Book 1 Chapter 3: The Universe Bags from an Elder Man.
[spoiler]
It has been 5 months since Tao Jinghua started to live as the 29th Daughter of the Tao family.
With the girl's original memories, and with Tao Jinghua's acting skills, it wasn't that hard to act like their daughter and live as her in this place.
In the family, Tao Jinghua's job was to make porcelain bottles storage for elixirs and potions. Her job specifically was to make mid-size bottles. There was a quota of 150 bottles every day that she must make.
Her daily routine wasn't that hard to do either. In the morning, waking up around 6 in the morning to heat up the furnace for firing the porcelain. Eat lunch at around noon, check the temperature to make sure that the kiln temperature hasn’t changed for the type of firing that she needs to use. Afterward- waited for a couple of hours for the porcelain to cool down before glazing it.
It was hard to make the same shapes of bottles every time for the old Tao Jinghua but since she had a great love for making ceramics, her love for creating ceramics made up for her unsteady hands of hers. However, ever since Tao Jinghua started living like her, all her quota was easily met. What? You thought that Tao Jinghua wouldn't know how to create a ceramic? Making ceramics was one of the many things that Tao Jinghua had learned because of boredom in her former life. So, she has no problem with it. She might not be a grandmaster with it but her skill was more or less Mastered. Being in a different body doesn’t affect her at all.
Tao Jinghua had also started practicing the Internal Martial Arts a day after she came across this world.
Now, her strengths are half of what her original body has. Just half was already enough for her to chop down a tree with nothing but her hand without using qi. She can't use Qi yet anyway since she is still training her internal muscles and organs to withstand the Qi. This was also due to the special arts that she had created for herself. Jinghua doesn’t know if this world’s special qi will have a bad effect on her body so she was careful to train her internal organs to withstand the qi first.
Since making 150 porcelain bottles was so easily done by Tao Jinghua now, she would spend the rest of the time in the afternoon while the ceramics are still in the kiln doing exercise and training her body. So, for the past 3 months, she had spent her time in a daily routine that made her sisters look at her weirdly due to how happy she seemed. Well, at least that was what she looked like.
In the morning, Tao Jinghua would wake up around 5-6 in the morning to get the furnace heated while preparing the clay and everything else. Since the furnace's temperature has to be very high for the porcelain to fully and temper correctly, the Tao family always uses hardwood to fire the furnace.
There are three types of hardwoods firewoods that they use. For making porcelain bottles for storing elixirs and potions purposes, the bottle must be able to keep the healing properties and its effects inside the bottle for at least 10 years to 20 years, so the hardwoods that they use for both the fire and the ashes can only be three types of hardwoods.
It was the Lighting Wood, Fire Pinewood, and Silverwood. The ones that Tao Jinghua uses to fire the furnace and the ashes are the Silverwood since its property can last longer than the Fire Pinewood. Using the ashes from the Lightning Wood lasts the longest but Lightning Wood was far too expensive so it could only be used to make ceramics for loyalties and for important ceremonies.
So the woods that the Tao family used are Silverwood, which can be used to make a lot of things. Since the Tao family wasn't one of the influential big families, they don't have the qualification or the knowledge to use woods like the Lightning Woods. They can use Fire Pinewood since it can be used to make potteries up to a certain rarity.
Ah. Whatever. That wasn't important. The important part was that Tao Jinghua has gotten used to living as Tao Jinghua now.
Even though sometimes she got a bit too bored and started to think about the stupid thing that got nothing to do with the Tao family.
Jinghua got bored very easily. So easy that she was tempted to do some embroidery. But- there were no evenweave fabrics or Aida cloth in the house, much less Hardanger fabric or soft fabrics linen. They do have silk in the warehouse but it was for a special occasion only. There’s no way that Jinghua could do any of that for embroidery.
If Jinghua really wanted to, she could just buy it herself since she does have the money for it. But, she didn’t want to draw any attention from her parents and siblings to her just yet.
Since she likes to know about a lot of things, Tao Jinghua would always put on a disguise and went down to a restaurant to listen to all the martial artists and the commoners talking about the world. The old Tao Jinghua wouldn't care about politics and the world's affairs at all but for her, she loves to know anything and everything. It's interesting. And less boring.
