Invitation

A month passed in the blink of an eye as time rolled on.

Besides cultivating, Chen Jianghe poured a sack of rice bran into the lake every day, leaving Xiao Hei to make sure the Big Blue Fish ate.

The rice bran used to feed the fish was ground rice husks, but it was not made from ordinary rice husks.

Instead, it was ground from the husks of Spirit Marrow Rice eaten by cultivators. It contained no spiritual energy, but having grown amid spiritual energy for so long, it was the best feed for Big Blue Fish.

Spirit Marrow Rice grew in spirit fields and contained trace amounts of spiritual energy. It was expensive: one jin could be exchanged for a Fasting Pill, and it cost eight grains of spirit sand per jin.

Chen Jianghe could not afford it at present.

The rice bran was not cheap either. Fortunately, the Yun Household provided it for free; otherwise, the Fisher-Farmers' earnings would have been even more meager.

His daily necessities had run out, and his night-soil bucket was full.

Chen Jianghe rowed to the harbor, emptied the night soil, and entered the market to buy his daily necessities. Once he was finished, he headed straight back to his fishing boat without lingering.

But just as he was about to board, someone called out to him.

"Fellow Daoist, wait a moment."

Like Chen Jianghe, the middle-aged man wore the coarse, short clothing of a Fisher-Farmer, with a white cloud embroidered on his chest. He was a Fisher-Farmer too.

He was burly and dark-skinned, with features that gave him an honest, dependable look.

"Can I help you?"

Chen Jianghe turned toward the middle-aged man and asked coolly.

Fighting was forbidden at the Yun Household's harbor, though cursing was not, so Chen Jianghe was not afraid of this burly middle-aged man whose cultivation he could not gauge.

"The two-month fish dormancy period is here. Would you like to earn some spirit sand during that time, Fellow Daoist?" The middle-aged man's voice sounded simple and honest.

Chen Jianghe shook his head.

"It's not mining work. It's helping the Lan Household grow Spirit Marrow Rice. You can earn three grains of spirit sand in two months. It isn't much, but at least it's safe."

Thinking Chen Jianghe had mistaken him for a broker recruiting miners, the middle-aged man hurriedly explained the work he was recruiting for.

The Lan Household was a Qi Refining aristocratic clan. They rented a tract of land fifty li across from the Yun Household and had ten mu of spirit fields, where they mainly grew Spirit Marrow Rice.

Moreover, the Lan Household's territory was in Bixia Town, thirty li south of Mirror Moon Lake, much closer than the mining area.

Three grains of spirit sand for two months was indeed good work.

"Thank you, Fellow Daoist, but I don't want to go away for work this year."

Chen Jianghe declined with a smile.

"Fellow Daoist, could you take me along?" A thin young man passing by heard the middle-aged man's explanation and immediately grew interested.

"Well..."

Looking at the young man's eager expression, the middle-aged man said awkwardly, "I approached this fellow Daoist first."

Chen Jianghe chuckled and said politely, "It's fine. Let this fellow Daoist have the opportunity."

With that, Chen Jianghe turned and boarded his fishing boat without waiting for the middle-aged man to reply. With gentle strokes of his bamboo pole, he swiftly left the harbor.

"Big Brother, that brat is far too timid."

Watching Chen Jianghe's fishing boat depart, the thin young man spat and cursed under his breath.

"No, that's caution. That's the only way to live a little longer."

The middle-aged man's expression shifted slightly, a keen light flashing in his eyes as he showed a trace of approval. As he looked at the passing Fisher-Farmers, his eyes grew clear again, and a harmless smile returned to his face as he continued searching for targets.

More than two months quietly passed.

During the fish dormancy period, Chen Jianghe did nothing but cultivate. He did not even need to feed the fish, and only went to the harbor market once every half month to buy necessities.

Apart from that one visit when someone had invited him to take temporary work, no one approached him on his subsequent visits to the harbor. Temporary jobs generally lasted two months, coinciding precisely with the fish dormancy period, so no one recruited temporary workers afterward. Even if they did, no one would go.

