By the time Hu Shentian finishes tearing down his bridge and throwing all of the pieces of bamboo he used to build it into the center of the clearing, Hu Gongniu finishes preparing the fish Hu Shentian had caught earlier and also prepares a piece of flatbread for everyone except for Hu Shentian, who hadn’t bothered eating the night before, who receives two. When Hu Shentian sees the second piece of flatbread Hu Gongniu had prepared for him and the one piece Hu Gongniu had prepared for everyone else, he grimaces. But, seeing Ho Gongniu’s and Hu Qiuping’s hard eyes staring him down, he doesn’t say anything and chooses to eat in silence.
In fact, nobody says anything throughout the meal. Lan Jin is exhausted after spending his night eating pears, and Hu Gongniu and Hu Qiuping simply have nothing to say. The entire situation reminds Lan Jin of his many early morning flights with his parents when they went on vacations together. He could already tell he wasn’t going to enjoy the next several hours, but he was resigned to the fact that it was something he had to do.
Half an hour later, before even a hint of dawn appears in the sky, Hu Gongniu grabs a metal torch with a thick white wick coming out of it from his bamboo rucksack and hands it to Hu Shentian. But, contrary to Lan Jin’s expectations, Hu Shentian doesn’t light it and instead just holds it in one hand while wielding his spear in the other.
Then, Hu Qiuping approaches Lan Jin and says, “We’ll be leaving soon. How’s your night vision?”
“It’s fine.” Looking at the unlit torch in Hu Shentian’s hand, Lan Jin asks, “Are we not going to light the torch?”
Shaking his head, Hu Qiuping replies, “Not if we don’t have to. The forest is too thick for the torch to make any difference, so we will only use it if we need to see something more clearly— animal tracks, plants, signs of other people, and so on. Unless we come across something that needs the light, it’s best not to use it as it would ruin our vision.”
Lan Jin nods his head. “Got it.”
“We will be walking in a line. Gongniu will be upfront, Shentian will be behind him, and you will be behind Shentian. I will take up the rear. We will be traveling parallel to the stream for about five miles and a further ten miles through a path we will carve into the bamboo. After that, we will come across a pass through the mountains which we will use to travel another fifteen miles. From there, we will travel by dirt road down to the Southern Border City’s West Gate— another ten miles or so. Make sure you’re ready. We’ll be leaving soon.”
Having been warned about their imminent departure, Lan Jin grabs his shoes and socks which he had cleaned and left out to dry under the sun yesterday. After putting them on, his feet are a little uncomfortable because his socks are slightly stiff, but considering that he will be walking through the forest for several hours, he just grits his teeth and accepts that he’d rather wear them than not. Then, he shoves his bamboo pipe into his hoodie backpack and chooses to wear it over his chest so he can reach into it and grab pears while walking.
Lan Jin also cuts off a long, thin section of bamboo and fills it with water before cutting off a shorter but wider section of bamboo and filling it with leaves to cap the longer section. He doesn’t think the cap will withstand being jostled very well and it definitely isn’t watertight, but as he places his bamboo water bottle into his hoodie-backpack upright, he hopes that the cap will keep most of the water in as he walks.
Then, all that is left for Lan Jin to do is grab his short bronze saber and wait to depart with the other men. He doesn’t have to wait long, though, as five minutes later the four men set off with the stream on their right and the bamboo forest on their left. Above them, the stars and the moon illuminates their path.
***
The four men travel in a line, their feet crunching on the dirt and small stones alongside the stream and their hands and weapons pushing aside the occasional stalk of bamboo that grows too close to the side of the stream for them to pass by unmolested. From time to time, yawns and the crunching of pears can also be heard in the relative silence of the night. All the while, three of the four men are alert and constantly scanning their surroundings whereas the fourth young man is constantly distracted and stares out at the world with wide eyes that seem to see more than they should.
This was the first time Lan Jin had been up so early since he arrived in this new world, but given his newfound ability to see Qi and the constant stream of dirty Qi being converted into purple Qi and purple mist within his body, he felt like he was trapped in a hazy dream full of bright colors. Though it was dark out, the dark stopped him from being able to make out the shapes of the shadows in the distance and seemingly did nothing to stop him from seeing the glowing veins of Qi surrounding him. He did not know why his ability to see Qi extended further than his ability to peer through the darkness, but he could not deny the fact that, right now, the world seemed more beautiful than it ever had before.
Behind him, Hu Qiuping notices Lan Jin’s strange state, but after considering Lan Jin’s cultivation level and the number of pears he had eaten in the last several hours, Hu Qiuping chooses not to mention it. After a while, though, something catches Hu Qiuping’s attention and he calls the group to a halt.
“Wait for a moment.” He says, then walks several feet away from the group.