Therefore, she had made two men's sets of clothes that had a basic outer defense using light leather made out of small animal hides. Good thing that she still remembers how to make them.
In fact, these two sets of clothes have their own head-ribbon, hairband, garment, a pair of bracers, shoes, pants, and a simple amulet made out of refined and enchanted bones.
The amulet was made using Fire Wolf's bones and Hardwood tree resin in a crescent moon shape. The color was bright red so it was very elegant and clean since Tao Jinghua made it herself. Both sets of clothes had their own distinct color so no one noticed that both men were the same person.
Hence, no one knew that the man who had been quietly sitting in the far corner of the restaurant was a very pretty girl who has a face that will make even gods jealous. Of course, no one would even suspect that Tao Jinghua was, in fact, a girl when she acts like a true gentleman. There were no flaws in her acting at all. If there was anyone that actually can tell that she is a woman then it could only be that one, that person was sensitive toward gender, two, that person has an artifact on him or her that can tell her gender, and three, that particular person was a powerhouse. One of those immortal practitioners.
Tao Jinghua has no problem with listening to the customers talks about all the high-end rumors even when they are whispering.
"Third brother, did you hear that the Empress has once again given out a decree?" One of the men said with a very excited expression.
"Yeah, truly. I hear that it was the Emperor's Third Son, the Demon's King's concubines that begged the Empress." The other answered with his eyes filled with respect and reverence.
"Yes, the Third Princes truly is something else. I heard that his nighttime activities will put all of his 12 concubines to die sooner rather than later. I didn't believe it at that time but thinking about it now, it must be true." The first man answered.
"The Third Prince's nightly activities aren't a secret. Everybody knows that the Third Princes trained in that godly technique so his stamina was far stronger than normal immortality. The Emperor and the Empress had always had a headache because of him. This time, how many concubines do you think that the Empress will decree for?" As another man with a face of curiosity.
"Hmm, that is hard to say. The last time it was five so this time could also be five too right?" The voice was filled with curiosity and amazement.
"We commoners will never know what is truly going inside the Emperor and Empress's head. The Crown Prince has 32 concubines already but he doesn't have a problem like the Third Prince. But then again, the Crown Prince is not the Third Prince. The Third Prince is a demon while the Crown Prince is a monster. Except for one of the younger princes, the princess all already had a couple of male consorts. Yet, there was never a princess that had more than 3 male consorts. However, for the princes, the minimum was 12 concubines. I wonder if the Four Princes will be like the Third Prince or the Crown Prince since it was impossible for a normal man to actually made love to their wives until they beg for him to take more wives." The first man has spoken out with a glint in his eyes.
Jinghua can't tell if the man was praising the Princes or not.
In this nation of Wuzhi, mortal men having a lot of wives is common due to various reasons. Mainly it was due to survivalism chances of their own bloodline. As this world has Spiritual Energies, the creatures that got stronger and prey on humans are also a huge problem for mortal people. Thus, to make sure that mankind survives and continues to live on, the mortal people of this world tend to have multiple wives, spouses, husbands, and children.
Tao Jinghua being the 29th Daughter of the Tao Family wasn’t exactly an odd situation. The majority of the richer households in this world have at least 35-45 children with their spouses. Thus, if something happened, like a Beast Stampede or a Beast Tides, there would be more chances for their bloodlines to live on.
Although, this does make Tao Jinghua wonder about the ratio of males to females in this world... and the treatment of women in this world.
Aside from the Emperor and Empress of this Kingdom, the Emperor has 7 other concubines. Each Concubine has two children. However, those children don't have any powers in politics since the Empress herself has 5 Princes and 3 Princesses. The Emperor family was pretty large after all.
However, from what the old Jinghua memory said, this Country's Emperor can only have up to 41 Wives, including the Empresses and all the other Imperial Wives. So, this generation’s Emperor has One official Empress, 7 Concubines, which have the right to give birth to his descendant, and another 7 consorts. This system was a tad bit weird but it also made some sense. The system was really similar to the Ming Dynasty system back on Earth.
