Tea Stall

"Phew... phew." Li Qi panted heavily as he trudged along on unsteady legs.

He was already over a hundred li from Lizhou City. Though he had not yet left its jurisdiction, the land had grown thinly populated.

To be honest, this was Li Qi's first time traveling so far in this world.

In this world, most people never left their hometowns for their entire lives. At the very least, that was how it was in Li Prefecture.

The farthest villagers ever went was probably the county seat. The farthest county folk went was the prefectural city. And those living in the prefectural city might never leave it in their lives.

Li Qi had never left the prefectural city either—not once in more than three years. At most, he had helped tow boats at the city's shallow, upstream waters, turning back once they reached the outskirts where the current ran smooth.

This time, fleeing for his life after killing someone, he would not have wanted to leave the city if he had not been driven into a corner.

He worked at the docks, towing boats and rowing vessels. From the idle chatter of canal gangs and merchant associations, he had heard of the dangers lurking in the wild.

There were demons in the water. If one was lucky, they might encounter a carp spirit or turtle monster that merely toyed with people and would not hurt them. If unlucky, they would meet a water monkey, and everyone aboard would die in the water—unless protected by an exceptionally skilled cultivator.

If one avoided the water and took mountain roads instead, the mountains were still thick with forests and swamps, crawling with snakes, insects, rats, ants, savage beasts, and fierce birds of prey.

The only truly safe places were human settlements.

Leaving home meant danger.

He had already been traveling for a day. He had made do with a night in a tree and, fortunately, encountered no trouble. After eating some wild fruit, he continued according to his original plan: heading for Feng County, three hundred li away.

He had heard that Feng County was a relatively stable little county town. Li Qi could lie low there, then return to Lizhou City after a year or half a year. That way, nothing should happen.

He had trekked a hundred li in one day, all of it rugged mountain road, and he was wearing straw sandals. Even with his current physical condition, he was exhausted enough.

The one good thing was that it was still winter. The beasts lay dormant and the insects had yet to emerge, so apart from exhaustion, he had suffered no other torment along the way.

"Even if I don't take a wrong turn, it's still three hundred li... honestly." Li Qi walked down the little wilderness path, looking everywhere for a roadside tea stall or water stand. He had been walking for an entire day.

After looking around for a while, his luck was not bad. He really did find a roadside tea stall.

He quickened his pace and reached into the bundle on his back for two copper coins.

The Great Deer Kingdom's copper coins were called Great Deer Wuzhu Coins. They were purple in color and had a decent heft, though they were somewhat thin. Each weighed about half a qian. He currently had roughly a thousand qian on him—one string of cash.

Great Deer Wuzhu Coins were the Great Deer Kingdom's official currency, and River Opening paid mostly in them. But they were not especially valuable. The most valuable and commonly seen coins on the market were copper coins called Deyuan Tongbao Coins. They contained more copper and circulated widely. They seemed to be Tang Kingdom currency; one Deyuan Tongbao Coin was worth five Great Deer Wuzhu Coins.

Even the weight unit of "one qian" in this world referred to the weight of a single Deyuan Tongbao Coin.

Even their units of weight were based on another country's currency. From that alone, Li Qi could already tell how powerful the Tang Kingdom was in this world.

Though this Tang Kingdom probably had nothing whatsoever to do with the Tang from his own world.

Still, one thing differed in this world. Though the government minted coins, silver did not circulate. Economic activity was carried out almost entirely with copper coins, with gold used for payment only in rare cases.

Even bills and notes were denominated in copper coins. Gold notes were only used in the very few large transactions.

Silver seemed to have been kicked out of the economic system. Li Qi did not understand the exact reason.

The thousand Great Deer Wuzhu Coins Li Qi carried were worth a thousand qian within the Great Deer Kingdom. Their purchasing power was actually quite good—enough to buy nearly half a pig, or three to four hundred jin of meat.

Generally speaking, a jin of meat cost only two or three qian. Two copper coins were enough to drink a pot of tea at a tea stall and eat two small complimentary dishes of snacks.

But under normal circumstances, Li Qi absolutely could not bear to spend those two or three qian on food.

Two or three qian could buy two or three jin of rice. People in this world generally had large appetites; plenty could eat ten jin of cooked rice in a single meal. Two or three jin of rice only made around ten jin once steamed.

Besides, pork was cheap. Beef and mutton, which were more expensive, cost another two or three times as much. They were truly beyond what he could afford. A boat tracker did physical labor, after all, and without eating his fill, he would have no strength. So most of the time, he filled himself with plain rice. If he had some pickled vegetables, that was good enough; if not, he made do with water grass and salt.

Every so often, he ate fish to give his teeth something to do. But fish... eating river fish without seasonings was truly torture. If not for nutrition, Li Qi would rather eat plain rice.

Fortunately, plain rice came without limit.

He offered a blessing to the farmer who had grown Spirit Rice. If not for him, who knew how many people in this world would have starved to death? At the very least, cultivation methods could never have become so widespread.

No matter what cultivation method it was, it had to be built on eating. Without sufficient nutrition, everything else was empty nonsense.

Oh, except for spellcraft. Even now, Li Qi had no idea where the Ox-Strength Technique drew its power from.

The existence of Spirit Rice kept laborers like him from dying of exhaustion and hunger. Li Qi did not know the inventor and had never even heard of him, but he often prayed for that old man.

Such merit was enough to be revered as a saint, wasn't it?

With reverence for that old man in his heart, Li Qi walked toward the tea stall.

Now that he had spellcraft, perhaps he could try finding some other way to make money.

The things implanted in his mind were said to... originate from qi.

But what the hell was qi?

He did not understand. He would learn slowly in the future. Something like Divine Will Inheritance clearly was not some common commodity. It would probably be a very, very long time before he got another chance like the Ox-Strength Technique.

Clutching the two copper coins tightly in his hand, Li Qi reached the roadside tea stall.

"Tea vendor, bring me a pot of tea!" Li Qi slapped down the two copper coins and shouted.

Quite a few people were gathered around. Though it was winter, traveling merchants did not stop working. They had also gathered at this tea stall to drink tea and rest before shouldering their great baskets again to trade among the villages.

Yet the merchants were as clearly divided as the Jing and Wei Rivers. Those carrying different baskets sat together, evidently forming separate gangs. Only Li Qi sat alone, lonely between two groups of merchants, looking utterly out of place.

"Coming right up!" the tea vendor called as he hurried over. He enthusiastically wiped Li Qi's table, then brought over a pot of tea along with two complimentary plates of pastries.

They were all rice cakes, made from Spirit Rice.

Since they were complimentary, they could not possibly be too expensive. Rice cakes were already quite decent.

Li Qi picked one up and chewed it in large bites. Though the raw ingredient was still rice, it had more flavor than plain rice. Coupled with the hunger in his belly, it tasted rather good.

After eating one rice cake, he gulped down a cup of warm tea.

The tea was not hot, merely pleasantly warm. The customers at such tea stalls were all weary travelers; they could not endure their thirst while slowly waiting for the tea to cool. Thus, it was warm water with tea leaves steeped all day, hardly possessing any fragrance at all—at best, it barely had a trace of tea flavor.

"Phew..." Even so, Li Qi was already very satisfied. At this pace, he should reach Feng County by tomorrow night, right?

Just then, someone suddenly spoke to Li Qi from behind him. "Big brother, traveling far by yourself?"