Chapter 223: Be Serious

The history book in Zhang Sheng's hand turned into a stick and knocked on Wei Yuan's head with a "pop."

Wei Yuan felt as if he had been doused with a basin of ice water, his consciousness restored to clarity, and thinking of his previous thoughts, he immediately broke into a cold sweat.

Zhang Sheng's face sank slightly, and he said: "There are too many miscellaneous things in your Foundation Establishment, to the point that your Dao heart has been affected, and your consciousness was just floating and dazed. Although it is said that heaven and earth can contain all things, there is now an extra Yin and Yang in your sea of consciousness. Yin and Yang are close to the Great Dao, and it alone can affect your Myriad Miles of Heshan, which is why you were dazed just now. From now on, you need to be extra careful, and in cultivation, you must be even more courageous and diligent, so that the Myriad Miles of Heshan can grow stronger day by day to balance Yin and Yang."

"This junior has been taught." Hearing Zhang Sheng's words, Wei Yuan broke into another cold sweat; fortunately, the teacher didn't seem to notice what he was thinking about while dazed. This thought, even Wei Yuan himself felt was a bit...

Zhang Sheng looked at Wei Yuan's upright body and said indifferently: "Blocking is not as good as dredging; since ancient times, those who achieve great things do not fuss over small details. Your current mental agitation has something to do with those few girls. Since the meat is delivered to your mouth, eat it if you want to, but remember that this meat has a price; it cannot be too little, but it also cannot be too much."

Wei Yuan said again: "This junior has been taught."

"Go."

After Wei Yuan left, Zhang Sheng put down the book and looked at his hands. These hands had nothing special, just perfect and flawless, suitable for both holding books and wielding swords.

It was just that these hands were somewhat out of place with Zhang Sheng himself, but if one didn't look carefully, normal people would instinctively ignore them.

Zhang Sheng suddenly remembered something, and his face sank.

Wei Yuan had grown up, knowing beauty and admiring youth, which was perfectly normal. Moreover, he was born extremely well, and at a young age, he was in charge of a territory, so there was no shortage of beauties around him.

There was suddenly extra Yin and Yang in Wei Yuan's Foundation Establishment, and his Dao heart must have been breached, requiring time to slowly make up for it; intentional suppression would be too deliberate, so it was better to let nature take its course. Wei Yuan didn't know it himself, but Zhang Sheng's vision was different, so he didn't punish Wei Yuan for this mental agitation at the time.

But after Wei Yuan left, Zhang Sheng thought about it carefully and realized he had overlooked one point. This stinky brat's mind was wandering, and he didn't go to find Xu Waner or Yun Feifei, and if that didn't work, there was still Xu Yi and several noble young ladies; if he really couldn't think straight and intended to seek death, there was still Ji Liuli. With so many choices, why was he staring at his hands?

Zhang Sheng felt that he had to find the disciple rules of the Grand Void Palace and flip through them; it was necessary to find a few excuses to tighten this brat's skin.

However...

Zhang Sheng took another look at his hands and then felt that although the stinky brat was wrong in a thousand ways, his eye for beauty was top-notch.

Returning to his residence, Wei Yuan operated according to the method of the Moon Brilliance Myriad Phases Chapter, calming his mind and spirit, making his consciousness clear and empty, not alarmed, not irritable, not afraid, and then began to ponder Zhang Sheng's words, mainly about how to eat the meat.

Meat has a price, not a point too much, not a point too little; this was easy to understand, as the saying goes, too much is as bad as too little, and neither too much nor too little was good.

But should he eat it or not? Should he follow the teacher's words or listen to them in reverse?

Wei Yuan recalled all the military books and strategies he had learned in his life. The Art of War says, "The false is the real, the real is the false." It also says, "The false and the real exist in one mind." Looking at the two sections together, it was as if nothing had been said.

So Wei Yuan didn't know what Zhang Sheng meant, whether he could eat it or not. But intuition told Wei Yuan that it was best not to go to him to verify this matter.

Actually, Wei Yuan himself couldn't figure out why he had suddenly become mentally agitated at that time? But thinking back carefully, the teacher's hands and his person didn't seem to have anything to do with each other; if they weren't indeed growing on the same body, Wei Yuan definitely wouldn't have felt they were the same person.