The first prince is the Crown Prince, called Shang Mingyu, he was already 28 years old. Since he is also a practitioner, he looks pretty young for his age.
The Second Prince was called Shang Chengyu. He is only 24 years old this year but he already has 20 concubines.
The Third Prince was called Shang Changyang. This year, he was only 21 years old. According to rumors, he was now at the largest sect in Wuzhi studying.
The Fourth Prince was called Shang Changyu, 12 years old, and engaged to the left Prime minister’s 4th daughter and the right Prime Minister’s 3rd daughter. Yes- he’s engaged to two women at the same time.
For the Fifth Prince, he is only 5 years old this year and he is called Shang Yunyu.
This emperor sure does like to name their descendants with the characters for rain; Jinghua notices.
After listening to the talks for another fifteen minutes, Tao Jinghua left 10 copper coins to pay for her food and wines then left.
The wines in this world can not be compared to the ones from her former life at all. The taste wasn't even strong and the smell wasn't very good either. The methods that they use to make those wines aren't very good.
Since this world had immortals and the likes, Tao Jinghua had thought that their wines would be very strong but to think that it was so badly made, she doesn't know if she should cry or laugh. Comparing the wine here to the cheapest beers in her old world and it will still fall short.
Good thing that Tao Jinghua likes to drink, aside from collecting weapons, she also likes to make her own wines too so she wasn't worried about not having any wine to drink. She can make her own wine when she finishes collecting all the materials for it. All that was left was to find the base ingredients and she would be able to create her own wine. Or more like sake.
Walking back to the Tao residents, Tao Jinghua lightly taps the ground with her toes as it repels her over the wall without a sound. Since she sneaked out, naturally, she can not let anyone know that she returned.
In her room, Tao Jinghua changes back into her old clothes real quick as she hides the man's clothes away into her Universe bags, a spatial type of storage bag. She then went to the kiln in the stone room where all the stone kiln was located and took out the porcelain bottles that had just finished their last firing stages, the glazing stages.
She then left them to cool off before placing them in their wooden crate and called the male servant to take them to the warehouse for storage.
The kiln in this world was different from the ones on earth. In this world, they use something called Ironstone to make the kilns so their temperature is a lot hotter and they are larger than the ones on the earth.
In her former life, Tao Jinghua had learned how to make ceramics before so she knew how hot the temperature in the room was when the kiln was heating. However, here, the only hot place was inside the kiln since the ironstones that they used to create the kilns prevent the heat from escaping. This was why Tao Jinghua was able to meet her daily quota with no problem.
After all, she wasn't that used to the high-temperature heat yet. No matter how strong or high her Internal Martial Arts were, it was impossible to fully be immune to heat from an outside source. That was one of the reasons that her Internal Martial Arts developed far more than she thought they would be when she had just started to train herself. It was all due to the heat from the firing kiln helping her temper her body and internal organs in a very efficient and proficiently way. For both her Martial Arts training movement, physical strengthening, and breathing exercise.
In Tao Jinghua's former life, everyone feared her not just because of her weapons collections, in fact, it was the opposite. It was because Tao Jinghua's Internal Martial Arts were far more advanced than everyone else. Even more than her own masters.
The reason was simple; Tao Jinghua was a ‘one in a million years’ genius for Martial Arts. Be it External Martial Arts like Kung Fu, or Internal Martial Arts like Xing Yi Quan, Tai Ji Quan, and Ba Gua Zhang, they all were studied by Tao Jinghua. The arts that she practiced weren't just one of them but rather all of them. Forming and integrating into her own will and form.
Her Dragon Air Strikes was the most fearful one of them all just because it needs nothing but air for it to be effective. Dragon Air Strikes was a combination of Xing Yi Quan and Ba Gau Zhang's internal arts so the power was not something that can be compared with other martial arts.
Her Master himself had to learn this move from her.
Before her master have to take her to the nearest active volcano to train but here, just training within a certain distance from the firing kiln was already enough. Why? Because of the martial arts that she created. She called it “Stellar Martial Arts Manual and Skills”.
