In the following days, an indescribable pulling force, like invisible silk threads, constantly entwined Fifth Brother Chen.
And the source was precisely that wooden box in the corner.
To be precise, it was the jade that could bring him wealth.
But out of fear, he kept hesitating and didn't dare to make a move. Even the fine gold he already possessed, he was overly cautious and didn't dare to spend it.
Until...
On the third day at noon, a thunderbolt-like piece of news completely shattered Fifth Brother Chen's already teetering psychological defense line.
Fifth Brother Chen ultimately took the fine gold to exchange for money and brought back a doctor. Because he knew that his mother's illness was getting increasingly severe.
After bringing the doctor back, the doctor examined Fifth Brother Chen's mother, but walked out of the room shaking his head. Facing Fifth Brother Chen who was anxiously waiting outside the door, the doctor let out a heavy sigh.
"I'm afraid your mother won't make it past this month. If you want to save her illness, that 'Life-Continuing Ginseng' is the last hope... Sigh, but the price..." The doctor didn't finish his sentence, just helplessly shook his head, picked up his medicine box, and left without looking back.
Fifth Brother Chen was struck by lightning, standing rigid at the door.
At this moment, the blood all over his body turned cold.
How could he not understand the doctor's implication?
It was just that "Life-Continuing Ginseng"...
He didn't know exactly how much money it would cost, but it was definitely an astronomical sum. The remaining fine gold was probably far from enough.
Inside the room came his mother's heart-rending coughing.
Each sound was like a dull knife cutting through Fifth Brother Chen's heart and lungs.
He fiercely turned around and rushed into the room.
At this moment, his mother was lying on the icy bed, her emaciated body wrapped in tattered cotton batting. Every cough pulled at her entire body, and her grayish, defeated face flushed with a sickly crimson. Right now, her eyes were unfocused, and her breath was as weak as a candle in the wind.
"Mother..."
Looking at his mother who had now woken up, Fifth Brother Chen threw himself to the bedside, his voice choking in his throat as he tremblingly grasped his mother's withered hand. That hand was ice-cold, nothing but a thin layer of skin wrapped around bones, so weak he could barely feel a pulse.
His mother seemed to feel her son's warmth. Her turbid eyes struggled to open a sliver, her lips mumbling as she let out an extremely weak, almost inaudible sound: "...Ting'er..."
"Mother! Mother, hold on! Your son... your son will go get the medicine right now! Right now!" Fifth Brother Chen's voice carried a sob, as immense panic and despair seized him. He suddenly raised his head, his gaze pulled as if by a red-hot branding iron, and then stared dead on at the dust-covered old wooden box in the corner. Finally, he abruptly stood up.
At this moment, the string called "reason" snapped.
He practically sprinted over, his fingers trembling, taking several tries to find the rusted lock clasp. The cold touch of the iron piece made his expression hesitate, but behind him, his mother let out another violent bout of choking coughs, the sound seemingly tearing her lungs apart. And this was like the last straw that broke the camel's back.
Fifth Brother Chen instantly became resolute!
Anyway, exchanging the fine gold this time was fine.
Then next time, it shouldn't be a problem either, right?!
Click!
The rusted iron lock clasp opened in response.
Fifth Brother Chen flung open the heavy lid. In the dark corner, that flawless piece of jade lay quietly at the bottom of the box.
He grabbed the jade in one fell swoop!
Hum—
The jade seemed to come alive, trembling slightly.
Seeing this, Fifth Brother Chen fetched his usual stone-carving tools.
His left hand tightly gripped the jade, his knuckles turning white from the force; his right hand firmly held the heavy carving knife, the sharp tip falling incomparably resolutely toward the rough surface of the jade!
Scratch—
An extremely faint, yet incredibly clear friction sound rang out, like a sharp nail scraping across cold glass.
Accompanying the moment the blade cut into the jade, a dark golden light spilled down. Falling on the ground, it instantly turned into gold.
Seeing this, Fifth Brother Chen's hand movements became even faster.
Chip! Chip! Chip!
One cut! Two cuts! Three cuts!
Gold fell down, piling up in the wooden box.
Seeing this, Fifth Brother Chen hurriedly put the jade away, and then closed the wooden box again. He glanced at his mother lying on the bed.
"Mother, wait for me!"
Then he turned around and ran out of the house.
...
"Good heavens! When will these days end!"
"Sigh—, my second brother has already starved to death."
