Evergreen Immortal-Chapter 3: Small Success

In the blink of an eye, a month had passed.

The moon shone brightly in the sparsely starred sky.

Li Rui slowly opened his eyes, feeling the strangeness in his lower body.

A pillar reaching for the sky.

A long-lost feeling.

It seemed that martial arts training was indeed very effective.

Over the past month, aside from his necessary stable inspections, he had spent nearly all his time locked in his room, practicing martial arts. The results were astonishing, he had secretly tested himself and found that lifting a 200-pound boulder was no challenge at all.

A seventy-year-old man lifting 200 pounds, in his past life, he’d be a legend in the park gym.

The Eight Pieces of Brocade didn’t have much offensive power, but raw strength could still kill a man.

At this point, Li Rui estimated that more than half of the Zhu family’s guards were no match for him.

Li Rui first inspected the stables, then practiced four full rounds of the Eight Pieces of Brocade.

The source of this c𝐨ntent is freeweɓnovēl.coɱ.

It wasn’t until a commotion erupted outside that he finally stepped out of his room.

Following the noise to the front courtyard, he saw a group of servants gathered in a circle. From within, pained screams could be faintly heard.

Standing at the edge of the crowd, Li Rui immediately spotted Yang Yong.

"Old Yang, what’s going on?"

Yang Yong replied, "A new servant got caught stealing from the estate. The master caught him red-handed, so he’s being punished, thirty lashes per the rules."

Just as he finished speaking, "AAAHHHH!"

A blood-curdling scream pierced the air.

Through the gaps in the crowd, Li Rui caught sight of a young man, his upper body bare, his back covered in bloody welts. It was a truly gruesome sight.

"You ungrateful dog! I took you in out of pity, and you dare steal from me? I'll beat you to death!"

The Zhu family’s master raised the whip high and lashed down viciously.

CRACK!

The sound rang through the air.

Even the surrounding servants flinched involuntarily.

Yang Yong sighed. "This kid’s mother was sick, so he sold himself into servitude to pay for her treatment… He probably tried to steal something to sell for medicine."

He shook his head, saying no more.

Eventually, the young man lost consciousness, and the guards dragged him away. Judging by his condition, he had more breath going out than coming in, he wouldn’t survive.

Li Rui was perhaps the most calm one among the crowd.

Scenes like this, he had seen too many in his decades of service.

Once a person became a slave, their life no longer belonged to them. Even if the master beat them to death, the authorities wouldn’t care, it was a death without consequence.

"This world truly devours people."

Suddenly, Yang Yong let out a surprised sound:

"Old Li, have you started growing younger? You look way sturdier than before!"

As he sized Li Rui up, he clicked his tongue in disbelief.

Before, he had thought Li Rui was joking when he asked for the Eight Pieces of Brocade. But now, seeing his transformation, it seemed he had really been training.

Li Rui pulled out the manual from his robe. "I’m returning this to you."

Yang Yong took it back, but his surprise only deepened.

"Old Li, you trying to outlive me as well?"

Li Rui chuckled. "Don’t worry, I’m experienced in burying people."

Yang Yong’s face twitched, he suddenly felt like he might not outlive this old man after all. Was Old Li really going to send him off in the end?

Damn heavens!

Back in his room, Li Rui recalled what he had seen today.

A servant is just a servant, with no rights, and no dignity.

As his martial arts improved, his body’s demands increased as well.

He had already burned through his hidden stash of food from the stable’s storage. Though he could continue stealing small amounts, doing so too often increased the risk of being caught.

Even though the Zhu family’s master had grown up under his care, if Li Rui was caught, there would be no mercy. After all, the previous stable master had been beaten to death just because a horse had fallen sick.

And Li Rui himself had been the one to bury the corpse.

"Looks like I’ll have to buy supplies outside."

Fortunately, as a stable master, he earned a decent wage.

With nothing to spend money on in the Zhu Family, he had saved up quite a bit over the years, enough to support him for a while.

Thinking about his thirty taels of silver…No wonder young girls in the city loved to cheat old men.

At his age, he knew many things the younger generation didn’t, such as the black market.

The black market had been established forty years ago.

Back then, Li Rui had just buried the old stable master and taken over his position. At that time, the black market had been relatively orderly, but over time, it had become shadier.

It was located in a secluded corner of East City, about thirty minutes walk away.

At the entrance, two black-clad, tough-looking men stood guard, blocking Li Rui's way expressionlessly, "One big coin as an entry fee. No fighting inside, break the rules, suffer the consequences."

"Understood."

Li Rui was well acquainted with the process. Without hesitation, he handed over a large coin and stepped inside.

Despite the name, the black market wasn’t as mysterious as legends claimed. It was simply a gathering place for unregulated trade. The goods being sold were varied, while there might be rare treasures, they were few and far between.

The most common items were still livestock and produce like chickens, eggs, and the like.

Though the black market charged an entry fee, its taxes were lower than the official markets, and ironically, its order was often better. So even if it's a bit more expensive, there are a lot of people willing to come.

For truly illegal goods, ordinary people wouldn’t even recognize them if they saw one, they required specific underworld codes to access.

Li Rui had been here many times. He was familiar with how things worked here.

This time, he looked completely different.

Wearing a black scarf and thicker clothing, he had even padded his shoulders to make himself appear broader.

His age was unrecognizable, and his imposing stance warned others not to mess with him.

Although the Blood Tiger Gang maintained order inside, and outside the market, anything could happen. Being cautious was always wise.

"Fresh chicken! Pork!"

Li Rui glanced at a nearby vendor, a stall he had often bought meat from.

But this time, his goal wasn’t meat, it was herbs.

There were many herb gatherers in the black market, he was bound to find something useful.

Just as he was searching for an herb stall, he suddenly spotted a familiar figure.

"Ma Yang?"

Li Rui hadn’t expected to see his apprentice here.

It was he who had first told Ma Yang about the black market, back when their relationship was still good.

But Li Rui didn’t plan to greet him. Instead, he focused on his task and quickly found an herb stall.

"Brother take a look, freshly picked Bajitian! Strengthens yang and invigorates the muscles, guaranteed to work!"

The vendor even winked knowingly.

No matter the era, men’s kidneys, and women’s faces were where people spent the most money.

"I’ll take this, this, and this."

To avoid revealing his true age, Li Rui spoke as little as possible and deliberately altered his voice so that the stall owner wouldn't notice anything unusual.

These herbs were for a formula called Nourishing Qi Powder, a recipe he had secretly memorized when delivering medicine for the Zhu family’s old martial master.

It had always been etched in his heart, and at last, it was being put to use.

Taking the wrapped medicinal herbs from the vendor, Li Rui casually glanced at the wiry man not far away, who was looking up at the sky.

A scar ran across his face, clearly not someone to be messed with.

He had been targeted!