Chapter 306: Sacrificing Grain, Receiving Immortal Pills in Return

Sun Bao pulled along several big merchants, all of them making offerings to the Jin Chan: "The grain on these twenty ships was not provided by me alone; these few here are all major overseas merchants who built a transit supply port with me near Siam, and we are all investing it into the Sect together."

The Jin Chan sensed them forming a clique, but he did not refuse; instead, he was quite pleased, because these merchants who could sail the seas all possessed at least medium-sized vessels.

Moreover, it was nothing strange for those under Xu Jia to form cliques; one more group didn't matter. Merchants flocked with merchants, scholars with scholars, local deities and spirits with spirits, Xu Jia's direct-line acolytes with their own, and those without foundations huddled together for warmth in their own groups.

Many merchants wanted the Jin Chan to hold shares, then have their ships fitted with cannons, equipped with firearms, and have the figurehead of the South Dragon Ao Jia installed to avoid maritime troubles, Great Demons, and sea monsters.

There was no loss in this; rather than paying tribute and being fleeced, it was better to pay a fixed protection fee, or have one's own business become someone else's. Even if they earned a little less, they would make it back by running a few more trips; stability was what mattered most.

The Jin Chan saw that their water-borne fortunes were flourishing, and that they were daring enough to go to sea for trade; each of them possessed great boldness and means, not the type who followed the crowd to sea—most of those ended up as pirates or sank to the bottom of the sea to feed the sharks, with only a small portion managing to get ahead.

Or rather, sometimes these merchants were pirates, and sometimes these pirates were merchants; they would even moonlight as Japanese pirates or Longevity Sect followers.

However, those who could arrive here had all been vetted; at the very least, they were not the type to collude with evildoers, but were people who genuinely wanted to conduct business in a stable manner.

"We have treasures to offer!" several merchants spoke all at once, presenting their gifts to the Jin Chan. One brought out a seven-foot red coral that was actually as large as a room, shaped like a fan, complete with a tree and the reef base beneath it, fawning: "I have heard that Grandfather Jin Chan possesses a Treasure Basin but lacks a Money Tree. This coral treasure tree, nourished with Pearls and other treasures and placed in the Treasure Basin, can channel the wealth of all eight directions."

Another person presented a Pearl that was actually as large as a human head, hidden inside a giant clam: "This is a thousand-year-old luminous pearl. It was formed by a giant clam in the sea exhaling moonlight, creating a mirage that has bewildered who knows how many people. We recruited brave Tanka warriors to risk their lives entering the sea to bewilder the clam-maiden before we could steal it out. It belongs to the category of top-tier Heavenly Spirit Earth Treasures."

"This is the nautical geography atlas we drew for the routes we take for business, also presented to you, old sir, along with three pirate ships."

"These are five pieces of top-tier giant timber from the Nanyang, between fifty and sixty zhang in length, which can be used as the keel for a Bao Ship or to build a Bright Palace."

"This is dragon saliva incense, dragon brain incense, dragon breath incense, dragon blood incense... several dozen jin of each, totaling one hundred and eighty jin. When blended into incense, it can reach the level of Supreme Truth..."

"This is..."

Including Sun Bao, the ten people here presented ten treasures, each of them holding their noses high, clearly very proud of these items.

Duobao did not refuse; after all, one can never have too many gifts. He opened his giant mouth and swallowed all the treasures into his belly, leaving only the large objects outside.

"Since you have bowed at my, Duobao's, pier, you are merchants under my protection. If nothing else, ensuring you obtain the status of an Outer Disciple is not a problem; you can be considered one of our own."

"Only, since you have bowed to me, you must know that I only earn virtuous wealth and cultivate virtuous karma; you must do the same."

"It just so happens that a few days ago, several treacherous merchants who inflated rice prices and extorted money were stripped of their wealth by me, with interest. They ended up burdened with debt karma; one moment their high buildings rose, the next they collapsed. The disaster victims they looked down upon earlier were wishing for more people to starve, but in the blink of an eye, they suffered a change of fortune, ended up on the streets, and became disaster victims themselves."

"A few of the spineless ones couldn't take it and hanged themselves, becoming Debt Ghost Condolence Guests, coming to me to demand their lives. I showed mercy and transformed them into Debt Ghost Jin Chan, using gold to make their bodies and gemstones to dot their eyes. Now, it is perfect to let these Jin Chan practice alongside you all. Come, come, I shall transmit a Wealth God Register to you!"

