BXBX NOVEL Chapter 259 Unease
Upon seeing Chen Qi just push the door open, Lady Chen, who was sewing clothes, immediately put down her needlework and asked, "Did you manage to borrow any?"
The idea to borrow grain from Wang Chen came from her, but being a woman of the household, it was inappropriate for her to make the request in person, so she had to coerce her husband to go to Wang Chen\'s house for help.
Lady Chen was all too aware of Chen Qi\'s prideful nature, often too concerned with face to admit hardship.
Asking him to borrow grain was indeed hard on him.
"I got it."
Chen Qi placed the Storage Bag he was holding onto the table and sat down dejectedly.
He felt useless, unable to support his own wife and children, having to borrow grain from others, unworthy of being a real man!
Lady Chen\'s eyes lit up: "How much did you borrow?"
Chen Qi shook his head in confusion, "I, I don\'t know."
He truly didn\'t know.
"You, oh you!"
Lady Chen, frustrated but undaunted, reached out for the Storage Bag to open it and check.
"Almost three hundred catties!"
After checking, she excitedly said, "It\'s all Spirit Valley, with this our children Jin Er and Yuer will have the resources for cultivation!"
Chen Qi\'s two sons had all the necessary attributes and possessed the potential for cultivation.
Both he and his wife placed great hopes on them.
The two boys were still young and growing, and to strengthen their foundation, they certainly needed the aid of immortal cultivation resources to strengthen their bones, invigorate their bodies, and condense mana.
The problem was, the prices of Spirit Rice, Spirit Valley, and Beast Meat were simply too expensive.
The increase was outrageous!
Chen Qi bitterly smiled, "We need to pay it back."
He didn\'t want to be a deadbeat debtor, but the problem was that it was really difficult to repay so much Spirit Valley.
"Let\'s discuss it after we get through this tough time."
Lady Chen sighed, "Taoist Friend Wang is quite honorable, we can\'t let him down..."
She quietly made a decision in her heart!
She must repay Wang Chen\'s kindness.
But how to repay him required careful consideration.
Lady Chen thought to herself as the image of Wang Chen suddenly appeared in her Sea of Consciousness, as clear as if he were right in front of her.
This smart and capable woman couldn\'t help but grip the Storage Bag tightly in her hand.
Meanwhile, Wang Chen, at this very moment, had just arrived at the market square.
Although it wasn\'t market day, there were still people setting up stalls in the market square.
In addition, there were quite a few shops near the market square; this area was in fact the CBD of Dongwu Stockade.
Having made a round, Wang Chen hadn\'t purchased anything significant.
But to his surprise, he discovered that the price of Spirit Valley in the grain store had soared to fifteen Fragmented Spirit Stones per catty!
This price truly exceeded Wang Chen\'s understanding.
Back in his Cloud Sun Sect days, when he farmed the Spirit Fields, he sold White Jade Rice to the grain merchants for one spirit stone per fifty catties.
That was equivalent to two Fragmented Spirit Stones per catty.
Grain stores would certainly mark up the price when reselling it, but even if grain prices skyrocketed, it had never been this exorbitant.
This price was practically gouging!
Wang Chen finally understood why Chen Qi came to borrow grain from him.
He simply couldn\'t afford the current price of rice!
It wasn\'t just the price of Spirit Rice that had surged; even the ordinary Tribute Rice followed suit, reaching an astonishing level.
Moreover, the grain shop owner had an attitude of take it or leave it, suggesting that if not bought today, the price would increase tomorrow!
As for the reasons behind this, Wang Chen heard several possible explanations while in a teahouse.
Firstly, the autumn grain yield from the old lands of Cloud Sun had drastically decreased. Experience more content on m v|l e\'-NovelBin.net
Taihao Peak\'s ascension almost drew Heaven Cloud Mountain\'s Spirit Vein to the point of dryness.
Having lost the nourishment from the Spirit Vein, the quality of the Spirit Fields in the Cloud Sun Old Land deteriorated greatly, and the yield of rice also dropped significantly.
