What Era Is This?

The Sword Pill entered his body, and his consciousness returned.

When Li Boyang opened his eyes again, the first thing he saw was a large face right in front of his own.

"Ah?"

That startled cry came not from Li Boyang, but from the owner of the large face.

"?"

Li Boyang froze for a moment. This was the first time he had seen someone try to scare another person and end up getting scared instead.

Fortunately, he immediately realized that the little girl had not meant to frighten him.

From her youthful appearance, he could tell that she was probably Big Girl, the one his mother had found to look after him.

"Ah?"

Because his vocal organs had not yet fully developed,

Li Boyang could only wave his little hands like this to greet Big Girl, who was facing him.

From her slightly frightened expression, Li Boyang knew she must have seen the Sword Pill enter his body.

The only thing he was unsure of now was just how much Big Girl had seen.

"Little brother!"

To Li Boyang's surprise, however, Big Girl's fear passed as quickly as it had come.

She blinked, and her fright soon gave way to curiosity. Once again, she brought her large face close to his.

"Little brother, your hair..."

Pointing at Li Boyang's hair, Big Girl opened her mouth, then hesitated.

Seeing this, Li Boyang instinctively reached up to touch his hair, only to suddenly feel a faint warmth against his hand.

"Fire! It's fire!"

"Careful, your head's on fire!"

Startled by Li Boyang's action, Big Girl immediately cried out.

"Little brother, don't move! I'll get a basin of water!"

Hearing this, Li Boyang hurriedly waved his hands, trying to stop the impetuous Big Girl.

"Ah, ah, ah!"

Although he did not know what was happening to him, Li Boyang did not want a basin of cold water poured over him.

After all, it was winter, and a cold north wind was blowing outside.

If a basin of cold water were poured over him, even Li Boyang could not be sure whether his body would withstand it.

"Little brother?"

She had clearly understood Li Boyang's gesture.

Big Girl, who had been about to fetch water from the next room, stopped at once.

It was not that Big Girl had seen the error of her ways, but that she had noticed Li Boyang's hand had not been burned by the flames atop his head.

"Little brother, you're all right?"

Big Girl reached out cautiously, yet with immense curiosity, seemingly wanting to touch the flames on Li Boyang's head herself.

But Li Boyang came to his senses and slapped her hand away.

Isn't this girl a little too bold?

With that thought flashing through his mind, Li Boyang chose to ignore the aggrieved look on Big Girl's face entirely.

The next second, he closed his eyes and silently began to sense the Yuan Qi flowing through his body.

It was not the Innate Qi he had possessed as an embryo.

It was the Life Primordial Qi that every living being needed.

Only recently had Li Boyang managed to dispense with the Heavenly Eye's assistance and perceive the flow of Life Primordial Qi with his own senses.

This Life Primordial Qi came from Li Boyang's Qi and Blood, from every living cell in his body.

The more he ate and the better he ate, the more abundant his Qi and Blood would be...

And the more abundant his Qi and Blood, the more active his living cells would be, and the more his Life Primordial Qi would surge...

Yet at this very moment, surging was no longer enough to describe the Life Primordial Qi in Li Boyang's body.

Whoosh!

It was like a pot of water brought to a boil.

The seething, surging Yuan Qi coursed through the meridians all over Li Boyang's body, rushing toward the crown of his head.

The "flames" Big Girl had seen were a phenomenon caused by the Yuan Qi pouring out through the crown of his head.

"Whew!"

Sensing the Yuan Qi boil, Li Boyang immediately adjusted the rhythm of his breathing.

The habit Li Boyang had developed as an embryo was now gradually becoming a unique ability.

Just like the Innate Qi he had possessed as an embryo,

the Life Primordial Qi in Li Boyang's body gradually gathered as his breathing rhythm changed, then began to circulate along the central axis of his body.

Those were the Ren and Du meridians in the traditional sense, the two broadest and easiest-to-find main meridians in the body.

Whoosh!

Under Li Boyang's deliberate guidance, the Life Primordial Qi in his body completed a full cycle and finally flowed into the Dantian, where the Sword Pill was located.

As expected, the Yuan Qi that had been depleted by killing Ruifu was replenished.

The golden Sword Pill even gave a faint, clear, joyous sword cry.

"Little brother, your hair's not burning anymore?"

Just then, Li Boyang heard Big Girl's voice beside his ear again.

Along with her voice came the sensation of a slightly cool little hand stroking the top of his head.

"Ah!"

Li Boyang opened his eyes at once and slapped Big Girl's hand away, looking helpless.

Then he saw her purse her lips and gaze at him with an aggrieved expression.

"Little brother, I was just touching it..."

Li Boyang promptly rolled his eyes. Of course he knew Big Girl was simply curious.

But he did not want to become a toy for an overly curious brat.

"Don't be angry!"

"If you don't want me to, I won't touch it!"

After mumbling this with a pout, Big Girl finally remembered that she had been called here to look after Li Boyang.

"Little brother, are you hungry?"

"If you're hungry, I'll go heat up the rice porridge for you."

Seeing the faint trace of drool at the corner of Big Girl's mouth, Li Boyang could easily tell what she was thinking.

He took one look at her stick-thin figure.

Though Li Boyang was not hungry, he silently nodded.

At that moment, he suddenly felt how wonderful it would have been if he had not retained his memories of his past life!

Not enough food to fill one's belly, not enough clothes to cover one's body...

In Li Boyang's past life, those were words he had only seen in history textbooks.

But now, those words were laid out before his eyes with such reality that he could hardly bear to look.

Li Boyang even wondered whether Big Girl, so small and frail, would really live to adulthood.

Of course, in this era, Big Girl did not need to live to adulthood.

Generally speaking, a girl like her could be considered for marriage when she was twelve or thirteen.

While Chen Yun was pregnant, Li Boyang had heard her discuss such things with Li Yu.

Girls of twelve or thirteen were either married off to families in neighboring villages

or sent to larger nearby towns to serve as slaves, with few exceptions.

Those with even more miserable fates might become "human sacrifices," offered up to certain ill-tempered mountain gods and river gods.

By contrast, a woman like Chen Yun, who had waited until eighteen to marry

and had insisted on marrying the man she loved, was one of the few among the few.

Even after giving birth to Li Boyang, Chen Yun was still under twenty.

In the eyes of Li Boyang, who had lived two lives, Chen Yun was herself still only a young girl at that age.

"Little brother! Here's the rice porridge!"

When Li Boyang came out of his thoughts,

Big Girl had already walked over carrying a bowl that was enormous for her.

Watching her stagger along, swaying with every step, Li Boyang once again felt how backward and benighted this era was.

"Ah!"

So, under Big Girl's delighted gaze, Li Boyang reached out and pushed the spoon she had raised with such effort toward her mouth.

"Are you telling me to eat it?"

"No, no, you're still growing. You should eat more."

"Once you're full, I'll eat what's left. Yun Niang already told me so."

Stubbornly bringing the spoon back to Li Boyang's mouth,

Big Girl spoke with a determined expression, though she was longing to eat.

Seeing this, Li Boyang could only swallow the rice porridge bit by bit, his feelings complicated.

Unlike the fine rice porridge of his past life,

this so-called "rice porridge" was, at best, millet boiled in water, with a few tiny specks of oil visible here and there.

In Li Boyang's past life, this stuff would have been considered scraps too rough even to feed pigs.

Yet in this era, it was a refined food that only infants were entitled to eat.

Coarse grains, wild vegetables, leaves, scraps...

These things, which people in Li Boyang's past life had looked down on entirely, were the everyday fare of the common people at the bottom of society in this era.

What kind of era is this, anyway?

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