NOVEL NEXT Chapter 24: Selling Spirit Grass
Chapter 24: Selling Spirit Grass
“Last year, Dad heard from people in town that the Tianyan Sect intends to promote Spirit Ox No. 3, allowing villagers to buy spirit ox calves to raise at home this year, shortly after the spring break ends,” Li Shan said happily.
Spirit Ox No. 3 was actually Level 1 Spirit Ox Farming No. 3, but everyone found it too much of a mouthful, so they just called it Spirit Ox No. 3.
“The Tianyan Sect is really generous, making their carefully bred Spirit Ox No. 3 available to ordinary people. Aren’t they afraid that some people might buy the spirit oxen and raise them for nefarious purposes instead of farming?” Li Jiang both marveled and wondered.
“The Tianyan Sect is such a large organization, they must have their ways,” Li Shan said uncertainly.
Li Jiang marveled again: “However, the most outstanding features of Spirit Ox No. 3 are its farming ability and its particularly docile nature. It can’t run fast and can barely be used for ox carts, which actually suits our family.”
The village’s threshing ground was the highest point in the village, located on the west side, relatively close to Tao Mountain.
When Li Shan and his group arrived at the threshing ground, there were already quite a few people there.
When they saw Li Shan, they all greeted him with smiles: “The Village Head is here!”
Li Shan also smiled and nodded in response.
Although the weather was gloomy, it didn’t affect everyone’s good mood.
Only a few people were praying that it wouldn’t rain as they looked at the gloomy sky, because they hadn’t prepared oilcloths.
After about fifteen minutes, villagers continued to arrive at the threshing ground, but the scene wasn’t chaotic. Instead, it appeared quite orderly.
Everyone formed a long queue in a circular shape around the round threshing ground, with the head of the queue on the outermost side and the tail on the innermost side. Everyone tacitly left a pathway for newcomers to enter and queue on the inner side, forming concentric circles.
At this moment, a man dressed in green clothes with flowing ribbons descended from the sky onto the threshing ground.
This man had his black hair tied up high, with thick eyebrows and large eyes, and it was hard to tell his age.
Judging from his ability to fly on a sword, he should be at the Foundation Establishment stage, as cultivators can fly on swords after reaching Foundation Establishment.
The man placed one hand on his chest and performed a Tianyan Sect disciple salute with a bright smile, then said, “Fellow villagers, I am an outer disciple of the Tianyan Sect here to collect the Clear Eye Grass. You may call me Manager Liu. Without further ado, let’s begin.”
Then he took out a spiritual tool and placed it on the empty space in front of him. This spiritual tool looked quite strange, with a huge funnel on top and three separate platforms below. The funnel and platforms were three feet apart, connected by a metal rod in the middle.
On each platform was a small palm-sized bag.
There had never been such a spiritual tool for collecting Clear Eye Grass before, and everyone was quite curious.
Manager Liu, with a full smile and very friendly demeanor, said, “This year, the sect has given us this spiritual tool called ‘Clarity’ to assist disciples in selecting the quality of spirit grass. It’s named after the meaning of ‘clear at a glance.’ Everyone just needs to pour their Clear Eye Grass into the funnel at the top, and the spiritual tool will automatically sort them by quality and display the quantity of each quality.”
“Is this spiritual tool really that magical?” a villager boldly asked, with many others agreeing.
“We’ve tested it many times before, and this spiritual tool has always been perfectly accurate. Fellow villagers can use it with confidence,” Manager Liu responded to the villagers’ doubts without any displeasure, still smiling.
The villager at the head of the queue skeptically poured their Clear Eye Grass into the large funnel. Sure enough, ‘Clarity’ listed out the numbers of each quality of grass, displayed on the large funnel, visible to both the villagers and Manager Liu.
With someone taking the lead, the process sped up. Many villagers were amazed at how time and effort-saving this spiritual tool was.
Soon, it was Li Shan’s turn in the queue.
Li Shan and his two sons poured all the Clear Eye Grass from their baskets into the funnel. Quickly, the numbers for each quality appeared.
Manager Liu looked at these three numbers and let out a surprised “Oh!”
“The Clear Eye Grass from your spirit fields is of really high quality!” It was almost top-grade among the high-grade.
Li Shan remained calm: “We took great care at home, and this year’s Clear Eye Grass is indeed good.”