Stellar Martial Arts Manual and Skills was a High-Grade class manual. It has five movement techniques, three breathing techniques, 5 Martial Arts Styles, and 7 Body Refinement techniques.
Ever since she crossed over from earth to this world, she had modified the manual to include 2 Soul Refinement techniques and one blood refinement qi technique. This all took her a whole month to do. However, Jinghua hasn’t started to refine her soul or blood qi yet. That’s because she’s still refining her body. And refining the body took a long and painful time to do so.
It just happens that the heat from the kiln was able to temper her body in a way that she hasn’t expected it to. As a result, her training progressed a lot. However, the heat from the kiln furnace has a lot of impurity within it so Jinghua could only slowly absorb the pure energy and leave the impure heat alone.
If only there were other sources of heat for her to refine her body on, then she wouldn’t use the heat from the firing kiln at all due to that fire’s natural decomposition. Specifically, if there was a Volcanic heat source nearby - it would have been a heavenly blessing. However, since that was impossible in her current location, the heat from the kilns is more than enough to help her develop and train in internal arts.
Still, there’s only so much energy in the kiln’s heat that she could use. So, it didn’t take long for it to be useless for her again. Which was why, lately, Jinghua had found herself to be very bored again. There was nothing that she would like to do aside from having to make 150 porcelain bottles every day and training her internal muscles daily.
There was nothing to do here. She had made her way back to her room already. She had also looked over all the books in the closet that the former Tao Jinghua had and read through them all already. In other words, it was boring as hell here. Bored enough that it made her always sneak out.
Jinghua sat on the bed and thought. What should she do to allure her away from this boredom? Shall she go outside the town? There is a large forest to the south of this town that has a lot of small animals and not much danger. Yeah, let's go there. But first, she had to let her father know. It was a bit awkward that Jinghua has family members but she got used to it weeks ago.
Making her way silently toward the Main Hall, Jinghua nervously looks inside to see if her so-called father, Tao Yuanyu, was inside. Seeing that her father was reading the report of sale from yesterday with a calm look in his eyes, Jinghua knew that her father was in a good mood.
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"Father." She greeted gracefully, with an elegance that nearly makes her very father gawk.
However, he knew that his 29th daughter always likes to hide so he wasn't surprised that his quietest daughter was this elegant. To think that in another 3 years, this daughter of his was going to marry, a gloomy feeling rises from his chest. However, he knew that girls must marry out so there was nothing that he could do. In fact, if anyone else, Tao Yuanyu will never agree to let his little girl marry but knowing the Tang family for all these years, he has to say that they are a good family.
Out of all his daughters, Jinghua'er was the most silent one of everyone. He worries to no end about her, even though they rarely met at all.
"Hua'er. Come here. It's been a while since Father has last fully seen you, come a little closer." Tao Yuanyu called softly with a gentleness that he only reserves for his daughters.
Jinghua did as she asked as she went nearer to her so-called father.
"Oh? Hua'er?" A soft gentle voice called to her left. A woman in her 30s in light pink hanfu that married women wear. This woman is the first wife of Tao Yuanyu.
"Mother Ying." Jinghua greeted her gracefully, causing the elder woman to smile softly at her. The first wife of Tao Yuanyu is the big sister of Tao Jinghua's mother. They are auntie and niece in a bloodline relationship but because Tao Yuanyu married both siblings, the older sister is also her mother, too. The first wife, Madame Ying, has 5 daughters and 4 sons while her younger sister, Tao Jinghua's mother, has 3 daughters and 2 sons, with Jinghua as the youngest daughter.
"Hua'er, what have you been doing? It has been more than 5 months since I last saw you. Are you eating okay? Have you had enough clothes? Is your quota okay?" She started to ask worriedly. Jinghua doesn't know if she should appreciate the warmth of affection that this Madame had shown her or should she feel annoyed that she is far too much of a worried woman.
"Mother Ying, I am fine." Tao Jinghua answered back warmly. Of course, she's acting. Just because her expression was frozen into this neutral expression of neither hot nor cold, doesn't mean that they wouldn't be able to tell from her voice.
