Don't farm, cultivate immortality!

The person in charge of packing was a girl. She looked delicate and frail, with two braids tied behind her back and a pair of big, watery eyes. She had a pitiful and endearing quality.

Every time someone came to buy chestnuts, the girl would say thank you in a soft, sweet voice.

The group of kids gave Zhuang Xing a very professional feeling, so professional that they seemed like vendors specializing in selling chestnuts.

Is it really okay to set up a stall in public like this? Do you have a business license?

Zhuang Xing thought to himself, there really was a Taoist priest who looked like the captain of the urban management brigade, walking aggressively toward the chestnut vendor.

The children were clearly flustered, looking at each other blankly, speechless under the Taoist priest's glare.

They hesitated and made excuses to the Taoist priest for a while. At this moment, a child came out of the dining hall. When the other children saw her, they looked at her as if she were their savior.

The child who came out of the canteen was Bai Yu, the girl who almost fell on the steps because she was exhausted while climbing the mountain.

Bai Yu stood before the Taoist priest without changing his expression, his attitude neither fearful nor apprehensive.

"Master, these chestnuts are wild chestnuts that we picked up in the forest behind the mountain while we were gathering firewood. We picked them for many days and only managed to collect this many," Bai Yu said. "This pot and this stove are borrowed from the kitchen of the canteen. The chef there has already given his permission."

“We are all homeless orphans. We usually help others wash clothes and clean shoes. We set up a stall here just to earn a little money and improve our lives a bit.”

"This is our first day setting up a stall. If we break the rules of the temple, we will immediately take down the stall."

Upon hearing Bai Yu's words, the Taoist priest's expression changed several times before he finally sighed.

"Why are you doing this? I'm not blaming you, it's just... sigh..." The Taoist priest, who had been so fierce just moments before, sighed and took out a string of coins from his sleeve. "Fine, take this money. Consider it as me buying all your chestnuts and closing this stall."

The children behind stared intently at the hanging money, but Bai Yu shook his head and said, "Daoist Master, we can't accept this money."

"We'll have to go down the mountain sooner or later. If we take the Taoist priest's money now, do you think other people will give us money like he does when we get down the mountain?"

Bai Yu raised her head and met the gaze of the burly Taoist priest with a beard on his temples.

Although she was thin, dressed in tattered coarse linen clothes, and had some charcoal ash on her face, she seemed to be taller than the Taoist priest at this moment.

Hearing her words, the child behind her regained his resolve.

The Taoist priest seemed to be deep in thought, and in the end, he actually took out three coins, bought a plate of roasted chestnuts, and ignored the stall.

"How about we go buy some chestnuts too?" Zhuang Xing immediately became interested.

"Okay." Yunling nodded in agreement.

Because it was a day off, Zhuang Xing carried copper coins with him. He originally intended to buy some winter dates from the small shop in the temple, but when he saw this interesting stall, he also wanted to try what wild chestnuts tasted like when stir-fried.

Chapter 70 Wheat

"I'd like a serving of chestnuts." Zhuang Xing took out three coins and handed them over.

"Thank you." The little girl with braided pigtails used yellowed lotus leaves to pack the chestnuts, counting out fifteen clearly in one portion, each with a small slit cut into it, the roasted chestnut shells slightly curled up.

Two boys standing nearby greeted Zhuang Xing. They were his playmates who played ball together. Zhuang Xing never put on airs in front of others and always treated his neighbors with a normal attitude. Therefore, the two boys also regarded Zhuang Xing as their playmate.

Zhuang Xing chatted with them for a bit and learned that the idea of ​​selling chestnuts was entirely Bai Yu's plan.

Those children who didn't become disciples and had to do odd jobs on a regular basis seem to have formed a mutual aid society-like organization over the past month or so.

They said that Bai Yu went to school to learn to read and write, and when she came back, she would take the time to teach them. They felt that Bai Yu was good to them and very smart, so they listened to Bai Yu and tried to find ways to make some money.

Zhuang Xing asked them where they found the wild chestnuts, and they said that the canteen staff would take them to the back mountain to chop and collect firewood, and that's when they found a chestnut grove.

For the past month, every time they went to collect firewood, they would bring back some chestnuts in their baskets. Bai Yu spoke with the chef, and after the chef agreed, they piled the chestnuts in the woodshed. During their spare time while burning firewood, they and the others would peel the chestnuts out of their spiky shells.

