A Mortal’s Immortal Gourd
Chapter 19: True Qi

“Young man, I can tell from your bones that you’re destined for greatness…”

Before Li the Half-Immortal could finish, the boy in front of him had already dashed off and vanished.

Sigh, the world’s really going downhill. People nowadays have no patience. I wasn’t even done talking!

It had been over ten days since Li the Half-Immortal last had a customer. People these days were not only poor but also shrewd and stingy—harder and harder to fool.

After taking some beatings from society, he truly realized how good Ergou was—a respectful, gullible disciple.

Just as he was thinking about how great Ergouzi was, he saw the boy walking toward his stall, carrying a slab of pork.

Li the Half-Immortal quickly straightened up, sitting upright with a solemn expression, full of righteous airs.

“Master!”

“Ah, you’re here!”

Li the Half-Immortal calmly took the fatty pork from Ergouzi’s hands, remaining unmoved, serene as ever.

“How’s your cultivation progressing lately?”

“I can sense Qi now!”

Ergouzi beamed with joy, while Li the Half-Immortal was momentarily stunned—only then recalling that the manual did mention “sensing Qi.”

But he himself had never even gotten past the entry level, always suspecting the method was a fake and never paid much attention to the later parts.

Now hearing Ergouzi say he’d reached the sensing stage, he was still skeptical.

A fake manual someone made up, which I’ve proven myself to be nonsense… don’t tell me this dumb kid actually pulled it off?

“How did you sense Qi? Tell your master.”

“Well, last night I had a dream, about getting married—”

“Spare me the details!”

Li the Half-Immortal had no interest in a teenager’s spring dreams and went straight to the point.

“This morning I woke up and found I could sense spiritual energy in the air—lots of glowing little specks floating around…”

Ergouzi described everything he had experienced in sensing the Qi to his master.

He only left out anything related to the yellow gourd.

Li the Half-Immortal tugged on his beard, falling into deep inner conflict and self-doubt.

So caught up in his emotions, he didn’t even notice he’d plucked out dozens of beard hairs.

After a while, he finally calmed himself, returning to his usual detached tone.

“Very good, very good.”

“But you must stay humble. Pride will hinder your progress. Remember—there’s always someone stronger.”

Whether Ergouzi’s story was true or not, Li the Half-Immortal had made up his mind to keep him grounded—otherwise, he’d be harder to manipulate later.

“Take this little stone and try crushing it.”

Ergouzi picked up the stone from the table and squeezed with all his might—his face flushed red, but the stone didn’t budge.

“Master, I can’t crush it!”

Ergouzi shook his head and gave up.

“Which means you still have a long way to go.”

Li the Half-Immortal picked up a fist-sized rock, gave it a twist between his palms, and reduced it to powder.

Witnessing such terrifying strength, Ergouzi’s face lit up with admiration.

He had no idea how many years of training it would take to reach his master’s level.

“Don’t be discouraged. If you can learn even a sliver of my skills, becoming a Martial Xiucai won’t be a problem.”

“I understand, Master!”

Ergouzi’s admiration for his master was growing by the day, so he obediently listened to his advice.

“Master, I want to learn blade techniques!”

He remembered that night—the black-clad man, the heads rolling, the blood flying.

“Blade techniques are crude. How could they compare to the elegance of the sword?”

“I can teach you a bit of swordsmanship instead.”

Li the Half-Immortal pulled out a coverless tattered book from who-knows-where, flipped it open, and copied from it.

He wrote an entire page and handed it to Ergouzi.

“To learn swordsmanship, you must start from the very basics.”

“Take this and practice it one thousand times a day.”

Ergouzi took it and glanced at the page—it was the basic form of the sword thrust, with instructions and key points.

“Thank you, Master!”

“Oh right, Master, I bought something at the market just now. The seller said it was Cistanche. Could you help confirm?”

Ergouzi remembered another reason for his visit. To protect the gourd’s secret, he claimed he bought it at the market.

With so many people coming and going, no one could trace the source.