A couple of months ago, she made the excuse that when she woke up, her body was all cold and her face was very chilling. Making her sister think that she was sick so an alchemist came to take a look at her and tell her that she has a rare condition called Spirit Complexity. This condition wasn't heredity and it was very harmless. The only thing that this condition has was that rarely does a woman contract it. Since then, no one suspected why she never smiles again. Naturally, her father and mothers all knew about it too. Even her future husband knew about it.
"Okay, enough. Hua'er, tell me, what is it that you need to ask me off?" Tao Yuanyu knew that there was no way that his most silent daughter would come out for no reason at all. Mother Ying's complexity also changes as curiosity sinks into her expression.
"Father, Mother Ying, I would like to go out of town for a couple of weeks. Sister Suyi said in her letter that there is a place not far from here that is very beautiful and only a single woman can get into. I am very curious about this place so I wanted to go there." Jinghua answered with her eyes twinkling in excitement. Tao Suyi is Jinghua's older sister who is one of the immortal practitioners.
Both husband and wife look at each other in surprise. They knew that there aren't a lot of things that excited this girl so for her to be this excited, it got to be something very mysterious since they knew that Jinghua likes mysterious things. Nearly all her books are about mysterious subjects and stories, afterall.
"Will there be danger?" Was the first thing that both of them asked, at the same time. There is no way that they would let their children go to some dangerous places. Just their son and eldest daughter being out there alone were already making them both worried endless.
"No, there's a very strong immortal woman there that protects and governs that area so there was no danger." Jinghua answers. Truthfully, that area was under a formation arrspell so there is no danger to women at all. Asides from each other, that is.
"Very well, since this is the first time that you have ever asked for something, I shall grant you the permission. However, one of your big brothers has to go with you." Tao Yuanyu said with a glint in his eyes.
Tao Yuanyu had always been far too busy so he rarely had the time to chat with all his sons and daughters. The only time that he could sit down and have a heart to heart talk with them was during New Years when everyone from the family was sitting down at the same dinner table or in the same room. Even at that time, his daughter Jinghua would only stay for a couple of hours at best before leaving so he rarely saw his little girl since, by the time that he made it to her turn, she would have left already.
"Yes, father. But who?" Jinghua asked curiously. There are only 5 older brothers that were still staying with the family.
The rest all had already married and moved out elsewhere with their family. After all, the Tao family wasn't a clan that would have at least 100 family members, so the elder's sons would always move out after marrying for 3 years. They have to learn how to survive by themselves for their families.
Only the eldest son and eldest daughter are obligated to stay to inherit the family. However, since the eldest son, Mother Ying's eldest son, Tao Yingteng, is one of the immortal practitioners, and the eldest daughter, Mother Liuqi's daughter is also the same as brother Yingteng, the one that will have to inherit the house and business are my own big brother, Tao Dingxiang, and fifth mother, Mother Liling's, eldest daughter, big sister Meifeng.
"Hmm. Let your brother Qingshan go with you. He had just reached rank 4 in Tier 4 Martial Arts. He can protect you easily." He said with a tone that left no option for Jinghua to resist. Jinghua nodded. Big brother Qingshan is Mother Ying's Second son after big brother Yingteng. Qingshan was very similar to Jinghua except for the fact that he is a martial art geek and Jinghua is a weapon collection geek. If you can say it like that.
"Okay. I will go get ready and leave tomorrow early." Tao Jinghua said as she saluted slightly with an elegance and grace that made both her father and mother stunned in pleasant surprise. After that, Jinghua went back to her room to get ready. She takes a couple of her gold coins that she had saved from selling her own extra porcelain all these years. No, this money doesn’t belong to the current Jinghua but rather the former Jinghua. The former Jinghua’s very good at keeping account of her own private business and thus had saved quite a bit of money so far.
Since one gold coin was already one thousand silver and with one Silver coin as one thousand lead coins, with one lead coin, it is one thousand copper coins.
Since the math is like this:
1,000 Copper coins = 1 Lead coin.
1,000 Lead coins = 1 Silver coin.
1,000 Silver = 1 Gold coin.