Wei Yuan cleared these wild thoughts, left the room, and headed to the spirit field. It was time to harvest the sorghum; this was the first batch of spirit food produced in the domain, and it was worth treating solemnly.

By the spirit field, two hundred cultivators had already arrived, just waiting for Wei Yuan's arrival. The sorghum stalks were extremely tough, and only body-forging cultivators could cut them; their roots were deep and long, sometimes even reaching a depth of one zhang. After harvesting, these roots also had to be dug out, chopped up, and sprinkled back into the fields. This work was also not something mortals could do.

True Person Chuhe let his four disciples all go into the fields to demonstrate to the cultivators how to take the grains, how to cut the stalks, and finally how to dig out the roots and loosen the soil.

Cui Yu had originally wanted Wei Yuan to say a few words, but amidst the anticipation of the crowd, Wei Yuan just said one sentence: "Start work!"

The cultivators immediately went into the fields and started; among these cultivators, more than half were Foundation Establishment, and many were Foundation Establishment who had just advanced.

They came to work in the fields to get close to the spirit plants, so as to realize the Dao of heaven and earth and consolidate their Foundation Establishment.

At this time, True Person Chuhe stood beside Wei Yuan, stroking his beard and smiling: "This mu of land can produce two hundred catties, and a normal body-forging cultivator eats one catty a day. However, the rice produced in your field is of high quality, originally not ranked, but now it has actually become a low-rank spirit plant. If a body-forging cultivator wants to maintain the original cultivation progress, one catty every two days is also fine."

This patch of field had five hundred mu, producing one hundred thousand catties of sorghum. It seemed like a lot, but there were over ten thousand body-forging cultivators in the domain, so it wasn't much when divided among everyone. However, the one catty per day mentioned by True Person Chuhe was according to the standards of normal small and medium noble families; how could the Western Regions have such conditions normally? It was good enough for ordinary body-forging cultivators to eat a meal every five or six days.

Cui Yu then asked: "How should this sorghum be distributed?"

The noble young masters and young ladies around were all staring at Wei Yuan with eager eyes. They had come relatively early, and now it had been a long time since they had eaten much spirit food, and the elixirs had been eaten up in the first few days. Now everyone's cultivation relied on meditation.

In worldly cultivation, both spirit food and elixirs were indispensable; pure cultivation and meditation were too slow, far behind the progress of eating medicine all the way up. If it hadn't been for the Tianqing Hall smashing pots and selling iron to buy elixirs, Wei Yuan would still be swallowing the moon's brilliance now, and would have to swallow it for decades.

The dozen or so young masters and young ladies of the noble families all felt that in terms of cultivation, family background, talent, and merit, even in terms of seniority, they should be able to get a lot of sorghum, at least enough to eat their fill.

If it were in the past, they wouldn't even look at sorghum; this unranked spirit food was only fit for servants and laborers to eat. But now they were in Qingming, and it was good enough to have something to eat.

Wei Yuan had already thought about the distribution problem, and immediately said: "Every body-forging cultivator has a share of this batch of rice, regardless of cultivation level, and it will be divided equally per person."

Cui Yu was startled, then frowned and said: "This... is not very appropriate, right?" Wei Yuan said: "Don't forget the Instant Myriad Lives. They are the ones who have to rush to the front line to fight. If they eat two more meals, many people will have a chance to survive."

Cui Yu looked deeply at Wei Yuan and said slowly: "Fine, let me sort it out first. I will convince them."

"Thanks."

Cui Yu waved his hand and then called the noble young masters and young ladies to another quiet place to talk in detail.

At this time, True Person Chuhe said: "If you have time, you might as well come to my place and have a cup of tea."

Since True Person Chuhe invited him, Wei Yuan naturally had no reason to refuse, so he followed the True Person to his newly built residence. At this time, the True Person's residence only had a pavilion built, with wooden tables and chairs placed inside, and luggage piled on the side, much of which hadn't been opened yet.

