Young Master Tu.
It was that birdman who had chased him for several hundred li, and had nearly shot the stupid bird dead with a single arrow.
Li Qiuchen thought to himself, I’ll remember this grudge. If fate lets us meet again someday, we’ll settle this account slowly.
After the soldiers left, nothing much happened in the village.
If one had to name something important, then in a few days, it would be time to pay taxes.
The northern borderlands were vast and sparsely populated, with fertile soil, and had never really lacked for grain. The government taxes were not heavy, and on top of that, the village could use pearls to offset part of the levy, saving quite a bit of grain.
Once they paid the autumn grain tax at Qingshitai, the villagers would take the remaining grain and the mountain goods they had gathered on ordinary days to the market.
Was Qingshitai still there?
That day, outside Qingshitai, Li Qiuchen had personally watched a great fire rise in the town, its billowing smoke blotting out the sky.
The losses probably hadn’t been small.
How many people had survived was hard to say.
The village was cut off from news. They might not know about it yet.
Since he knew there would be a big market at Qingshitai, Li Qiuchen gave up on the idea of exchanging for cornmeal at the old man’s house and decided to go take a look.
He should be able to barter for quite a few useful things.
He might even… while the weather was not too cold yet, follow the official road and take a turn around the county town.
The happiness of a single man was just that simple.
The stupid bird’s body was still too large. Taking it along was inconvenient no matter where he went. If it were only as big as a sparrow… and its appetite were only as big as a sparrow’s too, then it would be a perfect bird.
After accompanying the old man for a bit of wine and chatting for half the night, Li Qiuchen did not stay overnight in the village.
In any case, the weather had not yet grown cold to the point of being unbearable. Sleeping in the woods was safer and more secure.
When he got up in the morning, the ground was covered in white frost, and shards of ice had begun to appear on the leaves.
Li Qiuchen shivered and realized he had been thinking a little too simply.
The beggar’s outfit on his body truly had no ability to keep out the cold.
Even though his cultivation had now reached the point where heat and cold could not invade him, walking outside in such a thin set of clothes would inevitably arouse the suspicions of observant people.
After crossing mountains and ridges all the way to Qingshitai, he saw from far away that the road was filled with an endless stream of villagers. Some carried sacks on their own backs, while others drove carts loaded with goods.
Country markets came in two kinds. One was the big market held during festivals and holidays, and the other was the small market held every month. Buying and selling had never been convenient in the first place; it was impossible to lack something at home and keep enduring until New Year before going out to purchase it.
The main difference between a big market and a small market was that the big market was larger in scale—obviously. Merchant caravans would come to collect goods, all sorts of fresh trades rarely seen on ordinary days would appear, itinerant performers would show off their skills, opera troupes would take the stage… in short, it was extremely lively.
A small market was more or less like a farmers’ market.
The county bailiffs could not possibly run through every township and village to collect taxes. There was not enough time, and problems could easily arise along the way. So they would establish granaries and government offices in towns like Qingshitai, allowing the villages from all around to come here at a unified time to pay their taxes.
First came this system, and only afterward came the market.
Leaning on his stick, Li Qiuchen blended into the flow of people.
The situation in town was much better than he had imagined.
At least on the surface, it seemed to have recovered well. Although traces of the great fire from two months ago could still be seen, most of it had already been repaired, and the townspeople did not seem to have suffered too many losses.
If there was anything worth noting, it was that there were many more bailiffs in town.
At the intersection, fully armed bailiffs had set up a checkpoint. Some of the bailiffs even held dark iron tubes in their hands, whose power could not be underestimated. The leading head constable held a roll of wanted portraits, his eyes sweeping back and forth.
Everyone who passed through the checkpoint had to be questioned. If they were residents of the town, they would have something similar to proof of identity. As for mountain folk and country people, there was nothing to be done. Forget proof; many of them could not even read.
But that was not a major problem either. Whether you were an honest, law-abiding farmer could be told from your appearance. The marks left on one’s face by years of exposure to wind and sun simply could not be faked.
Only Li Qiuchen was different. The more he cultivated, the more refined he became, and his skin grew better and better. If he did not smear some mud on his face, people might easily mistake him for a girl.
Fortunately, he was still young and inconspicuous. Following behind someone else’s cart, he pretended they had come together. The bailiff at the checkpoint only glanced at him, asked not a single question, and shifted his gaze to the people behind him.
This made Li Qiuchen, who had already prepared to use his eye technique, let out a breath of relief in his heart.
Thinking about it, that made sense. This was not the county town, after all. Things were not managed that strictly.
After entering Qingshitai, Li Qiuchen first found a trading firm that bought furs and exchanged the few wild boar hides in his possession for ready cash.
Seeing that he was young, the clerk at the firm pushed the price very low, but Li Qiuchen did not mind.
He was not actually short of money. It was just that the silver he had on hand was not convenient to spend.
Spending lavishly could easily attract the attention of observant people.
Now, under everyone’s eyes, he had exchanged wild boar hides for a few strings of copper coins. This was the currency that circulated in the market.
He casually bought some oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar, then went to a grain shop and bought two hemp sacks of rice and flour. After walking into an alley, he took advantage of no one paying attention and stuffed them into his bracelet.
Breaking off a stalk of sweet sorghum, Li Qiuchen strolled along while chewing it. Ambling all the way to the center of town, he looked up and saw the enormous piece of bluestone in the square.
Qingshitai—“Bluestone Terrace”—took its name from this large bluestone with a flat surface.
Northern people were especially casual when naming things.
But this stone did indeed have some history.
On the road, Li Qiuchen had heard people say that Qingshitai had originally been called Tiger Terrace. It was said that back then, a merchant caravan had passed through this place and saw a great tiger lying on the stone, taking a nap. The merchants did not dare disturb the mountain lord and offered up one fat pig.
The tiger was very satisfied. After eating the pig, it patted its backside and left. From then on, Qingshitai became an extremely safe place, and merchant caravans traveling back and forth could rest here without being attacked by fierce beasts.
But that was already a story from who knew how many hundreds of years ago.
Later, an immortal passed through this place and stayed here for a hundred days, teaching ignorant village children. So everyone began calling this place Immortal Terrace.
Many years after that, a county magistrate took office and re-surveyed the county’s geography, only to discover that there were far too many similar place names such as Immortal Terrace, Immortal Valley, Immortal Mountain, and Immortal Well. It was too confusing and difficult to distinguish, so he renamed them all uniformly.
In the government archives, this place was named Qingshitai.
It was said that some time ago, before Mohe Zhenren was surrounded and suppressed by government troops, he had also passed through this place, taken a fancy to this stone, and forcibly occupied it.
If one were to speak of the mystical, then it was certainly somewhat mystical.
Li Qiuchen activated his eye technique and looked over, only to see that within the bluestone, a turbid current of rock-and-earth spiritual energy was slowly flowing.
In other words, this was an ultra-large spirit stone that had not yet finished gestating.
Although it was not a true spirit stone, for cultivators who grasped rock-and-earth cultivation methods, it could still be considered a decent cultivation environment.
Li Qiuchen himself, for example, usually liked sleeping in the woods, letting his body automatically absorb the aura of plants and trees.