Don't farm, cultivate immortality!

Halfway through the meal, the aroma attracted the white mouse, which poked its head out of the mud and scratched at the wooden bowl it was using with its paws.

The little guy came to eat and drink for free again. Zhuang Xing poked its head and served it a bowl of river fish soup.

The two people and the mouse shared the delicious food.

Without a doubt, this was the most enjoyable meal Zhuang Xing had ever had since he was born.

It's a pity there were no noodles or rice; it felt like something was missing. But I'll have to eat another meal at home tonight, and if I eat staple food again, I probably won't be able to eat much tonight.

In fact, he and Yunling now have appetites bigger than adults.

They ate the whole pot of river fish soup.

Zhuang Xing patted his bulging little belly and picked his teeth with a bamboo skewer.

He gradually digested the snake fruit, and once again felt his whole body filled with power.

While the iron was hot, the two began practicing warm-up techniques.

With each breath, Zhuang Xing experienced a feeling completely different from before.

The world became clearer: the sound of flowing river, the chirping of cicadas, the rustling of wind through the fields...

He felt as if he had broken through an invisible membrane, and everything in his eyes suddenly became so bright. Things that he couldn't see before were suddenly magnified and clearly visible in his eyes.

He could even clearly see the moth struggling in the spider web on the other side of the river, and there were some scents he had never noticed before, which made him realize that his sense of smell had become more acute.

Aside from the time he cultivated true qi, this was the first time he had felt such a significant improvement and such a tremendous change; it was practically a qualitative leap.

His body was rapidly absorbing the medicinal power of the snake fruit, and the amount of true qi was increasing, by about one-fifth. You should know that he had cultivated for nearly three months, more than a hundred days, to cultivate that much true qi, and today, in just one afternoon, he had achieved what he had done in twenty days.

He was both surprised and delighted. The warm feeling did not disappear until nightfall, and even on the third day, Zhuang Xing still had lingering sensations on his body.

He secretly measured his height. In three days, he grew a tenth of a bamboo joint taller. If a complete stranger saw him, they would never think he was only five years old. He had grown so much more than his peers. He looked like he was the same age as Yunling, like an eight or nine-year-old boy.

The spirit fruit truly lives up to its name. Although the snake fruit isn't a particularly high-grade spirit fruit, the fact that it's called a "spiritual fruit" means it must possess some mysterious qualities that distinguish it from fruits like dates and pears.

Unfortunately, the Red Delicious fruit can only grow in spring. Once summer arrives and the weather gets hot, its flowers will stop blooming.

Zhuang Xing and Yun Ling carefully collected the thirteen snake fruit seeds, preparing to sow them again next spring.

Two seeds can grow into thirteen snake fruits. If you count those thirteen snake fruits, wouldn't that mean there would be hundreds of snake fruits?

If the method of vitality is used, it can even give birth to two seasons in one spring. Just thinking about it makes Zhuang Xing feel that a bright future is beckoning to him.

Who says farming is bad? I love farming!

Chapter 47 Letter from Outside the Village

Spring has ended, and the sweltering summer has arrived.

The blinding sunlight shone directly into the bamboo forest, and cicadas chirped incessantly. Zhuang Xing, dressed in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, and wearing wooden sandals, was giving Yunling a lesson.

"If I put chickens and rabbits in a cage, there are 35 heads from the top and 94 legs from the bottom. Can you calculate how many rabbits and chickens are in the cage?"

“Hmm…” Yunling pondered, writing and drawing on the wooden board.

"Thirty-five heads...ninety-four legs..." Yunling counted on her fingers, "Chickens have two legs, rabbits have four legs..."

"If ninety-four legs are divided in half, that's forty-seven..."

"If we divide it into four parts... we won't be able to finish it..."

"If there are twenty rabbits... then that's eighty legs..."

She was calculating on the wooden board using exhaustive methods, looking distressed, when Zhuang Xing interrupted her, saying, "Look here, I'll teach you the simplest way to calculate."

