Zhang Xiong

To everyone's surprise, Chen Deping, Chen Yuanwai, had summoned the villagers to the ancestral hall not to hold a meeting.

He was actually handing out benefits!

Every household received twenty jin of rice and a small jar of coarse salt.

To the villagers of Chen Family Village, this was no trifling favor. Some even felt that this master was being excessively generous.

One had to know that many villagers could not eat rice more than a few times in an entire year.

Their usual staple food consisted mostly of sweet potatoes and mixed grains.

For some, even a bowl of white rice counted as celebrating the New Year!

And a jar of coarse salt was worth even more than twenty jin of rice.

All the villagers were deeply grateful, gaining several degrees more respect and identification with this master of their own clan.

Chen Deping then announced that, to protect the village's safety, he had specially invited a martial master from the County Town to stand guard.

This martial master was the man in fitted clothes standing beside Chen Yuanwai. His name was Zhang Xiong.

The villagers immediately felt reassured.

A martial master from the County Town had to be very formidable, right?

Chen Deping's prestige instantly rose another level!

Mixed in among the crowd, Zhang Yuan also greatly admired this master's shrewdness and methods of wielding favor and authority in tandem.

But what filled his heart even more was vigilance and wariness.

His desire to leave Chen Family Village and settle in the County Town grew stronger than ever!

After the villagers departed, Zhang Xiong, accompanied by the Weasel-faced Advisor and several servants, arrived at Hunter Gao's home.

The martial master looked at the ruins before him and remained silent.

After a moment, he suddenly said, "You should head back first. I'll stay here for a while."

What was there to see among these broken walls and collapsed ruins?

The Weasel-faced Advisor grumbled inwardly, though his outward manner remained respectful. "Yes."

He did not dare provoke this martial master.

One had to know that even Chen Yuanwai treated Zhang Xiong with great courtesy and lavish hospitality, honoring him as a Guest Elder of the Chen Family.

The Weasel-faced Advisor even knew that it was on Zhang Xiong's recommendation that Chen Deping had his three sons take Hunter Gao as their master.

He had even hired him at a high salary as an instructor for the household.

And now something had happened to Hunter Gao. No one had seen him alive, nor had anyone seen his corpse.

Yet after coming from the County Town to Chen Family Village, Zhang Xiong's first request had been to inspect Hunter Gao's home, which had already become ruins.

There had to be something fishy here!

But the Weasel-faced Advisor did not dare think too deeply about it, much less ask.

He hurried away with two servants.

No sooner had they left than Zhang Xiong began carefully searching Hunter Gao's burned-down home!

Yet after spending considerable effort and turning the ground over three feet deep, the martial master found nothing of value.

In the end, he could only give up resentfully.

At this very moment, Zhang Yuan was already deep in the mountains.

Zhang Yuan had not taken Chen Yuanwai's little favors to heart at all. He even suspected that the man had some other scheme in mind by buying people's hearts this way.

Chen Family Village might well become a place of trouble in the future!

Thus, for Zhang Yuan, the most urgent matter was earning enough silver to settle down and establish a home in the County Town.

He returned to the forest stream.

"Crow Brother~"

Zhang Yuan had barely called out when the Crow Spirit arrived as expected, flying out from the dense woods and landing before him.

But before he could say another word, the Crow Spirit spread its wings and flew off to the right!

Zhang Yuan could only swallow the words he wanted to say and follow closely behind it.

This time, the Crow Spirit did not take Zhang Yuan back to that small valley. Bird and man passed one after the other through the dense forest and arrived before a cliff whose sheer walls soared a thousand fathoms high.

Baa~

Zhang Yuan's eyes lit up.

He saw more than a dozen Rock Sheep, large and small, climbing and foraging along the sheer cliff face!

Rock Sheep resembled goats in both size and appearance, but their coats were brownish gray, their limbs sturdier than those of goats. They crossed mountains and ridges as if walking on level ground, and they were exceedingly alert.

Zhang Yuan had seen Rock Sheep before, but he had never hunted them.

According to the village elders, Rock Sheep meat was delicious, and their tanned hides were excellent material for making winter clothes.

They would certainly fetch a high price in the County Town!

Zhang Yuan had not expected the Crow Spirit to be this reliable. It had actually led him to such a large herd of Rock Sheep—truly an unexpected delight.

But a problem quickly arose.

The Rock Sheep were climbing very high, while the Hunting Bow he carried was utterly ordinary. Shooting upward from below, he probably could not harm their hides even if he snapped the bowstring.

And even if the arrows could reach them, the mountain winds would likely leave him with no accuracy to speak of!

If he missed and startled the prey into fleeing, today's trip would have been for nothing.

After turning it over in his mind, Zhang Yuan did not rashly use the Hunting Bow.

His gaze swept up, down, left, and right across the cliff, searching for a suitable sniping position.

Suddenly, a bold idea came to Zhang Yuan.

He stepped forward, picked up a stone lying at the foot of the cliff.

It was an ordinary stone, fist-sized and sharply edged, heavy in his hand.

Zhang Yuan weighed it in his palm, aiming his gaze at the Rock Sheep still moving across the cliff face, and decided to give it a try.

He found several more stones of similar size and tucked them into his clothes.

Zhang Yuan retreated over a dozen steps, gripping a stone in his hand, and abruptly activated the Divine Nest's Black Giant Ant Power.

A twofold boost in strength!

The next moment, Zhang Yuan burst forward several steps and hurled the stone at his chosen target with all his might.

The Hunting Bow was too weak. He wanted to see whether he could rely on his own strength to knock down a Rock Sheep!

The stone howled through the air, flying up the cliff in an instant and striking beside an adult ram.

It had missed the target by less than a foot!

Baa!

Startled by the sudden attack, the ram instinctively let out a warning cry.

The entire herd was alarmed.

More than a dozen Rock Sheep scattered toward higher ground.

But Zhang Yuan hurled the second and third stones in rapid succession!

Smack!

The second stone missed as well, but the third struck the ram's left foreleg squarely.

It immediately lost its balance and fell from the cliff.

It crashed heavily among the rocks more than a dozen zhang below!

Done!

Zhang Yuan had not expected this method to actually work. He had successfully brought down a huge Rock Sheep weighing over a hundred jin.

Overjoyed, he immediately climbed the steep cliff toward where the Rock Sheep had fallen.

After entering the Force stage, Zhang Yuan's strength had not only greatly increased—he was also more agile than before. Thus, the towering cliff did not become an impassable chasm blocking his path, and he climbed up smoothly.

After scrambling over a large protruding boulder, Zhang Yuan saw the Rock Sheep lying in a pool of blood.

The ram's skull had been caved in. It had long since stopped breathing.

He reached out and grabbed its curved horns, preparing to slowly drag it back down to the base of the cliff.

Just then, a flash of vivid red suddenly entered the corner of Zhang Yuan's eye.

He instinctively turned to look, only to see a green stalk protruding from a crack in the rock beside him, bearing several scarlet vermilion fruits.

Rock Ginseng!

With his many years of experience gathering herbs, Zhang Yuan recognized at a glance that this was Rock Ginseng, which grew only in rock crevices.

A remarkably precious medicinal herb!

He suddenly felt as though a pie had fallen from the sky and struck him right on the head.