Town Taisui Book

He grabbed a handful of coarse, cold pond ash and put it into a cloth pouch, tying it shut. Carrying it with him, Hu Ma now had his very first protective charm since coming into this world.

And with this charm, he finally had the right to sleep soundly through the night...

According to the village rules, it was better for someone to stay in the house after the Old Woman passed away, to show that the home was not empty. So, Second Master didn't rush Hu Ma back to the manor, letting him stay for a few more days.

Hu Ma wasn't in a hurry either. He also needed time and space to think about his own matters and understand things.

Before heading to the manor to see Second Master, Hu Ma had barely slept a good night's sleep in the village. At night, he even had to rely on the Old Woman's chanting to keep the Evil Spirits at bay.

But this time, with the furnace lit within his body and the protective charm, the problem of being constantly harassed by Evil Spirits was solved.

He slept alone in the thatched hut the Old Woman had left behind, and nothing happened.

It's just that no one was there to make breakfast anymore.

But Hu Ma, who had eagerly helped out and tried to perform well earlier, wasn't exactly a delicate person.

He knew where to fetch water, where to grind flour, which jar contained coarse salt, and which contained preserved vegetables.

He could feed himself without a problem.

In the first few days after seeing the Old Woman off, the villagers were quite considerate towards Hu Ma, who had suddenly become lonely. They gave him a few flatbreads and carried two buckets of water for him.

Of course, it wasn't out of respect for Hu Ma, but rather remembering the Old Woman's kindness, or perhaps feeling pity for the poor, lonely Hu Ma at fifteen or sixteen years old.

But after a few days, everyone gradually got used to it, as if nothing had happened.

Hu Ma settled down in the small hut left by the Old Woman and quietly took stock of the things she had left behind.

He didn't know if the Old Woman had already prepared to perish together with that ghost from the Meng Family, but it seemed like she had made all arrangements for Hu Ma in advance. She had entrusted Xiao Hong Tang to Hu Ma, and with the eight-character talisman left by Hu Ma's side, Xiao Hong Tang became devoted to him.

This little girl was usually playful and often ran off without a trace, but as long as Hu Ma burned a stick of incense, she knew to come home.

According to the Old Woman, Xiao Hong Tang had become his own little Ghost Envoy like this?

He didn't know what Ghost Envoys were used for, but a little girl that no one else could see could probably do many things?

At the very least, stealing a piece of cured meat from the Cui Family should go unnoticed, right?

The second item the Old Woman left behind was that black porcelain jar.

Hu Ma knew about the problem with his own body, and the Old Woman should have known too, which was why she left him this jar.

Inside, it was filled to the brim with pills, one by one.

The pills were bright red, and when held, blood would seep out. Each pill was about the size of a longan.

"Are these all Blood Ganoderma?"

Hu Ma sniffed and found the scent familiar. It should be about right.

He hadn't eaten any Taisui for three to four days since he went out to find the Old Woman. After finishing the funeral arrangements for her, he ate one pill and immediately felt his body heat up.

The furnace fire that had been depleted earlier was gradually replenished with the swallowing of this blood pill.

He sighed inwardly, "This is all something the Old Woman specifically left for me, something to save my life!"

However, this one pill was not enough to give him the same great progress as when he could eat meat in large quantities.

But eating one every two days was enough to keep his body from having problems, and this furnace fire was steadily increasing.

He had checked before, and his cultivation had reached one and a half sticks of incense. He wondered if he could reach three sticks of incense after finishing all the Blood Food pills in this jar.

Of course, Hu Ma couldn't help but think, "Before the Old Woman left, she didn't tell me where this Blood Ganoderma came from. She only said that the Blood Ganoderma in Old Yin Mountain was almost all harvested by her..."

"What if, after this jar of Blood Ganoderma is finished, my cultivation is still not enough, what should I do?"

Unfortunately, Hu Ma couldn't ask these questions anymore.

When he asked Xiao Hong Tang about it afterward, she just bit her finger and said, "The Old Woman could find it."

"Where others said there was nothing, the Old Woman could still find it."

"..."

"This must be the Old Woman's special skill, right?"

Hu Ma couldn't possibly expect the Old Woman to appear in a dream to tell him, so he could only hold onto hope and opened the booklet left by the Old Woman.

"The Qingyuan Hu Clan Town Taisui Book. It sounds like a family heirloom?"

He had long suspected that the Old Woman, or rather, the origin of his original body, was extraordinary.

From his enemies, he could gauge his own family's status. They were at least on a level where they could make an enemy of the Huaiyin Meng Family. Moreover, the Old Woman cutting the golden, precious Blood Ganoderma every day for him to eat like pork was something no ordinary person could do.