The several sea merchants heard this and shook their heads one after another, not daring to accept the Register. They felt they had been swindled; this was clearly not a benevolent person. He started off by giving them a show of force, and this so-called Wealth God Register was likely a Debt Ghost Register.

But before they could argue, ten winged gold coins flew from the Jin Chan's back and drilled into the centers of their brows. Then, several long-tongued green-eyed Jin Chan flew out from his mouth and landed on their shoulders, croaking, and in an instant, their minds were linked.

"Shopkeeper! I have come to assist you in getting rich."

Sun Bao could not help but ask: "Great God Jin Chan, what is the meaning of this?"

"What do you know? This is called double insurance. You can be at ease, I can be at ease, and the Master can be at ease. I plan to invest a large sum of money into you, several times your net worth. This money naturally needs to be held by yourselves. In the coming days, all of you who have families, wives, and children, send them all to Yushan or Dexing; it is far safer than hiding them outside!"

"We offered treasures out of good intentions, and you... you do such a thing, it simply chills our hearts!"

"It is all just speculation and profit-seeking. I am the ancestor of merchants, the Wealth God you specifically worship; do you still not understand what you are thinking? Where is there a situation that has no risk and is completely good? Take grain, for example; if I relied entirely on you, and something happened next time, you would likely have already defected to someone else. Wouldn't our lifeline be cut off?"

"As the saying goes, it is easy to board a pirate ship, but hard to get off. We are not pirates, but we still need deep cooperation to prevent you from playing both sides for profit with no risk. It is also called taking precautions. As for the treasure, I am giving you business worth hundreds of thousands of taels; many people beg to offer treasures, and I accept them all. But must I do things for you? There are so many people in the world who worship the Wealth God, yet I have never seen them truly get rich."

The cultivation technique Xu Jia gave the Jin Chan was a technique of ultimate capital circulation, which allowed him to see clearly the essence of merchants and capitalists: promising small favors in the early stages to divide others, and in the later stages, a posture of swallowing everything... even a powerful empire was nothing more than a big pancake of fat meat to be placed on the table and divided.

Of those who understand merchants best, the Jin Chan could be said to be first, and no one would dare claim second.

"Don't argue, don't argue. If you argue again, I will turn hostile, and what was said before will not count."

The long-tongued Jin Chan spat out a long, thin tongue like a golden noose, capable of hanging a person to death on an Old Crooked-Neck Tree.

Sun Bao and the others were furious, yet they dared not say anything, nor did they dare to go to Xu Jia or Xu Jidi to complain—they were all in the same gang.

They had no choice but to accept the constraints and listen well to these orders.

"During this time, we have opened factories here and liberated a portion of the women to work as female laborers. Here are twenty thousand bolts of top-quality silk, all made from raw silk collected during this time, plus our own silkworm rearing and cocoon harvesting. I want you to sell these twenty thousand bolts of silk, and at the same time, collect raw silk and silkworm cocoons from everywhere and send them here."

"Secondly, there are several types of crops overseas: maize, sweet potatoes, potatoes, cotton... there are illustrated manuals for all of them here. You need to find them. These crops can resolve the disasters of Famine, misery, and bitter cold. There is also a type of sheep overseas that specifically produces wool; that must also be introduced. Furthermore, you need to continue pulling grain from Siam and other places to here. Once the summer harvest is in over there, you must continue to transport people over there."

"Thirdly, there is no shortage of copper and iron here, but there is a great shortage of coal; you need to transport plenty of coal over."

"In addition, there are quilts, ready-made clothing, and the like; the cheaper the better, and the larger the quantity, the better."

Although Xu Jia's side produced silk, silk was not for the common people to enjoy; it was both a commodity and a form of currency. Moreover, this silk could not solve the problem of the freezing cold.

As for planting hemp, retting hemp, spinning hemp, and weaving linen... that was also underway here. For fields that could not be planted or were uneven, they planted pumpkins; pumpkins could grow very large and were quite good as a staple food. For the flatter ones, they planted hemp; hemp grew quickly and did not consume much soil fertility.

It was just that linen was only suitable for summer clothes and did not keep one warm in winter. The stuffing inside linen quilts was often reed catkins, willow catkins, dry rice straw, or, in better cases, chicken feathers.

Only wealthy families had silk quilts, goose-down quilts, or blankets patched together from furs, which were very warm.

If there were cotton, or sheep with high wool yields, many problems could be easily solved.

As for raising ducks to get down, it could only be said that this was a delicate, labor-intensive job. There were people doing it, all of them half-grown children. They didn't just raise ducks; they raised cattle and other livestock—all these tasks were done by these half-grown children.

