Chapter Fifty-two: Cultivating in Secrecy

  Half a month later, the old temple of Laojun appeared in front of Xiao Ziyang with a completely new look. In fact, the old temple was originally built very solidly, and although it had been uninhabited for ten years, with wind and rain, the basic structure was still intact, and all that the craftsmen needed to do was to repair some damaged parts and add some furniture to each room.

  After sending the workers away, Xiao Ziyang kept two older and more honest old mothers.

  Two men, one surnamed Liu and the other Li, were both widowers left behind by their husbands who went out to gather herbs. These two men did not remarry after their husbands' deaths, unable to bear abandoning their children, and brought them up through a life of hardship, sometimes going hungry and sometimes having enough to eat.

  The two women were only in their thirties, but the hardships of life made them look like they were fifty or sixty years old. Xiao Ziyang called them Liu Auntie and Li Auntie.

  Liu Aunt and Li Aunt obtained Xiao Ziyang's consent, bringing the children to live in Laojun Temple. Liu Aunt's son was named Big Cow, seven years old, with a robust build; Li Aunt's child was a daughter named Cui'er, only five years old, extremely thin and weak.

  After washing and changing into new clothes, Zhao Erzhu looked quite handsome. The four children he brought with him were led by the eldest, Shanzi, who was nine years old this year. His skin was dark and dry, and his arms were especially long. According to Erzhu, although Shanzi looked thin, he had great strength and was very skilled at climbing trees and catching fish. Without his help, Erzhu might not have been able to raise the children, let alone feed himself.

  The smallest of these children was only three years old. When Er Zhu found him, he and another infant had been abandoned under an old locust tree in the south of the town and were on the verge of starvation. Er Zhu took both children back with him, naming the older one Da Huai and the younger one Xiao Huai. Before long, Xiao Huai died, but Da Huai was incredibly resilient and could eat anything, managing to survive against all odds.

  The two remaining children were only seven years old, a boy named Xiao Hei, who was dark and thin with big eyes. Xiao Hei had been raised by Er Zhu since he was young and had spent the most time with him, and his name was also given by Er Zhu.

  A girl named Ping'er was also thin and bony, she was the only one among several children who spoke more.

  At first, several children had boils all over their bodies. Xiao Ziyang invited a doctor to come and treat them, and after these days of treatment, they were almost all better. For several days in a row, the children could eat their fill, and the dark circles under their eyes slowly began to disappear.

  These past few days, life for Zhao Er Zhu and the kids has been like heaven. The fragrant white rice is enough to fill their bellies, every meal has meat dishes, it's really delicious! Moreover, they have warm clothes to wear, at night they sleep with thick quilts covering them, no longer waking up from the cold. Therefore, the children are extremely careful around Xiao Zi Yang, afraid of offending him and being chased away.

  Xiao Ziyang bought several copies of "Qianziwen" and taught them to recognize characters whenever he had free time in the evening. Er Zhu was clever and interested in reading and recognizing characters, worked hard, but Shanzi and others couldn't sit still. Xiao Ziyang also didn't have much patience to educate children, so later he only taught Er Zhu, who then taught the other kids.

  Xiao Ziyang arranged the observation in the middle and then went down the mountain to visit several nearby villages, bought two deer heads and a wild boar back, and also made an agreement with the hunters to send all the hunted animals to Laojun Temple first, and he would take them at a price twice as high as the market price.

  At the same time, he also told the hunters that for tigers, bears and other ferocious beasts, he would pay five times the market price.

  Because he had discovered that the more ferocious the beast, the better the medicinal effect of its meat!

  After settling everything, Xiao Ziyang began to cultivate the fourth chapter of "Zi Yu Sheng Yan".

  When Xiao Ziyang was practicing the third chapter of "Zi Yu Sheng Yan" in Longkou Town, he felt that the physical suffering in the world was nothing more than this. In the process of repeating those unbelievable movements over and over again, the pain, numbness, soreness, and extreme fatigue after completing the movements made him feel like he couldn't bear to live. If it weren't for his strong desire for revenge in his heart and the sense of accomplishment that his body was getting stronger every day, he would have absolutely given up.

  However, as he started practicing the fourth chapter today, he realized that his previous suffering was nothing but child's play. If his previous suffering was like being locked in a dark dungeon, then his current suffering was like entering the 18th level of hell; it was simply incomparable.

  After completing the first set of movements in Chapter 4 with great perseverance, Xiao Ziyang heavily fell onto the bluestone slab of his specially built giant training platform on top of Fenghe Mountain. For a whole half-hour, he couldn't even move a finger, and just when he was about to think that there was something wrong with his cultivation or if he had over-practiced, he felt his strength slowly returning to his body.

  He struggled to get up and began to massage the acupoints according to the Xian Jue method. Fortunately, after more than a year of cultivation, his body had become ten times more flexible than that of an acrobat. Otherwise, he would not have been able to complete this much more complex massage technique.

  After a massage, Xiao Ziyang felt like there was a fire burning inside her body, sweating profusely and her skin turning bright red as if she had been soaked in hot water. Before long, the feeling of fatigue vanished without a trace, only to be replaced by an intense hunger that surged up in her mind.

  Xiao Ziyang got up and walked down the stone steps, and in just a short period of time, he felt like every step made him hungrier. By the time he reached the door to the room near the well in the west wing, he was already feeling dizzy and lightheaded, his whole body soft and weak, as if he couldn't even stand steadily.

  He entered the room, plopped himself down at the dinner table, and ordered Er Zhu to bring over a large bowl of mountain deer meat that had been stewed to perfection, then began devouring it voraciously.

  This room was originally the kitchen of the Taoist temple, but Xiao Ziyang ordered a new stove to be built in the east wing and converted this kitchen into his own private medicine chamber. In the five large pots, large chunks of meat were boiling, all of which were medicines that Xiao Ziyang had prepared yesterday and started cooking today. The steam rising from the pot emitted a strong medicinal fragrance. Er Zhu was watching the fire at the stove.

  Without much effort, Xiao Ziyang was stunned by the second pillar and ate three large bowls in a row. A mountain deer weighing over 30 kilograms of meat had already filled up more than two-thirds of Xiao Ziyang's stomach.

  "This medicine is really unbearable." Xiao Ziyang muttered as he walked into a special meditation room and began to massage his acupoints with another set of techniques. After one round of massage, he felt that the five internal organs seemed to be steamed by hot air, and a rolling heat rose up, causing his intestines and stomach to tremble rapidly... A minute later, hunger pangs struck again.

  After three rounds, a mountain deer was completely gone into Xiao Ziyang's belly, and the soup was also drunk without leaving a single drop. Then Xiao Ziyang came to the exercise platform at the top of the mountain again.

  Xiao Ziyang did not start cultivating immediately, his eyes slightly closed and his fists clenched, as if he was undergoing a fierce ideological struggle. Yes, he was afraid, the intense physical pain from last time's cultivation made him shudder.

  Xiao Ziyang suddenly opened his eyes, and a firm light radiated from them. He slowly but firmly began another round of cultivation.