Zhang Chen put the pancake in his mouth; the pancake was sweet, but Zhang Chen’s mood was quite complex.
"No matter where you are in this world, there will always be good people and bad people. There are bad people in the good camp, and good people in the bad camp. It’s just that everyone belongs to different camps. I don’t belong to the court camp, nor to the rebel camp. What does it matter to me which camp he belongs to? He gave me a pancake to eat! The court camp is righteous but doesn’t give me a single grain of rice, yet they still want to charge me rent." Zhang Chen put the rest of the sweet pancake into his bosom and continued walking in the wind and rain holding the jar.
"They’re just a group of people who can’t survive; what’s wrong with them?" Zhang Chen muttered, holding the pancake tightly with both hands: "As long as neither camp involves me, it’s fine."
He wasn’t afraid of poison in the pancake; if someone got poisoned to death, it wouldn’t go unnoticed by the villagers, and if they reported it to the officials, they’d be exposed.
Zhang Chen brought the white flour pancake to Mrs. Zhang’s home, only to find Mrs. Zhang working on handicrafts. Zhang Chen hugged the two little ones, then took out the white flour pancake, which immediately made the two little ones cheer and bite into the pancakes without even considering their elder brother.
"Mother, have one." Zhang Chen handed a white flour pancake to Mrs. Zhang.
Mrs. Zhang glanced at the white flour pancake, then at Zhang Chen, but did not take it. She lowered her head and continued embroidering: "You eat it. You’re still growing, and it’d be a waste for me to eat it."
Looking at the emaciated figure of Mrs. Zhang, so frail and curled up, Zhang Chen felt a pang in his nose, then forcibly stuffed the pancake into Mrs. Zhang’s hand: "It’s just a pancake; eating one more won’t make you fat. Besides, our family won’t be short on food in the future. Please eat! If you don’t eat, I won’t be able to eat either. How can a mother not enjoy, letting her child eat first? If this spreads, people might point fingers and call me unfilial. Mother, do you want to put me under the name of unfiliality?"
Zhang Chen’s words were firm, leaving Mrs. Zhang no room to refuse and directly employing moral coercion.
Mrs. Zhang looked at Zhang Chen, then at the pancake, and finally extended her calloused hands to take the pancake and chewed it carefully.
Zhang Chen also picked up the pancake and started eating; it had been years since he had eaten a white flour pancake.
"I need to tell you something, Mother." Zhang Chen said while eating, looking at Mrs. Zhang.
Mrs. Zhang looked at Zhang Chen, who said: "There’s likely going to be a severe drought in the future. Barren lands might lead to people exchanging children for food. We need to prepare early, always ready to relocate."
Upon hearing this, Mrs. Zhang stopped eating the pancake and showed a hint of panic in her eyes: "Where did you hear this news?"
Zhang Chen explained: "This land is about to experience a Walking Flood Dragon, absorbing the water vapor from heaven and earth. Have you seen the rain outside? It dries up as soon as it hits the ground because the Flood Dragon is absorbing water. If it continues like this, there won’t be any water in the skies or underground, plants will perish from drought, beasts in the mountains will starve, and fields will yield nothing. A disaster is imminent."
Mrs. Zhang’s face changed drastically, looking helplessly at Zhang Chen: "What should we do?"
Zhang Chen smiled: "Don’t worry; if worst comes to worst, we’ll just join the refugees."
Mrs. Zhang was momentarily stunned, worry deepening on her face.
Zhang Chen was just giving Mrs. Zhang a heads-up today.
Zhang Chen avoided Mrs. Zhang’s attention, tested several times, secretly using Water Extraction Technique to fill all the household water jars, buckets, and basins with water, then sealed them with yellow clay to perfectly prevent evaporation, before taking his leave.
Zhang Chen got up to leave, passing through the rain, returning home where he stood by the basket with the wild hen, eyes full of anticipation: "If my Water Control Technique could control the water in the human body, this power would truly defy the heavens. Then who would be my rival? Without waiting to fight, I could directly use the water within their body to pierce their heart, ensuring their death. Or I could explode their blood vessels or block them, torturing them to death.
"It needs to work; I need to experiment." Zhang Chen looked at the hen in the cage, then directly activated the skill.
"Gaw~ Gaw~ Gaw~"
The wild hen in the cage clucked leisurely, unaware of the impending danger, looking at Zhang Chen with puzzled eyes, seeming to beg for food, its sounds full of leisurely ease.
Zhang Chen’s eyes were fixed on the hen, full of fervor, the skill already deployed, covering the hen in the cage:
"It should work! It’s all water, and water is under my control. It must work! It must work!"
