Eagle Cliff

According to the rules of the Herb Gathering Hall's Secret Manual Room, after being promoted to Herb Gathering Apprentice, one was allowed to obtain a second manual.

Ye Qin remembered this and, before setting out to gather herbs, made a special trip to the Library Pavilion's Secret Manual Room to see if he could find an offensive martial art or movement technique to improve his safety and strength.

The young guard there told him that Herb Gathering Apprentices were indeed allowed to take a second manual, but unlike Herb Gathering Apprentices of the lower rank, they could no longer learn the Secret Manual Room's martial arts for free. They had to pay to take a manual.

Manuals came at different prices, depending on their grade. One Gold Leaf would buy the cheapest kind. Intermediate manuals could cost ten Gold Leaves or more, while advanced ones could require thirty or forty.

The young guard even went out of his way to recommend several manuals, such as the Mad Dragon Palm, which cost seventeen Gold Leaves and could unleash tremendous power when used by someone with inner strength. There was also the Cloud Spirit Thirteen Sword Arts, a highly lethal sword technique that cost twenty Gold Leaves. Both were suitable for Herb Gathering Apprentices.

Ye Qin was stunned for a long while when he heard the prices the young guard quoted.

One Gold Leaf for the cheapest manual?

He only earned five Silver Leaves each time he went into the mountains. He would have to make at least twenty trips—nearly two years of work—to earn that much. Twenty Gold Leaves... He'd have to work for nothing for more than twenty years. Those manuals were a real rip-off.

With no other choice, Ye Qin shouldered his herb basket and left the county town, heading obediently into the deep mountains. He gave up on the idea of learning another advanced martial art. He figured he could save up a few Gold Leaves over the next couple of years and then learn one or two basic inner-strength or movement techniques.

More than ten days later, Ye Qin appeared on a mountain cliff in a deep valley hundreds of miles away, his herb basket on his back and sweat streaming down his face. Climbing the mountain had taken him nearly two hours. Fortunately, he had gathered several herbs on the way up, worth a few copper coins, so his time hadn't been wasted.

Ye Qin had gradually realized that he could indeed gather more herbs on his own than when he went out in a group of five.

On his own, he only needed to gather herbs worth an average of sixteen or seventeen copper coins a day to complete his monthly quota of five Silver Leaves' worth of herbs. Of course, after deducting the five days it took to get there and the five days to return, he actually needed to gather about twenty-five copper coins' worth of herbs each day during the twenty days in between.

When five people traveled together, they had to gather an average of eighty-three copper coins' worth of herbs every day. After deducting the five days to set out and the five days to return, they had to gather as much as one hundred and twenty-five copper coins' worth each day during the twenty days in between. That was extremely difficult.

There were often only so many herbs along a given route. Naturally, when too many people gathered together, there weren't enough to go around.

By contrast, gathering herbs alone was easier.

But every advantage came with a drawback.

As Ye Qin walked through the deep forest, he inevitably ran into wolves, jackals, tigers, and leopards, which would chase him relentlessly. One or two were manageable; if he steeled himself, he could chop them down. But three or five at a time were trouble.

Though Ye Qin carried a woodcutter's knife for protection, he didn't dare take on a pack of wolves. He could only run for his life. He wasn't especially fast, but he raced over mountains and through streams without pause, until the pursuing wolves were worn out and he finally shook them off.

He had wasted quite a bit of time evading the wolves along the way.

He had climbed to the cliff on this mountain peak in the valley to avoid a pack of wolves below. Even if there were snakes and eagles on the cliff, they would be easier to deal with than a pack of wolves. Besides, the cliff stretched for several miles, giving him plenty of ground to search for herbs over the next few days.

At the summit, Ye Qin found a huge rock that could shelter him from the wind and rain and set up camp beneath it. He put down his herb basket, waterskin, cloth bag, small pot, and packets of oil and salt.

Then he found a grass snake in a crevice between the summit rocks, chopped off its head, and cooked himself a pot of delicious snake soup. He ate his fill, restoring the strength he had spent.

After resting for a little while, Ye Qin took his woodcutter's knife and two coils of rope and began searching the peak for herbs. Things went very well. In just half a day, he found more than ten herbs on the summit, worth at least forty or fifty copper coins.

After two or three days, Ye Qin had searched the entire summit, which spanned several miles, and picked all the mature herbs that had grown for several years. He didn't touch a single immature plant. It was a rule among herb gatherers never to disturb unripe herbs. Reaping the land bare was a grave taboo in the trade, and the herb appraisers at the Herb Gathering Hall wouldn't accept medicinal plants that hadn't grown long enough.

Once he had searched the entire summit, Ye Qin had no choice but to take a risk and gather herbs on the cliff face. He could even see herbs growing there from the summit; it would be a shame not to pick them.

The next morning, once he had everything ready, Ye Qin tied one end of each of his two thick ropes securely to a large tree and a boulder on the summit. He then fastened the other end of the thinner rope firmly around himself before slowly making his way down the cliff on the back side of the mountain.

There were eagles around the peak. Those beasts often mistook people climbing the rocks to gather herbs for a threat to their nests and attacked them.

Ye Qin had prepared for this. He had spent half the night weaving wild grass into a camouflaging cloak. He draped it over himself and moved slowly, carefully avoiding the eagles as he occasionally reached out to pick a few herbs growing here and there on the cliff.

In less than half a day, he reached the halfway point of the cliff on the back of the mountain. There was a ledge jutting out into the air, with another protruding shelf of rock several yards below him, broad enough to stand on. A few eagle nests were clearly visible on the cliff face there. Several herbs seemed to be growing around them.

Ye Qin merely glanced at the ledge without looking closely, then hesitated over whether to continue down.

If those sharp-beaked, taloned beasts spotted him, he'd be in serious trouble. They could harass him all day without rest, attacking him again and again with their sharp claws. And he was hanging halfway up the cliff, making it hard to move or fight back.

However, the eagles had already left their nests, so the area was safe for now. If he could gather a few more herbs, he would finish his work for the day and be able to rest properly in the afternoon.

Ye Qin looked toward the jutting ledge and carefully examined the herbs growing there, considering whether they were worth the risk.

Suddenly, he stared in surprise.

At the edge of the ledge stood a lone green sprout, tender and fresh, with only a single leaf. A clear dewdrop clung to it, reflecting the sunlight. It was the middle of the day, and every other blade of wild grass had long since wilted under the sun. How could there still be a dewdrop? This little plant was strange, as though it had just emerged at dawn, completely unaffected by the scorching sun.

Over the past few years, Ye Qin had learned to recognize at least a thousand kinds of common herbs. Even when he couldn't identify the exact plant, he could roughly judge its grade. He didn't recognize this little plant, but from its grade, it was at least rare. He wasn't even sure whether it could be used as medicine.