Steady

Fresh horse dung gave off a steaming stench, mingling with the scent of fresh fodder as it continuously rushed into Chen Mo's nostrils.

Two soldiers worked in tandem, one pushing a cart while the other wielded a shovel, scooping away the dung pile by pile.

More than ten warhorses stood in the troughs, plump and sturdy, their coats sleek and glossy. It was obvious their caretaker had put considerable care into feeding them.

When the lead horse saw He Ma Guan arrive, it happily snorted, swished its tail, and dropped two more lumps of dung.

"Ah, good, good, good!" He Ma Guan stepped forward and affectionately patted the lead horse's neck.

"Looking at you, you won't be able to shovel dung. Come with me—I'll take you to make feed." He Ma Guan glanced at Chen Mo's skin-and-bones body.

The two soldiers shoveling dung both looked toward Chen Mo, a faint wariness showing in their eyes.

"Master, have you brought in someone else to help?" one of the sturdy soldiers asked with a smile.

"Yeah." He Ma Guan answered casually and led Chen Mo to a shack beside the stable.

Inside the shack, there was a stove, firewood, and everything else one would need. It looked just like a small kitchen.

"Can you make cornmeal buns?" He Ma Guan asked, carrying over two sacks of flour.

"I can." Chen Mo nodded repeatedly, unable to stop himself from swallowing.

If he could make cornmeal buns, that meant he might get a chance to steal a few bites.

"Twenty jin of white flour with seven jin of cornmeal, three liang of salt, two spoonfuls of oil, and fifteen eggs." He Ma Guan explained the rough recipe for the feed.

Warhorses were far more precious than people, so naturally, they ate better too.

Chen Mo immediately got to work. He had sold himself before, so he knew how to handle these odd jobs.

Kneading dough took quite a bit of strength, so He Ma Guan simply stepped in to help him.

"Where did you flee from?" He Ma Guan skillfully shaped a bun and set it on the steamer tray.

"He'an County, Qing Province." Chen Mo gave the only place name he knew.

"So you came from the north. Back then, I fled from the north too. I was about your age then."

Perhaps because he had met someone with the same fate, He Ma Guan became more talkative, speaking of many things from his past.

Chen Mo responded here and there, but most of his attention remained on the buns in his hands.

If He Ma Guan had not been there the whole time, Chen Mo would have wanted to eat two raw ones first, just to line his stomach.

Five large steamer baskets of buns were quickly set over the stove. Supporting his waist, He Ma Guan slowly rose from his stool.

"These buns need to steam a while longer. Once they're done, take them out and let them cool." After giving the instructions, he started walking out, only for his footsteps to abruptly halt.

"Don't steal too many. Be careful you don't eat yourself to death." He had fled famine before. He knew what it felt like to go hungry.

The reason he was deliberately leaving now was to give Chen Mo a chance to sneak some food and fill his belly first.

But he also understood that when someone who had starved for too long ate for the first time, they really might gorge themselves to death.

"Thank you, Master He. I know my limits." Chen Mo thanked him sincerely, deeply moved inside. He knew the man was looking after him.

A bite of food might not seem precious, but to him now, it was immensely important.

He Ma Guan said nothing more and left the shack with his hands clasped behind his back.

Steam and smoke billowed from the stove, drifting out in sheets of white mist.

Chen Mo waited anxiously beside it, feeling as though time was crawling by.

After a long while, the buns were finally seven or eight-tenths cooked.

Chen Mo could not wait any longer. He used chopsticks to take out two first, cooled them in the well water in a basin, then swallowed them whole.

The buns were so delicious!

Chen Mo took out another two and repeated the process, swallowing them into his stomach.

After four buns, warmth spread through his entire body. Chen Mo felt as though he had come back to life; his thoughts grew clearer, and he could finally focus again.

He smothered the stove fire with plant ash, then hurriedly lifted the steamer baskets one by one and waited for the buns to cool.

Naturally, he kept sneaking bites as he waited. Each bun weighed a little over two liang.

Chen Mo ate another dozen or so in one go, only stopping when his belly was round as a drum.

He could have eaten more, but he feared eating himself to death and did not dare continue.

He could sense that as his body digested the food, wisps of the power of qi and blood slowly flowed into the Mortal Transformation Pearl.

"Once these buns cool, come feed the horses with me." He Ma Guan pushed over a one-wheeled feed cart. Seeing that Chen Mo had not continued eating, a trace of approval appeared in his eyes.

