"Don't worry, Sha Yuan. I have prepared plenty of harvests this time around," Fan Yanshi spoke and tossed him a talisman.
The young man named Sha Yuan, behind whom stood the other 4 men and women, grabbed the talisman and looked at it.
As soon as he did, his eyes went slightly wild. "Did you seriously harvest this much in just a quarter of a year?" the young man looked shocked.
"Absolutely," Fan Yanshi said. "You can check here." He pulled out a storage bag that contained the harvest and tossed it over to the young man.
The young man quickly checked the storage bag and went, "Tsk. You really did it." He then proceeded to calculate the entire thing.
The group of nearly a hundred villagers waited patiently to hear the number as this was the only way for them to earn any money.
"For all of this, you get 300 True Spirit Stones," the young man said and handed out exactly that amount, which he threw next to Fan Yanshi.
Fan Yanshi had never seen this many True Spirit stones at once, but he wasn't surprised as he had hoped to be.
"This is too little," he said. "There are at least 350 True Spirit Stones worth of harvest this quarter. We did really good this time around."
"Yeah, but so did the other little villages under the sect. They also had a good harvest so the prices of ingredients have lowered quite a bit and you only get that much," the young man said.
"Nonsense, how can the price be so low in just 3 months?" Fan Li shouted from the side.
"Just 3 months? The price had lowered 3 months ago already. You guys should have been told, weren't you?" Sha Yuan said.
"What?!" Fan Yanshi and the rest cried out in surprise. "We weren't let know about this at all."
"Oh," the young man made an apologetic face. "I must have forgotten, my bad. Anyway, it's time for me to leave."
"Wait," Fan Yanshi shouted.
"What?" the young man turned around with an annoyed look on his face.
"Where are the resources for this quarter?" he asked.
"Oh, I nearly forgot. I'm getting so forgetful this time around," Sha Yuan said. The small group behind him started giggling all of a sudden.
"Bastard!" Fan Yanshi muttered under his breath.
"Here," the young man tossed the resources to Fan Yanshi and turned around to leave. "Good luck on the next quarter."
The group watched the 5 left.
"He hates you, huh? Is there a reason?" Alex asked from the side.
"Yeah," Fan Yanshi said. "We started the sect together and he fell in love with a girl, but the girl fell in love with me instead. He's hated me ever since then."
"You stole away the girl he loved?" Alex asked.
"No, I didn't even care about the girl. I only had eyes for my wife," Fan Yanshi said as he turned around to smile at his wife.
"Stop speaking nonsense and pick up the stones," Fan Li said.
"Yes, dear."
Alex helped them pick up the 300 spirit stones as well.
Fan Yanshi took the 300 spirit stones, but he did not divide them amongst the people. Instead, he pocketed it and checked the resources provided to them by the sect this time around.
These resources consisted of grains, beast feed, and fertilizers required for the next set of harvests.
"Bastard!" Fan Yanshi cried out. "These are of the worst quality."
"Is he screwing with us?" someone asked.
"We should complain to the sect," another person said.
Alex saw the resources too and shook his head. Nearly half the beast's food was almost rotten, and the rot was spreading to the grains too. The fertilizers seemed like they hadn't been used in a long while and were already losing proficiency.
"Goddammit," Fan Yanshi cried out and made a fist in anger. If only he was stronger, he wouldn't have to go through this.
The people behind him had started getting angry as well and were rallying up to go to the sect.
"Stop," Fan Li shouted back at them. "Do you think the sect cares about us enough to care what we say? Do you think a thousand-year-old sect would rather listen to a bunch of trashes like us, or will they favor their own disciples?"
The crowd quietened.
"Guys, relax. It's alright," Fan Yanshi said. "Look, we got 300 True Spirit stones right? We can now buy a lot of the things we've wanted."
"Everyone, make a list of what you want. We will leave for the city around the evening," Fan Yanshi said, and immediately everyone's mood improved for the better.
