Chapter 36

Swordsman Liu was, after all, a Nine Grade cultivator who cultivated his flesh; after the torture stopped, he quickly recovered some vitality.

His speech was no longer stuttering, and his mask of pain turned into a mask of sincerity.

He explained Zhang Gui's questions with a sincere tone:

"Accompanying, accompanying the Young Master hunting, there is a Taoist from a side-door miscellaneous school, known as 'Jack-of-all-trades.'

He knows how to use breath-hiding magic.

To show off, he uses it every time he accompanies the Second Young Master hunting.

Tonight, when it got dark, we had already planned to return to the manor.

It was also this bastard showing off, divining that we would encounter fierce beasts, which is why we hunted until this time."

Zhang Gui didn't seem to believe what he said:

"A mere Young Master hunting actually uses cultivators for protection, and there's even one who practices magic.

This Shuanghu Rong family has quite the style.

But why have I never heard of its name?"

"The foundation of the Shuanghu Rong family is not officialdom, but imperial merchants.

Naturally, they have no fame in the southern regions like Siyang Commandery.

We came here this time to buy the manor of the Pingyang Zhang family.

You must know the Pingyang Zhang family, right?"

Zhang Gui's heart moved when he heard this.

"The Pingyang Zhang family is naturally a household name in Siyang Commandery.

But how could such a large farming and reading noble family be ruined and sell their manor? You must be lying to me, wanting to be uncomfortable!"

As he spoke, he stretched out his finger, making a gesture to insert it into Swordsman Liu's shoulder wound again.

Swordsman Liu was scared out of his wits and hurriedly explained:

"I'm not lying to you, I'm not lying to you.

It is said that the Pingyang Zhang family had internal strife not long ago and suffered a great disaster, and it was only after paying a sky-high amount of silver that it ended.

They didn't even have the silver to make 'mother money,' so they had to sell their family property and fields to catch their breath."

"Then, as a commandery noble family in a southern province, why didn't they find someone else to buy the land, but had to find you Rong imperial merchants?"

"Our Young Master said that although the Pingyang Zhang family has been mixing in the southern provinces for over a hundred years, some local great noble families in the south still view them as northern refugees fleeing disaster.

Now that the Zhang family has shown weakness, many local noble families have shown 'wolf faces.'

Rather than letting them eat up the manor, it's better to sell it to imperial merchants.

Although it's impossible to redeem it in the future, it's safe, isn't it."

"So that's how it is."

Zhang Gui nodded and smashed the swordsman's skull with one punch.

He touched his heartbeat with lingering fear; his true thoughts were much more terrified than what he had shown.

He calmed down for a while before taking medicinal herbs from his bosom and swallowing them.

The Divine Cluster "Hundred Herbs Life Mandate" activated in time, and soon the external wound on his heart healed without a trace.

Only then did Zhang Gui bother to pick up the slender sword he had just pulled out, looked at it, and felt that the metal cast was not ordinary refined steel, so he kept it as a trophy.

Then he started looting the corpse.

Hidden in the swordsman's chest were two small picture books like account books.

They were fine-brush spring palace paintings, already broken and rotten by the steam, but one could still see the exquisite painting skills and paper quality.

Zhang Gui flipped through them critically, and seeing that they were too rotten to collect or resell, he sighed with regret and threw them aside.

He took out a waist token and looked at it.

It was a brass token with water ripples engraved on it, and the word "Rong" written in the center.

It should be the waist token of the Shuanghu Rong family.

It was exquisitely made but not worth much, so Zhang Gui threw it away directly.

He picked up a small money bag again, weighed it, and felt it was quite heavy, his spirit suddenly excited.

Putting his hands together and praying for the blessing of all the gods, he opened the money bag and was shocked to see several gold ingots lying inside.

The yellow-to-red ingots were of full purity, the size of walnuts, with the words "Ten Taels" engraved on them.

According to the current exchange rate of one tael of gold to thirty taels of silver, that was three hundred taels of white silver.

Enough for an ordinary market worker in Pingyang Town to work for more than ten years without eating or drinking.

He counted carefully; there were seven ingots in total, which was two thousand one hundred taels of white silver.

A mere Nine Grade adult cultivator, even if he was lucky enough to join an imperial merchant state-owned enterprise, could only earn three hundred taels of snowflake silver a month.

If it weren't for a business trip to the prosperous land of the Southern Kingdom, wanting to go to a brothel to taste the style of foreign beauties,

Swordsman Liu would never have exchanged all his savings for gold ingots and carried them with him to facilitate attacks at any time.

Now, however, it was Zhang Gui's gain.

He continued to search.

On the corpse's arm was also a portable "Ox Strength Crossbow."

The small gear tension system cooperated with the arrow magazine that could hold seven thumb-sized crossbow bolts.

As long as the strength was great enough, a flick upward could cock the crossbow and fire continuously.

The price of this thing should be more expensive than the seven gold ingots combined, so Zhang Gui collected it happily.

There were no other valuable gains afterward.

But he was already very satisfied, and even felt that the fear in his heart had dissipated a lot.

Truly, wealth warms the heart.

The bloody corpse left in place would soon become a buffet for small beasts in the forest.

But Zhang Gui couldn't bear to waste it, so he carried it back to Mushroom Valley.

By the time he returned to Pingyang Town, it was already the Hai hour (9-11 PM).

Youyu Ward was not a busy market, and there were no pedestrians on the street.

Zhang Gui returned to his home quietly, climbed over the wall, and jumped in.

He washed the blood and mud off his body by the well, and took down two pieces of underwear from the leather rope drying clothes in the yard to change into.

He coughed loudly and shouted:

"Mother, did you leave me any food?"

"Oh, Xiao Gui is back; why didn't I hear the door ring?"

"He has loved to pull the door bolt and go home by himself since he was a child; we don't need to worry about him, let's continue sleeping.

Son, there are steamed buns left for you on the kitchen stove, as well as cabbage and tofu stewed with shrimp paste and cold tea; go eat."

Zhang Gui's kitchen was also a small workshop for Auntie Caiyang to make fish and shrimp paste, so it was two or three times larger than an ordinary family's kitchen.

It used to have three stoves.

Now that the business was bigger, the stoves had become seven.

At this moment, a small fire was pressed under the middle stove, and a steamer was steaming on the stove.

Steam was rising from the steamer, emitting an enticing aroma of flour.

Zhang Gui swallowed his saliva, opened the steamer, and twenty-odd large white flour buns came into view.

He couldn't wait to pick one up and take a bite; it was fluffy and fragrant.

Beside the steamer, there was also a basin of cabbage and tofu stewed with shrimp paste covered with a pot lid.

He stirred the remaining half of the bun in the sauce, scooped the cabbage and tofu into his mouth with a ladle, and the heart fire from being extremely hungry was finally suppressed.

It must be said that Auntie Caiyang's job of selling stinky shrimp paste didn't look like it had much face, but it actually made a lot of money.

Otherwise, it would have been impossible to take advantage of the Zhang Jiujiang family's relocation to buy the large house next door without borrowing or grinding.

But now it seemed that continuing to save money was impossible.

Zhang Gui's appetite consumed more food than five or six long-term laborers.

(End of Chapter) ===== CHAPTER 37 =====