Folk customs begin with the entire funeral procession

Chapter 213 The Effects of Stone Within Gold (Part Two)

"Most East Asian pincer scorpions are five or six centimeters long, so those over eight centimeters are very rare. I have about eight boxes with around four thousand of them here."

Although Chen Miao didn't ask why the eight-centimeter one was expensive, Shi Lang still gave an explanation.

How many of them were male scorpions?

"Two-thirds."

Chen Miao calculated that it seemed to be just enough for him to refine the second stage of scorpions.

2400 pieces, three yuan each, not too expensive.

Chen Miao casually asked about the number of scorpions that were five to seven centimeters long.

"There are about a hundred boxes."

One hundred boxes?

One box contains 500 scorpions, and 100 boxes would contain 50,000 scorpions. That's still 70,000 scorpions short of the third stage.

Based on this calculation, Chen Miao could acquire a batch of East Asian pincers scorpions sufficient for cultivation to the third stage for just 200,000 yuan, which is much cheaper than what he saw online.

The problem is, there are over two hundred boxes! That's almost half a farm!
If they really moved to the Tianmen Funeral Home, it would be too conspicuous.

Therefore, even if Chen Miao could afford the price of the East Asian Scorpion, he couldn't possibly buy so many at once.

Unless Chen Miao trains him directly here, then there's no need to move.

The problem is that Chen Miao wiped out more than two hundred boxes of scorpions in a short time without saying a word, and who knows what Shi Lang might be thinking.

Sokun buys emperor scorpions in batches, and he definitely doesn't just buy them from this breeding base, otherwise he wouldn't be able to gather so many scorpions.

If Suo Kun is so cautious, there's no reason for Chen Miao to be so flamboyant.

After thinking it over, Chen Miao decided not to train the third stage.

Alternatively, Chen Miao could wait until he has accumulated considerable wealth and then buy the scorpion breeding base.

At that time, there will be much more room for maneuver.

After thinking it through, Chen Miao asked the boss to select 2,500 scorpions that were over eight centimeters long.

The boss was somewhat disappointed when he heard that only five boxes were ordered.

While the boss was busy, Chen Miao continued to watch the scorpions inside.

As he looked around, Chen Miao suddenly had a question.

Since the purpose of the Ghost Scorpion's breeding stage is to produce scorpions of better quality, what if the scorpion itself is of high quality?
Which is of higher quality, the scorpion itself or the cultured scorpion?

Is it possible for uncultured scorpions to be of higher quality than cultured scorpions?

If the base number is large enough, there will definitely be some.

But the question is, how do you distinguish between high and low quality?

Can Shi Lang tell the difference?
Shi Lang's method of judgment is based on the size of the scorpion. Larger ones are certainly better, but not all large ones are better than small ones. It can only be said that among large scorpions, the probability of high quality is greater.

This is also why Chen Miao chose to buy the large scorpion.

"If only we could tell the quality of these scorpions..."

Chen Miao was suddenly taken aback.

quality?

He seems to have a corresponding state as well.

"Stone Gold, can you identify the highest quality scorpion among them?"

Chen Miao was unsure, but that didn't stop him from trying.

Immediately, he looked at the box of scorpions in front of him and activated his Stone Gold state!
Soon, Chen Miao's gaze was drawn to one of the scorpions.

The scorpion lay motionless in a corner.

The scorpion in his line of sight wasn't glowing, but under the influence of the Stone of Gold, Chen Miao couldn't help but focus his gaze on it.

Chen Miao was puzzled and reached out his hand, preparing to tap the spot where the scorpion was.

But as soon as the finger reached out, before it could even tap the glass box, the scorpion instantly darted away and hid itself under the tiles.

The scorpion's agility gave Chen Miao hope for the effects of the stone.

"It seems that the stone in the gold is useful!"

"So, I can probably identify the highest quality scorpion from each box?"

"And it's not just one. After I take the best one away, I can still find the best one among the remaining scorpions."

"So, in other words, I can actually rank all the scorpions?"