He took Yunling's charcoal pencil and drew circles on the wooden board.

"I now use a circle symbol to represent a chicken."

"There are 35 rabbits and chickens in total. The number of rabbits is 35 minus the number of chickens."

"Then, rabbits have four legs and chickens have two legs, so the equation looks like this..."

"Like this...like this...and like this again...and it'll be done."

"Really? That's amazing! There's actually such a method!"

"I'll change the number again, this time you calculate it by yourself."

Zhuang Xing taught Yunling the "chicken and rabbit in the same cage" problem, which is taught in the third grade of elementary school. He tried his best to impart any knowledge he thought he could use to her.

Children in the village don't go to school. Regardless of whether they are boys or girls, they all help with chores at home from a young age. When they grow up, they get married, have children, and start their own households. Most people go through this process. Many villagers are illiterate and cannot read a single character.

Yunling will pursue a career in scientific research in the future, and Zhuang Xing will definitely do his best to guide her.

Today's class was math. In addition to math, Zhuang Xing will also teach her physics, chemistry, and biology.

Biology lessons accounted for the largest proportion of his classes, especially plant-related knowledge, such as photosynthesis, carbon cycle, and even the possible relationships between various traits of beans. He explained all of these to Yunling.

The source of the knowledge is easy to explain. Just say that it was seen in the jade slip in the White Lotus Hermit's possession. Anyway, he was in charge of keeping the jade slip, so he could say whatever he wanted.

Besides, Yunling never asked such a question; she never questioned Zhuang Xing.

After class, Zhuang Xing and Yunling would go hunting for wild game outside the village.

He still practices the warm-up technique every day, but since his last breakthrough, the progress of his cultivation has been very slow, and the total amount of true qi has almost stopped increasing.

It's probably because the "container" is full. A cup can only hold one cup of water. Even if you keep pouring water into the cup, the amount of water in the cup won't increase.

The body is the container of true qi. His body is still in the development stage. The reason why he made rapid progress at the beginning was because the container was empty. Now, if he wants to make further progress, he can only continue to exercise.

Well, haste makes waste, so he took each day in a calm and collected manner.

Aside from cultivation, he sometimes just played with Yunling. He made two rackets out of wood and snake tendons, and made a shuttlecock by tying chicken feathers he had collected to a hollowed-out bamboo strip. Occasionally they would play badminton in a secluded place, and if it was too hot, they would play chess inside the house.

Sometimes Zhuang Xing would tell Yunling about the lay Buddhist's little diary about exorcising demons. Yunling would always hold her face in her hands and listen with longing. Seeing how well-behaved she was, Zhuang Xing couldn't help but pinch her little face, and she never flinched.

One day, while they were fishing, a sudden downpour began. Under the night sky, the world seemed to turn upside down. Raindrops fell on your cheeks, and everything became hazy and indistinct in the mist. But someone held your hand tightly, and at that moment, you felt that you could take her to the ends of the earth.

On the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, the Ghost Festival, Zhuang Xing and Yunling went to pay respects to her father and burned a lot of paper money.

Time slipped away quietly in these peaceful, repetitive days.

Spring goes and autumn comes, and before we know it, the cicadas' chirping has stopped.

The leaves turn yellow and wither, and the crops in the fields are ready for harvest.

Autumn is the most important season in the village, as the harvest of crops is crucial to the livelihood of the entire following year.

These past few days, my mother has stopped making tofu and instead went to the fields with my father to harvest the crops. They hired some helpers, and Zhuang Xing also helped in the fields.

Zhuang acted even faster than the villager he had hired. He deliberately showed his different side to his mother and father, because he couldn't keep his cultivation a secret from his family forever; he had to be honest about it eventually.

Zhuang Xing had seen those fields, that river, and those mountains that would never change when viewed from the village entrance—he had seen these things far too many times.

Sooner or later, he will have to go outside the village.