As the results:
1,000,000 Copper coins is 1 Silver. And 1 Gold coin needs 1,000 Silvers.
1,000,000,000 (billion) copper coins is 1 Gold Coin.
Which means that on Tao Jinghua's body, there are three billion copper coins. Or 3,000 Silver coins. Or just 3 Gold coins for better understanding.
Jinghua had to give it to the former Jinghua. She sure knows how to do private business. With only 5 years of privately selling porcelain she already made a total of 5 gold coins, 45 Silver coins, 70 Lead coins and 12 copper coins as her total savings.
Well, obviously, she used her own materials that she gathered herself so this explains why she was able to save that much money.
Normally, the Tao family household monthly income is only 12-15 Silver coins per month. The household used 4 silvers per month for necessaries and another 2 silvers were paid for the maids and servants.
For food, each month only use 2 Silver coins. In total, each month, there will be a profit of 5-7 Silver coins. Tao Yuanyu had always given away 50-70 copper coin as an allowance to every one of his children, so that is another 2 Silver coins. Leaving only at least 4 to 5 silver coins into the household treasury. Which means that at the most, their yearly income is only 1 Gold coin. Although for the majority of the time, their income was only around 70-80 silver coins per month.
If they knew that Tao Jinghua had 5 gold coins to herself just by private business, Tao Yuanyu would probably make her the head of the house since he wasn't a very good businessman. Which explains why she keeps her business a secret away from her family.
Getting ready in this world was faster than from earth since this world has Universe Bags that even commoners can buy.
It only cost 2 Lead coins per Universal Bag. Inside the bags was a space of two meters square and could store nearly everything. It can not store Spiritual objects but everything else is possible, including living things. However, it can not store human or body of a human. It is a restrictive item. Only Spiritual Universe bags or Spatial bags have the capacity to store humans inside since inside it is a small world of itself.
Universe Bags are different from Spiritual Universe bags and Spatial Bags.
Jinghua's Universe bags were different from the normal bags that everyone in the household has. She does have normal universal bags that the former Jinghua have but the current one that she’s using wasn’t the former’s Jinghua’s bags. Rather, this bag of hers was from an elderly old man who had traded it for food.
It happened when Tao Jinghua was coming back from doing her private business with her clients. Of course, she was in disguise when she’d meet the elderly man. He wasn't a beggar since this town's chief doesn't like beggars so he always gives them laborer jobs in exchange for food and shelter, but he was a starving man.
Seeing no reason why she shouldn't trade with the elder man, Tao Jinghua helped the elder to an old house and cooked for him herself.
The only thing was that she didn't buy buns or cheaper commoner's food for the elder man but instead cooked the food that she learned how to from her former life.
In China, if a woman doesn't even know how to make a couple of dishes that are famous then there was no way that she will be able to marry. Good thing that Tao Jinghua was a genius so whatever she ate, she can recreate them later using different ingredients. Tao Jinghua made some hand-pulled noodles, varieties of stirred fried vegetables using her own sauces and other things to cook the food for the old man.
That elderly man has the stomach of a bottomless pit so she used more than enough ingredients that would feed a family of 10 for 3 days.
She cooks for him for 5 hours straight . Until she runs out of ingredients does the elder man get his fill. Jinghua was suspicious of that elder man but since he had no ill intention towards her, so she didn't do anything else other than cooking for him.
In the end, the elder man gives her three Universe bags that he made - or so he said. What surprised her was that the bags were different from the ones that she was using, the former Tao Jinghua's bag.
The bags that she have only had the space of 2 square meters but the ones that the old man gave her have a 3 by 4 square meters of space inside. Jinghua was very surprised and was going to decline the other two bags and only take one but when she looked up to decline the old man, the old man had already vanished. It was like he was never there from the beginning.
So, Jinghua now has four Universe bags. However, since the bags that the Elderly Old Man gives her can store even the other universe bag inside it - much to her surprise - Jinghua had stores all her private business funds and materials inside the former's Jinghua's bag and store that bag inside her bag while keeping her money in another bag.
