31: Chapter 31 Sixty-one people

After leaving Mo Dahu's stall, Mo Shoutian went straight to the pawnshop.

He only had nine taels of silver left on him, which definitely wasn't enough to buy another horse and carriage, so he had no choice but to pawn Liu Chunmei's jade bracelet first.

The pawnshop owner examined the jade bracelet for a long time, and at first was only willing to offer fifteen taels.

Mo Shoutian didn't agree and bargained with him for quite a while, finally raising the price to twenty taels.

After getting the silver, he went to the mule and horse market in the town.

After searching for over half an hour, he finally bought a seven or eight-year-old yellow horse and an old flatbed cart.

The horse wasn't much of a good horse, but it had no illnesses, and pulling the cart was no problem.

Mo Shoutian tied the grey horse he had originally ridden to the back of the cart, and drove the newly bought carriage away from Qingshi Town.

This trip took another day and night.

When he returned to Mo Family Village, it was already the next morning.

Mo Shoutian didn't go home first, but instead went to Mo Changlin's house.

Mo Changlin and his son had just finished breakfast, and seeing him drive back with another carriage, they knew he was preparing to go to Jiuzhou City.

"Leaving today?"

"Mm."

Mo Shoutian jumped down from the carriage.

"There are too many things, one carriage can't hold them all. You and Mo Qingshi come to my house later, and we'll set off as soon as we pack the things."

Hearing that he could also follow them to Jiuzhou City, Mo Qingshi instantly perked up.

"Uncle Shoutian, am I going too?"

"If you don't go, who is going to help drive the carriage?"

Mo Qingshi grinned and laughed.

Since he had grown up, the farthest place he had ever been to was Qingshi Town, and he had only heard villagers talk about Jiuzhou City without ever having been there.

Mo Changlin glared at his son.

"You think you're going out to play? With a round trip of more than twenty days, you'll have plenty of time to get tired."

Mo Qingshi didn't talk back, but the look of joy on his face never faded.

Mo Shoutian then went to Mo Shouyi and Mo Shoucheng's houses, telling them to come over later to go to Jiuzhou City together, and only then did he drive the carriage back home.

Liu Chunmei was making breakfast in the kitchen.

Hearing the sound of the carriage, she walked out from inside.

"Bought it back?"

"Bought it."

Mo Shoutian jumped off the carriage and tied up the two horses.

"Chunmei, bake more big flatbreads. In a while, I'll take Uncle Changlin and the others to Jiuzhou City."

Liu Chunmei originally wanted to see the newly bought horse, but hearing that he was leaving today, she frowned.

"You just came back, and you're leaving again?"

"Mm, sending them over early means I can come back earlier too."

After Liu Chunmei walked closer, she noticed that Mo Shoutian had lost a lot of weight, and his eyes were full of bloodshot veins.

"Can't you just rest at home for a day?"

Mo Shoutian glanced toward the courtyard gate, walked up to her, and whispered:

"I want to rest too."

"But it's been over a month, and we haven't gotten a single Spirit Stone. The ones we had left before can hold out for at most two more months."

Liu Chunmei didn't speak again.

Seeing her eye rims turn slightly red, Mo Shoutian said again:

"I'm fine."

"Uncle Changlin and the others will be on the road, if I get sleepy I'll just sleep for a bit in the carriage."

Liu Chunmei nodded.

"Then you eat first, I'll bake some more flatbreads for you all."

"Make more, there are many people going this time."

"Understood."

Liu Chunmei turned around and returned to the kitchen.

At this moment, Mo Xiaochuan walked out of his room.

"Dad, please come over for a moment."

Mo Shoutian looked over following the voice.

In the past, after Mo Xiaochuan started to Cultivate, the biggest change was that his skin became a bit tender and delicate, looking just like a young girl.

But looking at him now, he already had a bit of an Immortal's bearing.

Especially those eyes, which were much brighter than before.

Mo Shoutian didn't say anything either, and followed his son into the house.

Mo Xiaochuan closed the door and looked at his father, asking:

"Dad, let me go to Jiuzhou City this time."

"You rest at home for a few days."

Hearing this, a slight smile appeared on Mo Shoutian's face.

He reached out and patted his son's shoulder.

"Xiaochuan, Dad is not tired."

"Dad will handle external matters, you just focus on Cultivating well."

"But Dad..."

"There are no buts."

Mo Shoutian directly interrupted him.

"Dad does all this just so you can Cultivate peacefully and steadily."

"When you have the ability in the future, and can protect our family and the people of Mo Family Village, Dad's hard work won't have been in vain."

Mo Xiaochuan looked at his father's noticeably thinned face and didn't speak anymore.

At this moment, Qingli's voice came out from the broken jade.

"Your son's Aptitude is indeed not bad, even better than I previously thought."

"It only took a little over a month to Breakthrough from guiding Qi to the Early Stage of Meridians."