"Unfortunately, I only have one chance to use the Stone of Gold per hour. If I were to use it, I should try to see as many scorpions as possible and then pick out the best one!"

"After all, even if you don't sleep all day, you can only pick out twenty-four!"

Regardless, the effects of Shi Zhongjin surprised Chen Miao.

Once back home, Chen Miao could test whether his previous guesses were correct.

"However, the Golden Fruit in the Stone reveals it to be the highest quality among similar items. But what exactly does this quality refer to?"

"If you can spot a scorpion, can you spot other things, like... a person?"

"If we're talking about people, how do we judge a person's qualities within a group? Does this quality refer to physical fitness? Or their level of health?"

Chen Miao raised an eyebrow slightly.

"However, even if you can tell the level of health, it's not very useful. It would be somewhat useful if you could tell at a glance who is in the worst health."

After thinking it over, Chen Miao decided to give it a try and see what effect Shi Zhongjin would have on people.

Just then, Shi Lang walked in.

"Mr. Chen, the scorpions you requested have all been prepared. I noticed your car isn't very big, so I packed them into two boxes. Once you get back, you can take the contents out and divide them into four or six boxes, it's fine."

"If that doesn't work, give me an address and I'll send you two more boxes."

Chen Miao followed Shi Lang out for a look. The box was packed full, with scorpion nests and scorpions inside.

"Thank you, Mr. Shi. That's all for now. I still have things to pack over there."

Chen Miao didn't care, since he was going to raise the scorpion for Gu poison in the next couple of days, and as long as it didn't die, that was fine.

After paying, Chen Miao left, watched by Shi Lang.

……

It was already 4 p.m. when we got back to Tianmen County.

Chen Miao first sent the scorpions to an empty room he had cleaned in the basement of the dormitory building. Then he smeared a mixture of sulfur and realgar around the room to prevent any scorpions from escaping and stinging the people in the building.

Although this scorpion's venom isn't very strong, a sting will definitely leave a large welt.

After settling the scorpion in, Chen Miao went to the street and bought fifty jars.

The jar isn't large, but it's more than enough to hold forty-nine scorpions.

After everything was ready, Chen Miao prepared two kinds of medicine according to the instructions in the "Ghost Scorpion Breeding Manual".

One type is scorpion poison that makes scorpions kill each other, and the other is scorpion repellent that prevents scorpions from stinging you.

This scorpion-repelling medicine has a different effect than realgar and sulfur.

This scorpion repellent won't be repelled by scorpions. Just apply it to your hands, and the scorpions will treat Chen Miao's hands like sand or something similar and won't attack.

It was already six o'clock when the two scorpion medicines were prepared.

After quickly eating the meal that Shi Manman had brought, Chen Miao headed towards the basement.

Upon arriving at the location, Chen Miao's first action was not to put the scorpions into the jar, but to remove all the debris from the two scorpion nests.

Once he could see most of the scorpions in the two boxes clearly, Chen Miao activated the Stone Gold again!
Having found his target, Chen Miao reached out and pulled the scorpion out of the container, placing it separately in a jar.

Chen Miao would do this every hour thereafter.

At nine o'clock, Chen Miao picked out the fourth scorpion. Only after that did he start putting the remaining scorpions into the other jars.

It was half an hour later when forty-nine scorpions were placed into each of the forty-nine jars.

Looking at the jars, Chen Miao took out the powder containing scorpion medicine and poured some into each jar.

For each one poured in, Chen Miao had to squeeze a drop of blood from his fingertip.

Chen Miao had to prick all ten of his fingers with needles to complete the task of making forty-nine jars.

After it was over, Chen Miao glanced at the time.

Nine forty.

"We'll see results by 9:40 tomorrow night."

Chen Miao took one last look at the jar before leaving the basement. Only rustling sounds and barely perceptible gnawing noises remained in the room.

……

The next morning, when Chen Miao went to the cafeteria for breakfast, he activated the Stone in Gold.

