Chapter 17: Growing Up
Translator: WQL Editor: Geoffrey
As the old saying went, “Kids in poor families always grow up early”. Zhang Tie had already begun to help his parents with housework ever since he was a student in preliminary school. His dad worked diligently in the mill, while his mother stayed at home and sold rice brew as a side job. In this manner, they brought up Zhang Yang and Zhang Tie.
In the past, Zhang Tie didn’t know how to treasure his parents. Two years ago on a weekend when he was home, he found his mom doing housework even after closing the rice brew store. He noticed his mom’s slightly plump and fat back as she mopped the floor. It was completely different from the slim and beautiful figure that he had in his mind from when he was a child. All of a sudden, Zhang Tie felt frustrated and grew up overnight. He started to understand that a man should be responsible for his family and parents. From that day forward, Zhang Tie would stay home every weekend and help his mom with the housework, while other kids played outside. Naturally, Zhang Tie also learned how to make rice brew from his mom. A year ago, the rice brew made by Zhang Tie was already the same as those made by his mom. By then, even the regular customers failed to notice that half of the rice brew was made by Zhang Tie.
Oddly enough, Zhang Tie didn’t have any dreams last night and fell asleep very easily. When Zhang Tie opened his eyes at 6:00 am, the sky was still slightly dim. Zhang Tie glanced at the clock and found it was just 6:15 — a time when young people were reluctant to get up. In Zhang Tie’s memories, he has rarely got up before 7:00 am. Closing his eyes, he planned to have a nap; However, he was unable to fall asleep again. He felt clear-minded and energetic all over and didn’t feel like sleeping at all. He felt as fresh as a white cabbage being scooped from the water after soaking overnight. He usually felt sleepy when he woke up in the morning; however, today, he felt like a polished superb crystal that was free of impurities.
After failing to fall asleep, Zhang Tie decided to get up instantly. With only a pair of underwear on, Zhang Tie twisted his bottom as he stood beside his bed. No matter what he did, nobody could see him. He continued to stretch his waist by rotating it sixty circles clockwise and sixty circles counterclockwise, ignoring the obscenity of his actions. He had become used to this habit. His father had told him that men should twist their waists in the morning to strengthen their Yang Qi. Zhang Tie had always kept this in his mind, and later on, he slightly understood it. One day, when he saw his elder brother doing the piston movements with a woman, he understood the function of strengthening one’s Yang Qi. Henceforth, he would slightly practice this series of actions every morning. Although Zhang Tie was still a virgin, for more than ten years, with the exception of his wet dreams, he had not ejaculated once. Men... hm... hm... always wished to be more fierce in that aspect.
The moment he began to do that exercise, Zhang Tie lowered his head and noticed a high-raising tent. Removing his underwear, he found his #$% to be really big. Raising its head with blue veins all over, it was truly terrifying. Zhang Tie tried to bend it, but it was as hard as a stick.
“Stand for a while. Maybe one day, you will perform well!” Zhang Tie thought to himself.
After twisting his bottom, he opened the small window in the attic. He lifted his legs and stretched waist several times. Zhang Tie then put on his clothes and lightly stepped downstairs. After cleaning his teeth, he made breakfast for his family. Their breakfast consisted of nothing but porridge. The rice had already puffed well last night and had already turned soft. These grains of white rice were really appetizing.
After the rice grains were puffed, Zhang Tie started to make a fire. Blackhot City was rich in coal resources, thus coal was very cheap in Blackhot City. Residents were able to buy a small wheelbarrow full of coal cinder balls made from broken coal cinders with a few dozen copper coins. Although coal cinder balls were cheap, skill was necessary to burn them in the chamber of a stove. Thankfully, after many years of “practice”, Zhang Tie had already become very familiar with this. In the past, Zhang Tie needed the aid of some pine oil to help ignite it, but he was now able to make fire with the coal cinder balls within ten minutes without the usage of pine oil.
Ten minutes later, Zhang Tie made a fire in the chamber of the stove. He washed the pot and began to boil water. With the fierce flames under the pot, the water soon began to boil. He then put the puffed rice into the pot and covered it. Zhang Tie glanced at the fire and smiled. He found it very satisfying to faithfully serve his family and give them a surprise.
