A Mortal’s Immortal Gourd
Chapter 26: Don’t Move

Ever since Ergouzi got his master's Nameless Cultivation Method, he treated it like a treasure and practiced it diligently every day, following every move by the book.

But this sword manual was quite difficult to train in. He had been practicing for a long time, yet he still couldn’t grasp its essence.

For example, some of the sword techniques required him to leap two or three zhang high in a single move.

Right now, even when he used all his strength, he could only jump a little over one zhang.

Two or three zhang high — that was practically flying.

Also, some sword moves required striking a target more than one zhang away.

That was nearly impossible. His arm and the sword combined were only about five chi, how could he possibly reach that far?

Still, his master had never lied to him. Every skill his master had taught, he eventually mastered.

The harder a cultivation method was to train, the more it proved its extraordinary power once mastered.

His master always said, “If you can’t endure the hardest of hardships, how can you master peerless martial arts?”

Ergouzi firmly believed that as long as he kept training with persistence, success would come sooner or later.

He used to think crushing stones with bare hands was harder than ascending to the heavens, but once his cultivation improved, it became effortless.

Maybe he just needed to train until the third or fourth layer.

Now, besides sword practice every day, he would also eat a bowl of pork ribs stewed with ginseng, then meditate and cultivate the second layer of the cultivation method.

As the age of the ginseng increased, its medicinal potency became stronger, and the True Qi flowing through his Ren and Du Meridians became more abundant.

But as the ginseng became more potent, it also caused more internal heat.

One root per day made his nose bleed, his gums swell, and at night, he kept dreaming about getting married.

He sometimes wondered if he should just go ahead and marry someone.

Besides, there weren’t many of the oldest ginseng plants to begin with. Eating one per day, he had already gone through nearly half a mu of land’s worth.

The rest, he couldn’t bear to use. He wanted to cultivate them to an older age — maybe 50 years, or even 100.

Thinking it over, it might actually be more cost-effective to buy some Peiyuan Gutben Pills.

That day, Ergouzi had just finished a round of sword practice but felt that every move was awkward.

Just then, the flock of geese suddenly went wild.

They all charged out of the goose pen, stretched their necks, flapped their wings, and honked furiously in one direction: “Gaga-gaga-gagaga...”

In the direction the geese were pointing, a black figure was just climbing up from below the cliff.

The figure had a black scarf over his face and held a gleaming saber in hand.

He was clearly startled by the geese’s aggressive posture.

Seeing that black figure, Ergouzi was reminded of the time he was chased down the official road all night — the outfit and the saber looked exactly the same.

He suspected it could very well be the same person.

The fear of being hunted that whole night came rushing back, and Ergouzi instinctively wanted to run.

But just then, the figure swung his saber, and two of the geese were decapitated.

“You killed my geese!”

Ergouzi had been ready to run, but the moment he saw two of his geese fall in a blink, rage flared up.

Geese were his property — each one could sell for hundreds of wen, or even one or two taels of silver.

If he ran off now, wouldn’t the rest of the geese on the mountain be slaughtered?

Not to mention the dozen mu of medicinal herbs…

Clinging to the principle of “risk your life but not your wealth,” Ergouzi picked up his Hundred-Jin Heavy Sword and lunged at the figure.

His thrust followed the manual precisely, down to the smallest detail.

But just as the sword was about to hit the black figure, the figure sidestepped and dodged cleanly.

Ergouzi calmly withdrew the sword to his chest and thrust again. The figure dodged once more.

Then a slash, a sweep, a diagonal cut, a vertical chop...

Every move Ergouzi made was textbook perfect — flawless in execution — but the figure’s footwork was incredibly agile. No strike landed.

“You son of a btch! Quit f**ing moving, how the h*ll am I supposed to fight like this!”

After missing so many times, Ergouzi exploded with anger, cursing just like the other tenant farmers.

The black figure paused for a moment, seemingly surprised by the outburst.

In his fury, Ergouzi threw out all the techniques his master had taught him. He started swinging the sword like a fire poker, randomly hacking at the man.

This chaos-style brawler technique had no structure — just mad, wild strikes.

That actually made it harder for the black figure. He couldn’t predict where the next hit would land.

After dodging a few times, the black figure gave up toying with Ergouzi and raised his saber to block.

“Clang!”

The moment their weapons clashed, the black figure felt a tremendous force. His saber shattered instantly.

He hadn’t expected Ergouzi to have such terrifying strength.

Looking at the broken hilt and his torn, bleeding hand, he felt a chill of fear.

Before he could hesitate, Ergouzi swung the heavy sword like a club and charged again.

Now that he knew what he was dealing with, the black figure didn’t dare stick around. He leapt back and turned to flee.

With that kind of strength, even a graze could shatter bones.

Ergouzi chased him to the cliff’s edge and saw the black figure scrambling down the cliff, disappearing into the darkness.

All he could do was grab a few rocks and hurl them down randomly, but there were no screams — probably didn’t hit him.

“Gagaga-gagaga...”

Behind him, a group of geese mournfully circled the two headless bodies.

The dead ones were the very first breeding pair he had bought.

They had done great things for him — in one year, they had hatched 15 goslings.

Because he’d fed them spirit-rich fodder, these geese were over twice the size of normal ones.

Holding the corpses of his prized geese, Ergouzi walked silently into the kitchen to boil water.

He didn’t sleep a wink that night.

The next morning, Ergouzi had a goose leg in his mouth.

So good!

Better than pork ribs — and the goose meat was packed with spiritual energy, even before he stored it in his gourd.

“Crunch crunch...”

He crunched the bones and swallowed them down with the meat, his eyes scanning the rest of the flock.

Then he added more rice grains to the feed trough.

“Eat more so you’ll grow faster.”

The 15 remaining geese, maybe sensing the killing aura, or perhaps still mourning their parents, all silently lowered their heads and ate diligently.

After a hearty meal, Ergouzi went down Shekou Mountain.

Even though he hadn’t suffered a loss last night, he didn’t gain any advantage either.

Reflecting afterward, he realized the real problem was his sword technique — he had only learned the basics. If the enemy moved, he missed.

He had to speed up his cultivation. He decided to head into the county again to see if he could buy more Peiyuan Gutben Pills.

To avoid thieves taking advantage of his absence, once he left the mountain, he took back routes and made sure no one knew he had gone down.