Three or four hundred old and disabled women and children had a basic food ration for one or two months, which was unimaginable for them. They still go out every day to pick wild vegetables, dig out the roots of those plants in the melting snow, and carefully carry them back to the Grand Canyon.

Guo Yang stood on a high rock, looked at the foraging people seriously, and suddenly felt an unprecedented sense of responsibility.

He had to let these people live, live better.

It was a bit like a promise, and it weighed him down a little.

Guo Yang began to think about what the current predicament was, what he needed most, how to do it, and so on.

He asked Anu to wrap a little bacon, intending to send it to the old man to taste. Although he didn't know if cultivators liked to eat bacon, it was a kind of etiquette.

In addition, he had a lot of doubts and wanted to ask this mysterious old man face to face.

When he came to the old man's retreat, he was stunned to find that they had moved away at some point.

Several adobe huts were still there, the doors were open, and the land in front of them was a mess, and it was clear that they had dug up all the unknown plants as they left.

Guo Yang was stunned for a long time, slowly walked into the thatched hut where the old man once lived, and unexpectedly found a roll of bamboo slips on a simple pine table.

Dozens of finger-wide pieces of bamboo, strung together with cooked cowhide ropes, rolled together, and tied with a strip of white linen, look quite elegant.

Guo Yang carefully opened the bamboo slip, held it in his hand, and read it carefully.

After a long time, Guo Yang raised his head, a little confused.

On the bamboo slips, except for the first two sentences, which threw the big burden of the survival of three or four hundred people to Guo Yang, only one set of refining techniques was recorded. After careful consideration, Guo Yang found that this set of refining techniques was neither the ore smelting method he was familiar with, nor the condensation method of Danshi medicine, but the ...... A complex method of purification.

Guo Yang was confused and puzzled. In desperation, I had to put away the bamboo slips, planning to take them back and slowly refer to them, after all, such a thing left by a master must be not trivial.

Without the guidance of a master, Guo Yang can only face the current predicament by himself.

He lingered for a long time in front of the old man's secluded hut, and finally decided that he had to get some money first. Whether it's buying grain seeds, or farm tools, you need money.

"The matter of salt must be resolved as soon as possible." Guo Yang said secretly.

……

More than 100 miles southwest of Wuling Mountain, is the Yandu Jicheng, which belongs to the fiefdom of the Zhou people Zhao Gongxi, and is currently ruled by his son Ke.

More than 100 miles to the east is Tangshan City, which belongs to the Lonely Bamboo Country, which is slowly infiltrated and eroded by the Ghost Fang and Yan Kingdom.

In the entire north, I don't know how many thousands of miles in radius, are Beirong and Ghost Fang, and there is a war between the two tribes, which belongs to the internal war for the leader of the tribal alliance.

Guo Yang stood on the highest peak of Wuling Mountain and hesitated for a while. He repeatedly compared, calculated carefully, and finally decided to go to Tangshan City to try his luck.

Jicheng is the territory of the Zhou people, and once he, a fugitive merchant relic, is discovered, he will inevitably be hung on the flagpole at the head of the city to dry.

There is a big war going on in the north, it's too dangerous. It is said that when the people of the Onifang tribe catch foreigners, they often eat them alive, and even the bones are made into a flute that can make strange sounds, and their children play it day and night.

Tangshan City, which is only a lonely bamboo country, although its national strength is weak, is once a big business orthodoxy after all, and the danger is relatively small.

With his mind decided, Guo Yang went down the mountain to Tangshan City.

……

"Shopkeeper, how do you sell this oats?"

"Shopkeeper, how do you sell this sowing car?"

"Shopkeeper, what is the price of this new type of curved plow? Can it be cheaper? ”

……

As Guo Yang walked down the depressed streets of Tangshan City, he came across shops that bought and sold crop seeds and farm tools, and he had to go in and ask about them.

What made him depressed was that every kind of farm tool was extremely expensive, and the area of the wasteland reclaimed by the three or four hundred people on the Wuling Mountain would not be small if they wanted to solve the food ration problem. Correspondingly, there are many seeds and farming tools needed.

Thinking that he only had one or two hundred sword coins issued by the New Dynasty in his storage bag, Guo Yang's mood was uncomfortable.

After wandering around for most of the day, Guo Yang finally found a shop that bought and sold sea salt, but it was the official place where Guzhu Country sold salt. Looking at the Haiyan shop, which was built as majestic as a yamen, Guo Yang was a little worried.

He grew so big, the only yamen he ever entered was a tall building built by the Zhou people in Luoyi. On that occasion, he went with more than 100 other relict merchants engaged in handicrafts, and was ordered to put a blood-red handprint on something that resembled a cloth or a non-cloth.

Then, they were gathered in a small square and swore to the high-ranking Zhou general that they would be absolutely loyal to the Great Zhou Dynasty and promise to complete the task in sufficient quantities every month.

Also going with him that time was his father Guo Lu. He clearly remembered how Guo Lu, his father, the tall man, made two tears of humiliation come back into his eyes.

Guo Yang stood at the door of the Haiyan shop, took a deep breath, and slowly spit it out, overcoming his cowardice and apprehension, and then stepped across the threshold that was one foot five or six high.

There were hardly any customers in the shop, but the guys sat proudly behind the tall counters, not raising their eyelids at the customers who walked into the shop.

Guo Yang sighed secretly in his heart, look at what other people are doing, it's really domineering! It's like those recalcitrant merchants in Luoyi City, nominally freed from slavery, but in fact they have a little more freedom than slaves, and anyone can condescendingly dislike a few words. Even, when encountering those Zhou nobles, it is common to be slightly unsatisfactory and whip a few times casually.

Guo Yang calmed down, walked steadily to the tall counter, craned his neck, and asked as little as possible without showing timidity: "Shop, how do you sell sea salt?" ”

"Tickets." Behind the counter sat a white and chubby middle-aged man, who said without raising his eyelids.

"Tickets? What ticket? Guo Yang was stunned, when he used to buy salt in Lijiamen Village, he didn't need any tickets. In the past two or three years, he has been evading the tracking of the Zhou people, and he has never entered the city, so he really doesn't know how to buy salt and ask for a ticket.

"Huh? Don't have a salt ticket? Are you a stateless outcast? The man behind the counter frowned and raised his flabby eyelids.

"I'm not a homeless person, I came out in a hurry and forgot about it." Guo Yang hurriedly explained.

The man looked at Guo Yang suspiciously, snorted in his nose, and said coldly: "No ticket, no salt." ”

"Shopkeeper, you see, I'm in a hurry, and my wife is still waiting for me to buy salt to cook, or ...... Are you accommodating? Guo Yang said with a grimace.

"See for yourself!" The man casually pointed to the wall on the side of the shop, turned his face away, and didn't look at Guo Yang again.

Guo Yang turned his head in astonishment and looked in the direction the man was pointing, but an official notice was posted.

The notice was written on a piece of white linen cloth, with a total of nine lines, and it was nothing more than that the homeless people were not allowed to buy salt, and private people were not allowed to sell salt. One of them scared Guo Yang a lot, and it was "Twenty dollars of money reward for reporting the loss of citizenship"!

The corners of Guo Yang's eyes twitched several times before he stabilized his expression and said to himself: "Alas, look at my memory, it's inevitable that I will be complained by my mother for a long time when I go home, and I will be whipped twice by my father!" ”

As he spoke, Guo Yang shook his head and sighed as he walked out of the salt shop.

"Stop!"

Suddenly, the salt shop guy shouted.

Guo Yang's heart trembled, stopped, turned around and smiled: "Shopkeeper, but call me?" ”