It would take at least one hour to boil the puffed rice in the pot, thus he had a lot of free time. He walked around the kitchen and thought for a while. Zhang Tie then fetched several big ceramic mugs from the rice brew store, retrieved some water from the well in the backyard, and thoroughly washed them. After he finished washing the mugs, he put them under the eaves of the backyard to dry them. At this moment, day had already broken. After working for almost an hour, Zhang Tie’s forehead was covered in sweat. The moment Zhang Tie had placed the last ceramic mug under the eaves, he found his mom standing at the doorway from the kitchen to the backyard, staring at Zhang Tie in surprise.
“Guoguo, what are you doing?”
“Ah, mom, I got up early, so I wanted to do something with my hands!”
“Foolish boy, you’re not grown up yet, you can’t just get up so early!” his mom walked over and wiped the sweat off Zhang Tie. She went and removed the pot lid to check the porridge. Looking at the porridge, she knew when Zhang Tie got up. “Go take a nap. You’ve finished most of the housework this morning. Come down and eat breakfast when you wake up!”
“Mom, I’m really not sleepy!” Zhang Ti explained languidly.
“Come here, tell mom. Have you gotten a girlfriend recently and spent all the money I gave you? I feel like you were strange since last time...” His mom moved closer to him and added, “If you want money, I’ll give you some. A man should be generous to attract a girl. I have some saved up money, but you can’t tell your dad about it!”
Staring at his mom, Zhang Tie was at a loss of words. What!? In the end, his protests were useless and was almost kicked back upstairs by his mom while his ears were pinched. His mom insisted for him to take a nap...
“You are still growing, so you have to sleep more to grow taller!” Seeing his mom’s murmuring shadow, Zhang Tie was moved and went back to his room and pretended to return to sleep.
But in reality, he was not able to fall asleep at all. Thinking for a while, he tightly closed the door and the window of his room and entered meditation for the Castle of Black Iron once more. Due to experiencing this a couple of times, he was able to link to the Castle of Black Iron much easier than before. This time, the door appeared naturally in his mind, almost at the moment Zhang Tie closed his eyes and thought about the “Castle of Black Iron”. He said to himself “Enter” and entered the Castle of Black Iron.
——Handsome and Magnificent Castle Lord, welcome to the Castle of Black Iron!
The same dialog box appeared in front of Zhang Tie’s eyes and disappeared instantly. although it was disgusting, Zhang Tie was really happy each time he saw the appellation that he made for himself.
Handsome... Magnificent... Lord... Hahahhaha...
Raising his chest, Zhang Tie stood still and looked around. Through his naked eyes, he found no change to the land — a strange small tree, a vast land, plus the steel bar he erected.
He then circled the strange small tree, the “Manjusaka Karma Fruit Tree”, twice and found no changes which made him lose interest. He decided to check on the seeds he sowed yesterday. When the niblets and potatoes came to mind, his excitement instantly rose. He ran to the marked land and squatted on the ground to observe them carefully.
Only a night had passed, nothing had happened to the niblets at all. Zhang Tie was also not that anxious, as he had learned at school that it would take about a week since it was buried in the soil for a niblet to sprout. It was still too early at this point. Thinking of this, Zhang Tie patted his head fiercely and cursed that he had forgotten to water them. This was a really low level error; however, it was still not too late to remember it. He planned to bring in two barrels of water next time. After checking the buried niblets, he moved to the buried potatoes. Surprisingly, some of the stubborn potatoes had already sprouted. He specifically put those sprouted parts upside down yesterday when he buried them. Unexpectedly, some of them should have sprouted this morning. The fresh saplings broke out overnight. Like bean sprouts being soaked in water overnight, they had grown up a lot. The potato with the largest twig had already sprouted out two fresh tender shoots. Marvelous!
Zhang Tie was thrilled, “#$er, with this land alone, I would never have to worry about starving to death even if only potatoes could be planted in it!” Zhang Tie could only make this association at this moment.
After a while, Zhang Tie opened the basic attributes panel of the Castle of Black Iron:
——Castle of Black Iron
——Length: 1 Krosa
——Width: 1 Krosa
——Aura Value: 0.3
——Merit Value: 3
——Basic Energy Storage: 0.2
——Special Output: Void
Merit value rose by 1 as expected. Aura value also rose from 0 to 0.3 which instantly attracted the attention of Zhang Tie...