Blue Silver Rice

"Look, take a look—this rice wine, brewed from the finest ' Blue Silver Rice,' is sweeter than honey!"

"A 50-year-old ' Blue Silver Grass ' for only five Silver Soul Coin! You can take it home for just five Silver Soul Coin!"

There were middle-aged fat men with red, bulbous noses hawking their wares along the street, and men with dark faces and yellow teeth shouting loudly to attract customers.

Just then, a simply but neatly dressed young man walked up to the stall of the dark-faced, yellow-toothed man and asked:

"Boss, is it really fifty years old? It can't be forty-nine, can it?"

Upon hearing this, the dark-faced, yellow-toothed man immediately objected and retorted:

"Hey! You think I'd sell you counterfeit goods? Go ask around, my reputation as A Qiang is impeccable on this street!"

"Let me tell you, my ' Blue Silver Grass ' is not only fifty years old, but it also has the potential to be cultivated to ninety-nine years, or even break through to a hundred-year quality level. If it weren't for the fact that my family is short of money recently, I wouldn't be so easily selling it off so cheaply."

Listening to the man's incessant chatter, his foul-smelling spittle nearly hitting his face, the young man instinctively took a half-step back. His gaze swept over the Abundant Vitality pale blue plants on the stall, and after a slight hesitation, his resolve hardened. He patted his pocket and pulled out five silver coins. "Alright~ alright~ five Silver Soul Coin, right? Here you go..."

"Oh, thank you, sir. Don't worry, my ' Blue Silver Grass ' is definitely of good quality. The young plants are from ' Blue Silver Territory.' My boys have put in a lot of effort to cultivate them—"

When the shop owner, A Qiang, saw the other party take out money, his face immediately lit up with joy. He quickly took the money and then placed the "Blue Silver Grass" plant, which was about 20 centimeters tall and had four or five branched leaves, along with its small flowerpot, in a bamboo basket and handed it to the young man.

As the young man happily accepted the bamboo basket and gazed longingly at the large "Blue Silver Grass," Ling Yi and Ah Yin, each leading a black and a blue horse, witnessed the transaction that had just taken place at the street corner a dozen meters away.

Watching the young man's light and quick steps as he walked away, Ah Yin turned to look at the dark-faced, yellow-toothed boss. She saw him take out another large "Blue Silver Grass" from the big wooden box behind him, just like the one before.

Ah Yin: "..."

Ling Yi, who had witnessed the boss's actions just like Ah Yin, didn't say anything. He simply led his horse to another middle-aged fat man with a red, bulbous nose. After exchanging a few words, he took out a Silver Soul Coin and bought five catties of "Blue Silver Rice Wine" in a brownish-yellow earthenware jar.

A dozen minutes later, two tall, fine horses carrying a man and a woman trotted away from the town.

"Brother Yi, what just happened..."

After thinking it over and over, Ah Yin finally couldn't help but ask Ling Yi.

As they trudged through the Treading Snow, the horse's back remained stable. Ling Yi, while dispensing the glutinous white wine from the earthenware jar into half-pound celadon bottles, occasionally responded:

"You mean to say that the ' Blue Silver Grass ' that person just sold was indeed only forty-nine years old, right?"

Ah Yin nodded. "Mm."

Ling Yi turned to look at Ah Yin, meticulously pouring the wine into the mouth of the celadon bottle:

"But you should also be able to sense that the ' Blue Silver Grass,' or rather most of the ' Blue Silver Grass ' in that boss's hands, although it has remained at forty-nine years, is not because its potential has reached its limit, but simply because it is in a dormant period. After accumulating enough vitality, it will naturally be able to break through to fifty years..."

"It's probably because the boss was greedy, or rather, too eager for quick success, cultivating a large quantity of ' Blue Silver Grass ' all at once. Even if some ' Blue Silver Grass ' were growing better, he didn't notice, or if he did, he didn't pay attention and didn't choose to focus on cultivating them. As a result, this batch of ' Blue Silver Grass ' all slowed down when they reached a certain age..."

"Therefore, he may have regarded these ' Blue Silver Grass ' as 'defective products' with exhausted potential, which is why he chose to sell them off to the public—"

"Judging from his practiced manner and the efficiency with which he collected the money, he must have made a considerable profit, not lost money."

"The customer who bought the 49-year-old ' Blue Silver Grass ' has accumulated a lot of vitality in his ' Blue Silver Grass '. As long as he uses his Soul Power to nurture it properly, it should be able to break through to 50 years in no time."

Judging from the fluctuations in his aura, he must have only recently broken through to the ninth level of Soul Scholar. Once he cultivates to the tenth level, that "Blue Silver Grass," under his nurturing, might give him a pleasant surprise—"

Hearing this, Ah Yin recalled what she had seen and sensed before, and realized that everything was exactly as Ling Yi had said, down to the last detail. She looked astonished and said, "So, these two people actually made a profit?"

I initially thought it was a scheme by unscrupulous merchants selling substandard goods and cheating unsuspecting customers, or perhaps the customers were getting a great deal while the unscrupulous merchants were losing out on good products.

Unexpectedly, after Ling Yi's analysis, it turned out to be a win-win situation.

With a flick of his wrist, Ling Yi put the empty earthenware jar into his Storage Soul Tool, leaving a celadon bottle in his hand. Ling Yi tilted his head back slightly and took a sip of sweet glutinous rice wine.

"Hmm, not bad. Although the technique is just average, it wins because the ingredients are natural and there's no weird stuff added..."

Savoring the lingering fragrance in his mouth, Ling Yi nodded slightly in his comment.

"It seems that Old Li has put a lot of effort into this aspect over the past few years. I wonder if it has interfered with his cultivation."

"Brother Yi ~" Ah Yin spurred her horse, urging Treading Snow closer to Azure Wind, and looked curiously at the blue porcelain bottle in Ling Yi's hand. "This rice wine has a faint fragrance of ' Blue Silver Grass.' I heard that person shouting that it was brewed from ' Blue Silver Rice.' Was it invented by that ' Old Li ' you just mentioned?"

"Yes." Ling Yi took out another bottle of rice wine and handed it to Ah Yin, who had come closer. He nodded and smiled, "' Blue Silver Rice ' is something I cultivated by chance before I left the [Water Wood Duchy] through grafting, pollination, and other methods."

"According to my plan, the first batch of grain seeds should be cultivated in the Mountain Sea Estate, and then expanded to the entire ' Blue Silver Territory '. As for whether it will spread to the entire ' Water Wood Duchy ' later, that depends on the opinions of those people in ' Wood Plant City '."

"Looking back now, in the years I was away, they were quite accepting of the things that were being said about the ' Blue Silver Territory '."

"I suspect part of the reason is still because of Dugu Bo," Ling Yi thought to himself, while continuing to speak:

"This rice wine was made by a friend of mine, Li Zhishu, using ' Blue Silver Rice ' as the raw material."

"He is a Food System Soul Master, and he is particularly talented in cooking and researching new types of food."