Clan Rise: Starting as a Grandfather

Chapter 208: Chapter 202: Tea Trees, Fruit Trees, Winemaking

Yu Qingyi stayed at Chongshan Pass for three more days in order to take care of the three children before she prepared to return to An Yuan City.

However, just as they were about to leave Chongshan Pass, someone from the Marquis Mansion delivered a letter.

”Mrs. Yang, this is a letter from our Marquis to Master Yang. Please kindly take it back with you!”

A personal follower respectfully handed the letter to Yu Qingyi, who, after receiving the letter, smiled and said, ”Thank you, young man. Ding Qiu, please take this young man down for some tea!”

Ding Qiu responded, stepped forward, and made a gesture of invitation. The personal follower bowed with his fists clasped and then exited the hall.

After they left the hall, Ding Qiu first took the personal follower to the front yard’s gatehouse to sit for a while, and after giving him a small bag of silver, he then saw the visitor off.

After all, since it was a person from Marquis Changping, it was natural to give a reward when sending a letter.

Inside the hall, Yu Qingyi held the letter hesitantly for a moment; she wanted to open it and see, but ultimately, she chose not to.

She felt that as a woman, it was not proper for her to pry into matters between men.

Therefore, she carefully put the letter away and then began preparing for the return trip to An Yuan City.

The departure of a wealthy household was always complicated with numerous things needed to be prepared.

Originally, this trip consisted solely of female family members, so they had to be especially cautious, and now, with the addition of three children, naturally, more preparations were needed.

Fortunately, they had brought enough people with them this time, otherwise this would indeed be a hassle.

While Yu Qingyi was preparing to return to An Yuan City, Yang Zhenshan was busy in the Spiritual Spring Space within An Yuan City.

In two years’ time, the Spiritual Spring Space had expanded several times; now, the land within the space spanned over ten acres, looking extremely vast.

The dark soil was filled with herbs and fruit trees, and in the center, several channels of water were drawn from the stone pond by Yang Zhenshan, spreading out in all directions.

The one-meter-wide water channels, constructed of blue stones, flowed like small streams.

Beside the stone pond, there were also three wooden huts, which Yang Zhenshan had purposely built for storage, containing most of his wealth.

Most of those items obtained over two years ago were still stacked in these huts.

Although Yang Zhenshan had taken away quite a few items over the past two years, the remaining items still crammed the three huts to the brim.

Besides, the harvested herbs in the space, after being processed, were also stored by Yang Zhenshan.

He was reluctant to sell these herbs.

The herbs grown in the space were much better than those outside. If sold as ordinary herbs, it would definitely be a loss for Yang Zhenshan.

Since the processed herbs could be stored for a long time, Yang Zhenshan decided to keep them for now.

Additionally, over the past two years, Yang Zhenshan had learned to brew wine. He used the Spiritual Spring Water and the space’s herbs to brew quite a bit of wine, now stored in a cellar underneath the huts.

The medicinal wine brewed with Spiritual Spring Water needed no further explanation.

Just like the Ten-Complete Great Replenishing Pill, drinking a bowl could energize one throughout the night, although Yang Zhenshan could last a night without wine, drinking it made him even more vigorous.

Yang Zhenshan even suspected that the reason Yu Qingyi couldn’t conceive might be because he was too vigorous.

In the space, Yang Zhenshan first went to check on the tea plants he had recently planted. Seeing that the tea plants were growing well, Yang Zhenshan nodded in satisfaction.

Tea leaves are very valuable in Chongshan Town, especially good tea, which is said to be worth more than gold.

Yang Zhenshan had developed a habit of drinking tea, and in order to ensure he could enjoy good tea, he specifically asked Luo Shang to arrange for people to bring a batch of tea trees from Jiangnan.

Although there aren’t many tea trees now, in a few years, Yang Zhenshan would surely achieve the freedom to drink tea as he pleases.

Now, Yang Zhenshan no longer needed to use the Spiritual Spring Space to make money; in fact, he had never used the Spiritual Spring Space to earn money from the beginning.

Initially, he intended to grow medicinal herbs for money, but since he acquired a large amount of gold and silver, he no longer needed to painstakingly grow medicinal herbs to earn money.

Thus, the herbs currently growing in the Spiritual Spring Space were mainly cultivated for precious medicines, and besides Treasure Medicine, Yang Zhenshan also planted many fruit trees.

The reasons for planting fruit trees were firstly, because Chongshan Town lacked fruits, and Yang Zhenshan wanted the children to have some fresh fruits. Secondly, he wanted to brew some fruit wine. As for the third reason, it was to cultivate Spirit Fruits.