Along with Zhang Chen’s skill activation, the hen cocked its head, looking at Zhang Chen, seemingly observing a fool, its gaze filled with curiosity.
"Why is this happening?"
With the activation of the Golden Finger, Zhang Chen’s eyes revealed disbelief, as his Golden Finger could not affect the hen at all, which calmly watched him, eyes serene, seemingly feeling nothing.
"Isn’t it said that the human body has sixty percent water? Why is this happening?" Zhang Chen couldn’t understand the change.
Zhang Chen took out prepared wild vegetables, chopped them up, fed them to the hen, contemplating the discrepancy. After a long time, he had a flash of inspiration:
"There are two possibilities; the first is that because it’s a living being, the water within life is different from outside nature, containing the breath of life or some peculiar power, so my skill can’t interfere with the water within living beings. Therefore, I cannot seize the water from living organisms!"
"The second type is the nature of the blood. Blood is like lubricant—although it’s a liquid, it’s absolutely not ordinary water. My Water Control Technique can only manipulate water, while the body’s substance is blood. Blood isn’t water; it can only be considered a type of liquid."
Zhang Chen pondered internally; there were probably only these two possibilities. Whichever one it was, both seemed plausible, and Zhang Chen couldn’t tell them apart at the moment.
"Knowledge from my past life truly can’t be fully trusted because placed in reality, it’s just not the case." Zhang Chen mumbled to himself, then pulled out a wild chicken to directly verify his thoughts.
He directly drained the chicken’s blood; as the chicken died, Zhang Chen began boiling water to pluck feathers, gutting and cleaning it out. Before long, he had processed the wild chicken thoroughly.
Looking at the tender white chicken, Zhang Chen activated his skill. Immediately, the chicken’s texture changed at a visible speed, as countless water vapors were drawn out from the chicken’s body, turning it into dried meat instantly.
"It worked! Seems like my first guess was confirmed. There’s indeed water inside living organisms. My skill can extract water from dead organisms but can’t do so from living beings, proving that living bodies have a mysterious Qi mechanism that renders my skill ineffective."
Gazing at the dried chicken meat in his hand, Zhang Chen’s eyes shone brighter: "It looks like I’ve discovered a way to preserve food. As long as I extract moisture from the meat, it’ll be preserved indefinitely without spoilage—a divine skill in future catastrophe years!"
This truly is a divine skill, essentially a natural preservative.
"Indeed, there are no useless skills in this world, only useless people," Zhang Chen said, stroking the dry wild chicken. The chicken was now completely dehydrated by Zhang Chen, devoid of even a bit of moisture, yet still edible. When he wants to eat it later, he just has to cook it in water, and it’ll taste just like freshly slaughtered chicken.
"A very nice skill!" Zhang Chen nodded to himself, silently giving a thumbs-up to his fourth skill, feeling he’d been too narrow-minded before.
After considering his Golden Finger affairs, despite being slightly disappointed about the inability to control water within the human body, mastering the drying technique proved highly useful for future food preservation. So Zhang Chen happily stored the chicken meat and then sat at a table to practice his calligraphy.
Even though he couldn’t read, he continued to practice writing, to ensure he wouldn’t fall behind when he does eventually learn.
The night passed without incident, except for some noise from next door.
Zhang Chen went to feed the hornets up the mountain, then with a basket on his back, he directly headed to the ancient tomb. Seeing the still-burning charcoal fire, he stripped naked and entered the cave to dig the earth.
The cave was hot, and before long, Zhang Chen was drenched in sweat, yet the ice within the cave was melting fast.
Today’s digging made Zhang Chen particularly vigorous, especially since he saw the continual growth of experience points, which excited him greatly.
[Experience Points +8]
[Experience Points +18]
[Experience Points +16]
[Experience Points +19]
...
Once the thawed ground was fully excavated, Zhang Chen’s eyes turned to his Golden Finger Interface:
[Name: Zhang Chen]
[1st Skill (Second Tier): Light of the True God (0/5000)]
[2nd Skill (Unranked): Dragon Qi (0/2000)]
[3rd Skill (Unranked): Blood Control (0/100000)]
[4th Skill (Unranked): Water Control Technique (0/1000)]
[Points: 4990]
"Damn it, is this intentional? Just ten points short?" Looking at his Golden Finger Interface, especially realizing he was only ten points away from upgrading, Zhang Chen felt vexed.
Just ten more points, and he could upgrade the Light of the True God to defeat the Fox Spirit! Perhaps just one more dig’s worth!
PS: Continuing tomorrow, upgrading for everyone, starting the showdown with the Fox Spirit, getting back on track. Requesting continued readings from you, my friends.