From the fusion of Tongbei Quan to the Longevity Martial Saint

As night fell, the Mountain and River Boxing Academy gradually quieted down.

Fang Qing also rented a horse and headed back to Jinsha Saltworks.

He fulfilled his duties as the head of the saltworks at Jinsha Saltworks.

He also bought some cooked meat and a pot of wine.

I'm planning to have a good drink with Uncle Yang tonight.

……

Back in his courtyard house, Fang Qing noticed that Uncle Yang was still working.

The salt fields have been quite busy lately, and Yang Zhi must still be busy piling the extracted salt up the salt mountain.

Fang Qing had already heated the wine in advance and then cut up the cooked food and placed it on a plate.

Meanwhile, I cleaned some seafood that I had dug up from the bottom of the reservoir a few days ago, planning to make a hot pot.

Although the winters in the Huaihe River region are not as cold as those in the north.

However, during the Great Qian Dynasty, the temperature reached close to 0 degrees Celsius in winter.

When the weather is cold, even the sea near the coast can freeze.

Fang Qing waited a while longer, and then heard footsteps coming from outside the mansion.

Fang Qing went outside and immediately saw Yang Zhi, covered in mud, carrying a stretcher and hurrying over.

"Lord Fang is back! Let Lord Fang take a look at Tiger."

Soon, several salt farmers placed a stretcher in front of Fang Qing.

Lying on the stretcher was one of Fang Qing's former neighbors.

This young man named Hu Zi was a year or two younger than Fang Qing. His parents, like Fang Qing's, had both perished during a raid on their salt fields by salt bandits.

So Tiger, like Fang Qing, is also an orphan.

At this moment, Hu Zi's right leg twisted into an impossible arc.

The foot was bent backwards, clearly broken.

Tiger was covered in mud, and his trousers were stained with blood.

Especially since he was holding a huge block of ice tied with straw rope in his arms.

The ice blocks looked to weigh nearly forty or fifty pounds.

Even with his legs broken, Tiger still desperately clung tightly to the large block of ice, refusing to let go.

Yang Zhi quickly came to Fang Qing and explained in a low voice:

"Recently, many tenant farmers from the nearby village have been sneaking into our brine pool at night to steal brine with high concentrations of salt water."

"In winter, the brine will freeze after it cools down."

"The tenants in these villages would secretly break the ice into pieces, tie them together with straw ropes, carry them on their backs, and run away."

"We salt farmers eat very little green vegetables, and we already suffer from night blindness. Plus, we're not as physically strong as the tenant farmers!"

Salt workers in the salt fields were known to outsiders as salt beggars.

It's because they don't eat well or dress warmly.

Tenants at least have some grain to eat on ordinary days, and they might even be able to eat some fine grains like rice and noodles during festivals.

The tenant farmers in the salt fields really ate stale millet, which was so tough it hurt their throats when they swallowed it.

In the past, there wasn't even enough green and yellow millet to eat, so they could only eat a little rice and drink the soup.

"Plus, it was dark and the roads were slippery, and we weren't as physically strong as the young tenants, so we could only watch and worry."

"This has caused us to suffer heavy losses from the high concentration of our brine during this period."

After Yang Zhi's explanation, Fang Qing finally understood.

As the year draws to a close, the temperature here by the sea has plummeted, and the high-concentration brine they extract from the salt fields will freeze.

As the saying goes, those who live near mountains live off the mountains, and those who live near water live off the water.

The tenant farmers in the villages near the salt fields naturally depended on these salt fields for their livelihood.

In previous years, there were also some tenant farmers on the estate.

In winter, when the brine freezes, people would take some of the highly concentrated brine back to use as salt, but this practice was clearly not as rampant as it is this year.

At this moment, Yang Zhi's face was filled with anger:

"The last few days were fine. These tenant farmers would sneak into the brine pool to steal our highly concentrated brine while we were asleep in the middle of the night."

"But lately they've become increasingly brazen. Before we even finished work, these people sneaked over under the cover of darkness to steal brine."

"Tiger happened to see it, and then he got into a fight with the tenants from the estate who were stealing the brine."

Yang Zhi doesn't need to say anything more.

Tiger was, after all, just a young boy.

He used to be exploited by Li Zaotou and never got enough to eat. He was probably less than 1.5 meters tall, thin and small.

Now that Fang Qing has taken over the kitchen, they can finally have enough to eat.

But after all, he hasn't grown taller yet.

They were no match for those tenant farmers.

His leg was broken directly.

At this moment, Hu Zi was still tightly holding the 50-pound block of brine that he had snatched back, lying on the stretcher.

She looked at Fang Qing with pleading eyes.

"Brother Qing, is my leg broken? Will I be a cripple from now on? Brother Qing, please save me."

Fang Qing used to play with the children from the neighborhood, and everyone called him Brother Qing.

Fang Qing lowered his head and looked at Hu Zi's broken leg.

My lower leg is broken, and the bone fragments are piercing through my skin and exposed.

The injuries are very serious.

It looks like the tenant farmer smashed Hu Zi's leg with the 50-plus kilogram block of highly concentrated brine that Hu Zi was carrying.

Fang Qing quickly had someone fetch two planks.

Then he took out some wound medicine that could only be used by the Mountain and River Boxing Academy from his pocket.

Martial arts practitioners always carry wound medicine with them.

The wound medicine was sprinkled on Tiger's broken leg, and immediately a scream of agony came from him.

Fang Qing quickly found a piece of wood and had Hu Zi bite it.

To prevent Tiger from biting his tongue when we put the splint on him later.

"Bear with it..."

After making the preparations, Fang Qing directly straightened Hu Zi's bones with his bare hands.

The pain of broken bones, without any anesthesia, caused Tiger to scream in agony on the stretcher, rolling around on the ground.

I wish I could grab the ice cubes of the highly concentrated brine I was holding and put them into my hands.

Before long, all the fingernails were picked off, and the ice was covered with bloodstains from all ten fingers.

After straightening the broken bone, Fang Qing used a wooden board to clamp Hu Zi's leg and then wrapped a layer of cloth around it.

"Tiger's leg will remain immobilized like this. Uncle Yang, please arrange for someone to take care of him and prevent him from walking. As for whether he will become lame in the future, we can only leave it to fate."

Fang Qing wasn't a medical student, after all.

Simple bone setting is fine, but for more serious fractures like this, Fang Qing doesn't have any particularly good solutions.

Tiger was carried back home by four salt farmers.

The ice cube he was holding tightly lay quietly on the open ground next to him.

It glittered in the torchlight!

The bloodstains on it were still faintly visible...

If it were during the time when Li Zaotou was in charge, people like Hu Zi would basically be extinct.

After all, there are specific cutoff lines for the entire salt field.

Orphans like Hu Zi, without parental protection and with a broken leg, would be unable to work at the saltworks for at least the short term.

For Li Zaotou, Hu Zi became a burden to the entire saltworks.

Tiger will soon die from his broken bones because he won't be able to get medical treatment.

In addition, there were previously some powerful salt merchants like Li Laolai who plotted to seize his thatched hut and other assets.

As long as Li Laolai utters a single word, no one in the neighborhood will dare to lend Hu Zi any grain.

That would be enough to starve Tiger to death.

Now that Fang Qing has instructed Yang Zhi to arrange for someone to take care of Hu Zi, at least Hu Zi's life has been saved...

……