Wealth Should Not Be Flaunted

"Boss, may your business prosper. If there's another chance, let's work together again," Lu Xingshi said with a smile.

This was the twelfth restaurant he had visited in the town.

He had been a little too naive. He had thought one place alone would earn him one or two taels of silver, but in reality, there were still rather limited things he could sell.

First was the timing. Most restaurants, Martial Halls, and even local prominent clans purchased their vegetables, fruits, and meat in the morning.

As a result, he had sold very little. What he could sell were all fresh fruits. Fortunately, his fruit was exceptionally fresh and of excellent quality, which was why it had sold.

He had not only visited restaurants, but also gone to the local prominent clans, and that was how he had managed to make sales. He had only visited one Martial Hall, because he realized he had made a mistake. Martial Halls valued meat more; nobody bought fruit. Their diets were all soups and broths, and the people in Martial Halls preferred alcohol.

After bustling about for an entire afternoon, he had finally scraped together ten taels. To an ordinary household, that was an enormous sum.

He had the local prominent clans to thank for that. Those wealthy households did not hesitate when spending money; they simply bought his goods outright.

Besides the silver, he had gained something else: abilities. He had acquired the two abilities of Commerce and Eloquence. Because of Peerless Genius, what should have been an initial ability value of 1 had become an initial value of 100. It delighted him immensely, and it would make his future dealings much faster.

Abilities needed to be activated before they could take effect, though each had different activation methods.

He had already felt the benefits brought by having 100 points in Commerce and Eloquence. The most obvious was his ability to read people's expressions. He could judge certain emotions revealed through their faces and body language.

The second benefit was that the words he blurted out became more inclined toward the other party's emotions.

When he talked to himself, many of his words never passed through his brain. That made it easy to offend people. But if those thoughtless words were adjusted according to what he observed, what would originally offend someone could become flattery instead. Once people were happy to hear it, they would naturally be willing to do business with him.

"Kind sir... please, give me something to eat." Lu Xingshi had just stepped outside when a beggar latched onto him, immediately hugging his thigh.

"Uh... if you want money, I really don't have any." Lu Xingshi looked at the beggar clinging to his leg. The boy was not very old, perhaps fifteen or sixteen.

"But if you want food, I do have some."

Lu Xingshi was not someone with a heart of stone. After all, he was a transmigrator from Earth and had come from a modern society.

If the boy had asked him for money, he would have refused. But if he wanted food, Lu Xingshi could give him some.

As he spoke, he pulled a white-flour steamed bun from his robe. He had several huge warehouses full of them, mainly as stored food. He did not need to eat, and neither did the Game Villagers, so he had simply accumulated them.

The reason he kept producing them was because he had a hoarder's obsession.

Besides steamed buns, he had other food as well, but he certainly could not give the boy anything too good. For one thing, food with too much grease would be more than the boy's body could bear, and he would get diarrhea after eating it.

Ordinary people in ancient times might not eat meat or anything oily more than a few times a year, much less beggars.

For another, it would be difficult to explain. Taking out a steamed bun was fine; he could say he had tucked it into his robe as rations. But pulling out a Roast Chicken would be far too outrageous.

Lu Xingshi had specifically chosen an unleavened steamed bun, one of the varieties that was occasionally made among the steamed buns.

The beggar stared blankly at the fist-sized bun. He had never expected Lu Xingshi to truly give him something, much less be so generous.

This was white flour. Ordinary families could not even afford to eat it, yet this man had simply given it to him.

"Take it. This is my dinner. It's a little cold, but it's enough to fill your stomach." Seeing the boy freeze, Lu Xingshi stuffed the bun into his hand.

After taking it, the boy bit down fiercely, then chewed it in small bites.

When had he ever eaten something so delicious?

"Eat slowly. Don't choke," Lu Xingshi reminded him.

"Th-thank you..." the beggar said softly.

Lu Xingshi smiled. Being thanked like that after doing a good deed really did feel rather pleasant.

"Then take your time eating. I have things to do, so I'll be on my way." Lu Xingshi did not look down on him. The boy had hands and feet, but judging from his skeletal frame and the scars on his arms, he might not have become a beggar willingly.

As for whether someone controlled him or whether it was conflict among beggars, Lu Xingshi did not know. Still, he leaned more toward the former. The local gangs were hardly polite.

"Wait." The boy suddenly spoke in a low voice.

With his high Physical Constitution, Lu Xingshi naturally had sharp ears and clear vision. An ordinary person might not even have heard him.

Then the boy continued at a rapid pace, "Leave quickly. Get out of town. Someone has their eye on you."

After saying that, the beggar darted away in a flash. Clearly, he had been assigned to keep watch.

But Lu Xingshi had given him a steamed bun, so he repaid the kindness by warning him.

"The fruits really are worth quite a bit," Lu Xingshi muttered quietly. He knew that, in some people's eyes, his actions had indeed been extremely conspicuous.

If he had been selling vegetables, it would have been nothing. But he had such a wide variety of fruits, and he had sold them as gift boxes. He had made ten taels of silver in a single afternoon. Someone was bound to grow jealous.

In ancient society, especially an ancient martial-arts society with the jianghu, there were certainly plenty of lawless people.

"I should run first... no, buy manuals first, then buy a mule. Forget it, I won't buy the mule." Lu Xingshi could run faster than a horse as a Martial Arts Game Character, and his endurance was even better. Other than having to run himself, there were no drawbacks.

The Physical Constitution of a Peerless Genius was no joke.

In that instant, he discovered the use of Mental Fortitude. If it had been his former self, his first thought would have been to run. He would never have considered so much. Panic would have been inevitable; this was his first time encountering such a situation.

Yet now, not only was he not panicked in the slightest, he could even plan out his route.

He did not need to worry about where to flee, either. If he followed the Official Road, he would surely reach the next town.

Having made up his mind, he immediately changed course and headed for a bookstore.

"Shopkeeper, give me a copy of the 'Qi Guiding Art' and the 'Breathing Exercise'!"

Bookstores sold such books.

Besides those two martial arts manuals, he also bought several books to learn about the Great Song Dynasty Court and the jianghu. None of them were cheap.

It could only be said that the expensive part was never the content, but the paper itself. Even these two common manuals could be obtained by people of the jianghu without buying them.