Chapter 66: Zhu Ge and Yu the Scholar
Chapter 66: Chapter 66: Zhu Ge and Yu the Scholar
When he found Yu the Scholar, the man was practicing his calligraphy.
"Get out! You’re not worthy of entering my study!"
Zhu Ge hadn’t even stepped inside before Yu the Scholar berated him. "Even if Big Belly Dog and Little Black Egg are willing to go to Yuan Yang City with you, I won’t!"
"Settle down."
Zhu Ge shook his head, a warm smile on his face. "Even if we go, it will be later. Before that, we have to fend off the insect tide. I’ve come to discuss our strategy with you."
"Why not have your Raincoat Fisherman deal with it?" Yu the Scholar sneered. "A Third Realm expert can consolidate Divine Sense. A single sweep could find and exterminate the Insect Demon, and the rest of the bugs would be no problem at all."
"Alright, alright, enough with the useless talk." Zhu Ge’s expression darkened.
"Don’t push it. I won’t bring up how harsh you were to us in the village—after all, I was just a mortal then. But now we’re both Cultivators, so you will show me some respect!"
"Respect?" Yu the Scholar snorted coldly. "If I respect you, then who is there to respect Xianxian?"
"You’re courting death!"
Zhu Ge’s body suddenly blurred into an afterimage. His right hand shot out and clamped around Yu the Scholar’s throat. Blood Qi surged, and his hand became as hard as metal.
"M-Mid-Martial Arts Resentment Realm?!" Feeling Zhu Ge’s aura, Yu the Scholar’s eyes widened in shock.
Zhu Ge grinned. "The Confucian Dao? What can you do when I have you by the throat?"
Yu the Scholar’s expression turned cold. His heart thumped violently, and the character for "Confucian" faintly appeared over it.
"Jade Shattering?! Are you insane?!"
Zhu Ge cursed, immediately dropping Yu the Scholar and scrambling back frantically.
Yu the Scholar collapsed to the ground. He stared at Zhu Ge with a cold expression as the Literary Heart over his chest slowly faded away.
"Fine!" Zhu Ge snorted, flexing his wrist as he looked down on Yu the Scholar from a distance.
"I’m planning to dig out a huge space under Jianshan Mountain. We’ll expand the existing cellar, store food, and hide inside."
"That way, we only need to defend the entrance. We won’t have to surround the entire mountain with firewood."
This was Zhu Ge’s idea.
The period of Jingzhe was Yunjiang’s annual "apocalypse."
For the people of Yunjiang, the bitter cold of winter was nothing. It never got too cold, and in many places, it might not even snow.
But during Jingzhe, the swarming, world-blotting insects were fatal.
Even if people didn’t die directly in the insect tide, they would starve to death.
Wherever the insect tide passed, not a blade of grass would be left.
That was why they usually harvested the rice seedlings before Jingzhe and replanted them after the insect tide had passed.
But while the seedlings could be gathered, the people could not.
In the past, they surrounded the entire mountain with firewood because there were many people.
Sometimes, more villagers meant more strength, but it could also mean more dead weight.
Now, although they had no one to help, the five of them were also free of any dead weight. They could just hole up and hide from the insect tide.
"Dig a cellar?" Yu the Scholar seemed to have forgotten the pain, rubbing his neck as he stood up. "What about a collapse? What if water from the terraces seeps in?"
"That’s where Hua Xiaomei comes in." Zhu Ge’s lips curved upward.
"Hua Xiaomei is a Xigui. It’s not difficult for her to travel underground, so she can help us scout the Water Veins. As for a collapse? We’ll just use more wooden stakes. There are only five of us; we don’t need to clear out that much space anyway."
Yu the Scholar frowned in thought.
But Zhu Ge just gave a contemptuous smile. "Big Belly Dog and Little Black Egg listen to me now. You and Sui Niang can do as you please. It makes no difference if you don’t listen."
With that, Zhu Ge left.
He left Yu the Scholar standing there, rubbing his neck, his expression shifting between anger and uncertainty.
...
Next came the simple work of excavation.
Duan Lei and Ji Fuhui were already practicing Body Refinement. With plenty of food to eat, the last ten-plus days had already shown results, and their bodies were much sturdier.
Digging was their usual work anyway, and now they dug with even more vigor.
Here, Jingzhe was on the thirteenth of the second month, still seven days away... Zhu Ge carried several stripped tree trunks into the newly excavated space before him.
It was dim and damp inside, separate from the adjacent cellar that had been strewn with plant ash.
"Here, give it to me. I’ll char it with fire," Duan Lei said, taking one of the posts. His body instantly sank a little under its weight.
The post was very heavy; even Zhu Ge had to channel his Blood Qi to move it.
Duan Lei took it, then went to a corner and set the log upright, bracing it against the earthen wall.
The construction inside was similar to building a house on the surface.
Inside the earthen space, logs were placed horizontally and vertically to support the ceiling, complete with beams, pillars, and so on.
It couldn’t be helped. Zhu Ge had no idea how to make cement—he hadn’t bothered to memorize the formula before he transmigrated—so they could only build the underground rooms using the methods Duan Lei and the others knew.
"I’ll go get some more, then."
Zhu Ge immediately went back out and down the mountain.
Ji Fuhui had already felled another tree and stripped its branches.
Zhu Ge began carrying it back up.
After three days, they had finished building four underground rooms.
The four rooms were built around the central food storage cellar.
One room was for the four men, and one was for Sui Niang.
Another room was for lessons and writing—for when Duan Lei and the others attended Yu the Scholar’s Confucianism classes—and also for storing clothes, farming tools, and the like.
The last room was for storing the rice seedlings, which would be replanted in the terraces after Jingzhe passed.
With the four rooms built, the original houses of Jianshan Village were almost completely dismantled.
All the houses had been built from earth and wood, which, as Zhu Ge recalled, was where the Chinese term for civil engineering got its name—from the words for "earth" and "wood."
The earth wasn’t very useful, but the wood was repurposed, either as flooring for the new underground rooms or as firewood.
They even had the energy to continue digging deeper.
Zhu Ge thought digging deeper had its advantages.
Yunjiang had its annual insect tide, and in the summer, it had an annual period of terrifying heat and humidity.
Disasters like heavy rain, lightning, and miasma were also frequent.
Living underground was much better than living on the surface.
However, just as they finished the underground rooms and were preparing to dig deeper, Zhu Ge heard a piece of news that was both surprising and yet not.
"You’re saying... Sui Niang left?"
Zhu Ge sighed.
"Yes." Duan Lei frowned, his cheeks puffed in anger. "Sui Niang didn’t say anything. I watched her walk into the forest. She glanced back at me once, then left."
"You couldn’t catch her?" Zhu Ge asked instinctively.
"She was too fast. I couldn’t catch her." Duan Lei grabbed his hair in frustration. "Sui Niang will die if she goes into the forest! It’s all my fault for not being fast enough!"
"It’s not your fault." Zhu Ge patted Duan Lei’s shoulder. "This was Sui Niang’s own choice."
"Don’t touch me!" Duan Lei knocked Zhu Ge’s hand away. "This is all your fault!"
Then he stormed off.
Seeing this, Zhu Ge laughed in exasperation. "I give you a way out, a chance for a meteoric rise, a ticket into Yuan Yang City, and you people truly don’t know what’s good for you!"
"If I weren’t completely new to Yuan Yang City and in need of a few helpers, you worthless, mud-caked peasants would have died long ago!"
"Hmph. Just wait until I’ve established myself in Yuan Yang City with the Raincoat Fisherman backing me. A day will come when all of you will be begging me!"