“Huh! It really is Cistanche. Strange…”

Li the Half-Immortal did have some knowledge and immediately recognized the plant from medical texts.

But this herb only grew in deserts and required specific host plants to survive.

Anchan County wasn’t suited for growing it.

He could only assume some traveling merchant had brought it from elsewhere.

“I’ve been researching medicinal properties lately. This piece is perfect, though I still need a jar of wine as a catalyst.”

Li the Half-Immortal made up a reason and took the Cistanche for himself.

According to the books, this stuff was a powerful tonic—he planned to try it out on his old flame in a few days.

They chatted for quite a while longer, with Ergouzi asking many questions about herbs.

According to Li the Half-Immortal, Cistanche was a fierce medicine—too potent to consume in large amounts.

Eventually, Ergouzi took his leave. Both of them were satisfied with the visit.

As he was leaving, Ergouzi promised to bring wine next time for his master.

Watching him walk away, Li the Half-Immortal fell back into self-doubt. Even the pork in his hands didn’t taste good anymore.

On his end, Ergouzi was thrilled with the sword technique—so much so that he spent freely at the market.

Coincidentally, someone was selling geese, so he bought a pair of large white ones, one male and one female.

With so many weeds and plenty of Yaojitui leaves on the mountain, feeding the geese would be easy.

By next year, they might even hatch a batch of goslings.

Geese ate grass, laid eggs, guarded the home, could be eaten, and their feathers could be used for warm clothes and bedding—even their droppings could fertilize the land.

In short, raising geese was efficient—nothing wasted.

He also generously bought a chunk of pork to treat himself to some meat.

Still, when it came to indulgence, he couldn’t bring himself to buy fatty meat. Instead, he picked up a cheap slab of ribs no one else wanted.

Back on Shekou Mountain, he first settled the geese.

Then he chopped the ribs into big chunks, poured in some water, added black salt, and simmered them over low heat for half an hour.

He’d been drooling just from the smell while it cooked. When he finally took out a rib, the meat was falling off the bone—juicy and fragrant.

“So good!”

He ate the meat, sucked the rich broth from the bones, then even chewed the bones to bits and swallowed them.

That meat cost too much to waste.

This was also why he chose geese for guarding the house—dogs weren’t edible.

After that meal, he found he wasn’t as hungry as usual.

He normally needed four meals a day, but only ate three today and didn’t feel hungry.

Which meant that eating meat could actually save a meal.

He figured he could afford to eat meat once every ten days or so.

It felt a bit extravagant, but hey—you can’t catch a wolf without risking a kid. Martial training required meat for faster progress.

Besides, now that he could sense spiritual energy, he had started cultivating the first tier of the nameless method. The daily energy consumption would be higher.

After several days of practice, the vague internal energy in his body had finally condensed into a faint strand of True Qi.

The total amount of Qi had dropped by more than a hundredfold, but its quality was much higher—denser, stronger.

When he guided that strand of True Qi into his arms, he could easily lift a 300-pound boulder.

After entering the first tier of the method, he could eat large amounts of food, which would be transformed into internal energy and then into True Qi.

This method was the slowest but still somewhat effective.

Another way was to absorb the spiritual energy in the world and convert it directly into True Qi.

But natural spiritual energy was so thin that after a whole day’s cultivation, he might only absorb a few specks—only slightly better than the first method.

The most efficient method was to consume food and herbs rich in spiritual energy.

But such items were rare and costly.

For instance, ginseng could absorb ambient spiritual energy and store it, which meant the older it was, the more powerful.

Thankfully, Ergouzi had the yellow gourd, which could boost the spiritual energy content of anything.

Otherwise, even with Huang Laocai’s wealth, he couldn’t afford the expenses.

In the days that followed, Ergouzi cultivated the first tier of the nameless method morning and night. With the help of spiritual-rich food, his progress was fast—his meridians’ strand of True Qi gradually thickened.

At noon, he practiced the basic sword form from his master one thousand times.

In his spare time, he farmed, cleared land, and fed the geese.