Lan Jin watches as Hu Qiuping looks around for several seconds and then approaches a small plant, a little over a foot tall, with three leafy branches connected to a vine-like trunk growing out of the ground. After looking it over for a minute, Hu Qiuping uses his fingers to break off two of the branches and brings them back over to the group.
Standing next to Lan Jin, Hu Qiuping says, “These are called Serpent Tails, and they are one of many low-grade natural treasures that grow in this region. Each of the small leaves on the Serpent Tail is worth seventeen copper coins and as long as the leaves are not damaged, they can be sold to different groups and people in the Southern Border City. Take a look.”
Hu Qiuping then hands one of the branches to Lan Jin and Lan Jin can’t help but widen his eyes as he examines the leaves on it. Each leaf has at least triple the amount of Qi inside of it compared to the Red-Skinned Pears, and the Qi is a more vibrant green rather than the dirty green Qi that he had frequently seen inside of the bamboo and the Red-Skinned Pears. Add that to the fact that there were nine leaves on the branch in his hand and eleven on the one still in Hu Qiuping’s hand, and Lan Jin feels as though he was surrounded by enough Qi to make him pop several times over.
After examining the branch and the leaves on it, Lan Jin gingerly hands it back to Hu Qiuping who nods at him.
“There are many natural treasures like this one in the area and, if you can find them, you can make a livable amount of money off of them. In the Southern Border City’s outer region, the cheapest price you will find for a small house is three small silver coins a year. These two branches are worth just over three hundred copper coins, or three small silver coins, and can allow you to live in the outer city for a full year.”
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Hu Qiuping pauses for a second and then continues, “There is no such thing as a free meal in the world, but if you’re a cultivator you should at least be able to sense the Qi coming off of these plants. That means you can help us find more like them. If you do, I will take responsibility for cutting them and Gongniu is carrying special boxes in his pack that can preserve them until we arrive at the city. When we get to the city, we will sell everything and give you a portion of the proceeds.”
After hesitating, he says, “Don’t think I’m taking advantage of you, though. Each plant has to be cut in a specific way and if you don’t have the knowledge to do it, you are just as likely to kill them as successfully harvest them. Plus, the three of us will be looking for them as well, and we have experience doing this sort of thing so we will probably find more than you. So all you need to do is walk forward and pay more attention to the Qi in the surroundings and you can make a few coppers or maybe even more if you’re lucky. Got it?”
Lan Jin nods his head slowly. “Alright, that sounds like a good deal to me.”
Though he realizes he might be able to make more money if he found the plants and sold them by himself, that was currently a tall order for him as he had no clue where to sell them or even how much they were worth. Plus, that was only assuming that he could find the Qi-rich plants before the three other men could. So, at most, Lan Jin was paying a little bit in advance to figure out how the process of finding, harvesting, and selling the plants works.
While Hu Qiuping was explaining everything to Lan Jin, Hu Gongniu had put down his rucksack and fished a small wooden box out of it. Though the box was fairly nondescript, Lan Jin could see that it had a thin layer of Qi on all of its surfaces. With all of the Qi combined, it might not even have as much Qi as a single Red-Skinned Pear, but the two branches from the Serpent’s Tail plant are placed inside of it with such care that Lan Jin can’t help but feel as though there’s something special about the box. When the box is closed, his suspicion is confirmed as all traces of the Serpent’s Tail plant’s branches disappear.
“What kind of box is that?” Lan Jin asks curiously.
Hu Gongniu looks at him and, with a smile, says, “It is a Jadewood Box. They are relatively cheap, but they can prevent the Qi of natural treasures from dissipating.”
“Oh.”
After packing the two branches away, the men continue forward in silence. This time, however, Lan Jin is far more alert than before, and, other than consuming the pears and absorbing the purple Qi, he spends all of his focus on looking for plants with levels of Qi equal to or greater than the amount he had seen in the leaves of the Serpent’s Tail plant.
After fifteen minutes of walking, Lan Jin says, “I think I see something. Can we check?”
Almost immediately, Hu Shentian snorts and says, “Yeah. Sure.”
Hu Qiuping, on the other hand, stops and says, “That’s fine. Where?”
Pointing off to the left between two clusters of bamboo where he can see a bush full of glowing brown lights, Lan Jin says, “Right there. I think there are berries or something.”
“Berries?” He Qiuping asks, feeling slightly confused as he walks several feet forward before he can see what Lan Jin is pointing toward. Then, as he approaches within five feet of the bush, he suddenly notices it and exclaims, “Stonespit Berries! This is a good find! Gongniu, bring me a box!”
“Stonespit Berries?” Lan Jin asks.
Hu Qiuping and Hu Gongniu are busy, so Hu Shentian ends up answering him.