Among the people in the cafeteria, the one Chen Miao immediately spotted was not the gatekeeper Qi Hui, nor the salesman Kong Fang, nor even the cooks at the cafeteria entrance, but... Li Fu!
Chen Miao was stunned as he watched Li Fu leave with his hands behind his back.

If the 'quality' that Shi Zhongjin sees refers to a person's physical health, then it means that so many young people are not as healthy as an old man?
Recalling the set of military boxing that the old man had practiced that morning, Chen Miao seemed to be deep in thought.

Regardless, it's true that Shi Zhongjin can read people.

Perhaps Shi Zhongjin will be able to see more once he advances to the next stage?

pity……

Chen Miao shook his head and left the cafeteria.

Chen Miao presided over a memorial service in the morning, and left the afternoon session to Luo Zhiyong, while Chen Miao himself was splitting a peach wood sword.

Chen Miao wasn't going to make do with the peach wood sword that the old ghost had damaged.

However, the sword itself is still made of century-old peach wood. Although it can no longer exert the power of the Seven Star Peach Wood Sword, after it is split open and the damaged parts are discarded, the other parts can still be reworked into peach talismans and peach wood chips.

It took Chen Miao two hours to process five peach charms and a pile of sawdust.

After seeing the location of the black handprint, Chen Miao fell silent.

He initially thought the mummified corpse had only left a handprint on the surface of the sword, but when he cleaved the sword open, he saw blackness seeping into it.

Only the core of the sword retained its original wood color; the rest was completely stained black.

"Just how far has that thing progressed?"

Chen Miao even suspected that the mummified corpse alone was stronger than the unfinished flying zombie from before, and it was the unweakened unfinished flying zombie.

Looking at it this way, Chen Miao's ranking in his mind seems to be correct.

I stopped thinking about it; thinking about it too much would only cause more trouble.

After finishing the peach wood sword, Chen Miao took out the century-old peach wood that was still mostly intact.

He prepared to make another spare sword himself, and as he was about to start, he remembered what Zhao Gongzi had said.

"Should we give this piece of wood to Zhao Gongzi to process?"

With Zhao Gongzi's craftsmanship, the Seven Star Peach Wood Sword he crafted would definitely be more aesthetically pleasing than the one Chen Miao made himself, and it would also save Chen Miao time in making the peach wood sword.

But after thinking it over, Chen Miao did not do so.

Although his dishes didn't look particularly appealing, the results were quite good.

Moreover, as he makes them himself, his skills will only improve, which will also benefit his wood carving skills.

Although it's a waste of time, it's not something you do every day. As you do more and become more proficient, you'll naturally get better and faster at it.

There's no need to entrust this matter to Zhao Gongzi.

After figuring it out, Chen Miao began making a spare peach wood sword.

Even by lunchtime, Chen Miao was still only halfway through his peach wood sword project.

After tidying up, Chen Miao decided not to continue today; he would continue the rest later.

After finishing their meal, Chen Miao followed Shi Manman to check out her recent skills. After discovering that she was already quite proficient in sewing coffins, Chen Miao taught Shi Manman the blind sewing techniques from the fundamental secrets of the "Southern School of Corpse Sewing Techniques".

If Shi Manman can complete the blind stitching, then according to the "Southern School of Corpse Stitching Secrets", she can be called a "thread-manager".

However, blind stitching is not simply about sewing the body together with your eyes closed and considering it a success.

Blind stitching refers to the technique of stitching a corpse together using the methods described in "The Secret Techniques of Southern School Corpse Stitching".

One can be called a "thread-cleaning boy" if one completes one corpse, but a true thread-cleaning boy cannot only handle one type of corpse.

Therefore, the road ahead for the thread-threading child is long and arduous.

After "Li Xian Tong" there was "Zhui Gu Sheng", but that was about recognizing shapes, which meant being able to reconstruct the appearance of the deceased based on bone fragments.

This kind of thing can't be done at a funeral home.

If things progress slowly but quickly, Chen Miao will have to think of a way to find a way to send his apprentice to the police station or management bureau so that he can do forensic work and complete the second step of the "Bone-Piercing Rebirth" training.

