seeds had not yet spread, or the stone mill had not yet appeared.

Regardless of the possibility, it indicates that the era in which he lived was extremely backward.

Upon closer reflection, it seems he hadn't even seen cotton.

He searched his memory and realized he had never seen cotton before. It was just a small blanket his father had bought for him from the city, and the filling was only duck down.

He probably really lived in a very backward era.

He suddenly felt very excited; if that were the case, there was great potential.

Suddenly, the ways to make money broadened considerably.

But what exactly is the reason that everyone's living standards are so low?

Is it simply that civilization is in its early stages, or is there another reason?

Could it be related to monsters?

Because man-eating monsters are frequently born, and because the living environment is highly uncertain, certain aspects of development have been suppressed.

Zhuang Xing became interested in the history of this world, and his thirst for knowledge, his desire to explore, and all sorts of curiosity emerged.

He increasingly realized one thing: this was indeed a very interesting world.

"Daddy!"

"What's wrong, son?"

"I'm so happy today!"

What will we see in the future?

Just thinking about it makes him very happy.

Chapter 25 My Badge Is Vibrating

After playing around for a while, Zhuang Xing followed his father to the outskirts of the village.

The first thing that catches the eye is the grid-like fields, with smooth pebbles scattered everywhere, embedded in the soil or lying in the fields.

Stones usually become round and smooth because they are eroded by water over a long period of time.