Chapter 14: The Fisherman Obtains Benefits and Seeks Collection and Recommendation

  Li Wenjun recalled the scene a few days ago when he met Wolf on a narrow road. At that time, he also remembered that his leg was bitten off by the wolf, and after that, he fell asleep again, and the wound on his leg was also intact.

  What's going on?

  Li Wenjun's intuition told him that his wound would not heal on its own and was likely related to the green light he had seen once before. But when did he have such abilities? Was this a good thing or a bad thing?

  After thinking for half a day, Li Wenjun was still completely clueless. He could only comfort himself that from the current situation, he had still gained a lot of benefits, at least saving money on hiring a matchmaker.

  Li Wenjun put on his clothes again and saw the package that originally belonged to Lao Dao, which he had snatched. A flame of desire flashed in his eyes, but he didn't have time to see what was inside yet.

  Li Wenjun escaped, his so-called luggage had been taken away by the village head of Junzibao when he was caught and forced to be a child servant. The luggage included packages with clothes inside, one yuan silver coin plus some copper coins, and that axe. Now, except for the clothes on him and the dagger tied to his calf beforehand, he could be said to have nothing on him.

  Li Wenjun sat down on the ground, took over the package and put it on his legs. He tried to open the package, but was surprised to find that it couldn't be opened. After trying many times, Li Wenjun could only helplessly admit that he really had no way to completely open the package.

  This is really evil!

  Li Wenjun shook his head repeatedly, he really couldn't understand why this blue and white canvas bag couldn't be opened.

  However, it's not that there's no discovery at all. If he just puts his hand inside and takes something out or puts something in, it can still be done.

  Li Wenjun took out all the things in the bundle and piled them up in a small heap in front of him.

  He simply counted it, and what made his eyes hot was the money. There were more than 350 taels of silver, plus a dozen or so gold ingots, each weighing five taels, as well as some copper coins. In addition, there were several pieces of jewelry inlaid with gold and jade, which looked like precious items at first glance.

  Li Wenjun roughly estimated that the gold, silver and jewelry alone would be worth at least a thousand taels of white silver. If he was frugal with his spending, he wouldn't have any problems for the rest of his life.

  After a brief indulgence in the beautiful future life, Li Wenjun looked at other items. These items were not many and not big, only two books plus three palm-sized porcelain bottles.

  The porcelain bottle was wrapped in red cloth with a cork stopper, Li Wenjun held the bottle and shook it, as if there was something inside. He grasped the red cloth, just about to pull out the stopper, when suddenly a thought flashed through his mind, stopping him from making the move.

  He recalled the scene of Lao Dao setting up the Seven Stars Nine Palaces Formation on the sun-dried wheat field, and how he had taken out many bottles and jars from his bundle, containing all sorts of strange things. Whether these things were poisonous or had some other mechanism inside, no one could tell him except for Lao Dao himself.

  Li Wenjun didn't want to escape from his own life just to open a poisonous gas bottle and be poisoned by the toxic gas inside.

  Thinking of this possibility, Li Wenjun immediately extinguished the curiosity that had arisen in his heart and shifted his attention back to the two books.

  Li Wenjun recognized a few characters, but was far from the standard of a literate person. Many characters were recognizable to others, but not to him. The titles of these two books were written in a script he didn't recognize. When opened, the font inside changed to one he often saw, but he could barely make out a few characters and couldn't read a complete sentence.

  Li Wenjun had a psychology of reverence for scholars since he was sensible. His parents told him that people who can read and write are worthy of respect, and his parents also told him that books are tools used to pass down the wisdom of saints and record very important things.

  Was it that the old Taoist's magical skills were learned from these books? Such a thought naturally emerged in Li Wenjun's mind.

  Although Li Wenjun had personally rejected the old Dao's temptation, this did not mean that he was not eager to learn the immortal family techniques mastered by the old Dao. To say nothing of other things, if he could master the immortal family techniques, at least he would have more means to protect himself and deal with various unexpected crises that might arise in the future.

  If it can be said that the first time Li Wenjun saw Lao Dao display his fireball technique in the sun-dried valley, this idea was not particularly strong, then after almost having his essence extracted by Lao Dao to refine the Long Spring Silk, and after being with the Black-striped Giant Python, a top-grade demon beast, in the same sun-dried valley, Li Wenjun's desire to master the immortal family's techniques had become extremely intense, hot as fire.

  It's possible that in the past, Li Wenjun wouldn't have thought he'd have a chance to interact with "immortals" like Lao Dao and "monsters" like Heiwen Juren. Whether or not he mastered the techniques of the immortal family wasn't particularly important. But now he won't think that way again; this world is unsafe and unpeaceful, and he needs to master more techniques in order to survive for a long time.