They had practiced many times in private, and the canteen staff had also given them some pointers. It wasn't easy for them to get it to this point.

Zhuang Xing then noticed that the children had marks on their hands that looked like they had been pricked by thorns, and thought to himself that it wasn't easy to earn those three coins.

He hadn't eaten chestnuts for many days, and he knew he'd miss this opportunity. After thinking for a moment, he took out three coins and bought a second serving of roasted chestnuts.

"Thank you," the little girl smiled sweetly.

After all, they earn money with their own hands, without stealing or robbing. Although it's hard work, the sense of accomplishment is very satisfying.

The children worked very hard. The two boys made an appointment with Zhuang Xing to play ball together in the afternoon. Then they turned to Bai Yu and said a few words. When Bai Yu nodded, they added five more chestnuts to Zhuang Xing's second lotus leaf.

Five chestnuts may not be worth much money, but the sentiment behind them is very precious.

Zhuang Xing agreed, thinking to himself that he would make a few more rackets and give them to them, since it wasn't a big deal.

It's a good thing that others treat him as a friend. He never thinks he's superior to others just because he wears this training uniform and knows things that others don't.

Mother and Father don't know how to cultivate, yet they still managed to raise Zhuang Xing to this age with their own hands.

Zhuang Xing felt a surge of admiration for these children. Their circumstances were far worse than his own; they lacked the talent for cultivation and had lost their parents at a young age. Yet, despite such hardships, they still lived each day to the fullest.

I wonder how long they practiced to achieve their current level of coordination. Looking at their thin figures, Zhuang Xing snapped out of his recent smugness.

Zhuang Xing's impression of Bai Yu deepened even more. He felt that this girl had a great business mind, strong initiative, and a great leadership quality. If she were in his previous life, she would definitely be a self-made entrepreneur.

How could a golden carp be confined to a pond?

If these kids follow her, they might be able to forge a different path in the future.

...

After buying the chestnuts, Zhuang Xing followed Yunling and headed towards the place with the best soil.

They walked towards the back of the mountain, passing through winding paths, and arrived at a slightly dilapidated open space.

Some ivy climbed the stone wall, and on both sides were withered trees that had lost their leaves. If you went through that wall and walked further out, you would reach the back mountain.

The soil on the back hill was exposed and covered with a layer of decaying leaves. There were no bluestone bricks on this ground, but the black soil looked fertile.

Looking at the arrangement of the bricks and stones, it seems that this place was originally a cultivated field, but it has been abandoned now.

"Who planted those radishes? Does someone farm here?"

Zhuang Xing saw radish leaves sprouting from the soil, and the large, round radishes were growing very plump, almost bursting out of the soil.

“I planted them.” Yunling squatted down and touched the radish leaves. “Besides the snake fruit, I also brought a lot of seeds from home. These radishes were actually only planted five days ago. I only come over in the afternoon every day to nurture them with my true qi for a little while. They grew to this size very quickly, which is why I thought of bringing you to see them.”

"They're growing very well." Zhuang Xing reached out and pulled out a white radish, which looked plump and appealing. "Have you seen any other people here when you come over?"

“No,” Yunling shook her head. “Very few people come here.”

Xuanqing Temple is quite large. Although there are quite a few people living there, it is still quite spacious in terms of per capita density. It is not like the university in my previous life, where the cafeteria would be packed to the brim after class at noon.

The population of this era was naturally much smaller than that of modern society; the land was vast and sparsely populated, so there were naturally some places in the Taoist temple where people were rarely seen.

"But I'm still a little worried that if I plant the snake fruit here, a passing Taoist priest might pick it," Zhuang Xing murmured.

Although it wasn't planting season yet, Zhuang Xing was already a little worried. There were no surveillance cameras in the temple, and the snake fruit was a spiritual fruit. If someone passed by and saw that the fruit had grown, they might just pick it. In that case, the two of them would have no choice but to accept their bad luck. They couldn't very well question everyone in the temple. They didn't know if others would tell them, and it would also be easy to expose the matter of the life-giving magic.

Zhuang Xing understood the principle of not flaunting wealth. Warming up was something anyone could practice, and common fitness exercises were easy to do. He could just make up a story and say it was passed down in his family or taught by a passing old Chinese medicine doctor, and that would fool everyone. But life-saving techniques were something that two children could not possibly figure out.

