Chapter 63: Heishi

Xu Dafu tucked the silver into his bosom, then asked with full expectation: "Little brother, will you still be buying this kind of White Powder in the future?"

"I will. As long as you have this White Powder, I will continue to purchase it here." For Meng Yifan, Earth Saltpeter was a consumable and a military material; naturally, the more, the better.

"I've already checked all the easy-to-find places today. I'll go look more carefully tomorrow; I should be able to collect some more, but there certainly won't be as large a quantity as today." Xu Dafu was prepared to make this lucrative business a long-term endeavor.

Xu Dafu left happily with the silver in his pocket, and Meng Yifan returned to his room to continue refining Saltpeter.

By nightfall, Meng Dayong and his men had manufactured a total of eighteen Elm Cannons. That afternoon, Meng Yifan had formulated fifty-three jin of Black Powder, and Liu Zhongyong had prepared the poison capable of dealing with a Second Grade Martial Artist.

Among the fifteen young men including Meng Yitong, after a day of cultivation, three successfully cultivated True Qi and became the lowest-level First Grade Lower Stage Martial Artists.

There was another young man named Meng Tiedan. Seeing Meng Yitong and the others cultivate True Qi one after another, he was anxious for success. He used the True Qi converted from a Condensing Qi Pill and pushed forward recklessly. As a result, his fragile meridians could not withstand it and burst directly, causing him severe internal injuries.

Meng Yifan had been prepared for this and had medicine ready for internal injuries. However, although Meng Tiedan's life was saved, he was now cut off from the path of martial arts and could only be an ordinary person.

Meng Qingshan, Meng Qinghe, and Meng Qingyu all successfully condensed True Qi. It seemed these three youths had good martial arts aptitude; if cultivated well, they might all become experts capable of standing on their own in the future.

Night fell. The villagers ate some Monster Cured Meat and drank some hot water, then lit lamps to continue manufacturing Elm Cannons.

When the night was deep and quiet, Meng Yifan and Meng Dayong put on bamboo hats to cover their faces, preparing to leave the city to visit the Heishi.

That night, the moon was bright and the stars were sparse. The bright moonlight illuminated the earth; even in the dead of night, the patrolling yamen runners could see into the distance by the moonlight. Because murders had occurred in the city over the past few days, the yamen runners on night patrol were very vigilant.

Not a single person dared to slack off or doze. The head of the night patrol, Fang Cheng, was checking back and forth. Seeing someone slacking off or dozing, he would go up and land two big slaps to wake that kid up.

Fang Cheng had a very stifling day. County Magistrate Lu acted as if he had eaten gunpowder, calling him over every little while to berate him. It was truly a foul-mouthed tirade, even cursing his ancestors down to the eighteenth generation.

You wouldn't believe that such ugly words could come from a scholar who had passed the imperial examinations and been selected as a provincial graduate.

Aren't civil officials always supposed to have the demeanor of a gentleman, being refined, polite, and calm? How could they curse so viciously? It seems that when pushed to the limit, a scholar is no different from a shrew in the village.

The yamen runners led by Fang Cheng had been on night patrol yesterday and were sent to investigate cases during the day. By all logic, they should have gone back to get a good rest today, but County Magistrate Lu demanded strengthened security within the city, especially in the East District and West District, where absolutely no more incidents could occur. Fang Cheng's team was also ordered to continue patrolling at night.

Fang Cheng was full of fire, his eyes bloodshot from exhaustion. Never mind his brothers dozing off, he himself wanted to find a place to lie down for a while. Even though he was a Second Grade Lower Tier Martial Artist, after working for a day and a night, he felt exhausted and extremely sleepy.

Today, Fang Cheng took men to investigate the neighbors of Lv Fugui's house, but they didn't get any useful information.

The jewelry merchant Wang Junying next door only said they heard screams coming from Lv Fugui's house, and by the time they rushed over, the murderer was already gone.

The head catcher Zhang Butou led the catchers to investigate the enemies of Lv Fugui and his son. They didn't know until they checked, but once they did, they were shocked. This Lv Fugui was truly a scoundrel, cheating and swindling, committing every evil imaginable.

On the surface, Lv Fugui was a shopkeeper at Wanxiang Tower, trying every way to lower purchase prices; behind the scenes, he was a loan shark, forcing many families to be separated and ruined.

He had too many enemies. At least fourteen had a motive for the crime, and several of them had significant backgrounds. Checking them one by one would be enough to keep Zhang Butou busy for days.

It is said that after Lv Fugui's enemies learned he had been killed, they all cheered with joy. If it weren't for their fear of County Magistrate Lu's wrath, they would have even wanted to hold a grand banquet to celebrate for three days and three nights.

County Magistrate Lu demanded the case be solved within a time limit. Fang Cheng estimated he would have to continue investigating tomorrow. Thinking of this, he couldn't help but sigh: "Sigh! When will these unbearable days ever end?"

The night patrol yamen runners focused their patrols on the East District and West District, where the powerful and influential lived and needed close protection at night. Although patrols were also strengthened in the north of the city, manpower was limited, and they could only manage to patrol twice an hour at most.

Meng Yifan and Meng Dayong hid in the shadows. Once the patrolling yamen runners passed, the two of them quickly snuck along the corner of the wall.

The three-zhang-high city wall was an insurmountable chasm for ordinary people, but for Second Grade Martial Artists like them, it was easy to climb over.

Meng Yifan took Meng Dayong to the small woods outside the West Gate. He had originally worried that the city would be under martial law and the Heishi could not be held, but he didn't expect it to be as busy as ever, perhaps even more so.

At the Heishi, everyone wore bamboo hats to cover their faces. The buyer didn't know who the seller was, and the seller didn't know who the buyer was, which protected the secrets of both parties to the greatest extent.

After all, many of the items sold at this Heishi were contraband and could not see the light of day.

At the Heishi, Meng Yifan and Meng Dayong soon discovered that Black Powder, which was hard to buy in the city, was sold here.

The person selling gunpowder was a burly man with a sturdy build. He was also dressed in black and wearing a bamboo hat, making it impossible to see what he looked like. On his stall sat two large wooden barrels, each containing fifty jin of gunpowder.

There was also a wooden sign on the stall, which read: One jin of gunpowder sells for two taels of silver; no bargaining.

Bird Gun shops in the city also sold gunpowder, but like selling Bird Guns, it required real-name verification and was subject to purchase limits. Without special connections, it was hard to buy in large quantities.

One jin of gunpowder sold for one tael of silver in the city, but here, he had directly doubled the price. This was profiteering.

"Perhaps when I have enough gunpowder in the future, I can come to sell it too." Meng Yifan was thoughtful. He purchased Earth Saltpeter from Xu Dafu for ten wen per jin. Even if it took ten jin of Earth Saltpeter to refine one jin of Saltpeter, and including the cost of Charcoal and Sulfur, the cost for Meng Yifan to formulate one jin of Black Powder was only about eighty wen.

If he sold it at the Heishi price of two taels of silver per jin of gunpowder, Meng Yifan could net a twenty-four-fold profit. This was truly a profiteering industry.