"Caw! Caw! Caw!"

It was the cry of a White Egret delivering a letter.

Confusion crossed Chen Jianghe's face. In three days, it would be time to sell the fish and collect their pay. All the Fisher-Farmers would gather then and could talk freely.

They could also splurge a little, drinking and chatting at the market with Fisher-Farmers they were close to and finding some entertainment together.

He stepped out of the cabin and took the letter.

After searching his waters for quite a while, Chen Jianghe finally gave the White Egret a Big Blue Fish weighing three jin and three liang, his heart aching at the expense.

"It's from Daniu?!"

Chen Jianghe opened the letter and began reading. His expression gradually grew grave, and a trace of lingering fear appeared in his eyes.

"More than a hundred Fisher-Farmers died? How could there be so many!"

The letter's contents made Chen Jianghe draw in a sharp breath.

Yu Daniu wrote that more than thirty Fisher-Farmers had gone mining, and thirty had returned—a casualty rate of less than ten percent.

Compared with previous years, when the casualty rate had reached thirty percent, this truly was a lucky year for the Fisher-Farmers.

Only thirty-two Fisher-Farmers had gone to the mine, not even a fifth of the number in previous years.

"Hm? More than two hundred Fisher-Farmers went to do temporary work for the Lan Household!"

At this point, Chen Jianghe clearly sensed something was wrong.

The Lan Household was a relatively large Qi Refining aristocratic clan around Mirror Moon Lake, but they had only ten mu of spirit fields. They certainly had no need for over two hundred temporary spirit farmers.

Nor would the Lan Household ever have Fisher-Farmers with cultivation grow ordinary rice.

Sure enough, as he read on, Chen Jianghe understood why so many Fisher-Farmers had died.

The Lan Household had recruited large numbers of temporary Fisher-Farmer laborers to murder them and steal the wealth they had accumulated over the years.

By rights, the Lan Household should not have dared do this.

The Yun Household could stand by while Fisher-Farmers suffered casualties during the fish dormancy period, because they could take over the fruits of the dead farmers' fish-rearing efforts.

But the Yun Household would never stand by while large numbers of Fisher-Farmers were murdered. If they could not recruit enough Fisher-Farmers at the beginning of the year, it would seriously affect the Big Blue Fish harvest.

The Lan Household had dared commit the utterly heartless slaughter of over a hundred Fisher-Farmers because they intended to flee and no longer planned to make a living on the Yun Household's territory.

Yu Daniu knew all this so clearly because he had been among those temporary Fisher-Farmer laborers.

But Yu Daniu's home was in Bixia Town, and he had narrowly escaped the slaughter because he had gone home partway through to visit his family.

Chen Jianghe crumpled the letter into scraps and tossed them into the night-soil bucket.

He had not gone to the harbor lately because the time to sell the fish and collect his pay was almost here. By now, news of the Lan Household's murderous scheme against the Fisher-Farmers was probably flying all over the harbor.

After all, more than two hundred Fisher-Farmers had gone to do temporary work for the Lan Household. Over a hundred had died, but around a hundred had still returned.

The Yun Household should give all the Fisher-Farmers an explanation at the Fisher-Farmer Conference at year-end, shouldn't they? Otherwise, if the Fisher-Farmers' lives can't be kept safe, who would come back to do this work?

Chen Jianghe sat back on his bed and exhaled a breath of stale air. Casting aside distracting thoughts and calming his mind, he began circulating the Origin Returning True Water Art to cultivate.

These past few months of cultivation had brought a clear change to his Dantian Qi Sea. It was already the size of a peanut.

Once it reached the size of a goose egg, his Dantian Qi Sea would be fully opened, and his cultivation would reach the Qi Refining Third Layer. He would then only need to bring his magical power to fullness to break through to the fourth level of Qi Refining.

Drawing in spiritual energy to cultivate was also the best way to dispel hunger.

The Yun Household's people would come to collect the fish in three days. He did not have much food left aboard, but there was no need to make a trip to the harbor market in the meantime.

(End of chapter)