“Mm.” He mumbles, distracted. “Stonespit Berries.”
“What are they good for?”
Hu Shentian looks at Lan Jin with his tired eyes before shrugging his shoulders. “Ask Qiuping. I only know they can be sold.”
“Mkay.” Lan Jin says and then waits for Hu Qiuping to finish picking the berries and storing them in a box. It takes several minutes, though, as there are hundreds of little berries in the bush and Hu Qiuping combs through it thoroughly to find as many of them as he can.
When he finally finishes and Hu Gongniu stores the box in his pack, Lan Jin asks Hu Qiuping, “What are the Stonespit Berries good for?”
“Good for?” Hu Qiuping grins. “It’s not that they have one good purpose, it’s that there are many of them and they all have a decent amount of Qi. Alchemists and Talisman Masters like to have them on hand because they can be used as a filler to save their work when it’s about to fail. But for us, what we care about is that there are a lot of them and each berry can be sold for three copper coins. And since we just collected a few hundred of them, well, you should know what that means, right?”
“Gotcha.” Lan Jin nods, not sure how Alchemists and Talisman Masters suddenly fit into the conversation, but he’s too tired to care how the berries are used, he just hopes he makes some money off of them.
After readying themselves, the four take off once more. But, less than ten minutes later, Lan Jin once again stops the group as he notices a brightly-glowing green vine hanging off of a piece of bamboo nearby.
“There’s a long vine on that piece of bamboo with a lot of Qi in it.”
The three men look at him, but after verifying the existence of the vine full of Qi, Hu Qiuping harvests it and cuts it into seven sections, each one foot long, and then has Hu Gongniu store them in three Jadewood boxes before he narrows his eyes and looks at Lan Jin.
“What?” Lan Jin asks.
“Do you know what grade your spirit root has?” Hu Qiuping asks him.
Shaking his head, Lan Jin says, “I didn’t even know they had grades.”
Hu Qiuping lets out a sigh and says, “I don’t know if it matters or not since you’ve already eaten so many Red-Skinned Pears, but you might want to have your spirit root’s grade tested when we get to the city.”
“Why?” Lan Jin asks, his mouth full of pear after having taken another bite.
“Because you noticed two natural treasures that were further away from us than what I could sense. There’s no way the grade of your spirit root is worse than mine, and mine can be considered good even in the entire Southern Border City.”
“Really?” Lan Jin doesn’t believe him as, to him, it makes no difference whether something is one inch in front of his face or twenty feet away— everything with Qi is constantly glowing. Unless it is hidden behind something else, he can see it easily. “That’s convenient, I guess.”
Hu Qiuping scoffs. “Convenient? It’s more than just convenient. The Wood-Strangling Vine you just found is worth at least fifteen small silver coins.”
Nodding his head, Lan Jin asks, “That’s good. How much of that do I get?”
“This…” Hu Qiuping pauses. “The effort for finding it goes to you, and I don’t intend to cheat you since I likely wouldn’t have noticed it anyways, so most of the profit should also go to you. But we will have to pay taxes in order to bring it into the city so we will lose part of the profit in that way. How much depends on who is in charge of the Western Gatehouse today, so there is no way to know yet. But since it’s worth so much, we will also have to bring it to the Inner City and sell it to a store there— no one in the outer regions of the city will give us a fair price for it. That means we will have to pay an additional silver just to enter the Inner City… In short, just because it can sell for a good amount, don’t start counting your silver yet. We still have a ways to go before everything is settled and, even then, your money isn’t yours until you’ve secured it.”
Lan Jin feels as though the explanation was much more complicated than it needed to be, but he ignores it for now as he doesn’t think Hu Qiuping is trying to trick him and he couldn’t do anything about it even if he was.
“This time, we’re lucky that we found you because just the Stonespit Berries and the Wood-Strangling Vine will give us a good amount of silver to use for a while. So, no matter what, we’ll do our best to take care of you when we get back to the city.”
Hu Qiuping gives Lan Jin a soft smile and pats him on the shoulder before the group sets off again. However, just before they reach the point where they can start cutting into the bamboo forest to make their own path toward the pass, Lan Jin stops the group again.
“There’s a plant with a lot of Qi in it inside of the stream.”
Lan Jin points at a spot fifteen feet away from him while the three other men look at him strangely.
“Are you some kind of treasure-seeking beast or something?” Hu Shentian asks him accusingly.
Lan Jin shrugs his shoulders and says, “I’m just looking for plants with a lot of Qi.”
“What do you think we’re doing? Taking a leisurely stroll?” Hu Shentian huffs.
Lan Jin closes his mouth, not willing to say anything because, to him, other than it being dark out, walking along with the other three men had indeed felt like they were all taking a leisurely stroll.