  Li Wenjun's palms rubbed against the two books, as if doing so would allow him to understand all the words on them sooner.

  After careful consideration, he made a decision. He decided to put off the idea of finding his family for the time being and instead go find a place where he could learn to read and write. Once he was able to recognize all the words in two books and understand their meanings, then he would go look for his family. As an old saying goes, "Sharpening your knife won't delay your wood-chopping work."

  Li Wenjun dared to do so, also because he was not the only child in his family. He had older brothers and sisters above him, and younger brothers and sisters below him. Even if he wasn't by his parents' side, they wouldn't be overly grieved by the loss of a child. Of course, more importantly, even now, Li Wenjun didn't know where to find his parents.

  Li Wenjun put everything back into the bundle, shouldered it, and stood up. He looked up at the sky, identified the direction, and headed towards the village he had seen on the mule's back.

  The weather was still very hot, after walking for a while, Li Wenjun felt tired, thirsty and hungry. He found a sweet potato field by the road, walked over, took out the half dagger, prepared to dig two sweet potatoes to fill his hunger.

  The sweet potatoes hadn't been dug up yet, but Li Wenjun had already heard a loud "clang", and his heart skipped a beat as he hastily pulled the dagger out of the ground.

  As soon as he saw the dagger, Li Wenjun's face turned into a bitter melon face, and he secretly said: "Bitter indeed."

  This half of the dagger originally had many cracks on it, and at this moment two cracks were connected together when he was digging sweet potatoes, cutting the dagger diagonally in half. The blade of the dagger was only left with one half, and it was a long and narrow triangle. The larger piece of the blade fell off from the dagger.

  This broken dagger was originally a fragment of a ritual instrument that the blacksmith in Junzhuang Town had picked up, something that someone else had discarded as useless. Li Wenjun used it to cut the silver cord on Lao Dao's body, and then again to kill Lao Dao, and even to dig up sweet potatoes. The last two uses were not so bad, but the first use, cutting the silver cord, was what damaged the dagger the most.

  The silver cord was after all a complete magical artifact, and the dagger could cut it off, which meant that it had taken advantage of being a fragment of a magical artifact. Otherwise, it would not have been able to cause any harm to the silver cord. However, when the dagger cut off the silver cord, it also reached its breaking point. This time, Li Wenjun used it to dig up sweet potatoes, and it was just the last straw that crushed the camel.

  Li Wenjun didn't know all this, he carefully picked up the remaining quick-draw knife and the fallen blade. Then he found a tree branch, dug out two sweet potatoes, wiped off the dirt on the sweet potatoes with the leaves of the sweet potato stem, and hugged them to eat.

  After eating a sweet potato, Li Wenjun was basically full. He used branches to dig up a few more and stuffed them into his bundle, preparing to take them as dry rations. Then, he took out several copper coins from his bundle and buried them in the hole where he had dug up the sweet potatoes - this was the money he had paid for the sweet potatoes.

  Half a short while later, Li Wenjun walked into the village. The village was not big, standing on the street, one could see the end of the street at a glance.

  Li Wenjun pretended to be lost - actually, it's not even a pretence, he really didn't know where he was or which way to go. He found a household and asked for a bowl of water to drink, and also asked how to get to the county town.

  This family was very simple and honest. Seeing that Li Wenjun was just a 14 or 15-year-old kid, not only did they tell him everything he wanted to know in detail, but also told him that at the end of the village there was a cart driver who had a horse-drawn carriage, and if he had some spare money, he could spend a few dollars to hire the cart driver to take him to the county town.

  Li Wenjun thanked the farmer repeatedly, then followed his words and found that cart-style family. The cart-style was a man in his 40s, knowing Li Wenjun wanted to go to the county town, said he only needed fifty Tongbao coins, and he could take Li Wenjun to the county town.

  Li Wenjun readily agreed.

  The next day, Li Wenjun appeared in the county town. This was not the county where Junbao Town was located, but rather the neighboring county of San Shan County. The county where Junbao Town was located was called Binhe County, and both were under the jurisdiction of Mingchuan Prefecture.

  Sanshan County is surrounded by mountains on three sides, hence its name. The place has always been blessed with favorable weather, even in a year of severe drought like this one, it still rains when it should and winds blow when they should. People say that this place is protected by gods, which is why it's a land of good fortune.

  Li Wenjun entered the county town of Sanshan, and the first thing he did was to ask Che Baishi to accompany him. He found a clothing store, bought several sets of decent clothes, and then he also found a bathhouse, asking Che Baishi to accompany him to take a bath together.