Chapter 6: Spending the Remaining Money on Firewood

When the roaring head fell off, the roaring immediately stopped. Only a ferocious face remained facing Li Si directly, staring at him with venomous resentment.

“Killed low-level ghost creature, Walking Corpse. Obtained 2 soul points.”

Li Si pondered slightly in his heart and thought of the earlier information, which had said that the contract required 2 points, while now he had also obtained 2 points. This showed that the soul points required for a contract and the soul points obtained from a kill were the same.

This zombie was probably only a corpse that had risen in recent days, so it was extremely weak and could not be compared to the Decapitated Ghost at all. That was why even someone as physically weak as him could chop off the zombie’s head.

At this moment, the others had seen the zombie roar earlier and had also seen Li Si decisively chop off its head. They immediately gathered around.

“Scholar Li is truly a divine man.”

“Truly impressive. Earlier, I secretly saw Scholar Li send the fox demon flying with one punch. As expected, he is accomplished in both letters and arms.”

“I never imagined Scholar Li actually had the ability to subdue demons.”

“As expected, a scholar carries awe-inspiring righteous qi. Ghosts and evil cannot invade him.”

“Fortunately, Scholar Li drove away the fox demon and subdued the zombie. Otherwise, who knows how many people would have suffered misfortune.”

The onlookers immediately began discussing it, with no lack of words of amazement, fear, and praise.

Seeing everyone praise and compliment him, even Li Si felt his face grow hot.

So he could not help cupping his hands and interrupting them, saying, “Everyone, this zombie has already had its baleful force broken by me, but there is still a possibility it may revive. It would be best for us to burn it today. Could someone help me burn this corpse?”

As soon as his words fell, the young man who had handed Li Si the machete earlier came out with several others. He cupped his hands to Li Si and said, “Leave this matter to us. We make a living selling firewood, so we can just use today’s firewood to burn this corpse.”

Li Si handed the machete back to him, then took out the remaining twenty or so copper coins from his sleeve and passed them to the young man. “Take this money as compensation. Consider it my purchase of that firewood.”

“How could I accept this? Teacher has already shown us great kindness by subduing demons and eliminating devils for us. We are only taking out some firewood. How could we take your money?” When the young man saw that Li Si wanted to give him money, he immediately refused.

Li Si did not say much and directly stuffed the money into the young man’s hand. He smiled and said, “I live alone, so this money is of little use to me. But all of you have family members to support. How can you work for a whole day for nothing? If it still is not enough, come to my house to get more.”

“It’s enough, it’s enough. Thank you.” The young man immediately felt as if a gentleman would die for one who truly understood him, and tears nearly came from his eyes.

Life was not easy for the people of this world. Many people already had to spend enormous effort just to get a mouthful of food. This was the first time he had seen someone of Li Si’s class who still understood their hardships.

“A true man need not imitate the manner of a little girl,” Li Si scolded with a smile. Then he cupped his hands to everyone and said, “I still have matters to attend to, so I will not keep you company. Ah, there is one more matter I should inform you all of. I also hope everyone can notify one another. This afternoon during the Shen hour, I will give lessons at home. If there are young children in your family, they may come to my home to receive their first lessons.”

Since Li Si had come here, he felt there really was not much to do. If he were on Earth, he could still play on his phone, browse Weibo, or play games. But here, there really were no entertainment activities.

As for the special entertainment activities here, Li Si expressed that he was not that kind of person. Fine, the main reason was his life and safety. What if primal yang had a restraining effect on ghosts? For example, virgin boy urine warding off evil?

So in his spare time, Li Si wanted to teach the children here and enjoy the feeling of being a teacher.

Seeing that everyone agreed, Li Si turned and went home. With no money in hand, his idea of adding extra dishes today was ruined. However, there was still some cured meat at home that Butcher Yu had given him, so he could go home and cook some cured meat to make do.

As he thought about this, it did not take long before he returned home. He discovered that he had still gained something from this transmigration, because in his original world, he himself had no father or mother either and had grown up in an orphanage. Although he had also worked hard, often earned scholarships, and taken part-time jobs alongside his studies, he had never had much savings. Almost all his money had gone toward tuition.

Now, he had a two-bedroom, one-hall house, along with a fairly large courtyard. He was also someone who owned a home. Moreover, the original owner still had one hundred taels of silver. One tael of silver was 1,000 copper coins. Based on the purchasing power here of 0.5 yuan per copper coin, one hundred taels of silver roughly counted as about 50,000 yuan. For someone like him, whose savings had never reached ten thousand before, this already counted as a windfall.

It was only a pity that the house leaked a little, so he had to find someone to repair it. But after thinking about it again, Li Si felt he would go find someone tomorrow. There were many matters today, and the sun was blazing. It did not look like it would rain.

Later, he also had to do some morning exercise and train his body. This body truly was far too weak.

After returning home, Li Si went to the rear courtyard. First, he took off the long robe he was wearing and changed into lighter clothes. Then he did some stretching exercises and began running around the rear courtyard.

After running only a few laps, Li Si felt his body could not endure it, so he began to walk. After walking for not long, he really could not keep going, so he found a stone step and sat down.

After resting for a while, Li Si began running again. After running for not long, he began walking again, then stopped to rest. Once he had rested enough, he continued running. Repeating this cycle, he ran for almost an hour. Finally, he could not run anymore.

At the end, he endured his fatigue and did stretching exercises, then massaged the few muscles he had.

Looking at the sun, it was already noon. Li Si walked to the kitchen doorway, took down a piece of cured meat, and went to the large vat. He used a gourd ladle to scoop up water and wash the dust from the surface of the cured meat. Then he entered the kitchen and used a kitchen knife to cut the cured meat into slices.

After that, he arranged the cured meat nicely on a plate and sprinkled some relatively finely crushed chili powder over it.

When sprinkling the chili powder, Li Si felt somewhat fortunate. Luckily, there were chilies in this place. Otherwise, he would not know how to get through the days ahead. One had to know that in the world he had stayed in before, chilies had only been introduced near the end of the Ming dynasty. Before that, there was no way to eat chilies.

Li Si then rinsed the rice, placed it on a plate, and poured in an appropriate amount of clean water.

He washed the pot with water, then poured clean water into the bottom, placed the bamboo steamer tray above the water, and set the prepared rice and cured meat onto the tray.

After covering the pot with the lid, Li Si took some wood from beneath the eaves by the kitchen doorway and brought it into the kitchen. He stuffed some wood into the stove, leaving certain gaps between the pieces, then used the machete to chop a piece of wood into rough, fibrous kindling.

Li Si took out the fire striker, shook it a few times, and a flame emerged. He placed the flame against the rough part of the kindling. Once it caught fire, he stuffed it into the stove. Before long, the firewood began burning.

After finishing all this, Li Si walked to the steps at the kitchen doorway and sat down.

“It really is lonely.”

Li Si sighed. After coming to this world, he did not even have anyone to talk to. The original owner had also been someone who liked staying at home and reading books of sages. Outside, he had no real friends. Although he got along amicably with the neighbours, he had no deep friendships with them.

Thinking of reading, Li Si stood and walked toward the room opposite the bedroom. That had originally been where the original owner’s parents lived. Later, after the original owner’s parents met with an accident, the original owner transformed this room into a study.

He had not fully received the original owner’s memories, so it was necessary for him to read some books and learn about certain circumstances of this world.