Pharmacy

The rest of the trip went smoothly. After another ten-odd minutes, he arrived at the urban village marked on the address Senior Brother Wang had given him.

This village was different from the ones he had passed along the way.

The entrance was crowded with villagers coming and going and vans hauling goods. It was as lively as a farmers' market.

Inside the village, small supermarkets, steamed-bun shops, and other stores selling daily necessities lined both sides of the road.

It looked just like the west had before the fighting began, as though the war had never touched this village. It was a haven apart from the world.

Chen Yiming wandered around until he finally found the address Senior Brother Wang had given him: a pharmacy called Jihetang.

The pharmacy was small, about five meters wide and less than ten meters deep.

There was little on the shelves, only a few common medicines scattered about. Business looked bleak.

A gray-haired old man in black cloth clothes was working out accounts on an abacus behind the counter.

His eyesight had probably worsened with age. Every so often, he had to lean close to the ledger to read it.

Chen Yiming had just stepped inside and was about to ask a question when two figures blocked the light behind him. The shop suddenly grew much darker.

Two burly men had followed him in and now stood on either side of the entrance, completely blocking it.

The man on the left had a round face, while the one on the right had a narrow face. Both stood around two meters tall, a head taller than Chen Yiming, with large, sharply defined muscles all over. They did not look like ordinary villagers.

Only then did the old man glance up at him and ask:

"Young man, I haven't seen you before. What brings you here?"

"I'm Chen Yiming from the Praying Mantis Snake Sword Academy. Senior Brother Wang sent me."

Chen Yiming spoke quickly.

He realized at once that someone had noticed him checking house numbers along the way and suspected him of being up to no good.

Before the old man could verify his identity any further, the round-faced man cut in:

"Oh, Brother Wang sent him? He's one of us."

He burst into laughter, too, dropping his fierce manner so abruptly that it was almost comical.

The narrow-faced man turned on him with a glare and punched him in the chest.

"You idiot. You believe everything people tell you. Let Old Zhang speak first."

The old man adjusted his reading glasses and gave Chen Yiming a careful look.

"Fair skin, about one point eight meters tall, white training clothes, wooden sword. That mostly matches what Wang's grandson told me."

At that, the round-faced man rubbed his swollen chest, looking aggrieved.

"I told you he was one of us. Big Brother, you always overthink things. That punch really hurt."

The narrow-faced man glared at him and scolded him.

"You deserved it. You never learn. Why talk so much when it's not your job?"

The two burly men were twins, but their personalities could not have been more different. The round-faced one was easygoing and simple-minded, while the narrow-faced one was calm, rational, and meticulous.

"Don't mind them, young man. This is Wang Family Village, and these brothers are on the village patrol. Wang's grandson already told me about you. Come with me."

The old man rose as he spoke and walked out from behind the counter.

So this is Senior Brother Wang's family village. No wonder they're all so sturdy. It must run in the family, Chen Yiming thought.

The old man slowly made his way to a wall in the corner, took out a bunch of keys, and unlocked a concealed door. Then the two of them entered the room hidden behind the pharmacy, one after the other.

The air was thick with the sharp, unpleasant smell of Chinese medicine.

Cabinets reaching the ceiling ran along three walls in a U shape, with the contents labeled on every drawer.

Several large wooden crates, each over a meter long and wide, also stood on the floor.

The old man pointed to the cabinets as he explained:

"The dried Mutated Beast meat in the cabinet on the left helps increase strength. The cabinet on the right holds meat that helps build stamina, and the one in front holds meat that helps improve reaction speed."

"Eating all three types together can make up, to some extent, for a naturally weak physique."

"We have official documents proving that this meat comes from farms in the Otherworld. We would never pass off fakes to fool you."

Chen Yiming looked around, following the old man's pointing finger.

Dried Black-Patterned Ring Snake meat: three thousand yuan per jin.

Dried Snow Deer leg meat: four thousand yuan per jin.

Bengal Tiger tail: one hundred thousand yuan each.

It was all too expensive. Unlike many other students, he had not taken a position with an outside gang early on. His expenses came out of his family's money, and he could not afford to spend that much.

Only when the old man began to grow impatient did Chen Yiming ask quietly:

"Do you have anything cheaper?"

The old man paused, puzzled.

"The cheapest thing suited to the Praying Mantis Snake Sword Academy's style is probably this Black-Patterned Ring Snake meat. Besides nourishing the body, it improves flexibility."

"But you need to understand that the human body works as a whole. You can't strengthen one aspect indefinitely on its own. It's best to eat different kinds together."

Chen Yiming flushed and came clean.

"I'd like to know which Mutated Beast meat here is the cheapest."

The old man took one look at him and understood. He crouched and opened a wooden crate.

"Black Boar Meat, smoked and dried. Two hundred yuan per jin."

The Black Boar Meat had been cut into long strips and threaded onto strings, then arranged neatly in the crate. Its surface was dark, and the fat on it had not fully solidified.

At first glance, Chen Yiming thought it looked just like cured pork.

They had taken pigs to the Otherworld, raised them there, turned them into cured pork, and brought them back. The price had gone up seven or eight times.

Athletes in his previous life had avoided pork altogether. Even if these pigs had been raised in the Otherworld, the meat was so much cheaper than the other dried meats that he had no idea how effective it would be.

The old man seemed to notice his hesitation and continued:

"You get what you pay for. This is already the price for people in Wang Family Village. Outside the village, it would cost at least twice as much."

"The stronger you get, the more your body consumes. If you rely on ordinary meat alone, you risk depleting your body and damaging your foundation. That could make a future breakthrough harder."

"Whatever else you say about this Black Boar Meat, when it comes to replenishing the energy your body uses, plenty of dried meats costing tens of thousands per jin can't match it."

Chen Yiming's eyes lit up. The Black Boar Meat's main benefit was replenishing energy, exactly what he needed. With his ability to add points to his talent, the Mutated Beast meats that compensated for a weak natural physique were not as important to him.

Lately, he had felt it more and more clearly during training: ordinary meat could no longer keep up with how much energy he expended.

Just as the old man had said, if he kept relying on ordinary meat to replenish that energy, he might genuinely injure his body through training.

He hesitated no longer. He paid the old man and bought a piece to try.

It weighed a little over three jin and cost nearly seven hundred yuan.

After leaving the pharmacy, he hung the smoked Black Boar Meat from his bicycle's handlebars. He was not worried about anyone coveting something worth only a few hundred yuan. He got on his bicycle and rode home the way he had come.