Hearing this, Manager Liu looked at Li Shan with a smile and said, “Speaking of which, the Clear Eye Grass from your village is indeed of higher quality than those from surrounding villages. It seems everyone is very meticulous.”
This statement showed he had no intention of investigating further.
Li Shan pretended to know nothing, “The people in the village are indeed skilled farmers.”
Manager Liu put spirit stones into a bag and handed it to Li Shan: “In total, there are two medium-grade spirit stones and two hundred and sixty-eight low-grade spirit stones. You can verify the numbers.” His voice was low, only between him and Li Shan.
This amount of spirit stones was not a small sum, even he was a bit envious. If other villagers knew about it, who knows what might happen?
Li Shan accepted his goodwill. After counting the spirit stones and confirming they were correct, he walked close to Manager Liu and quietly handed him a small pouch.
Manager Liu reached out to take it, discreetly weighing it in his hand, and felt immediately satisfied.
Fifty low-grade spirit stones, this Taohua Village head was a sensible person.
This trip had already been worth it.
On the way back, Li He and Li Jiang were both a bit excited.
“Dad, did our family really earn so many spirit stones?” Li Jiang, in particular, asked several times.
Although their family had been able to earn this many spirit stones from selling Clear Eye Grass every year since his father had used many years of savings to buy seventy mu of land in one go three years ago, and then hired people to reclaim fifty mu of land, he was still very happy.
Their family’s life was really getting better and better.
In fact, he still felt a bit unreal, because although his family had been a well-known wealthy household in the village before, they had always been supporting his elder brother and him in learning talisman drawing and tool refining. Even the wealthiest family assets could barely sustain their consumption.
It wasn’t until a few years ago when his elder brother started to achieve some success and give back to the family that they began to recover. Coincidentally, the Tianyan Sect distributed new spirit seeds five years ago, and his father and elder brother saw the opportunity hidden in Clear Eye Grass. They gritted their teeth and saved spirit stones for two years, until three years ago when they bought or reclaimed more spirit fields. He also achieved some success in learning tool refining, and their family suddenly started getting better and better, even better than before.
For some inexplicable reason, Li Xi really wanted to master the hand seals for the Fireball Technique, but in reality, she was still a bit confused. The Fireball Technique had nothing to do with farming, so why did she want to learn it so badly?
So Li Xi was still struggling with the hand seals for the Fireball Technique when she heard her father and elder brother’s voices outside the courtyard, along with the noisy voices of her three young nieces and nephews.
She immediately put down the Fireball Technique and quickly ran to the courtyard: “Dad! Elder Brother, Second Brother, you’re back!”
Wu Jingwan and Liu Qiniang also walked over, each taking one of the children.
Wu Jingwan, leading Song’er and Xing’er, smiled gently: “Dad, husband, Second Brother, you’ve come back just in time. Dinner is ready, you can freshen up and then we can eat.”
Liu Qiniang picked up Bai’er and also smiled: “You’ve worked hard today, Dad, Elder Brother, and Brother Jiang!”
Li Shan and his two brothers also smiled and responded with a few words, then quickly went to put away the cart and other things. Then the whole family sat down to eat dinner and chat.
During the meal, Li Jiang vividly described to everyone how the Tianyan Sect disciple who came today was like, and how the Clarity spiritual tool worked. Everyone listened with great interest.
After finishing the delicious dinner, the highlight of the day came.
Wang Xiuniang sat in the main seat and looked at the father and sons: “How many spirit stones did we earn today?”
Wu Jingwan, Liu Qiniang, and Li Xi all sat on chairs, leaning forward slightly, looking expectantly at the father and sons.
Li Shan didn’t beat around the bush and said directly: “Today we earned two medium-grade spirit stones and two hundred and sixty-eight low-grade spirit stones.”
“We earned so much this year?” Liu Qiniang covered her mouth in surprise.
In previous years, they could earn just over two medium-grade spirit stones, more or less, but this year they had over two hundred more low-grade spirit stones.
Don’t think that two hundred low-grade spirit stones are just small change because it takes a thousand low-grade spirit stones to exchange for one medium-grade spirit stone. In their village, apart from their family, the households with the most spirit fields could only earn eight or nine hundred low-grade spirit stones in total, so two hundred plus low-grade spirit stones was really not a small amount.
“I gave fifty spirit stones to the managing disciple who came to collect the Clear Eye Grass, so we have two hundred and eighteen low-grade spirit stones left,” Li Shan added.
Wang Xiuniang immediately said: “That’s as it should be.”