Hearing this, Mo Shoutian was stunned for a moment, then looked at Mo Xiaochuan.

No wonder he felt just now that his son was a bit different from before.

Without asking Mo Xiaochuan, he first cupped his hands toward the broken jade.

"It is still thanks to Senior's good teaching."

Hearing this, Qingli's tone carried a bit of smugness.

"That is only natural."

"How could a disciple taught by me be bad?"

With that, she said to Mo Xiaochuan:

"Disciple, recall the Spiritual Qi wandering in your Meridians back to your Dantian, and then guide it to your right index finger."

Following the method Qingli described, Mo Xiaochuan recalled the Spiritual Qi wandering in his Meridians back to his Dantian, and slowly guided it toward his right index finger.

After a moment, a trace of Spiritual Qi appeared at his fingertips.

That trace of Spiritual Qi was very weak.

Mo Shoutian had seen Cultivators from the Baihe Sect use Spiritual Qi, and had also seen Elder Xu from the Baihe Sect—that is, the one-armed Cultivator—infuse a strand of Spiritual Qi into his body.

Back then, however, he could only watch while kneeling.

Standing right in front of him now was his own son.

Mo Shoutian opened his mouth, and in the end only uttered a single word.

"Good."

Hearing his father's words, a slight smile also appeared on Mo Xiaochuan's face.

Qingli said again:

"Infuse this trace of Spiritual Qi into your dad's body."

Mo Xiaochuan came before his father and tapped his arm with his index finger.

That trace of Spiritual Qi on his fingertip entered Mo Shoutian's body.

Mo Shoutian only felt a slight chill in his arm, which quickly returned to normal.

Qingli said:

"Leaving this trace of Spiritual Qi in your dad's body means that if anything really happens to him, you can also have some sensing, saving you from worrying about him every day."

Hearing this, Mo Xiaochuan knelt down and kowtowed once toward the broken jade.

"Thank you, Master."

Mo Shoutian also cupped his hands toward the broken jade.

"Thank you, Senior."

Qingli looked at Mo Shoutian and said:

"Alright, go attend to your matters."

"Have time to practice the Breathing Technique I taught you more, don't end up working yourself to death before you even find any Spirit Stones."

"I remember."

Mo Shoutian glanced at his son again and turned to walk out of the room.

Nannan was standing in the courtyard waiting.

Seeing him come out, the little girl hurriedly said:

"Uncle, Auntie told you to go eat quickly, it will get cold if you don't eat soon."

Mo Shoutian was in a good mood, so he bent down and picked her up.

"Let's go eat."

On the table were a large bowl of porridge, a plate of scrambled eggs, and several freshly baked big flatbreads.

Mo Shoutian placed Nannan onto the kang and broke off a small piece of flatbread for her.

Nannan didn't take it.

"Uncle eat first, Auntie said Uncle still has to travel."

"It's fine, let's eat together."

Only then did Nannan take the flatbread and start eating in small bites.

Mo Shoutian didn't delay either, eating two flatbreads in a row along with the scrambled eggs.

Before they finished eating, Mo Changlin and Mo Qingshi arrived.

After entering the courtyard, Mo Changlin first walked over to the yellow horse to take a look, and then stroked the horse's back.

"The horse is not bad."

Mo Shoutian shouted from inside the house:

"Uncle Changlin, Qingshi, come in and eat something."

"We've already eaten, you eat first."

After Mo Changlin finished speaking, he and Mo Qingshi started moving things onto the carriage.

Not long after, Mo Shouyi and Mo Shoucheng arrived.

Mo Shoutian finished the remaining flatbread in a few bites and also walked out of the house.

"Leave some space when loading the cart, we still need to go to Xu Qiuniang's place to load the medicinal herbs."

Several people acknowledged and began moving the things.

The Giant Tiger skin, tiger bones, tiger teeth, and tiger claws were packed onto one carriage.

The cow hide, cow horns, and the remaining good meat were packed onto the other carriage.

After the things were packed, several people drove the carriages to Xu Qiuniang's house.

At this moment, a few villagers who came to deliver medicine were already standing at the entrance of Xu Qiuniang's house.

Seeing the two carriages approach, everyone stepped aside to make way.

Xu Qiuniang walked out of the courtyard holding an account book.

"Brother Shoutian, we've collected another eighty-five catties these past few days."

"Added to the previous two hundred and ten catties, it's a total of two hundred and ninety-five catties."

Mo Shoutian nodded.

"Have the accounts all been recorded clearly?"

"Recorded clearly."

Xu Qiuniang flipped the account book to the back.

"There is one more matter."

"These past few days, the people who came to sign up wanting to follow us to hunt in the back mountain total sixty-one people."

Mo Shoutian was just about to move the medicinal herbs, but upon hearing this number, his movements paused.

"How many?"

"Sixty-one people."

Xu Qiuniang repeated.