C357 – Thousand Gold Grains

Posted on May 6, 2019 by AzureOrchid92

Although the mountain wall was almost perpendicular to the ground that, for many people, it would be difficult to climb, for Shao Xuan, it was nothing. After all, he had been doing this kind of climb up a mountain often in the tribe when hunting, so he was experienced.

The old man stood below, watching Shao Xuan leap from the ground. He cleverly crawled from below up the mountain wall like a gecko sticking to the wall, looking comfortable and not struggling at all. Seeing this scene, the old man could not help but raise his gray eyebrows, staring at the back of Shao Xuan with burning eyes.

Shao Xuan, who was crawling up the mountain wall, sensed something. He stopped and turned back to look at the old man below.

The old man smiled oddly, then waved his hand at Shao Xuan, pointing to the grass on the mountain wall. “Go on, continue.”

Shao Xuan suppressed his questions and continued to climb up. Then, he reached out to the grass to pluck it, intending to directly pull it down.

“Hey! Don’t pull it, don’t pull! Dig the roots. With the roots it can last longer. Just dig with my knife, then!” The old man pulled a strange bronze knife out of his leather bag, then threw it over to Shao Xuan.

It’s a lot of crap. Shao Xuan abdomen.

[E/N: Don’t get this. (ﾉ_-;)…]

The throw was accurate. Shao Xuan left his one hand clasped on the wall of the mountain, while the other hand caught the knife. Then, with the knife, he dug out the white striped grass.

The knife looked strange, but very suitable for digging this kind of grass growing on the wall of the mountain. It was not long before the grass root was dug out.

“Done.” Shao Xuan threw the knife and grass down.

The old man hurried over, ignoring the falling knife, and carefully caught the fallen grass.

“What do you use this grass for?” Shao Xuan came down from the wall of the mountain and saw the old man cut down a piece of grass and put it in his mouth.

“Medicine, useful for bone injuries.” The old man did not say much, just kept vigorously chewing on the leaves, the muscles on his face twitching. After chewing and swallowing it, he felt that it was not enough, so he cut down a smaller leaf, then kept chewing.

Remembering the old man’s bone injury on his arm, Shao Xuan stared at the grass. He also saw the old man chewing on the grass changing his expression like his pain was lessening. Shao Xuan asked, “How does it taste?”

The old man didn’t say much, just cut off a small leaf and handed it to Shao Xuan. “Taste it?”

“Can I eat it without an injury?”

“You can as long as you don’t eat a lot. It’s okay.”

“Then, I will.” Shao Xuan took the leaves. When he had dug it out, he did not look closely, so only now did he find that the veins of the grass looked flexible. However, it was harder than he imagined, especially the parts with the thickest white stripes or veins. It seemed like a hard snap could have it make a crisp sound.

After taking a bite of the leaf’s tip first, Shao Xuan felt a cool bitter taste but did not find any side effect in his body. Then, he bit half a leaf, chewing it all up. This time, after eating the more veiny parts, the rich bitterness offset the cool taste down.

No wonder the old man’s face muscles were twitching like it was bitter.

The old man also wanted to see Shao Xuan’s bitter face, but found that Shao Xuan just wrinkled into a frown. There was no other expression.

Did it not taste good? Thought the old man. If so, then this young man is so pathetic that he can’t taste the taste of the world.

Ignoring the old man’s thoughts, Shao Xuan ate the whole leaf after chewing. The bitter taste gradually faded away, but the cool feeling remained. His exhaustion lessened a lot, but as for his bones, since he had no bone injuries, the changes in Shao Xuan was not obvious. He just felt that there seemed to be some power flowing into his bones.

Now that the old man was all right, Shao Xuan turned to leave. This time, Shao Xuan just moved, but the old man hurriedly stopped him.

“Hey, wait. You’re going that way? I’ll come with you.” The old man straightened up and put the white striped grass carefully inside a skin bag.