"In this great famine, besides Master Chen Wu, whose family has grain?"
Inside the landlord's mansion, Fifth Brother Chen—no, he should be called Master Chen Wu or Chen Junting now—was sitting in the main hall, fondling the jade.
At this moment, on the jade, a wolf was faintly visible.
It turned out that after he took the gold to buy the "Life-Continuing Ginseng" to treat his mother's illness, his mother only lived for one more year.
A year later, she passed away.
So in the days that followed, Chen Junting no longer stayed in the village, but left there forever. Because the people in the village knew his background, he had to leave.
After traveling all the way, relying on the jade in his hand, he gradually transformed from a commoner and pauper into the "Master" in the mouths of those same paupers.
Since his mother's passing, he went from initially just wanting to eat his fill, to wanting surplus grain, and then changing again to wanting fine clothes and jade food, and after that, wanting to become a major local landlord...
Anyway, no matter what, his greed kept rising.
He originally thought that being content with what he had would bring joy.
But who knew...
So ultimately, two years after his mother's death, he came to this village that had experienced a great drought, resulting in a depopulated and barren land. Relying on his wealth, he purchased a large amount of land, becoming the richest local landlord in one leap, taking in many servants and recruiting quite a few tenant farmers.
This led to the current situation.
Now, another five years had passed.
But this year was another disaster year, and even he, as a major landlord, was affected.
"Treasure, truly a good treasure."
Master Chen Wu stroked the jade, his gaze profound. Then he slowly stood up, finally making a decision.
The disaster this year was indeed severe, but it was just the right time to test whether this jade could really make grain grow directly from the fields.
Thus...
The next day, the deathly still village was awakened by an inexplicable palpitation. In the depths of the abandoned dry well at the west end of the village—a well that had been deserted for who knows how many years, overgrown with weeds, and with its well walls mostly collapsed—a muffled gurgling sound rang out without warning, like the belly rumbling of a giant subterranean beast.
Immediately after, a torrent of turbid yellow mud water violently gushed out from the bottom of the well, carrying a century-old earthy stench, washing away the remaining well walls, crashing over the well platform, and flowing into the long-dried and cracked irrigation ditches.
Almost at the same time, on those overly barren rocky wastelands where even wild grass disdained to grow, the hard gravel surface suddenly bulged into small mounds.
Tender green rice seedlings, brimming with vitality, broke through the rock layer at a speed completely defying the laws of nature, and shot upward madly!
Sprouting leaves, jointing, forming ears...
In just a few hours, that bald rocky beach had transformed into a mature rice field swaying in the wind with rolling golden waves! The heavy, plump rice ears that seemed almost about to fall sparkled with an alluring golden light under the rising sun.
"A miracle! It's a miracle!"
An old man who had gotten up early to gather firewood saw this and fell to his knees with a thud beside the gushing dry well. His turbid old tears flowed freely as he scooped up the muddy water with both hands, momentarily incoherent with excitement.
"Rice! The wasteland... rice grew in the wasteland! Golden rice!" Another villager sprinted toward the rice field, threw himself onto the ridge, grabbed a handful of plump rice ears, and laughed and cried at the same time.
The news spread like wildfire, instantly igniting the entire lifeless village. Everyone rushed out, crowding around the place where the miracle had occurred. Shock, ecstasy, awe... all these emotions varied on each villager's face.
Then, someone was the first to shout out.
"It's Master Chen Wu! The newly arrived Master Chen Wu! It must be him! Only his land has a miracle! He's a living god!"
People, especially ignorant people, are blindly obedient.
"Living god! Living god Master Chen Wu!"
The shouts rapidly converged into a fanatical torrent.
The villagers dropped their work and swarmed like pilgrims toward Master Chen Wu's landlord mansion. They knelt in the mud outside the courtyard gate, facing the tightly closed wooden doors that seemed to separate the mortal and divine realms, kowtowing frantically, praying, crying out, and praising.
Faces numb from long-term hunger and toil were momentarily ignited by extreme awe, fanatical hope, and even a faint greed, twisting into the ferocious-looking guardian deity statues enshrined in temples.
Inside the courtyard, Master Chen Wu listened to the shouts.
However, he merely fondled the jade in his hand.
At this moment, the outline of the jade was clearly visible—it was a crouching wolf shape, the lines rough and full of wild, feral power. The wolf's head was lowered, and one eye had already been outlined with a deep eye socket by the carving knife, waiting only for the final finishing touch. Yet the other eye was still covered by a thin, stubborn layer of jade skin, like a tightly closed eyelid.
