Martial Arts: Start by Obtaining the Wild World

Chapter 166 0165: Li Lu returns and harvests!

The days passed by unnoticed, and in the blink of an eye the forest had recovered to 40% of its pre-fire state.

After the spring plowing outside the city, time seemed to be blown by a spring breeze, quietly speeding up its pace.

Although the wild rice in the fields was not cultivated with rotten soil, it never stopped growing because the land had become fertile after the fire and there was abundant water. It is now as tall as a calf.

The rice sways gracefully in the spring breeze, and the farmers are busy in the fields with smiles on their faces, personally removing the weeds that have taken root in the fields and are competing for nutrients, as if removing future hardships.

In these fields, time seems to be endowed with life, and it subtly changes everything in every corner and every moment. It melts away people’s past despair, and also blends into the sounds of children playing in the fields and the long conversations of the elderly.

In mid-March, Cheng Zongyang, who was sitting cross-legged in the shade of a tree at the junction of a large new village and a field, was practicing the breath-holding technique when he heard a voice approaching from afar with a hint of excitement.

"grown ups!"

"My Lord! They are back!"

But before they could get close, they were stopped by Li Xian.

"Boss Zhao, the master is practicing, and we cannot interfere."

Not far away, low conversations came from Li Xian's mouth, and Cheng Zongyang heard them clearly.

"It's okay, let them come over." Cheng Zongyang slowly opened his eyes and spoke.

After nearly twenty days, he had mastered the breath-holding technique and no longer needed to practice exhaling.

His breathing rhythm has almost become a habit. Except for sleeping, he always speaks, walks, and does things in a unique rhythm.

This means that his practice is carried out anytime and anywhere.

Soon, Zhao Laoqi and Li Xian came in front of Cheng Zongyang one after another.

"Sir!" Zhao Laoqi said with a happy expression, "Sir Li is back. He came from the south of the city and has returned to the county government office."

Hearing this, Cheng Zongyang also smiled and said, "I have been away for more than 20 days, and I am finally back. Let's go."

On the way, Zhao Laoqi also reported to Cheng Zongyang in vivid detail about the supplies that Li Lu brought back this time.

Medicinal herbs, food, and other things locked in several large boxes.

Quarter of an hour later, the group of three returned to the county government office.

In the backyard of the county government office, Cheng Zongyang saw Li Lu, who was dusty and looked a little vicissitudes of life.

"Hahaha, Brother Cheng." Li Lu was also very happy to see Cheng Zongyang, and said, "Fortunately, I have fulfilled my mission this time. I have visited several towns around Yufeng County and brought back everything I could."

"Brother, there's no rush. Zhao Laoqi, make arrangements immediately to welcome brother." Cheng Zongyang said with a smile.

"Oh, yes, yes, I'll arrange it right away." Zhao Laoqi nodded excitedly.

An hour later, only Cheng Zongyang and Li Lu were left in the backyard hall, while Zhao Laoqi and others went to make arrangements for their subordinates.

On the table, there are fish, meat, vegetables, soup and wine.

The dishes were not rich, but relatively speaking, they were rare in a county town where food was scarce.

Of course, some of the vegetables and fresh meat were brought by Cheng Zongyang from the wilderness and kept in his residence for his own consumption.

Just ask someone to go back to him and get some back.

After three rounds of drinking, Li Lu and Cheng Zongyang talked about the situation. Cheng Zongyang also listened carefully.

When he learned that most towns were deserted, he was extremely sad. But it also gave Li Lu and his team a good opportunity to collect medicinal herbs.

According to the later story, only more than 5,000 kilograms of food were brought back, after all, most of it was consumed on the way.

But we brought back three to four thousand kilograms of medicinal materials on the prescription, plus other medicinal materials, the total was about five to six thousand kilograms.

We gathered some people on the way and collected a lot of carts and wheelbarrows, so that we had enough people to send them back to the county town.

Of course, there were dangers, but with Li Lu, an eighth-grade warrior, the dangers were averted.

Nowadays, almost all the warriors in Xiangyang have fled, so they will not stay to suffer.

It can be said that the journey was smooth and without any danger.

"Brother Cheng, come here. I'll show you some good stuff. I collected it specially."

As he said that, Li Lu put down his chopsticks and walked towards the three locked large boxes nearby.

Li Lu twisted the locks of two of the large boxes and opened them. He saw silver ingots neatly placed in the two boxes.

Although it is not dazzling, the visual impact is still strong.

