A Mortal’s Immortal Gourd
Chapter 46: Drought Disaster

Ergouzi had been living on the mountain for several months, and it was now time for spring plowing.

There had been no snow last winter, and not a single drop of rain had fallen since.

As he walked along a country path in the late evening, he noticed there were as many people out and about as during the day.

But everyone was rushing to and fro, not paying him much attention.

As long as you weren’t competing for water sources, even if the emperor himself showed up, people wouldn’t care.

Those living far from water had no choice but to haul it with shoulder poles and buckets from the nearest source and pour it into their own fields.

But the landowners near the water certainly didn’t agree to that. In these times, stealing water was like stealing grain.

Along the way, Ergouzi had already seen over a dozen fights break out over access to water.

He felt lucky that his 50 mu of land sat near the spring on Shekou Mountain—a huge advantage in a year of drought.

That spring hadn’t changed at all; it still flowed steadily like in previous years.

After walking all night, he reached the county as dawn was breaking.

He first went to Huichun Hall, carrying a burlap sack full of Strength Pills to sell to Sima Yi.

Inside, he found that business was booming—there was a long line of patients.

He casually grabbed a small stool and planned to sit and wait.

But the moment he sat down—crack!—the stool collapsed under him.

He weighed about a hundred jin himself, plus the sword on his back weighed another 150 jin. The stool clearly wasn’t made to bear that.

The crash startled the patients, and some who recognized him started whispering.

“That’s the legendary Scholar Zhang!”

“The one who sent an examiner flying with a single sword stroke during the exam.”

“Haha! The guy who destroyed the exam site and racked up a 200 tael debt, right?”

“Hahaha, I watched that exam too...”

“He really is something else...”

With his enhanced senses, Ergouzi heard every word of their whispers.

He hadn’t expected that he was still something of a legend in the county—even after all this time, people were still talking about him.

Although the gossip wasn’t harmful, Ergouzi pretended not to hear it, though his cheeks did redden a bit from embarrassment.

He found a sturdier stool and carefully sat down. This time it held.

After waiting in the corner for a while, Sima Yi finished treating a patient and came to see him.

To avoid drawing attention, Sima Yi led him into a backroom.

“You’re really raking in money these days, huh?”

Sima Yi, however, didn’t look pleased—instead, he sighed deeply.

“I’m just lucky if I break even. Most of the patients have poverty-induced illnesses or starvation-related conditions—there’s no money to be made from them.

My medicine only treats symptoms, not the root causes. If they could just eat their fill and get a little pork, they wouldn’t even need medicine.”

Ergouzi understood what he meant.

Due to the drought this year, many people were tightening their belts. While they hadn’t starved to death, they’d become extremely weak, making them susceptible to illness.

Sima Yi had a kind heart—when treating the poor, he often sold herbs at cost or barely above.

Sometimes, out of compassion, he even paid out of pocket to help.

Because of his fair pricing and occasional free medicine, Huichun Hall’s business had indeed gotten better.

But more patients didn’t mean more profit.

People who sold coffins hoped more would die. A physician, however, hoped everyone would get sick.

Sima Yi’s personality wasn’t suited to being a physician—he couldn’t bear to see suffering.

Over the years they’d known each other, Sima Yi had gone from a spirited youth to someone quieter and more solemn—with a few strands of white hair already appearing in his twenties.

Still, because of his character, Ergouzi never worried about being betrayed in their transactions.

Back when he was younger and naïve, he had sold rare spiritual items without knowing how dangerous that was.

Luckily, it had been Sima Yi he encountered.

That said, now that Huichun Hall was more crowded, Ergouzi decided that in the future, he’d come at night to do business instead.

“328 taels total. Want to exchange it all for Peiyuan Gutben Pills again?”

After counting the Strength Pills, Sima Yi asked casually.

Ergouzi always traded them all for Peiyuan Gutben Pills—he was used to it.