After enduring hunger for so long, Chen Mo could still restrain himself in the face of food. Such self-control was quite rare.

"Alright." Chen Mo answered, taking advantage of the cooling time to clean and tidy the shack.

He Ma Guan leisurely lit his pipe, looking at Chen Mo with clear satisfaction. A person with work in his eyes and diligence in his hands would not be disliked wherever he went.

Once the shack was cleaned and the buns had cooled, they were poured into the cart one after another. Chen Mo then took the initiative to push it toward the stable.

"This kind of refined feed needs to be given twice a day. From now on, you'll be responsible for it." Once inside the stable, He Ma Guan carefully explained, then instructed Chen Mo to distribute the buns into the separate feeding troughs.

"When you pour them in, make sure the amounts don't differ too much. Otherwise, they'll get upset." He Ma Guan said with a smile, patting one horse on the head.

After feeding the horses, He Ma Guan arranged lodging for Chen Mo.

He would share a barracks room on the left side of the stables with another groom. Though the smell was rather unpleasant, it was still better than cramming into a communal bunkroom with dozens of other soldiers.

The bed and bedding were already there. Though he did not know who had left them behind, they had been washed fairly clean.

Aside from a few changes of clothes, Chen Mo had no belongings on him. He Ma Guan gave him a towel for washing, two hair-binding cloths, and a coarse porcelain bowl for eating and drinking.

For the time being, he was settled.

Half a month flashed by, and Chen Mo finally had a little more flesh on his bones. His complexion gradually turned rosy as well.

"Do the work later. Come eat first." Ma Cai called out as he carried over a basin of mixed stew and twenty coarse-grain buns.

Hearing him, Chen Mo hurriedly rinsed his hands in the horse trough.

"What are we having today?" he asked, looking at Ma Cai.

Over this period of living together, the two had gotten along fairly well.

"Radish stewed with cabbage." Ma Cai sounded rather helpless.

"Why the hell is it this again? We've been eating it for four or five days already!" the other groom, Ding Bao, could not help complaining.

"The commandant's family planted quite a bit in their vegetable garden, so they sold the vegetables to the mess hall." Ma Cai lowered his voice.

"When will this commandant of ours ever do something decent?" Ding Bao cursed angrily.

Skimming the soldiers' rations was already a common sight. Lowly foot soldiers like them could only grumble about it in private.

"Stop talking. What if someone hears you?" Chen Mo cautioned carefully.

There was no scheming or strife among the three of them, mainly because there was nothing worth fighting over.

Ma Cai was powerfully built and had some connections in the army. Tending horses was only a temporary stopgap for him; sooner or later, he would be transferred away.

Chen Mo only cared about eating. As long as he could fill his stomach, anything was negotiable.

Ding Bao was straightforward and spoke without thinking, but he was not a bad person.

Since the three were also close in age, Chen Mo had gotten along quite harmoniously with the other two during this time.

Once the food had been set on the table and portioned out, the three waited together for He Ma Guan to arrive.

"Go on, eat." He Ma Guan carried a bowl of tea mixed with beaten egg and heavily sweetened with sugar. Only after sitting down at the table did he call for the three to begin eating.

It was his habit to drink a bowl of egg-and-sugar water every day. Even many minor landowners might not enjoy such treatment.

Chen Mo had already started eating. To be honest, the food and the coarse-grain buns tasted worse than horse feed.

Yet with every extra bite he ate, he could accumulate another wisp of vital blood. As his body improved further and further, the amount of vital blood he could store each day also increased.

He did not know whether it was because his body needed nourishment after starving for so long, or because of the Mortal Transformation Pearl, but he could now eat far more than before his transmigration.

"Your build is fairly sturdy now. Tomorrow, go shovel horse manure with Ding Bao and the others," He Ma Guan instructed.

Among the tasks of tending horses, none was more grueling than shoveling manure. One horse produced twenty or thirty jin of dung a day; with more than a dozen horses, that came to nearly four hundred jin of horse manure.

Shoveling it all up and hauling it away one load at a time was no easy task.

When Chen Mo had first arrived, he had been far too frail to do it.

Now that he had been fed up for half a month, it would no longer be appropriate for him not to do it.

"Alright," Chen Mo said, swallowing a coarse-grain bun that scraped at his throat.

Ding Bao and Ma Cai exchanged a glance. Clearly, something was on their minds, but it was not a good time to speak of it.