Cultivation Reconstruction in the End Times

Chapter 10 Hostility

The next day, the villagers gathered around the village chief's house early in the morning. The village chief had already gotten up early and placed a table at the door. He sat there keeping records. First, they collected some dried goods. The Zhang family had 200 jin of dried peanuts, the Li family had 100 salted duck eggs, 250 chicken eggs, 80 goose eggs. The Liu family had half a bag of dried sweet potato chips and a bag of mountain walnuts.

Each household brought over the dried goods they had prepared for sale. Since they lived near the mountains and the villagers were very hardworking, they had a very rich supply of food. Moreover, every household made a living from these rural mountain specialties, so they had saved much more than ordinary families.

In just one morning, the collected goods piled up in the yard. The village chief specifically emptied the room at his door where sundries were stored and used it to store these dried goods. He led several women in the village to classify the received items one by one, put them into sacks, and finally weighed them according to their weight.

It took about two days for the village chief to collect all the dried goods that the more than twenty households in the village were prepared to sell. Then came the tender corn and peanuts in the fields. The pigs, chickens, and sheep raised by rural families all needed to eat the grains grown in the fields. In addition, they also needed to sell the grains for money. So each household had planted a lot of crops, and it couldn't be harvested in a short time. Without finishing the harvest, it was impossible to determine the output and price.

So the village chief discussed this matter with Zhang He. Zhang He simply decided to stay temporarily until they finished harvesting the corn, peanuts, and vegetables they were going to sell. Moreover, the environment in the mountains was very good. Staying here couldn't be said to be like living like an immortal, but it was very peaceful and serene.

Every day, after having breakfast at the village chief's house, he would go up to the mountain top early, find a clean large stone on the mountain top, sit on it, and practice the breathing and qi-nourishing method. It turned out that one day's practice here was more effective than two days' practice before, achieving twice the result with half the effort. Moreover, there were many wild animals in the mountains. He simply released the black panther from the kraft paper bag. In the past few days, he had thrown a few pieces of dried meat into the bag every now and then, but he hadn't released it.

If it were an ordinary young panther, if it had been trapped in the bag for several consecutive days, it would probably have suffocated to death long ago. However, the black panther whose soul and beast essence had been fused together using the forbidden method was different in constitution from an ordinary panther and couldn't be compared. Moreover, since the beast essence itself was refined with his blood essence, he could sense the strength of the black panther's life force.

As soon as the black panther was released, it jumped out of the bag and then stopped about five meters away from Zhang He. It turned around and faced Zhang He with a look of hostility. At first, it always rushed directly towards Zhang He without hesitation to bite his throat, showing a fierce determination to tear Zhang He into pieces. But after being subdued by Zhang He with talismans several times, it finally became more cautious and no longer acted recklessly. Instead, it first fled from Zhang He and stayed within a range it considered safe, and then looked for Zhang He's weaknesses, trying to kill him when he wasn't prepared.

Zhang He saw that although it was small, it was fierce, cunning, and had a fierce glint in its eyes. Instead of being angry, he was pleased. Only an animal with such a character could survive until the end in the apocalypse. So on the surface, he didn't show any concern. He just sat cross-legged on the clean stone and began to close his eyes and practice the breathing and qi-nourishing technique recorded on the silk. In fact, he had secretly held two talismans in his hand, just in case.

The black panther in the distance stared fiercely at Zhang He sitting on the stone with its pair of purple eyes. It raised its claws several times, trying to sneak up on him, but shrank back each time. Because although it was a young beast, it had already developed intelligence and could vaguely sense the threat Zhang He posed to it. Zhang He could almost take its life with a single move. Its unwillingness made it scratch the ground continuously with its claws. It tried to circle around to Zhang He's right side to attack, but then thought it wasn't a good idea and moved to Zhang He's left side. It kept moving its four limbs, walking back and forth while being on guard against Zhang He. Using its instincts as a fierce beast, it tried to find this person's weaknesses and then bite him to death in one go.

However, after searching for a while, it finally couldn't withstand the hunger and thirst of not having eaten for two days. After all, it had developed intelligence. Moreover, during these days in the animal bag, it had also absorbed some of the power of the beast essence in its body and had inherited some of the spirit of the beast essence. It knew that it had to save its own life first in order to kill the enemy.

After wandering around for a long time and seeing that Zhang He was motionless as if in meditation, it bared its teeth reluctantly, turned around, and disappeared into the forest with a leap.

After Zhang He completed one round of the technique, he felt that his whole body and the dantian area were warm, and he felt extremely comfortable. His left palm was almost filled with spiritual energy. After letting the peach tree absorb some of it, the remaining spiritual energy was still distributed in his palm and fingertips, which made him feel excited. Then, while sitting on the stone, he took out cinnabar talisman paper and a pen from the peach pit space. First, he used his fingernail to take a little cinnabar and diluted it with the mountain spring water. Then he dipped the pen fully in the red liquid, took a deep breath, and then wrote with a flowing hand. The lines leaped onto the talisman paper as if guided by a divine hand.

When his mind, qi, and spirit were in harmony, which was a rare state, he drew three Seven Star Talismans in one go without any failure. After stopping writing, he found that the spiritual energy in his body had been completely exhausted, and he even felt a bit weak. At this time, two hours had actually passed, but it felt to him as if only a few minutes had passed.

Immediately, he put away the pen and talismans, and then held the three drawn talismans in his hand to examine them. He felt that the spiritual energy in the talismans was abundant, and they were the best three talismans he had drawn so far. Then he flipped his hand and stored the talismans in the peach pit space.

