Hu Ma grabbed a handful of coarse, cold pond ash and placed it into a rough cloth pouch.
After tying it tightly, he carried it with him.
This became his first protective talisman since arriving in this world.
With this talisman, he finally had the peace to sleep through the night.
According to the village's customs, when an elder passes away, it's better for someone to stay in the house to signify that the family still has members.
So, Second Uncle didn't rush Hu Ma back to the estate and allowed him to stay in the village for a few days.
Hu Ma wasn't in a hurry either.
He needed time and space to think about his situation and understand certain things.
Before going to the estate to meet Second Uncle, Hu Ma had hardly slept well in the village.
At night, he relied on the old woman's chanting to ward off evil spirits.
But this time, after lighting the furnace in his body and obtaining the protective talisman, the problem of being constantly harassed by evil spirits was resolved.
He spent a night alone in the old woman's thatched cottage, and nothing happened.
However, there was no one to make breakfast for him anymore.
But Hu Ma, who had always been eager to work and prove himself, wasn't the pampered type.
He knew where to fetch water, where to grind flour, and which jars contained coarse salt or pickled vegetables.
Feeding himself wasn't a problem.
In the first few days after the old woman's passing, the villagers took good care of Hu Ma, who had suddenly become alone.
They gave him some flatbreads and carried water for him.
Of course, this wasn't out of respect for Hu Ma but rather out of gratitude to the old woman or pity for the young boy who was left alone at the age of fifteen or sixteen.
But after a few days, everyone gradually returned to their normal routines, as if nothing had happened.
Hu Ma settled into the small cottage left by the old woman and quietly took stock of the things she had left behind.
It seemed as though the old woman had prepared for her final battle with the Meng family ghost, as she had arranged everything for Hu Ma in advance.
She had entrusted Little Hong Tang to him, and with the talisman left by his side, Little Hong Tang would always follow Hu Ma.
The little girl was usually playful and often disappeared, but as long as Hu Ma burned a stick of incense, she would know to come home.
According to the old woman, Little Hong Tang had become his little ghost servant? Hu Ma wasn't sure what a ghost servant was supposed to do, but a little girl that no one else could see could probably do a lot of things.
At the very least, she could sneak a piece of cured meat from the Cui family without anyone noticing, right?
The second thing the old woman left behind was a black porcelain jar.
Hu Ma knew his own problems, and the old woman must have known them too, which was why she left this jar for him.
Inside were small, blood-red pills, each about the size of a longan fruit.
When squeezed, blood-like threads would seep out.
"Are these all Blood Tai Sui?" Hu Ma sniffed and found the scent familiar.
It should be close enough.
After not having any Tai Sui for three or four days while searching for the old woman, Hu Ma took one pill after finishing the funeral arrangements.
Immediately, he felt his body warming up.
The furnace fire that had been depleted was gradually replenished after swallowing the blood pill.
He sighed to himself: These were all specially left by the old woman to save his life! However, one pill wasn't enough to give him the same benefits as eating large amounts of meat before.
But taking one every two days was enough to keep his body from deteriorating and to maintain a steady growth of his furnace fire.
Earlier, he had seen that his cultivation had reached one and a half sticks of incense.
He wondered if, after finishing all the blood pills in the jar, he could reach three sticks of incense.
Of course, Hu Ma couldn't help but think: "Before she left, the old woman didn't tell me where this Blood Tai Sui came from. She only said that the Blood Tai Sui in the Old Yin Mountain was almost all harvested by her..."
"What if I finish this jar of Blood Tai Sui and my cultivation still isn't enough? What should I do then?"
Unfortunately, Hu Ma couldn't ask these questions anymore.
When he later asked Little Hong Tang, she just bit her finger and said, "The old woman could find it. Even in places where others said there was nothing, she could find it."
"Is this the old woman's special ability?" Hu Ma couldn't expect the old woman to appear in his dreams to tell him, so he could only hope as he opened the book she had left behind.
"The 'Qingyuan Hu Family's Book of Suppressing Years'—sounds like a family heirloom?" Hu Ma had already guessed that the old woman, or rather his original body's background, must be extraordinary.
From the enemies they had, it was clear that their family had some prestige, at least enough to be enemies with the Meng family of Huaiyin.
Moreover, the old woman had been harvesting the precious Blood Tai Sui every day to feed him like pork, which wasn't something an ordinary person could do.