Seeing this, Cheng Zongyang's heart trembled violently, and the first thought that came to his mind was - the wilderness world can finally expand!

He looked at Li Lu, who was full of excitement, and asked, "How much is this?"

Li Lu chuckled: "Aren't you curious about where this came from?"

Seeing their appearance, Cheng Zongyang smiled and said, "They are all of the same specifications. They are either from the government or collected by a merchant family, right?"

As he said this, he walked over, took an ingot and looked at it.

A few words were engraved on the bottom - thirty taels of silver.

This means that the official silver is thirty taels. This is a unified stamp, even if it is privately recast, it must be stamped.

"Hahaha, they are from a merchant family. The money of those officials has long been plundered by outsiders. We found this in the basement of a mansion where a family was exterminated.

After counting, this large box was worth 5,400 taels of silver. The two boxes were worth 10,800 taels.

Brother Cheng, it is unbelievable that a family in one town can have such a large amount of deposits. However, it is all ours now. Hahahaha!"

its mine.

Cheng Zongyang muttered silently in his heart.

Ten thousand eight hundred taels is just enough to allow his wilderness world to expand once!
Li Lu has to give this money to him willingly.

"It's really good. We got a rich harvest." Cheng Zongyang nodded with a smile. Then he looked at a big box beside him and asked, "What's in it?"

Li Lu twisted the padlock again, opened it, and said excitedly:

"Here are the martial arts techniques, skills, and prescriptions I collected from martial arts schools, government offices, and families. There are also some books that I don't understand, which I found in some basements or secret rooms. Brother Cheng, you are knowledgeable, so I brought them back for you to take a look."

But Cheng Zongyang was not in a hurry to look, but looked at Li Lu strangely: "Brother, how did you find so many basements, secret rooms and the like?"

Hearing this, Li Lu sneered and said, "I have been a yamen runner for so many years. Which of those families, merchants, martial arts schools, etc. does not have secret rooms or other places to store things?
I told my men to knock on these places with hammers, and they found some, but many of them were emptied, probably because the original owners moved away first.

We focus on finding mansions where the bodies of the people who died were exterminated and no one has taken care of them. That’s where there’s a chance of finding something good.”

After listening to this, Cheng Zongyang couldn't help but give Li Lu a thumbs up.

"Brother, the older you are, the wiser you are. I admire you!"

"Hahaha, no, no. Come on, check those books to see if they are useful. Also, how much of these martial arts techniques and skills can you exchange with your master?"

This is why Li Lu collected these things back. The things that were left in Yufeng County were also taken away by Cheng Zongyang under the pretext of exchanging medicinal bath materials.

Having tasted the sweetness, Li Lu knew that these skills and martial arts were not as valuable as a few kilograms of rice and flour in Yufeng County today. He also knew that they would be more valuable if sold in Luoyang.

Cheng Zongyang didn't answer, but took out a book from the box.

《Detailed Explanation of Meridians》

Seeing the title, Cheng Zongyang flipped open the book and took a look. Inside were pictures depicting the direction of the meridians in the human body. At the same time, each picture had a detailed explanation.

After reading more than ten pages, Cheng Zongyang nodded slightly.

This is somewhat similar to the explanation of the meridians in the Sixth Grade Open Meridian Cultivation Method recorded in his breath-holding method.

But it is far less detailed than his breath-holding method.

But relatively speaking, it is not bad. At least it can let warriors understand the details of the meridians.

After putting it down, take another one.

The Essentials of Physical Fitness

I flipped through a few pages as usual, which talked about the things to pay attention to when doing body building, as well as the key areas of body building.

For people like Zhao Laoqi who have not yet reached the level of enlightenment, this is still a pretty good book.

"A General Collection of 100 Forging Tools", "Qian's Pharmacopoeia", "Health Preservation Methods", "Martial Arts Lectures", "Anecdotes"...

After that are the martial arts techniques and skills.

"Body Building Basics", "Skin, Flesh, Tendon and Bone Tempering Method"... "Mountain Collapse Fist", "Wave Breaking Knife Method", "Mountain Opening Six Styles", "Iron Leg Skill"...

Li Lu didn't interrupt him, but sat back at the table and started eating slowly.

Cheng Zongyang flipped through the books one by one and had a rough idea of ​​what they were about.

These classics may be worth collecting for those families and martial arts schools, but to Cheng Zongyang, they are just ordinary books.

As for the skills, they are basically the lower third grade martial arts skills, and the martial arts are basically elementary or intermediate martial arts.

But these books are good things for the village.