Once this step is completed, the only thing missing from becoming a true "corpse stitcher" is dealing with a monstrous corpse on their own.

Thinking of this, Chen Miao thought of Xiang Shang again.

It's been almost three months since that guy obtained the methods to draw the Spirit-Suppressing Talisman and the Yin-Dispelling Talisman, and I wonder what's going on with him.

But it's safe to say that guy definitely hasn't finished drawing it yet, otherwise he would have come to show off to him long ago.

Three months passed, and not a single drawing was completed.

It has to be said that talent is quite important.

At nine o'clock in the evening, Chen Miao came to the basement again.

Of the forty-nine jars, nearly half have stopped moving, and the remaining ones are barely moving at all.

"It seems that there is indeed such a thing as aptitude. Those with good aptitude should be able to kill quickly."

As Chen Miao was thinking this, the time quickly came.

After listening carefully and finding no sound, Chen Miao opened the first jar.

Under the light, Chen Miao saw a scorpion that seemed to have eaten too much and was moving its body slowly in a lazy manner.

Chen Miao examined the jar carefully. Besides the scorpion, there was only some scorpion droppings and shed skin.

Apart from that, Chen Miao found nothing else, not even a limb.

Logically speaking, adult scorpions should no longer be able to molt, but the molted skins in the jar clearly indicate that they have molted more than once.

"Although it has molted, its body shape has not changed much, but its color has become much darker yellow. It seems that after this kind of scorpion is raised, its appearance will not change much."

Afterwards, Chen Miao checked the other jars and finally gathered all forty-nine first-stage scorpions back into one jar.

Chen Miao did not start the second stage of cultivation directly. Instead, based on the size of the four scorpions that had been selected separately earlier, he picked out twenty scorpions from the jar.

He then divided the twenty-four scorpions into four jars, six in each.

Five of them are scorpions in the first stage, and the other is an initial, uncultured scorpion.

Chen Miao marked each of the scorpions in the initial stage with a marker.

Then, Chen Miao opened the stone and looked at one of the jars.

The best one in this jar is not the initial scorpion that was picked out earlier.

Chen Miao was somewhat disappointed, but he didn't stop.

An hour later, I checked again and got the same result.

It wasn't until the third check in the early hours of the morning that Chen Miao finally showed a look of surprise.

Chen Miao smiled as he looked at the tagged scorpion in the jar.

"As expected, some scorpions have already reached the first stage of quality even without training!"

"So, if I stay at Shi Lang's scorpion farm for two or three days, I can select enough 49 scorpions to raise to the second stage?"

However, this method is not suitable for East Asian pincers because it takes four or five days, which is not as fast as directly cultivating them. Most importantly, East Asian pincers are not expensive.

If you can exchange money for time, then there's no need to exchange time for money.

If Chen Miao didn't have enough money to choose an Emperor Scorpion, this would be a good option.

Putting aside whether Shi Lang would let him spend three to five days choosing, the key point is that Shi Lang only has three hundred Emperor Scorpions.

There is a difference between one in a hundred, one in a thousand, and one in ten thousand.

"If that's the case, and we really find a scorpion that's one in a million, it might be comparable to a second or even third-stage scorpion?"

Chen Miao's eyes brightened slightly.

The cultivation of ghost scorpions can involve feeding them through three stages of scorpion development, which can be considered a method of compensating for their inherent qualities.

Chen Miao hadn't planned to do this before, because it would be too time-consuming and laborious.

But things are different now. Chen Miao no longer needs to raise them himself. He only needs to go to the breeding base each time and select a dozen or so scorpions with exceptionally high quality. This is much more convenient than using the scorpions he raises himself as feed!

"Perhaps, we can really cultivate a Ghost Scorpion?"

After adding this matter to his future plans, Chen Miao picked out four scorpions from the four jars and threw them back into the box, leaving forty-nine scorpions. He then began the second phase of scorpion cultivation.

He can have his first Ghost Scorpion by tomorrow morning!

……

(End of this chapter)