The pork butcher is smoother than a pig butcher!

Chapter 390 Chief of the Personal Guard
at dusk.

Zuo Wenkang heard from his servant who was picking him up from get off work that two old friends had come to visit.

Zuo Wenkang, who had just finished promoting the colorful silk brocade this year and then replicated the waterwheel cotton loom, paused to think.

It seems that the Zuo and Gan families have hardly anyone left in their hometown.

Unable to figure it out, I could only ask:
"Are they guests from Daming Prefecture?"

"Master, they are the eldest young master's good friends, two Taoist priests, one older and one younger. The eldest young master calls the younger Taoist priest Yuantong and seems to like him very much. By the way, the two Taoist priests also address the head of the family as a kind benefactor."

Is he called Little Taoist Yuantong?

Those were the master and disciple they met at the Ancestral Temple on Mount Qincen during their exile.

Zuo Wenkang understood immediately. Although his son was young, he had a very good memory (except when he was studying).

He would often recount the various events, big and small, that he experienced on his journey into exile to his friends.

Yuantong was a good friend he had mentioned many times.

Hearing that there was fighting inside the pass, he feared that his good friend would starve to death in the temple.

But how could a blind old Taoist priest and a child who had never left the mountain at the Qincen Mountain Ancestral Temple actually come to Guanxi?

It sounds unbelievable.

He was very curious:
"How is the old Taoist priest's health? Did the old man and the child walk here?"

“Master, that senior Taoist priest is only twenty-five years old, not old, is he? As for his health, Imperial Physician Huang took his pulse and said that he has been mentally and physically exhausted for the past six months, has been starving for a long time, and has even eaten poisonous fruits a few times. If he is not properly cared for, his lifespan will be shortened.”

Zuo Wenkang: Hmm?
It turns out he wasn't an old Taoist priest after all.

He was the eldest disciple the old Taoist priest had mentioned before, who had gone down the mountain to buy grain and had never returned!
When the attendant mentioned the Taoist priest, a hint of regret crept into his voice:

"Yuantong said that although his senior brother's mind hadn't matured, he was a martial arts prodigy, learning the Taoist Xingyi Quan. This style of boxing emphasizes 'using intention, not force; intention leads to qi, and qi leads to power.' After learning of his skills, the family head even sparred with him for a quarter of an hour, and then..."

"And then what happened? The patriarch lost?"

"No, no! The patriarch's strength is unmatched; he is the strongest in the world! He won after a quarter of an hour and then gave Daoist Yuanzhi the official position of leader of his personal guards!"

The servant couldn't express his envy.

The position of head of the personal guard had always been held by the head of the family himself, and there had been a previous attempt to select someone of the rank of centurion or higher from the vanguard battalion to fill the role.

But, we really can't find a suitable person.

None of these people could withstand even half a cup of tea's worth of fighting General Gan!
The patriarch's hundred personal guards now enjoy the same treatment and status in Ganluchuan as their eldest son.

They ate carefully selected food, wore the most comfortable cloth armor, and used the best weapons during training.

Needless to say, the warhorses were also warhorses.

Each person had their own Hu horse, worth thousands of taels of silver.

The head of the family usually has high expectations for these boys, but he is also very biased.

While men, women, and children all participated in the wheat harvest, these young men stubbornly refused to go to the fields.

Oh no.

The head of the household said that it wasn't that they weren't allowed to work in the fields, but that they had more important tasks to be assigned to them.

What are they doing?
The head of the family personally led these boys to go hunting in the snow-capped mountains and on the grasslands.

With the Rat King and the Golden Eagle family of three around, how could they not catch prey?
For a whole month, Zhenzhen captured dozens of wild boar herds, red deer, wild goats, gazelles, and thousands of wild rabbits for the garrison.

The people who were working hard to harvest wheat in the fields were eating large mouthfuls of meat, so they couldn't secretly slack off.

If you count on your fingers, it's been less than a year since the patriarch formed his personal guard.

Compared to a year ago, this group of teenagers has undergone a complete transformation.

His height is about the same as Chengding's.

She doesn't look fat.

But he's all muscle. When he runs, he's incredibly fast!
Not only are they physically fit, but they also lack the impetuousness and recklessness often seen in young men at border garrisons.

I heard that they learned to read and write in the school, as well as weapon making, basic pharmacology, and suturing techniques.

They are even randomly selected every month and thrown into deep mountains and forests or vast deserts.

The head of the family calls this "Daily Survival in the Wilderness".

It's unknown how strong these kids are now.

But they had discussed it privately, estimating that no matter where they threw these kids, they should be able to make a living.

As the leader of such outstanding personal guards, the Taoist priest named Yuanzhi must be exceptionally skilled in martial arts.

Zuo Wenkang was unaware of his family's superstitious belief in Yuanzhi's martial arts skills.

He soon saw the two of them at the dinner table that evening.

My own son said so.

He will eat, live, and go to school with this good friend from now on, and never be separated from his good friend again.

The father was envious of the enthusiasm with which the boy served the young Taoist priest food and soup.

What's even worse is that he left his younger sister, whom he always boasted about, behind.

Yuanyuan: "."

It doesn't matter. If my second brother doesn't like the baby, there's still my eldest brother.

Big brother is the best!

A few days ago, I went up the snow mountain and brought her back some beautiful flowers.

At this moment, the eight-foot-tall man, whose mental age was said to be only ten years old, was intently eating a soup bowl twice the size of his head, under the watchful eyes of everyone, so engrossed that he couldn't even lift his head.

The soup is made with fresh wheat flour dumplings, and the broth is made from lamb bones.

It contains mutton and carrots.

This is truly the most delicious noodle soup in the world.

One bowl wasn't enough.

Add another half basin.

Yuanzhi: That's great, that's great! He and his junior brother will be able to have enough to eat from now on.

The clothes on her body and the shoes on her feet were also changed to new ones.

Of course, he wasn't just sitting around doing nothing.

A kind benefactor gave him a job as a leader of children.

Although Yuanzhi wasn't as bright as his junior brother, he knew that the most expensive things at the ancestral temple used to be food and clothing.

Everything is covered, so why would I need to pay wages?
Besides, teaching a group of kids to box is much more interesting than working on a construction site carrying bricks.

I don't know if it's because I ate a big meal earlier, but my punches were much more powerful than usual today.

Gan Minglan: "."

She actually went to great lengths to ensure her personal guard leader was in good health.

When I fought this kid, I secretly helped him clear some blocked meridians and also helped him repair his overworked nerves and some lesions in his spleen and stomach.

Even the dumpling soup that Granny Wang made tonight, Yuanzhi's bowl still contained the essence of the sacred tree that she had secretly added.

She believed that if she treated this Taoist Ruyi Quan practitioner for ten days to half a month, he would likely reach the peak of his martial arts skills within six months.

With such a master teaching them martial arts, what kind of future awaits these young guards?

(End of this chapter)