“This time, help me buy a batch of herbs first. Whatever silver is left, then use it for the pills.”

But this time, Ergouzi handed over a list of ingredients.

“With these plus ginseng and desert-living cistanche, that’s the formula for the Peiyuan Gutben Pill. Are you planning to make them yourself?”

Seeing the list, Sima Yi immediately guessed Ergouzi’s intention.

The pill recipe wasn’t secret—many knew it. The problem was finding ginseng old enough.

“I happen to have a few older ginseng roots and some cistanche. I want to try making a few.”

Ergouzi replied casually, and Sima Yi didn’t press further.

Leaving the list with Sima Yi, Ergouzi then headed to Zhengwu Hall.

He returned all the books he borrowed last time and spent half a day in the library, borrowing over a dozen more.

He had come to appreciate reading. Paper, ink, and brushes were expensive, and every book was costly to produce.

Anything passed down in writing was the distilled experience of predecessors.

With the chance to learn from them, he intended to seize it.

He also spoke with Deputy Hall Master Sima about recommending a student. Sima Hong agreed without hesitation.

With all matters settled, Ergouzi stayed in the county for just one day before returning to Shekou Mountain overnight.

As he passed Anchan River, he noticed the water level had dropped significantly.

If the drought continued, the river might dry up completely.

If the drought stretched into consecutive years, even drinking water might run out. He needed to start storing some.

He found a deserted spot and took out his yellow-skinned gourd.

“Big, big, big, big...”

As the thought formed in his mind, the gourd grew before his eyes.

In a flash, it expanded from pin-sized to over three zhang tall.

He placed the gourd in the river, and the current swirled into it like a vortex.

He waited two hours as the gourd drank in water, and the downstream level visibly dropped, but the gourd still wasn’t full.

No matter how long he let it fill, it seemed endless. He still hadn’t figured out the gourd’s capacity after all these years.

As the sky lightened, he shrank the gourd back to pin size and stuck it in his ear like a small, inconspicuous earring.

Back in Shexi Village, Ergouzi wrote a recommendation letter for Huang Laocai in front of him.

With it, his child could now study at Zhengwu Hall.

Huang’s entire family was overflowing with gratitude.

When Ergouzi returned to the base of Shekou Mountain, the stone foundation of his new house had been completed. A foreman was waiting for him.

“Master Zhang, the foundation is done, and the stone mill and pestle you asked for are ready too.”

The craftsman pointed to two oversized stone mills and pestles behind him, secretly amazed.

These mills were so big that even two donkeys couldn’t pull them—who did this scholar plan to use to operate them?

Ergouzi inspected the foundation and the tools, then promptly paid the workers.

The craftsman took the bag of broken silver with great relief.

Getting paid by landlords was always a headache—many made workers toil for months only to nitpick and deduct pay.

But Master Zhang paid in full—and even threw in a little extra.

“Thank you, Master Zhang!”

“No need to thank me. I might need your help again next year.”

Saying that, Ergouzi lifted the massive millstone and leapt up toward Shekou Mountain.

The foreman hadn’t walked far. When he saw this scene, he dropped to his knees, shouting praises to the immortal master.

Ergouzi didn’t really mind what ordinary folks saw—word had it that even the County Magistrate occasionally demonstrated immortal arts for the public.

So everyone in the county already believed the magistrate possessed divine power.

After hauling the mill and pestle up to the mountaintop and installing them, he gave the stone mill a test push—felt about right, not too much effort.

Husking rice required a stone pestle. His old one was too small and slow.

Now he could grind rice and herbs much more efficiently.

His gourd stored plenty of grain, but turning it into Strength Pills was time-consuming. With daily studying, cultivation, and farming, he often took too long to sell even one shi.

That’s why his original goal of taking one Peiyuan Gutben Pill a day hadn’t been met.

As his strength grew, he needed to refine more spiritual energy.

To keep progressing rapidly, he needed to boost his efficiency in pill-making.