He prepared to go to a nearby place with water to wash his hands. Since this mountain hadn't been polluted, the water flowing down from the mountain top was very clear. There was a small stream flowing down from between the stone cracks. The clear water flowed gently, and it made people feel delighted just by looking at it.

After washing his hands, he directly scooped up a handful of mountain spring water with his hands and brought it to his mouth to take two sips. He felt that it was extremely sweet and refreshing, permeating his heart and lungs. It was much better than the mineral water sold in supermarkets. Suddenly, an idea came to his mind.

Then he took out a ten-jin plastic bucket from the peach pit space. He had bought more than 500 of these buckets originally for storing gasoline. He had used less than 300, and there were still more than 200 left. The reason why he bought so many of these buckets was mainly that the ten-jin capacity was very versatile. It could hold not only petroleum but also soybean oil, and now it could be used to hold mountain spring water as well.

During the apocalypse, although the water source was still relatively abundant, as the situation got worse and worse, the water would inevitably be polluted. Due to the limited conditions, people could only simply sterilize the water and then continue to use it. So mountain spring water like the one in front of him was something that couldn't even be seen anymore.

After taking out the bucket, Zhang He didn't hesitate. He rinsed the bucket slightly with water and then placed it under the water flow to collect the spring water. After placing one bucket, he continued to walk upstream and downstream of the water source. When he saw a suitable place, he would place a bucket there.

Because the bucket mouth was small and could only catch one-third or half of the water flow, the remaining water would still flow down. So placing a dozen or so buckets wouldn't affect the water collection. After placing several buckets, Zhang He went back to the stone to practice breathing again. After an hour, when he went to check, the water in the buckets was almost full. Then he put on the lids and stored them in the space, and took out ten empty buckets to collect the spring water.

When it was almost sunset, he counted the number of buckets of water he had collected in a day. He had probably collected about fifty buckets of water. With the mountain spring water, he was in a very good mood. Then he thought of the black panther. He immediately took out a talisman and flicked his hand. The talisman ignited. When his mind stirred, he found that this fierce beast had actually run more than a hundred li away. Suddenly, his face darkened. After thinking for a while, he took out a blank yellow talisman from the space. Then he pierced his index finger and quickly drew on the talisman with the flowing blood. When he finished the last stroke, the whole talisman was covered with a layer of blood light, but it wasn't very obvious in the sunlight. Zhang He raised his hand and held the talisman between his two fingers, lit it, and threw it into the air in the direction where the black panther had left. The talisman paper drifted with the wind and finally burned to ashes in mid-air.

Zhang He knew that the blood talisman had taken effect, so he got up and walked back along the way he had come. Half of the forbidden technique on the silk was about how to refine a servant beast, and the other half was about how to suppress the servant beast after successfully refining it so that it could obey the orders of the refiner. There were several talisman techniques specifically for servant beasts among them. Zhang He had already memorized those talismans by heart, but he couldn't draw some of them and store them in the space for emergency use like other talismans because they needed to be drawn with blood, so he could only draw them when he needed to use them.

The talisman he had just used was an order for forced return. Because the beast essence on the black panther was refined with his blood essence, after adding his blood to the talisman, the servant beast couldn't resist. If it resisted, it would suffer the pain of its soul and body being separated, which was equivalent to being torn apart by five horses in ancient times. The only choice for the servant beast was to obey the orders of the refiner in order to offset the power of the talisman.

Sure enough, when Zhang He was almost at the foot of the mountain, the young beast had already rushed to a place not far from him and was roaring angrily at Zhang He.

Zhang He took a look at it and couldn't help frowning. He knew that because the servant beast had too much resentment before its death, after being successfully refined, it harbored hatred and hostility towards everyone, especially towards the person who refined and drove it. Although he could now drive the black panther at will, it was only limited to the situation where he drew talismans with blood. On a daily basis, the man and the beast had always been in opposition.

Zhang He had never been a person who liked to force others. What's more, he would have to be accompanied by this black panther for a long time in the future because he really needed the power of the servant beast. If their relationship remained so bad, the hostility would accumulate more and more. Although it might not necessarily backfire, it was indeed not a good situation. Moreover, after the apocalypse arrived, he was afraid that he wouldn't have the time to deal with such a fierce and vengeful panther.

After thinking about it, his original idea of continuing to lock it up and starving it for a few days as a lesson began to waver. Doing so would only make its hostility towards him grow stronger. After a long time, it would be impossible to resolve even if he wanted to. But he couldn't bring himself to take the initiative to compromise and make peace with it now.

It wasn't until he saw the bloodstains on its mouth that he finally had an idea. This time, he didn't forcefully stuff it into the kraft paper bag like a puppet. Instead, he beckoned to it.

The young panther had a strong hostility towards him originally. When it saw him beckoning, it thought Zhang He was going to use a talisman again. It actually bared its teeth at him, revealing the somewhat formed and eerie tips of its teeth. Its claws also took on a defensive posture and were ready to attack at any moment.

Zhang He resisted the urge to stuff this troublemaker back into the kraft paper bag. He turned his head and ignored its hostility, preparing to go down the mountain alone. This time, the black panther didn't run far. Probably knowing that if it ran far, Zhang He would still use a talisman, it followed at a distance of a hundred meters, being on guard step by step. As it followed, it licked the remaining bloodstains on its mouth clean. It also looked around as it walked and actually looked as if it hadn't had enough to eat. Since it didn't find any prey, it then stared fiercely at Zhang He not far ahead.

If it weren't afraid of the talismans in his hand, it would have pounced on that person long ago, torn him to pieces, and eaten him up, leaving not even a single bone fragment.