Naturally, the price of grain soared.
In fact, this situation should have occurred six months ago.
But back then, Guiyuan Gate, which occupied Cloud Sun Old Land, sought to stabilize the public\'s mood by purchasing and transferring a large amount of Spirit Rice from other places, preventing the grain prices from skyrocketing.
However, Guiyuan Gate would only undertake such a loss-making endeavor once; after that, they stopped intervening.
As a result, after winter began, the crisis became immediately apparent!
It was said that several Immortal Cities, including Cloud Mountain and Cloud Sea, had set limits on the purchase of Spirit Rice and grains, not allowing bulk buying.
Furthermore, in the past month, Thief Cultivators in the Outer Domain were very active, and Demon Cultivators and Evil Cultivators appeared frequently, making the Traveling Merchants too scared to conduct their business.
Under these circumstances, how could Dongwu Stockade, isolated like an island in the Outer Domain, escape the impact?
Actually, Dongwu Stockade wasn\'t too bad off; life was still relatively stable, and despite the high cost of rice, there was a limit, and people just had to endure and get through it.
The truly tragic ones were those smaller stockades with very poor risk resistance.
Once the Loose Cultivators in these small stockades couldn\'t get enough to eat, internal strife was prone to break out, with individuals killing and plundering each other\'s wealth.
Ritual propriety, integrity, and moral character were simply not worth mentioning in the face of survival!
Recently, many fleeing Loose Cultivators had arrived in Dongwu Stockade.
The market was not very stable.
Wang Chen left the teahouse and barely walked a few steps before seeing people conducting a "People Market" on the street.
"Taoist Friend."
Perhaps because Wang Chen glanced over for a moment longer, he was immediately targeted by a real estate agency, who approached obsequiously and asked, "Would you like to buy a maid? She has a Shedding Mortality cultivation level and is very capable with bed-making, warming beds, and cooking."
As he spoke, the real estate agency pulled over a girl of about thirteen or fourteen years old.
"Take a look at her, untouched Shedding Mortality maiden, just for a hundred Fragmented Spirit Stones you can take her home!"
What was a hundred Fragmented Spirit Stones worth now?
Just a few hundred pounds of rice!
The girl, valued at merely a few hundred pounds of rice, timidly looked up at Wang Chen, her eyes brimming with hope.
She was thin, but her features were not undesirable, and she could become a beauty with proper care.
Wang Chen ignored her gaze and also turned a blind eye to the eager salesman, walking away on his own.
He was no Saint, nor did he have the ability to save everyone.
Just taking care of himself was accomplishment enough!
When he got home, Wang Chen descended into his underground chamber and took out the Storage Bag hidden in a secret spot.
He recounted his stored grains.
Based on current market prices, the value of the Spirit Rice and grains he had seized had at least quintupled.
He had struck gold!
But Wang Chen felt no joy.
Because he was saving this Spirit Rice and grains for himself to eat, with no intention of selling them.
Although buying low and selling high was an appealing concept,
in the current climate, the price of Spirit Rice and grains was likely to remain high for a long time, and if he sold them, he feared he\'d have to purchase them back at the same or even higher prices.
Having grain definitely calmed the heart, and at least Wang Chen felt secure on the inside.
In the following days, even more people poured into Dongwu Stockade.
It seemed that Loose Cultivators from hundreds of miles around all converged here.
The most direct consequence of this was that the public order in Dongwu Stockade suddenly worsened.
Although the City Lord\'s Mansion had set up a Guard Hall to handle the dirty and tiring work,
the power of the Guard Hall alone was clearly insufficient to suppress these newcomers.
And it just so happened that at this time, Xin Han announced a retreat, leaving all affairs of the City Lord\'s Mansion to his concubine,
and her brother—the Golden Snake Gentleman!
This sibling duo seemed intent on running Dongwu Stockade into the ground.
It was unsettling.
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Second update delivered.