Outside the courtyard at this time, "I beg the living god to bless us! Grant my little grandson a full meal!" An old woman knelt at the very front, crying out hoarsely, her forehead bruised black and blue from kowtowing on the muddy ground.
These were people who had lost their land and their strong laborers. Add to that the fact that it was a disaster year; besides Master Chen Wu's land, where else could there be grain in their village?
"Master Chen Wu! Bless my family with double the harvest this year! I'll set up a longevity tablet for you!" a sturdy middle-aged man shouted, waving his fists.
However, there was a greedy light in his eyes.
It was just that this greed was also directed at food.
"Get out of the way! Move! I was here first! Living god, bless my family first!" A shrill female voice rang out, violently pushing aside the people in front, and in no time provoked a chorus of angry curses and shoving.
"Why should you go first? Get out! This is my family's spot!" another man pushed back without backing down.
Right now, there was no distinction between men and women here; after all, if these days continued, it would come to "a great famine, people eating each other."
For a moment, the crowd instantly erupted into a commotion. It started as verbal disputes, but quickly escalated into shoving and insulting.
For the sake of food, to obtain the so-called "blessing," the friendship between neighbors was instantly torn to shreds. Fists were swung, some were knocked to the ground, mud splashing everywhere. Cries, curses, and sounds of fighting mixed together, turning this "pious" place of pilgrimage into an Asura field of desire and brutality.
Inside the house, Master Chen Wu, who was immersed in the jade, suddenly shuddered! The fierce arguments, fighting, and wailing coming from outside made him frown, and then he slowly got up and walked out.
Stepping into the courtyard, he saw the awestruck steward.
"What happened outside?"
His tone was flat, yet it made one's blood run cold.
After all, Master Chen Wu had traveled outside during the famine years, and naturally encountered quite a bit of trouble, so how could he not have killed anyone?
Moreover, he had killed quite a few!
Because of this, his eyes revealed a cold light that terrified people.
The steward didn't dare neglect him and immediately explained the whole story.
After finishing, he picked up a club. "Master, do you think we should just beat this group of people away, so they don't annoy you?"
Chen Junting glanced at the steward. "And then?"
The steward was taken aback for a moment, then immediately said, "And then? Then we just buy their land, of course. Let them come to Master's house to be servants and tenant farmers. If they want to live, they all have to rely on you, Master."
"Is that so."
Given his style in recent years, this was very normal.
But for some reason, he always felt something was wrong.
This wrongness originated from his heart, like intuition.
So he pondered for a moment, but during this brief moment of contemplation, the argument outside actually intensified. Master Chen Wu irritably waved his hand at the steward, then turned and walked into the house.
Not long after, the noise outside subsided.
But this caused an indescribable brutality and irritability to surge up madly from the depths of his heart without warning.
He looked at the shelf nearby, or to be precise, he stared at the long sword placed on the shelf.
He rushed forward and drew the sword with one stroke!
Clang—
"Someone come!"
"Master."
The steward hurried into the room, but seeing the long sword in Master Chen Wu's hand, his heart immediately jumped in fright.
Looking at him with lingering fear, he then asked, "Master, what business do you have?"
"Nothing."
Master Chen Wu swung the long sword, displaying the demeanor of a grandmaster.
"I want to go out for a walk, that's all!"
Go out for a walk?
Is he crazy?
One had to know, it was a famine year now, and things would be chaotic.
Going out now was too dangerous!
However, Chen Junting insisted on it; he felt that if he didn't go out for a walk, he wouldn't be able to pass the hurdle in his heart.
He didn't know why.
Probably intuition.
At the same time, in the Forest of Life in the Divine Realm.
It seemed like Chen Junting had lived many years in his state of mind, but for the God of Destruction and the others, it was absolutely just a snap of the fingers.
After all, many things were "unimportant" and didn't need to be scrutinized.
However, they also knew that under the "help" and influence of the jade, Chen Junting had become greedy step by step. From the initial small satisfaction to the current great satisfaction, and his greed even exceeded that.
Unexpectedly, an accident happened today.
The God of Lust spoke up, "It was influenced by those villagers."
"No."
The God of Greed denied it outright. "It's himself."
"Don't forget, this is his state of mind. Except for the part I intervened in, everything is formed by his own state of mind after being guided. The voices of those villagers are just that brat's own heart reminding himself."
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