Sun Bao and the other ten merchants remembered these matters, feeling that they were indeed stable, major business deals.

Thus, they stopped showing their emotions and began to discuss them one by one, agreeing to these matters, especially when asking about the silk production and quality: "The two counties of Yushan and Dexing don't have much mulberry planting, even if you add the Poyang region..."

"Originally, there wasn't much mulberry planting, but now there is more. We plant mulberry trees around the ponds, raise fish in the ponds, and use silkworm excrement as fish feed. After the ponds are drained, we dig up the silt from the bottom to fertilize the fields. In this way, we have raised fish, planted mulberry, and obtained silk." "These twenty thousand bolts of silk are already the result of the combined efforts of the two counties. If we can provide a continuous supply of silkworm cocoons or raw silk, let alone twenty thousand bolts, even one hundred thousand or a million bolts can be produced."

A bolt of silk was worth between 1,200 and 1,800 cash, roughly around two taels of silver, with the difference depending on whether it was defined as ordinary silk or top-quality silk.

The silk produced by the looms was of very high quality, but the price the Jin Chan gave them was only 800 cash per bolt. Calculated this way, even if they only sold it for 1,200 cash per bolt, they would have a profit of over 8 million cash.

Converted, 800 cash to one tael of silver, that was a profit of 10,000 taels of silver, and this was only the profit from here. Buying raw silk and transporting it from one side to the other also had profit, though not much, perhaps a few thousand taels, not to mention purchasing large quantities of quilts and ready-made clothing.

In ancient times, quilts and ready-made clothing were assets that could be taken to a pawnshop for money. Many people would pawn their winter clothes after summer arrived, and pawn their summer clothes when winter approached, in order to exchange them for some ready cash to use. Mending and patching, and passing them down from father to son, was also common.

This was also why the custom of dressing the dead in paper burial clothes and the taboo against the deceased's clothing only became popular among the upper-class wealthy; they didn't go so far as to burn them. Burning everything was a custom of later generations, because they were no longer short of clothes; light industry was too developed.

There is a common saying: "Marry a man, marry a man, to have clothes to wear and food to eat."

Being able to solve these two things could already be considered a "rich farmer."

"Hasn't winter already passed? Why do you still need these thick clothes and quilts?" Sun Bao asked, puzzled. "Next year will surely be normal; it's not like the south will have winter snow several feet deep every year."

The Jin Chan said meaningfully: "Do you think you can know the mind of Heaven?"

Sun Bao was also a man of insight, and he was somewhat horrified upon hearing this: "Could it be?"

The Jin Chan said: "Heaven's secrets cannot be leaked; one can only do one's human duty and take precautions. You just keep collecting them; we will take as many as you have. We will use silk or other things to offset the cost, and if that is not enough, we will settle with money."

"Yes, yes, using silk and the like as collateral is fine." Sun Bao's expression changed instantly.

After Jin Chan sent Sun Bao and the others away, Xu Zhiyuan met with them to inquire about matters in Nanyang, especially after they brought twenty ships of grain; Xu Zhiyuan also realized that Nanyang was a treasure land.

Heavenly Master Xu was rather aloof, and meeting him required climbing a mountain. As the father of the Heavenly Master, possessing the status of a provincial graduate scholar, Xu Zhiyuan's father was a typical local gentry intellectual. Dealing with him was much more comfortable, and these merchants also felt that Xu Zhiyuan's father was much kinder than Jin Chan, so they curried favor with him, presenting many books, as well as brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones, all while speaking of their concern for local education.

After all, they had been threatened by Jin Chan, and their children and families would all have to move here, so it was never wrong to maintain a good relationship with the official in charge.

Xu Zhiyuan affirmed their righteous act of specially delivering grain, calling them righteous merchants. He specifically sent people to clear the way with gongs and drums to unload the grain at the wharf, telling everyone that the household had grain and there was no need to worry, stabilizing the hearts of the people, and he had all twenty ships of grain stored in the granary one by one.

After this whole process, the people who were originally full of sorrow and misery suddenly became joyful. The price of grain, which had previously been as high as double the price (a result of Jin Chan's regulation), also returned to the normal price of peaceful times. Some grain shops even panicked and offered 90% or 80% discounts, and the common people all brought money out to buy grain. The grain merchants also seized the time to release the grain; if they kept hoarding it, they feared it would rot in the warehouse.

The grain merchants did not have a god's-eye view to know that the coming year would still be a year of great disaster and famine. Looking at it from the current perspective, continuing to hoard would only increase costs, and once new grain hit the market, the old grain would be even harder to sell at a good price.