"Right, I need a set of talisman papers and inks."
"I need some cosmetics."
"We need some spices for our foods."
"Yes, yes," Fan Yanshi said. "Write down everything we need please."
Alex was certainly intrigued by the notion of leaving for a city. It had been a month since he had come to the Northern Continent, and the most he had learned about this place was that the continent was divided into 5 different states, each of which was governed by an ancient sect that had lasted for nearly dozens of thousands of years.
Alex wanted to learn more about these sects, along with many things about this continent. So, he walked up to Fan Yanshi and asked, "Brother Fan, do you think I can come with you to this city? I've been wanting to visit one without stress for a while now."
"Uhh…" Fan Yanshi didn't immediately answer. "We leave in the evening and will probably have to fight through some heavy snowfall, if not some blizzard. It will be incredibly hard on someone with such a low cultivation base like you, brother Yu."
"Oh, I am fine with being in snow or blizzard. I ran my way through it all before I arrived here, remember?" he said.
Fan Yanshi gave it some thought, and then said, "Sure, why not? If you want to come, you can. Oh right, you should write what you want as well."
"Thank you, brother Fan."
Alex returned to the field to finish what he was nearly done with and helped the others plant the new seeds that came in today.
Aside from that, he also wrote what he wanted, which were just some more seeds for him.
After that, Alex returned to his home and started cultivating, waiting for the night to fall.
Very late in the afternoon, when the sun was starting to burn red, someone knocked on his door.
Alex opened the door and smiled. "Is it time, sister Fan?" he asked.
"Yes, we should leave," Fan Li said.
"We? Are you going too, sister Fan?" Alex asked with a curious look. He had for some reason assumed only men would be going on this trip since that was what they did for hunting meat.
"Of course, I am going," Fan Li said with a soft smile. "The men around here don't know how to ration their money and end up spending it on unnecessary things. If there isn't a woman in the group to keep track of the expenditure, we will end up with a bunch of books on useless skills and nothing else."
Alex chuckled a bit when he heard that. He wouldn't doubt he would do the same if he was lacking some techniques of his own.
The two of them arrived and the other 3 people were already gathered and ready to leave.
Aside from Fan Li's Organ Tempering 3rd realm and Alex's own low cultivation base, everyone else chosen to leave in this group was of Organ Tempering 9th realm.
"Are you all ready?" Fan Yanshi asked, and everyone nodded.
"Very well, let us leave." He turned around and started walking away.
Alex was a little surprised. He had thought that they would be using some flying artifact, but it seemed they were planning on trekking through the snow.
Alex frowned a bit. He was going to act like he couldn't do or didn't understand many things, but this one didn't sit right with him.
He didn't want such good and humble people to walk through the snow, only to go to some city.
"Brother Fan, wait," he said and ran forward.
"Brother Yu? What is it? Are you changing your mind?" Fan Yanshi asked.
"No," Alex said. "I just wanted you to help you out a little."
"Help us?" Fan Yanshi looked confused.
"Here," Alex said and pulled out something from his storage bag.
A boat appeared in the air, capable of carrying about 4 people in total, 5 if they squeezed in, and hovered.
The 4 of them looked shocked as they stared at the boat and then at Alex.
"How did you…?" Fan Yanshi couldn't speak out the entire question.
"I stole from one of the people that tried to kill me," Alex said. He wasn't lying at all. This was the ship that belonged to Zexi he had acquired nearly 10 years ago, or over 12 years ago in actual time.
"It's a True rank artifact, so we might have to spend a bit of the spirit stones we acquired today, but no more than 5 should do it," Alex said. "Also, there are already some in there so we will be fine for now."
"Brother Yu… this… thank you. You have been truly helpful," Fan Yanshi bowed a little, and the rest followed to bow as well.
"Please, you don't need to thank me. I should thank you instead for letting me live here," Alex said.
"Also, we should leave now. We don't want to waste any more time."