This happened two weeks ago already. Up till now, Jinghua had always wondered who that elderly man was. She doubted that the old man was a beggar no matter how he looks like it. He was probably one of these immortal practitioners. However, from what Jinghua knows of immortals, they don't interact with common mortals since mortal's lives pass by in a flash for them.
Well, whatever. For now, Jinghua should be careful who she interacts with. For some reason, she doesn't trust that elderly man very much. She hopes that they will never meet again.
That afternoon, Tao Jinghua went to her brother Qingshan's yard to tell him of his father's decision. Qingshan was very similar to Jinghua in the aspect that they both are very quiet people.
"Big Brother, father, I want you to protect me while we go out." Jinghua had said with her eyes brightly lit in excitement but since her expression was frozen in that neutral expression of either hot or cold, it kind of looked very weird instead.
"Okay. I will get ready. When do we leave?" He asked as he pats Jinghua's head. Qingshan had always been doting on all his younger sisters regardless of who their mother was. Unlike his other brother who doesn't interact with their sisters too much, Qingshan doesn't talk much but he was very doting on all of his younger sisters.
Maybe it was because he grows up with too many girls surrounding him that Qingshan has that weird aura around him. However, Jinghua doesn't care. He can be gay for all she cares. As long as he was happy, Tao Jinghua didn't discriminate against it.
Unlike her former life where a homosexual relationship wasn't that common, here, there was no boundary between gender.
Especially for immortal practitioners, they couldn't care less if it was a male or female that married each other since immortal lives live far too long once they reach certain stages in their cultivation. In this town alone, there were more than a hundred households that had males marrying males and girls marrying girls. In this Nation of Wuzhi, about 30 percent are same-gender marriages, 10 percent unmarried, and the rest are male-female marriages.
Their neighbor, the Song family was also of same-sex too. Although Jinghua hasn't interacted with them before, she did personally see them a couple of times in the Market.
Wuzhi had the lowest percentages for same-sex marriage compared to other nations. But oh well, what does she care? It had nothing to do with her.
"Early tomorrow." She answered. He nodded as he stopped practicing his martial arts and went to get ready. Jinghua left after that.
However, she didn't go back to her room since he had already finished preparing. She called a servant and made him go help her buy a lot of things that she wants. For example, ingredients for foods and spices.
This town was larger compared to towns on the earth, however, the agriculture here was far behind earth's agriculture.
Which was why spices are very expensive! Food like Rice is pretty cheap since they are grown easily in this world but herbal spices for normal mortal households are fucking damn expensive.
There was rarely any fresh spice available in this small town’s Markets. However, even dried spices are still expensive as well! 1 Jin (about 1.102 pounds) was already 15 copper coins! It was a good thing that the Tao plant their own spice plants and thus didn’t have to buy them from the markets all that much. Only for rarer spices and herbs that they do not planted themselves.
What? If you think that 15 copper is cheap then that is also true. However, in this town, the average household are all from lower income grade family. Which mean that their daily wages are only 60 copper per day. Buying spices that were 15 copper coins? How many people do you think would do that? Only family that were slightly richer like the Tang, Song, Tao, Yin, and the landowners families would buy spices like that.
For a small town like Xichang Town, the population of 7 thousands of households was pretty small, however, because Xichang town was near to Muron City, the City nearest to the port in the southern region of Wuzhi, we have a lot of merchants and travelers daily. So spice sellers always come to Xichang Town, which is why Jinghua wasn't worried that there aren't many varieties of spices. She gives 2 Lead coins for the servant to buy at least 3 pounds of all 50 various kinds of spices. The leftover money they can keep.
"Yes, Young Lady!" the servant happily replies as he leaves. Jinghua didn't stop at that, she called another two servants.
"Mu, Su!" She called.
"Young Lady, do you need us?" Asked a girl about 16 years old wearing hemp-cotton clothes that look like it comes from the Tang Dynasty of Ancient China. The other girl is also wearing a similar outfit.
"Mu, you go buy the things on this list for me. Su will help you." She said as she handed the girl another 2 Lead coins.