People in the surrounding counties knew that grain was cheap here and all came to buy it, which instead forced grain merchants in other areas to lower their prices as well.

Therefore, don't look at how Xu Zhiyuan's father was just beating gongs and drums, praising the righteous merchants, and commending them; in fact, it also had the effect of civilizing the customs, calming the people's hearts, and expanding influence.

With just this one turn of events, it could be considered saving tens of thousands of lives, with immeasurable Merit.

Once the grain was all in the granary, Xu Jia here also welcomed the sacrifice from Tongtian Temple.

Li Rentai and the others spent three months building a large altar in San Francisco, America. The altar was on the mountaintop, three stories high, made entirely of white marble, with carved railings, the Eight Immortals, lions...

Following the sacrificial ritual taught by Xu Jia that combined the "Seven Chapters of Secret Incantations" of the Yellow Heaven Sect, they piled a large amount of grain on the altar and began the sacrifice.

Xu Jia wanted a year's worth of rations for a million people, which they couldn't get for the time being, so they could only purchase a few trucks of each type of grain, including wheat, flour, soybeans, dried corn kernels, soybeans, as well as rice, potatoes, and sweet potatoes, totaling seven or eight hundred tons. There was even some white sugar, not much, but ten sacks.

They all knew that the Ancestor was conducting education in another world, so they dared not be negligent.

With a flash of white light, Xu Jia accepted these sacrificial offerings. He only felt a world will in the dark; all the grain had been "inactivated." Foreign species were not allowed to descend. They could not be used as seeds for farming.

It was unknown if this was because these were crops from the technological era, genetically modified, or polyploid, or simply the world's will resisting foreign influence to maintain the advantages of this realm.

However, inactivated is inactivated; it didn't matter. As long as it could be eaten to fill their stomachs, that was enough.

The sacrifice over there was completed, and the items were all gathered by Xu Jia using the "Raw Rice Bowl." There was a space inside it that could even seal a thousand-year-old centipede spirit, so it was more than enough to hold this grain.

It was just that this matter wasn't over yet; if people sacrificed things, you had to give rewards in return. Only with giving and receiving could the transaction be concluded.

Xu Jia thought about it and opened his mouth. The Spirit Root Horse was spat out from the Inner Landscape Heaven and Earth. After being nurtured by the Inner Landscape Heaven and Earth, as a Spirit Root, it worked in the Blessed Field. It was very diligent and had already planted many Spirit Root Small Medicines to supply Xu Jia's cultivation.

The Spirit Root Horse had grown a bit larger by now. Seeing Xu Jia, it was burning with rage and rushed over, wanting to flip Xu Jia over. Xu Jia pinched it: "Come, spit a few mouthfuls of saliva!"

The Spirit Root Horse couldn't believe it, so it went *pfft pfft pfft*, pooped, and spat saliva, completely losing its image, until its legs were weak and its mouth was dry, and its body was drained, only to be swallowed back into Xu Jia's stomach.

Xu Jia took these Immortal Spirit body fluids, added some Flood Dragon essence blood and the Inner Elixir of a black fish spirit to boil into a spiritual liquid, kneaded it into a pill, and breathed the Five Qi onto it. Thus it was complete; although it had not been refined by fire, it was all essence. After chanting the Profound Accumulation Incantation a few times to bless it, it possessed incredible power. Although it couldn't be counted as an "Immortal Pill," it was comparable to a "Lead Pill."

He used this as a reward and bestowed it back.

But he didn't expect that the world over there had a higher status. When the pill landed there, it immediately radiated spiritual light on its own, the fragrance was pungent, and the pill fragrance permeated the air, attracting all the monsters around San Francisco, America, making them very restless.

Xu Jia also bestowed a pair of Flood Dragon horns back as encouragement.

Of course, this first time was like this to give a sweet treat; next, he would have to think about what stable and precious things to bestow down.

"Immortal Pill!" Li Rentai was surprised that the medicine was so miraculous; just smelling it made him feel refreshed, and even his little brother showed signs of rising, knowing he was almost seventy years old.

He also saw a pair of Flood Dragon horns fall, which immediately emitted purple electric light, and he faintly heard a dragon's roar. Although there was no spirit attached, its innate power was undiminished. Moreover, items of a Flood Dragon were naturally Magic Tools, especially good for Feng Shui, and could be used to point out Dragon Veins.

They collected the medicine in a glass jar, put it in a safe, and brought it back to the temple for research. This mountaintop altar was still guarded by armed men to prevent others from accidentally entering.

(End of chapter)