He wanted to see the stone walls, to climb the palaces and towers described in ancient poems, and to see the strange and wonderful monsters and spiritual plants recorded on the jade slips. His body was still in the village, but his heart had already wandered outside.

There is an irrepressible desire to explore within me; as long as one lives, the adventure will never end.

He wanted to go outside and see this wonderful world with his own eyes.

On this day, all the crops in the fields were harvested. The millet stalks were tied up and piled up in the fields like big brooms. These stalks could be dried and used as firewood, or woven into cushions and mattresses.

Zhuang Xing sat on a haystack, looking towards the village entrance.

He saw the old hunter and the village chief, who were standing by the roadside at the village entrance with a dozen or so men. They had been standing there for several days in a row, as if they were waiting for someone.

Today, it seemed that the person they were waiting for had finally arrived. Zhuang Xing stood up, stepped on the haystack, and looked into the distance.

Zhuang Xing saw the shadows of horses and people. It wasn't a caravan. The old man leading the group was wearing a special outfit, a robe made of multiple layers of coarse cloth. He held a whisk in his hand, and a crown was worn on his pale hair, making him look like a Taoist priest, but his beard wasn't very long.

Horses pulled the carriage, which carried children of all ages, all of whom were quiet and did not speak.

Zhuang Xing focused his Qi into his eyes and discovered that the old Taoist priest and the other men walking beside the carriage all exuded a solid aura; they were all cultivators.

They arrived at the village entrance, where the old hunter and the village chief greeted them with courtesy. They exchanged greetings, seemingly old acquaintances. Zhuang Xing saw the old Taoist priest smile and pat the old hunter and the village chief on the shoulder.

They talked for a while at the village entrance, when suddenly someone ran towards Zhuangxing.

"Zhu He!" the man called out, "There's a letter for you, saying it's from Miss Yan Huai'an. The village chief wants you to come over!"

Zhuang Xing immediately perked up.

Chapter 48 Daoist Qingxu

Five years later, Zhuang Xing finally heard news of Yan Huai'an again.

Those events seemed like they happened just yesterday; he had never forgotten the image of the heroine Yan slaying the tiger in the snowstorm.

It turned out that Miss Huai'an hadn't forgotten him and her mother, and had even sent a letter back.

Zhuang Xing gripped the amulet hanging around his neck, jumped off the haystack, and ran to his mother's side.

"Mother, I want to see those horses. Can I come with you?" he said, tugging at his mother's hand affectionately.

His mother hesitated for a moment, then patted his head: "Then promise your mother that you won't be naughty later."

"Mhm." Zhuang Xing nodded.

Besides going with his mother to see the letter Miss Huai'an sent back, Zhuang Xing also wanted to find out more about the background of this group of Taoists.

Those Taoist priests are all practitioners; I don't know why they came to the village.

Zhuang Xing had explored almost every corner of the village, and he was quite certain that this was a small mountain village with no special features, and that cultivators would have no reason to come here unless they were passing through.

The children carried on those straw-covered carts were also quite strange; they were all young children, both boys and girls.

They didn't seem like human traffickers. Although the children didn't say much, they were all dressed in clean clothes. After the carriage stopped, the Taoist priest next to them called them down, gave them water and dry food, and let the children move around freely.

Perhaps because the disciples were recruited from various villages, Zhuang Xing overheard his father and mother talking in the spring, saying that a Taoist priest would come to the village in the autumn.

Zhuang Xing always remembered this matter. Judging from his father and mother's attitude, it seemed that if they paid the money, their child could learn skills from these Taoist priests for a few years.

They were even discussing at that time how to save some money and send the business over there.

However, Zhuang Xing felt it was unnecessary. The jade slip from the White Lotus Hermit was enough. Once he grew up and was fully developed, he would be able to leave the mountain village on his own.

Following his mother to the Taoist priests, Zhuang Xing remembered to conceal his aura.

Under normal circumstances, true qi will naturally radiate outwards, but if you consciously gather and control true qi, it will not show its special characteristics.