Shao Xuan turned to look at the old man. He didn’t say anything, waiting for the old man to follow up his words.

“I’m here to find something too. Although I’m not familiar with the area, I know more than you do. Don’t think that the area is desolate, there’s a lot of poisonous plants here. If anything happens to you, I can help,” said the old man.

“What else?” Shao Xuan waited.

“If it’s not inconvenient for you, if I find anything, you can help me get it.” The old man thought it was a really good idea, “Ok, that’s it.”

Shao Xuan ignored him and went on along his planned route.

The old man quickly kept up, continuing to persuade Shao Xuan.

When the old man’s spit was almost dry, Shao Xuan asked, “What are you looking for here?”

“I’m looking for…” The old man suddenly cut off his words. He seemed a little reluctant and didn’t not want to say it.

“Then, forget it.”

Seeing Shao Xuan continue forward, the old man followed, sighing, “Have you ever heard of ‘thousand gold grains’?”

Thousand gold grains?

The name had “gold”, but it certainly did not refer to gold, the metal. Since the old man came here, and seeing his actions, he should be looking for a plant? Since the name was with the word “gold”, it either referred to its color or it was used to highlight its value.

After thinking, Shao Xuan shook his head. “Never heard of it.”

The old man looked at Shao Xuan with an expression thinking he was really ignorant. “I came to this place just to find ‘thousand gold grains’. According to reports, it’s a plant that produces thousands of grains and is drought-tolerant and can grow in barren places where rainwater is scarce.”

Food crops?

“So you came here to try your luck?” Shao Xuan asked. This place was really barren too, although there was a stream in the mountains. However, this place looked like it did not experience much rain.

“Yes, we grow crops in my land, but there was little rain in these two years, and I heard that the drought will last for several years.” As he was speaking, the old man was extremely emotional. But complaining was useless, so he came looking for these drought-tolerant food crops.

“Don’t you have a witch or a wizard? Can’t they call for rain?” Shao Xuan asked again. He didn’t know if this side has tribes that could ask for rain, so he was probing. In this place, in addition to some tribe’s shaman, there were some independent full-time shamans that many people would pay some remuneration to to please. Thereupon, they would help solve some of the people’s problems they couldn’t solve themselves.

As the old man listened, he showed an angry face. “Forget that bunch of crap! Saying their family were descendants of ancient sorcerers, but they couldn’t even beg for the rain to come down, useless!”

Shao Xuan: “…”

He dared to call the shamans “useless”. So far, this was the first time Shao Xuan had heard such, and it was in an angry tirade. Even the people of the Macca tribe would be absolutely afraid to say that shamans were useless. Of the people he had encountered, majority of them even held shamans in a kind of awe-inspiring mindset. Except for the one next to him.

If they couldn’t solve the problem of rain, they could only work on the crops. No matter what the old man’s temper was, trekking for a thousand miles trek in order to find a solution was admirable.

“That ‘thousand gold grains’, what does it look like?” Shao Xuan asked.

“It’s the thousand gold grains! Of course, I haven’t seen it with my own eyes.”

“Never seen it, then how will you find it?”

“I can recognize it when I see it.” The old man didn’t think there was anything wrong with it at all.

“By the way, what’s your name?” asked the old man.

“Shao Xuan, and you old man?”

“My name is Ju.” The old man also wrote the word on the ground with a branch as he introduced himself.

The old man did not ask which tribe Shao Xuan was from. He was not interested in which tribe he came from.

Shao Xuan was ready to ask again, wanting to inquire about the Flaming Horns tribe from the old man, but the old man suddenly spoke. “That, Shao something, get that for me too.”

“I won’t. I’m not your slave.” Shao Xuan also did not turn back, instead walked forward.

Seeing that Shao Xuan had already gone far, the old man finally realized the tone he was using. He hurriedly went to slow down and pull Shao Xuan. “Please help me. Take that one for me too.”

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