Mortal Mirror

Hearing Li Ergou's words, Huang San couldn't help but sigh inwardly. This little guy was no simpleton. If he had possessed such shrewdness back then, he wouldn't have remained a mere deputy constable.

Li Ergou probably didn't realize that his desire to relax a bit would lead to such deep misunderstandings. He genuinely didn't harbor any so-called ulterior motives.

At that moment, Huang San was extremely pleased with Li Ergou. This kid had not only saved him but also wanted to give him the credit. Such a subordinate was truly commendable. With that thought, he praised, "Good, Ergou, you're good, very good. Rest assured, I understand the situation and will definitely not treat you unfairly."

Li Ergou chuckled inwardly, thinking, 'I just want to be an ordinary constable. What do you understand? Just don't promote me.'

So he said, "Sir, let's go. But what should we do with this giant turtle?"

Huang San pondered for a moment and said, "It doesn't matter. We'll have the villagers come over later and take this giant turtle away. We'll haul this thing back to the county town; we're counting on it to earn us merit."

Li Ergou nodded, thinking that after bringing it back, he wondered if he would get some turtle meat to eat. Fortunately, he had copied one. Hehehe, see, it's always good to copy early.

Huang San had broken several bones and couldn't walk on his own. Li Ergou directly carried him on his back and started walking back. They met Lu Yun halfway, who came to meet them. This kid was probably the least injured in this battle. So the two took turns carrying Constable Huang back to the village.

Back in the village, Huang San asked the village chief to send people to bring the giant turtle back. He counted the number of people and couldn't help but sigh. Twelve people had come, five had died, three were seriously injured, and the rest were lightly wounded.

To Li Ergou's surprise, Zhang Long, who was also a trainee constable like him, was among the lightly injured. As expected of someone practicing martial arts, he was indeed tough.

After collecting the bodies, the sky began to brighten. Constable Huang organized the villagers, found a few large carts, and hauled the giant turtle and the bodies of those who died towards the county town.

The journey was bumpy and slow. It wasn't until the afternoon that they reached Bitter Water County. As soon as they entered the county town, countless people were attracted by the giant turtle. For a time, the entire county town was in an uproar, with people coming out to see the turtle.

The crowd's discussions are not worth mentioning for now. Soon, the carts arrived at the county government office. The county commandant had heard the news and arrived at the county office early. He was quite surprised when he saw such a large turtle.

He praised everyone and then dismissed them. Li Ergou was naturally exhausted. When he returned home, he went straight to sleep, sleeping soundly until dawn the next day before he felt refreshed.

After cleaning up the sheepfold and pigsty, he started preparing some food for the chickens. He couldn't help but think that he was too busy all day and it was time to find someone to help him.

But this place held his secrets, so he needed someone very reliable. He thought about it and realized there was someone suitable: Xiwa from his second uncle's family. He had promised him last time to take him out to see the world. Yes, when he had time, he would call him over to help and also teach him some cultivation methods.

After busying himself for a while, he directly waved his hand and took out the giant turtle and its scales. He originally wanted to cook it immediately, but then he thought that he had once heard Granny Wu say that these things that had become spirits needed to be cooked with some powerful medicines to maximize their effectiveness.

Eating it directly like this seemed a bit wasteful.

As for these scales, he wasn't sure if they were dragon scales after all. After all, he was just guessing. He could take them to the Spirit Item Pavilion in the city for identification. This thing was extremely sturdy and had some spirituality inside. It could be used to forge armor and swords.

With that thought, he decided to go to Liu Zhiyu's Spirit Item Pavilion to see if there were any prescriptions or something, and to identify the nature of the scales. If they were really dragon scales, he would be rich. He would also buy some medicinal herb seeds to plant, truly killing several birds with one stone.

He tidied up, told Black Beard to watch the house, and then left.

For the county town, cultivators of the Divine Path and Martial Path were not so mysterious. It was already a well-known secret, and there were many shops selling various cultivation items in the town.

The Spirit Item Pavilion was the largest of them. It was Li Ergou's first time visiting such a place.

As soon as he entered the house, a woman dressed in a light green floral silk dress came out to greet him. Li Ergou felt quite novel. Leaving aside everything else, just the facade showed that this Spirit Item Pavilion was not simple.

As soon as he entered the house, he saw Liu Zhiyu sitting in the shop, drinking tea and playing with a pair of bright jade beads in his hand.

Liu Zhiyu happened to look up and saw Li Ergou, and couldn't help but say in surprise, "Oh, it's Brother Ergou. Your presence here makes my humble shop shine."