"Make sure that you have everything done by tonight. When you get it all together, bring it to me in the Stone room. The change you both can keep." Jinghua ordered without batting an eye. Both girl's expressions turned happy as Tao Jinghua said in the last part. You have to know that with 2,000 copper coins in their hands, even when they brought everything from the list, there will still be at least 50 or so copper left. The servant's daily wage is only 12 coppers per day. So naturally, they will be happy that Jinghua actually lets them keep the change.
Both girls happily bowed and left so fast that it made Jinghua blink her eyes. All the servants in their household are at least a level 1 tier 2 martial arts and the highest for guards was level 1 tier 5.
In this world, Martial Arts are measured in Tier levels.
From Tier 1 to Tier 12 were called Phase 1 Martial Artists. It didn't matter what kind of martial arts you train in, it would still measure like that.
Once you reach level 10 of Tier 12 and past the bottleneck, you will enter Phase 2, what they called Qi Martial. Jinghua didn't know how this world measured internal martial arts but she does know that they measure the spiritual Qi of a martial arts using something called Soul Strength Stone.
Normal people like the people in Xichang Town only have Phase 1 Martial Artists. From Tier 1, there was a measurement of 10 points to 100 points. Tier 2 is 200 points to 300 points, however, in Tier 3 the strengths is measure with 300-499 spiritual Qi points. Tier 4 is 600-799 points of Spiritual Qi. Tier 5 is 800-999 points. Once you reach Tier 6, the power greatly increases by another hundred, you need the measurement of spiritual Qi from 1,000 -1,499 and so on until you reach the end of Tier 12 at level 10 at 4,499 points of Spiritual Qi. Anyway, Jinghua only knows about this because of the letters from her elder brother and sisters from Tuanfeng Sect.
Moving on, that information right now has nothing to do with her. She didn't care about those things.
There was still one last thing that Jinghua wanted to do. And she needs a lot of ashes for it. The ashes that were from the kilns were used to mold the clay together to make ceramics but they didn't use all of the ashes. Since there was no lye available and no baking powder in this world, she would just have to make them. Hardwood ashes are good materials for them. Since the thing that she's going to make will require a long time to ferment, using hardwood ash should make it more refined.
But before Jinghua can start making it, she needs to refine and separate the ashes from the waste. That was why she was in the stone room, where all the ashes are stored.
By the time that Jinghua finished refining and separating the ashes from the waste and the other two parts, the sun was already near setting down and it was just on time for when the two servants, Mu and Su, came back with a bag filled with things.
"Young Lady, here is all the materials and items that you have us buys," Mu said respectfully as she handed Jinghua the universe bags that every servant must take when going shopping. Both Mu and Su look at their 29th Young Lady who had her bangs covering her face in somewhat of a surprise. Both servants had been serving the Tao family for more than 3 years now, yet, this was the first time that they fully saw Young Lady Jinghua fully.
They didn't think that she would have this much grace and elegance in her. There wasn't an aura of arrogance like the rich young masters and ladies on her but rather a somewhat warm grace and elegance that make both of them speechless.
"Thanks. You both can keep the change." Jinghua waves her hand as both servants leave. Jinghua looks inside the bags to find all kinds of materials, including 100 jin of cooked rice in a bucket.
Good, now everything is ready. Huh? By now, you still don't know what Jinghua is going to make?
Fine. She's making rice wine using the Asian technique that will extract a lot of purity from the rice for the wine. The alcohol percentage is near 80 percent and it won't smell like the wine in this town. She learned this technique from the Mistress from the orphan house way back when she was only 5 years old. It was before that accident but she still remembers it clearly and had used it more than 50 times in her life. If only there were any fruits, it would increase the yield and strength of the alcohol by a whole 10 percent.
Oh well. For now, let's do this. Jinghua gathered everything into the other universe bags as she left for her room to start fermenting everything for two months. However, before she left, the other servant that went to buy the spices came back and handed her the spices.
Jinghua took about 3 hours total to finish everything in her room and sealed it into the large porcelain jar that she had made. In two month, everything will be liquid and ready to refine. With that, Jinghua went to take a quick bath before going to sleep. Tomorrow she will be leaving, she should really get a couple of hours of sleep first.