After sitting down, True Person Chuhe picked up the teapot and poured a cup of tea for himself and Wei Yuan. The teapot was only the size of a palm, shaped like an old tree knot, and the tea poured out was clear and transparent, with a touch of new green swimming constantly in the water, like a swimming fish, quite miraculous.

Wei Yuan raised his cup and drank it in one gulp, feeling a burst of spiritual energy explode in his abdomen, his cultivation rising instantly, actually worth twenty days of hard cultivation! Wei Yuan's Dao power now was no small matter, and being able to withstand twenty days of his hard cultivation, the spiritual power of this cup of tea could be imagined.

"Good tea!" Wei Yuan praised, then put the teacup back in its place, without any intention of having another cup.

True Person Chuhe nodded secretly and said: "Little Friend Wei Yuan..."

Wei Yuan hurriedly stood up, "I dare not accept such a form of address from the True Person."

!.

True Person Chuhe pressed his hands in the air, letting Wei Yuan return to his seat, and then said: "If I don't call you Little Friend, I can only call you Domain Lord."

Wei Yuan had to say: "Whatever the True Person feels is appropriate."

True Person Chuhe said: "We don't need to be too particular about seniority and titles; anyway, this old Daoist now has a request for you."

"Please speak, True Person; if I can do it, I will definitely do my best."

True Person Chuhe nodded and said: "I observe that this domain has the power of Jia Wood Generating Mystery, is that so?"

"True Person's eyes are like torches."

"Apart from these sorghum grains, the spiritual plants within the domain all show faint signs of breaking through their original ranks; that Moon Tree Tianxing Longkui is a typical example. This is truly inconceivable; Wood-Born-Mysterious-Qi is not this miraculous. The other Tianxing Longkui planted on the Sacrifice Mingtu now faintly has the appearance of an immortal plant; this is even less something that Wood-Born-Mysterious-Qi could accomplish."

True Person Chuhe paused and said: "Therefore, this old Daoist concludes that this vitality in the domain is not Jia Wood Generating Mystery, but a higher-level power. This is no longer a characteristic; it can completely be called miraculous."

When the old Daoist said this, Wei Yuan was instead somewhat confused. The data on Qingming clearly stated it was Jia Wood Generating Mystery, and this domain stone was refined by immortals in the past; could it be that the things refined by the immortals themselves weren't as clear as a True Person?

However, Wei Yuan still nodded in agreement, convinced.

True Person Chuhe then said: "I have a type of spirit plant, the rank is not high, but it is rare in the world, and it has hope of breaking through. I have never found a good place to transplant it, until I saw that piece of Nether-soil. I need three patches of such Nether-soil, just put them in the medicine garden. These Nether-soils count as being rented by this old Daoist; I will pay you one hundred taels of immortal silver per patch per month, how about that?"

Wei Yuan was startled; could business be done like this? It was just three patches of land one zhang square, and only mixed with a little Nether-soil, and he could earn three hundred immortal silver per month? Was the soil too valuable, or was the immortal silver flooding?

Wei Yuan hesitated; he could manifest several thousand more patches of such Nether-soil, but he didn't know if True Person Chuhe could handle it.

Seeing that Wei Yuan didn't answer immediately, True Person Chuhe added: "Rest assured, this old Daoist naturally won't treat a junior unfairly. If what I grow indeed has a breakthrough, there will naturally be an extra gift of thanks then."

"I don't know what the True Person means by breakthrough?"

"Just like that one that didn't sprout... no, like the Moon Tree Tianxing Longkui is fine; it's best if it can improve its rank, but if that's really not possible, an improvement in quality or a change in characteristics also counts."

So that was it. According to the words of Xu Wenwu's world, it was mutation.

Wei Yuan had a count in his heart and said: "This junior has a small request, I don't know if I can mention it?"

"Just speak!"

"If the True Person indeed cultivates a variant with an improved rank, I want some seeds to plant in the domain in the future."

True Person Chuhe laughed and said: "No problem, without your Nether-soil, those few blades of grass of mine can only rot in my hands."

Wei Yuan was overjoyed, almost unable to suppress the corner of his mouth.

Wei Yuan now had Qi Luck and Xu Wenwu; any serious spirit plant that fell into his hands would have to honestly mutate.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 224 =====