The matter of the White Lotus Hermit and the jade slip was a secret between Zhuang Xing and Yunling. They hadn't even told their parents, for fear of getting into trouble.

Yunling was quite optimistic: "At worst, we can just plant the fruit in different places. We can't let every single plant be picked by someone else."

“That’s true.” Zhuang Xing nodded. “I’ll think about it some more when I get back and see if there are any good solutions.”

He circled the area a few more times and casually pulled out all the large radishes.

Even the smallest mosquito is still meat; these radishes can be sold to the canteen cooks for a copper coin or two.

Just as Zhuang Xing was about to leave, his gaze was drawn to a blade of grass in the corner of the wall.

There were a few wild grasses growing sparsely there. Zhuang Xing couldn't help but put down the radish in his hand, bend down, and rub off the fruits hanging from the wild grass one by one, examining them carefully in his palm.

Yunling was a little puzzled and asked, "Zhuang Xing, is this also a spiritual fruit?"

"It's not a spirit fruit, it's wheat!" Zhuang Xing said happily.

Steamed buns, dumplings, noodles, cakes, flatbread, fried dough sticks, and those deep-fried breadcrumbs that make the neighbor's kid drool...

These delicious foods are all made from flour milled from wheat!

As he thought about it, he started to feel hungry.

Chapter 71 Under the Setting Sun (Please continue reading)

"Wheat? What's that? Is it a grain like millet?" Yunling picked a bunch of wheat ears to examine them.

Yunling clearly had no concept of wheat. Whether in the village or the Taoist temple, the most common staple food was millet. Although glutinous rice and rice were also eaten, they were grown less. In any case, Zhuang Xing's family did not grow these two kinds of rice. Their fields mainly grew millet.

Given the Zhuang family's eating habits, they basically only use two methods for cooking whatever they eat: steaming or boiling. They rarely do any extra processing. For example, they might just chop radishes or eggplants a couple of times and throw them into the pot.

In short, Zhuang Xing's assessment of the food of this era can be summarized in two words: coarse and meager.

Even in Xuanqing Temple, there are only a few varieties, and the overall preparation method is still quite rough, but thanks to the quality of the ingredients, the taste is quite good.

Unfortunately, he had never seen many of the foods that Zhuang Xing was familiar with.

Not just wheat, but also crops like corn, potatoes, and sweet potatoes—he had never even heard of them before.

Even in my previous life, the three familiar items that this business had seen were only introduced from across the ocean through trade around the 16th century.

But Zhuang Xing felt that maritime trade might simply not be feasible in this world.

Because this world has monsters, and what kind of powerful monsters exist in the sea is a complete mystery. If you want to go to a far place at sea, you might run into a hungry giant on the way, and your ship will sink to the bottom of the sea.

In order to survive, humans in this world face not only natural disasters and man-made calamities, but also some very difficult situations. Perhaps for this reason, they don't have much time to research what tastes good.

For them, anything that can fill their stomachs is good; their standard is simply that it doesn't taste bad. So, in terms of food culture, it's basically an undeveloped wasteland.

If Zhuang Xing could produce tofu in the village, his family would be well-fed and clothed. If only he could produce flour...

He was already lost in thought. Without a stone mill, wheat would not only be difficult to husk, but its taste after steaming or boiling would also be far inferior to that of millet. For a long time, wheat was regarded as an inferior grain by our ancestors.

There is an old saying: "Wheat rice and bean soup are the food of rustic farmers."

This means that only wild people living in the mountains and poor farmers who can't afford to eat would eat steamed wheat rice and soybean porridge.

In fact, with the evolution of grain processing tools and methods such as mortars, millstones, and grinders, once wheat was ground into flour, it swept across the land in an almost unstoppable manner. For thousands of years, flour has been deeply loved by people as a staple food ingredient for pancakes, noodles, pastries, and so on.

At this very moment, Zhuang Xing had just the opportunity to make wheat shine.

As the first person to grind wheat into flour, he may be recorded in history books!

Of course, that wasn't the reason he was so excited. Whether or not anyone would recognize him in the future was not important. What was important was that he could eat the steamed buns and mantou he had been craving for so long again!

There are also noodles and fried dough sticks! He's been wanting to cook a bowl of fried egg noodles for ages!

"Yunling, let's plant wheat!" Zhuang Xing turned to Yunling and said.