A Tremendous Improvement
The little fellow ate with great relish.
Before long, his belly had swollen like a ball, and Qin Yan feared the little creature would eat himself to death.
He promptly picked him up and carried him away. That only displeased the little creature, who let out a fierce little squeak.
"All right! You can have more next time."
Qin Yan's eyes lit up as he poked the little fellow's round belly, drawing another series of disgruntled cries.
That night!
Qin Yan made a dish of stir-fried snake meat.
It had Qin Xiaoyi drooling. He had never smelled such a tempting fragrance in his life.
He picked up a piece and put it in his mouth. The incomparable flavor seemed to strike straight at his soul.
It was a taste unlike anything he had ever experienced since birth.
Growing up, the best he had ever eaten was rice porridge with pickles, with only a little meat on festivals and holidays.
He could not help shedding tears. So this is what the masters in the city eat.
He had heard from Qin Yan that the high officials and wealthy merchants in the city ate delicacies from the mountains and wild game.
"Now this is food fit for a human being!"
Qin Xiaoyi ate in great mouthfuls. Looking at Qin Yan, he grew even more determined to follow him.
"Boss, do you think we'll ever get to live in a house with a blue-tiled roof in town and eat fish and meat to our hearts' content?"
Qin Xiaoyi asked quietly.
Qin Yan was taken aback for a moment, then smiled. "Of course!"
Qin Xiaoyi nodded, but the more he ate, the more unbearably hot he felt, and his whole body turned as red as a boiled shrimp.
Seeing this, Qin Yan calmly instructed him, "Go to the training ground and keep running until you can't run anymore."
"Yes!"
The sun rose and the moon set!
After a whole night, Qin Xiaoyi looked as though he had been hauled out of the water, exhausted as a dead dog.
He went straight home, fell flat on his back, and slept like a log.
Even Song Bao and the others were startled when they saw him.
What had happened to this kid?
"Song Bao, fetch the village butcher and have him help me butcher this wild boar."
Qin Yan gave the order.
As for the others, Qin Yan gave a crafty smile and pointed at the stir-fried snake meat on the table inside.
"You're in for a treat today."
Qin An, Chen Ergou, and the others' eyes lit up at once.
But before long, they were all yelping and racing madly around the training ground on the back mountain.
A wild boar weighing three to four hundred jin was no small thing!
Even the butcher clicked his tongue in amazement. He had not seen a wild boar that big in at least seven or eight years.
He also looked at Qin Yan with envy. The man's luck was beyond compare.
He finished butchering the whole wild boar.
The butcher received a pair of kidneys and some offal.
Both sides were pleased with the arrangement.
Once it was butchered, the whole wild boar yielded at least two hundred jin of meat.
Qin Yan wrapped up portions of pork, each weighing one or two jin.
He sent them to the village chief, Seventh Uncle, and the others.
These were people he was relatively close to, people who had helped him openly or behind the scenes.
Qin Yan was a man who kept kindness and grudges clearly apart: he repaid every grudge and returned every kindness.
There was a famine now.
Qin Yan's gesture was undoubtedly like bringing charcoal in the snow, and expressions of deep gratitude rose one after another.
"Yan, your elder brother is about to be buried. Are you really not going?"
The old village chief was making one last attempt.
But Qin Yan refused outright. When it came to Qin Zhao, he did not even want to pretend.
When he returned home, the little fellow was still lying there like a corpse. Had Qin Yan not checked his breathing,
he would have thought the little creature had eaten himself to death.
Qin Xiaoyi was fast asleep, while the others were still on the back mountain's training ground, desperately working to digest the black snake's medicinal power.
Qin Yan now took out the few soybean-sized fruits.
The ruby-like fruits gave off a faint, fresh fragrance that made him unable to resist eating them.
After hesitating briefly, Qin Yan tossed the fruits into his mouth. With a few chews, a burst of sweetness filled his mouth.
His heart pounded violently, and a bright blood-red flush appeared on the surface of his skin.
He did not feel the terrifying medicinal power threatening to burst his body apart as he had imagined.
Streams of scorching warmth coursed through his body, leaving Qin Yan utterly exhilarated.
He could clearly feel his body growing stronger.
[Consumed a strange fruit, strength cap increased by 0.1]
[Consumed a strange fruit, speed cap increased by 0.1]
[Consumed a strange fruit, spirit cap increased by 0.1]
Lines of information kept refreshing in his mind.
Qin Yan sprang to his feet and began cultivating with the movements of the Basic Body-Tempering Technique.
With every movement he performed, the blood Qi in his body circulated a little faster.
[Cultivated the Basic Body-Tempering Technique, proficiency increased by 3%]
[Cultivated the Basic Body-Tempering Technique, proficiency increased by 3%]
[Cultivated the Basic Body-Tempering Technique, proficiency increased by 3%] [Basic Body-Tempering Technique advanced to Proficient Level] Effect: basic attribute growth rate increased by 60%.
"I didn't expect advancing the Basic Body-Tempering Technique to Proficient Level would increase the basic attribute growth rate by 20%."
Qin Yan was a little surprised.
After two hours of digestion,
[Qin Yan] [Talent: Infinite Physique] Strength: 6.7 → 8.2 Speed: 5.8 → 7.3 Spirit: 5.3 → 6.8
Each of his three attributes had increased by 1.5.
In other words, each fruit had increased each of his attributes by 0.5.
The result left him both surprised and delighted.
He became even more convinced that the rocky cliff area deep in the mountains was a treasure trove.
Moreover, the area was extremely special and would certainly continue attracting rare and exotic beasts.
He would go back to reap a harvest every so often.
Those exotic beasts were valuable things that could rapidly increase his strength.
After being tempered by the snake meat's medicinal power,
Song Bao and the others had also gained a great deal of strength, bringing them almost on par with ordinary strong men.
Qin Xiaoyi, Song Bao, Shi Hu, and Chen Ergou had improved the most.
Their strength was the greatest among them all.
The changes in their bodies thrilled them. Combined with the Unlimited Combat Qin Yan had taught them,
each of them could definitely take on seven or eight men alone.
Three days after Qin Zhao's death, he was buried under the old village chief's supervision.
Qin Yan's place was like a little world of its own. With no outsiders to disturb them, he drilled the group of young men under him every day.
The little black cat had also eaten every last mouse. In just three days, he had grown to the size of a nearly adult tabby cat.
The little fellow was very clingy and liked rubbing against Qin Yan's feet whenever he had nothing to do.
His pitch-black fur was sleek and glossy, with a hint of crimson added by the sunlight.
He stretched lazily beneath the shade of a tree, watching a group of people running back and forth and fighting one another.
A trace of puzzlement showed in his little golden eyes as he lay on the ground and watched closely.
Meanwhile, the situation outside the mountains was not encouraging either.
People kept dying in the refugee camp outside the city, seemingly eaten by some evil thing.
Mangled, bitten corpses were a common sight, and a single glance was enough to make one's hair stand on end.
Now everyone was on edge, and many had already left Qinghe Town, hoping to find a way to survive elsewhere.
Besides that, the bandits and brigands who had gathered in the mountains had also come out.
They burned, killed, and looted everywhere. Many people in the neighboring Zhao Family Village had already died resisting the bandits.
Some small villages were said to have been completely massacred, and their women carried off into the mountains.