Then he waved his hand and told the woman to get busy, and he would entertain Li Ergou himself.

Li Ergou didn't expect it to be such a coincidence, and was happy in his heart. It was good to have an acquaintance, so he said, "I came here to do some things and buy some things. I just don't know if the Spirit Item Pavilion has them."

Liu Zhiyu smiled and said, "Ergou, to be honest with you, don't look at my small shop, but the things are all complete. Just tell me what you want to buy."

Li Ergou didn't hesitate. First, he took off the package behind him, which contained the fish scales. He said, "Do you have appraisers here? Help me appraise these scales."

Seeing such large scales, even Liu Zhiyu was surprised and said, "My goodness, you didn't kill a dragon, did you? What scales can be so big?"

Li Ergou said, "Hehe, don't dream. I found these. I just don't know what kind of scales they are, so I came to you to appraise them. I don't know if your master here can identify them."

Liu Zhiyu chuckled and said, "Don't worry, our master here is at the Foundation Establishment stage. Show it to him, and he should be able to tell."

Then he waved his hand and asked the woman to take the fish scales to the back for appraisal.

Li Ergou also asked if there were any prescriptions for cooking monster beast meat. Liu Zhiyu was surprised and asked if Li Ergou had encountered some good fortune. Li Ergou didn't hide anything and told him about the giant turtle, and told Liu Zhiyu that he should get some of the flesh and blood, so it would be good to prepare a prescription.

Liu Zhiyu immediately found him a few prescriptions, some for the Divine Path and some for the Martial Path.

Li Ergou took one of each, and directly matched a set of medicine for each. Only then did he realize that medicinal materials were not cheap. A hundred-year-old ginseng cost a hundred taels of silver, and with this and that, a set of medicine cost five hundred taels of silver, which made his heart ache.

And this was only enough to cook one pot of medicine, which showed that the path of cultivation was burning a lot of money.

He prepared two sets of medicine and directly paid a hundred taels of gold.

At this moment, Liu Zhiyu saw that Li Ergou was wealthy and introduced him to some of the special things in the shop, such as various swords, magical instruments, and pills.

He took a fancy to something called Qi Refining Pill, which was specially for Divine Path cultivators in the Qi Refining stage, and the effect was very good. Usually, just ten pills could increase your cultivation by one level.

Li Ergou was amazed, thinking that there was such a magical medicine in the world. However, the price of this thing was very expensive, a hundred taels of gold per pill.

Although Li Ergou had a little money, these pills were too expensive and not a necessity. He couldn't bear to buy them, thinking that he would buy them when he had more money in the future. Now he could only feast his eyes on them.

Looking at other things, which cost thousands of taels of gold or tens of thousands of taels of silver, one by one, the prices were scary. Li Ergou really couldn't afford them, and he felt guilty just looking at them.

And those magical instruments needed to be paid with Daoist coins. At this moment, Li Ergou realized even more that cultivators were not ordinary people who could cultivate.

Afterwards, the two chatted about the purchase of eggs. Liu Zhiyu even proposed to buy his chickens to see if his chickens could be considered spiritual objects, because next to the Spirit Item Pavilion was his Rare Treasure Building, which often sold rare treasures and spiritual objects.

And he proposed that he could use Daoist coins to pay for the money, which were things that were hard to buy even with gold. There was a price on the market but no market. To buy Daoist coins through gold, you not only had to have connections, but you also had to pay a premium.

For example, one zhu of Daoist coins officially cost a hundred gold, but if you really wanted to buy it, you had to pay a premium, at least one hundred and ten taels of gold to buy it.

And this was the lowest price, which varied according to the market conditions at the time.

So when Liu Zhiyu proposed this condition, Li Ergou was indeed tempted. Next time, he could bring a chicken for him to take a look.

Li Ergou took out the second-generation chicken eggs and asked Liu Zhiyu to take a look at how much these things could be sold for.

When Liu Zhiyu saw the goose egg-sized eggs, he immediately felt in his heart that Li Ergou must have obtained the inheritance of a farmer who had not been born, otherwise how could he cultivate such things.

He picked up the egg and felt it. There was a mysterious aura in the egg, not spiritual energy or vitality, but it was much thicker than the aura in the first-generation eggs.

He thought for a while and said, "I need to try this thing carefully to give you an answer. I just don't know how much you have in stock."

Li Ergou smiled bitterly and said, "These eggs are laid less often, and can only provide a hundred eggs a day."