Hu Ma knew that this secret book must contain many valuable things, but when he opened it, he felt both excited and helpless.
The excitement came from the fact that the book was filled with practical knowledge, covering a wide range of topics: curing illnesses, finding herbs, burning bones, communicating with ghosts, and even geomancy...
But the helplessness came from the fact that while he could recognize every word, he couldn't understand the content.
To put it simply, it was like a sixth-grader trying to read a manual on how to build a nuclear bomb.
He could read the words, but understanding them was a different matter.
The terminology, obscure meanings, and incantations left him completely baffled.
"It seems I need to start with the basics, like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, before moving on to quadratic equations..."
Hu Ma sighed, looking at the pages filled with words he recognized but couldn't comprehend, letting his imagination run wild.
"There are some parts here that seem related to Tai Sui... Could it be that this book contains methods for exploring the flesh mountains and finding rare Tai Sui? Did the old woman rely on the knowledge in this book to harvest all the Blood Tai Sui from the Old Yin Mountain for me?"
Hu Ma couldn't help but feel a sense of awe, vaguely realizing that if this were true, it must be an extraordinary field of study.
Of course, all of this was just speculation and conjecture.
To truly understand these secrets, he would first need to learn the basic knowledge of this world before delving into this advanced art.
But who could teach him? Second Uncle?
Second Uncle was already growing impatient: "I know the rules and customs of the half-open doors in Mingzhou Prefecture. Do you want to learn that?" This made Hu Ma blush and feel a bit awkward.
He had only been trying to learn some genuine skills from Second Uncle and hear about his experiences from his younger days.
At first, Second Uncle was eager to share, but as Hu Ma kept asking questions, Second Uncle began to run out of things to say and started to get frustrated.
When Hu Ma pressed him, Second Uncle would snap and reveal his trump card.
This made Hu Ma curious: "Second Uncle, with your sixty years of celibacy, what use is it to know about such things?"
Second Uncle's face turned even redder: "Can't I just enjoy it in my imagination?"
"Sure, sure..."
Sensing Second Uncle's discomfort, Hu Ma quickly smiled and said, "I just wanted to ask if what you've taught us is the limit. What about the next steps?"
"That's it. What I know is the limit," Second Uncle finally admitted helplessly.
"I really don't know anything beyond that... Your old woman had such great skills. Why didn't you learn from her while she was alive? Why come to our trade and hit a wall now? What's the point?"
Hearing Second Uncle's words, Hu Ma understood.
Second Uncle truly didn't know any more.
He didn't even understand why Hu Ma wanted to continue learning, as the skills Hu Ma had already acquired were enough to make him a skilled butcher...
But Hu Ma knew in his heart that he had to learn these skills.
Before she left, the old woman had repeatedly urged him to continue learning the more advanced skills in Second Uncle's trade.
However, Hu Ma later wondered: If the old woman was certain that this trade could save his life, and she knew that Second Uncle didn't know any higher-level techniques, why didn't she tell him? Was it because she didn't know them herself, or was it a test for him?
"Our furnace-lighting skills, if you want to go further, you'd have to seek out the masters of the Blood Food Guild. They do have some unique skills. Second Uncle knows that our skills belong to their lineage, but those life-saving techniques aren't so easily taught," Second Uncle explained to Hu Ma.
"You should give up on that idea. Come with me to the mines a couple of times, and focus on finding a wife. That's what's most important."
"I also think settling down with a wife and living a peaceful life sounds nice, but I have to keep learning..."
Hu Ma needed to learn those skills to save his life, but he couldn't say that directly to Second Uncle.
He could only ponder it in his heart.
The weather gradually turned colder, and the village entered its most leisurely season.
But no one dared to relax, as they prepared for plowing, sowing, and feeding the livestock more fodder, getting ready for the next year's harvest.
The young men who were learning skills from Second Uncle also worked harder, and some of their families even went so far as to buy more White Tai Sui meat to supplement their diets.
They were afraid that their furnace fire wouldn't be strong enough, and the Blood Food Guild wouldn't accept them.
If that happened, they would have to wait another year, wasting a year's worth of food.
That night, Hu Ma read by the oil lamp as usual.
Although he couldn't understand the contents of the Hu Family's Book of Suppressing Years, he tried his best to memorize it, word by word, in case it might be useful someday.
After lying down to sleep, he suddenly heard a voice in his drowsy state: "Old Bai Gan, can you hear me?"
(End of Chapter)