Hu Ma knew that this secret technique should contain many good things, but after opening it, his mood suddenly became a mixture of surprise, joy, and helplessness.

The surprise was that what was recorded here should be practical things, filling the entire booklet, dazzling him.

There were things like dispelling illness, finding herbs, burning bones, consulting ghosts, and diagnosing pulses...

But the helplessness was that he recognized every single character in the booklet, yet he couldn't understand it.

To describe it more precisely, it was like a sixth-grader holding a manual on nuclear bomb manufacturing.

He could recognize the words, but he couldn't comprehend them.

The highly technical terms, obscure vocabulary, and incantations left him completely bewildered.

"Looks like I'll have to start with addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and solving quadratic equations..."

Hu Ma sighed, looking at the paper filled with characters he recognized individually but couldn't comprehend as a whole, letting his imagination run wild.

"Some of this content seems related to Taisui..."

"Could it be that this contains the methods for prospecting for meat mountains and Blood Food, and finding rare Taisui?"

"Did the Old Woman use the skills recorded here to harvest all the Blood Food in Old Yin Mountain for me?"

"..."

His heart couldn't help but tremble. He vaguely felt that if this were true, it would be a remarkable field of study.

Of course, all of this was just speculation and conjecture.

To truly understand these things, he needed to learn the basic knowledge of this world first before studying these secret arts.

But who could he learn from?

Second Master?

Second Master was already impatient. "I understand the rules and market for the Half-Covered Gate in Mingzhou Prefecture. Do you want to learn?"

Hu Ma blushed at his words, feeling a bit awkward. He had only taken this time to properly ask Second Master about his true skills and his experiences from his younger days adventuring outside.

Initially, Second Master had enthusiastically shared with Hu Ma, but gradually, he started running out of things to say. Hu Ma kept asking him questions, and he began to lose his composure.

When Hu Ma stumped him, he'd get agitated and pull out his signature moves.

This made Hu Ma curious. "Second Master, what's the use of your sixty years of virginity in understanding the market for this?"

Second Master's face grew even more strained. "Can't I just get a vicarious thrill?"

"Yes, yes, yes..."

Sensing Second Master's displeasure, Hu Ma quickly plastered a smile on his face. "I just wanted to ask if what you've taught us is the extent of it, and how to learn what comes next?"

"It's the limit. At least, the few moves I know are the limit."

Second Master could only answer Hu Ma helplessly in the end. "As for what comes after, I truly don't know..."

"You say your Old Woman was so capable, why didn't you learn from her when she was alive? Why did you have to bump your head in our line of work at the very end? What was the point?"

"..."

After understanding Second Master's words, Hu Ma had a clearer picture.

Second Master truly didn't know.

Second Master didn't even quite understand why he himself needed to keep learning. After all, with the skills he had learned so far, he could already be a very good meat harvester...

But Hu Ma knew in his heart that he absolutely had to learn these skills.

When the Old Woman left, she had repeatedly instructed him to continue learning more advanced skills in Second Master's line of work.

However, Hu Ma only thought about it afterward. Since the Old Woman had confirmed that this line of work could save his life, and she knew Second Master didn't have higher-level methods, why didn't she tell him?

Did she herself not know, or was it to test him?

"Our skills in igniting the furnace, to go further, we'd have to find the esteemed masters of those Blood Food Gangs. They truly have unique skills. I know, Second Master, that our skills belong to their lineage, but how can they easily teach the skills that ensure one's survival?"

Second Master explained to Hu Ma, "You should give up on this idea. It's most important for you to go down into the mines with me a couple more times and get married..."

"..."

"I also think getting married and living a stable life is good, but I have no choice but to learn..."

Hu Ma needed to learn those skills to save his life, but he couldn't say this directly to Second Master. He could only ponder it in his heart.

The weather was gradually getting colder, marking the most leisurely time in the village. However, no one in the village dared to relax. They prepared to till the land, sow seeds, and feed the livestock a bit more, getting ready for the harvest next spring.

The young men who followed Second Master to learn skills also put in extra effort. Some of their families even resolutely bought them more White Ganoderma meat to supplement their nutrition.

This was to prevent their furnaces from not being hot enough and the Blood Food Gang members from looking down on them.

If they were looked down upon, they would have to wait another year, which would be a waste of a year's worth of grain.

That night, he habitually read for a while under the oil lamp.

Although he couldn't understand the contents of the Hu Family Town's almanac, he tried his best to memorize them, word by word, in his mind, thinking they might be useful someday.

After falling asleep, in a daze, he suddenly heard a voice: "Brother Old Bai Gan, can you hear me?"