Not only can it increase the number of books in the clan, but it can also increase the options for martial artists in the clan, so that not everyone has the same martial arts.

Finally, some prescriptions.

But they are basically used to assist in martial arts practice. If there was no Zhang Jinquan, these prescriptions would be good. But now, they are all useless to Cheng Zongyang.

These prescriptions are general formulas of the martial arts school, and are certainly not as numerous or as targeted as the ones given by Zhang Jinquan.

Cheng Zongyang put down the prescription, then pretended to take out a pen and paper, wrote down all these things, and then said to Li Lu:
"I'll write this down and send it to my master so they can give me an estimate. Also, what are you going to do with the money? If you want to keep it for yourself, I won't write it down."

Li Lu smiled and said, "Where can I use the money in the county now? The best way is to exchange it for cultivation resources to strengthen myself. Brother Cheng, I'll give you half of this money, and you can help me exchange the remaining half for materials suitable for my cultivation."

Cheng Zongyang didn't care whether the other party's words were sincere or false, and smiled and shook his head:
"No merit, no reward. This money is brought back by you and other brothers with great effort. I won't take it. But since you want to exchange it for supplies, why not listen to my thoughts?"

Li Lu thought about it and nodded, "You say."

"If you exchange all these skills for Body Tempering Powder, you can get at least 10 or 20 of them. If you do it well, you should be able to cultivate to the seventh level. Even if not, you can still cultivate to the peak of the eighth level.

As for those silver coins, just give them to me as the cost of purchasing the medicinal powder. I'll consider it as taking advantage of you, brother.

I will give these powders to you after I prepare them, and you can choose your trusted people. By then, those people will be your trusted people. How do you think about this?"

Li Lu thought about it and said with a smile: "Okay, I'll do as you say."

If he had warriors under him, he would be good indeed. This time, without warriors, he had to deal with many things, which was quite helpless. But with warriors, he felt comfortable as the boss.

After the decision was made, both of them were happy.

After dinner, Li Lu asked someone to deliver three boxes of things to Cheng Zongyang’s residence.

All the medicinal materials were sent to the warehouse in the south of the city and were handled by Cheng Zongyang himself.

Mansion, backyard study.

Cheng Zongyang sat at the table, drafting a new oath contract.

If there is not much interest involved, everything is easy to talk about.

When a person's strength increases and he has more people under his command, something called ambition will emerge.

The reason why he asked Li Lu to cultivate his confidants was for resources!

If he wanted to train a trusted warrior, he would have to have a lot of resources. But the only channel he could get these resources from was here.

This ultimately means that in order to obtain resources for cultivation, Li Lu will only continue to obtain money and other materials in exchange.

In addition, when he has more confidants under him, they all want to become stronger. Even if Li Lu doesn't want to continue doing it, his subordinates will push him to do it.

This will create a chain reaction.

Just like aristocratic families, they control the upward channels for scholars.

Although he can't do that yet, he can always plan slowly.

Finally, it is the oath contract.

He drafted it as——a cooperation agreement.

This new contract is also intended to constrain cooperation, but it is not the right time yet.

When the time is right, he will take out this new oath contract. By then, those people will be willing.

Next, he was thinking about how much Body Tempering Powder he could exchange for those skills.

After a moment, Cheng Zongyang made a decision.

In the current territory of Xiangyang, there are medicines that help eighth-grade warriors improve. Fifty taels is not too much, right? Sending it from Luoyang so far away, there must be travel expenses, right?
It's normal that after picking and choosing, some are slightly valuable and some are not, right?
After some calculations, those skills were roughly worth two thousand five hundred taels of silver and twenty-five packages of Body Tempering Powder. Normally, it could help Li Lu to upgrade to the seventh level.

Well, that should be possible...right?

The reason why I didn't exchange the medicinal bath ingredients for the body-tempering powder was to prevent him from tasting so much sweetness.

Of course, he would use the 10,800 taels of silver to prepare the medicinal bath ingredients replaced by his second uncle.

Li Lu made a profit by exchanging silver for the cost of the premium medicinal bath. Otherwise, if he sold them separately, three or four hundred taels would be a bargain.

As for the Wu Gu Nei Bu Wan, he will talk about it in a while using the excuse of "replying to the letter" and can also take this opportunity to launch a cooperation agreement.

After it was confirmed, Cheng Zongyang had completed the task.

The money had been deposited in the warehouse and he could take it out at any time. He had already put the books and other things into the wilderness world.

(End of this chapter)