Liu Zhiyu nodded and suddenly asked, "Can you expand the production?"

Li Ergou immediately shook his head and said, "These things consume a lot, these are already the limit."

Liu Zhiyu still wanted to say something, but he saw the woman walking back with the scales and said to the two, "This little brother, this thing has been appraised. Master Qu said that this thing is the scales of a fish.

However, looking at the spiritual power carried in the fish scales, it should be the scales of a fish demon. The specific category is unknown. This thing is extremely hard and can be made into weapons and armor."

Li Ergou was slightly disappointed in his heart. He thought it was really dragon scales, but it was also good that it was a fish demon. He had to think about this matter carefully when he went back.

Liu Zhiyu persuaded, "This thing is also a good treasure. If you are willing to sell it, I can also give you a good price here."

Li Ergou immediately shook his head and said, "Don't worry, I don't lack money on my body, let's talk about it later. By the way, I also want to buy some medicinal herb seeds. Do you have any good varieties to recommend here?"

Liu Zhiyu took Li Ergou to the medicinal materials, and he personally introduced, "We not only have ordinary medicinal materials here, but also a few rare spiritual medicines, but the planting conditions are very harsh, and they must be planted in spiritual fields.

If you don't have spiritual soil here, and you have plenty of money, I also have some for sale here."

Li Ergou was surprised. He was just a rookie in the world of cultivation and didn't understand anything, so he immediately asked curiously what spiritual soil and spiritual medicine were.

Liu Zhiyu was slightly stunned and said with some surprise, "You farmers don't know about spiritual soil, do you?"

"Farmer!" Li Ergou knew what Liu Zhiyu had misunderstood, but he could just use this identity as a cover. After thinking about it, he said, "Hey, to be honest with you, my master died early and just left me a book of secret techniques and then passed away, so I only know a little about many things."

Liu Zhiyu didn't expect this, no wonder. He sometimes wondered in his heart that normal inherited farmer disciples would be selected into the Great Xia Heavenly Craftsman's Academy, how could he still be in this remote place, it turned out to be a wild inheritance.

However, this was a private matter of others, and he didn't ask too much, and didn't say anything more.

He ordered people to take the spiritual soil and some spiritual medicine seeds.

Li Ergou saw that the dark soil was constantly emitting wisps of spiritual light, and when he felt it, there was a lot of spiritual energy contained in these soils, and he immediately understood what the spiritual soil was all about.

Looking at the spiritual medicine seeds, its biggest difference was that there was still a trace of spiritual rhyme in it, which grew out with spiritual energy, which was several times more potent than ordinary medicinal materials.

Li Ergou pondered for a while, inquired about the price, and it was indeed very expensive. One side of spiritual soil required a thousand taels of gold, and one spiritual medicine seed required one tael of gold.

Li Ergou now has a hundred taels of gold and a thousand taels of silver, so he can buy less spiritual soil, just buy a hundred taels of it.

He bought a hundred spiritual medicine seeds, including immortal grass, hundred fragrance flowers, which are all spiritual medicines that increase physical fitness, and a seedling of a wolfberry tree. Then he bought some ordinary ginseng seeds, and Liu Zhiyu would not want any money, and directly gave him a large handful, as many as hundreds of them.

At this point, Li Ergou's money was all spent again, and he couldn't help but sigh that money was really not resistant to spending.

Leaving the Spirit Item Pavilion, he went straight home and placed the spiritual soil in a separate place, just wanting to experiment with the difference between the spiritual soil and the ordinary soil in his yard.

Those spiritual medicine seeds were carefully planted one by one, and the wolfberry tree was also planted well.

After doing all this, it was already dark, and he thought that he would take good care of it in the future, and just wait for the harvest.

In this way, Li Ergou lived a few good days in peace.

On this day, when he had nothing to do, Li Ergou took out the giant turtle. After being placed for a few days, the meat quality of the giant turtle had changed a lot. It could be seen that at this moment, the turtle's body was shrouded in a layer of spiritual rhyme, with a faint spiritual light.

It was like a marinated top-quality delicacy, and he couldn't wait to divide the turtle, but unfortunately he lost a copper coin sword, so he could only carefully use the last copied one.

The copied copper coin sword was almost the same as the original, and it became sharper after being nourished by the bronze mirror. The strange thing was that the original did not change at all in the bronze mirror, but the copied copper coin sword would be nourished by the aura inside to become sharper and more powerful.

He couldn't care about so much, he picked up the copper coin sword and began to divide the turtle.