Spirit Fruits are also considered a type of Treasure Medicine, but compared to Treasure Medicines, Spirit Fruits are even rarer.

In the mountains there are occasionally one or two Treasure Medicines, but there has never been a Spirit Fruit.

To find Spirit Fruits, one must search in the vast mountains in the southwest of Da Rong.

Unlike most Treasure Medicines, Spirit Fruits are renewable resources.

Once Treasure Medicines are dug up, they are gone and one must look elsewhere, whereas Spirit Fruits, after being harvested, can bear fruits again in a few years or decades.

Da Rong Royal Family has a Spirit Fruit Tree, which, it is said, allowed the great ancestor to become a Martial Arts Master and provided the foundation for him to raise an army and compete for dominance.

However, that Spirit Fruit Tree is a secret of the royal family, with only rumors in the outside world, and few know what type of tree it is or where it is located.

There are also rumors in the worldly society that Spirit Fruit Trees are ordinary fruit trees that have transformed, which is why Yang Zhenshan wanted to try and cultivate Spirit Fruit Trees in the Spiritual Spring Space.

Yang Zhenshan moved through the lush orchard, looking at the mature fruits, somewhat scratching his head.

It seemed he had planted too many fruit trees.

Peaches, plums, pear trees, apricot trees, jujube trees, and more, all bearing fruits now, far too many to be eaten completely.

And for brewing wine, these, too, were more than needed.

”It’s a pity, but they’ll just go to waste!”

Yang Zhenshan was somewhat helpless, and could only start picking with a bamboo basket.

He wasn’t a fruit vendor, and definitely couldn’t sell fruits.

Moreover, taking out so much fruit, he also found it difficult to explain their source.

Taking a small amount home to eat, he could say it was bought from outside, but if he sold large quantities, then he would need a source.

Most importantly, he was not lacking Silver now and did not need to do such a thing.

Yang Zhanshan then started to brew fruit wine, which was much simpler to make, not needing much human intervention, just letting it naturally ferment.

Just like Monkey Wine, during the fruit ripening season, monkeys would throw the leftover fruits haphazardly in cave rocks, where the fruits naturally ferment the sugars, turning into wine juice and forming natural fruit wine.

The fruit wine Yang Zhenshan wanted was this type.

After being busy for most of the day, Yang Zhenshan had filled seven or eight large vats in the cellar.

Eventually, he also visited that orchard, picked a small basket of fruit, and then left the space.

As the Spiritual Spring Space grew larger, he had already given up the thought of carefully managing it, aside from the special care needed for the Treasure Medicine, Yang Zhenshan was ready to let the other plants grow naturally.

In the future, what he needed to do was to transplant some plants that were not present in the space to enrich the diversity of plants in the Spiritual Spring Space, and also to draw a water channel to the newly expanded land.

Apart from this, Yang Zhenshan had no more time to do anything else.

Walking out of the space, Yang Zhenshan looked outside the door, seeing no one, he then changed his clothes and walked out of the room.

He called Wu Hai, ”These fruits have just been delivered by the Luo family, distribute them among the various rooms!”

The basket of fruit weighed about fifty kilograms, looking very fresh.

Although Wu Hai wondered where the Luo family got these fruits from, he didn’t ask.

As a servant, being cautious was a must, and there were many things he could not inquire about.

For instance, the official duties at the Front Office, he never asked about them, and Yang Zhenshan never mentioned them to him.

Similarly, dealings with the Luo family were personally handled by Yang Zhenshan, even Yu Qingyi didn’t intervene, let alone Wu Hai.

The Luo family was a good excuse, nowadays the Luo family had business dealings with many wealthy merchants in Jiangnan, transporting some fruits from Jiangnan wasn’t considered a difficult task.

Of course, fruits transported this way wouldn’t be fresh, so there was still a loophole.

But no one would care about the source of a basket of fruits, so this loophole seemed insignificant.

Yang Zhenshan took two fist-sized peaches from the basket, then, with them in his sleeves, walked out of the yard to the stables.

There were more than a dozen outstanding horses in the stable, among them Red Cloud was the most conspicuous.

With Yang Zhenshan’s discernment, Red Cloud was a dragon among horses, the most handsome among them.

Standing two meters tall at the shoulder, it appeared like a little monster.

Even standing among these superb warhorses, it still seemed like a crane among chickens.

Neighing,

Seeing Yang Zhenshan coming, the big, sparkling eyes of Red Cloud lit up instantly, neighing and pawing the ground continuously.

”Master, I brought you some tasty treats!”

Yang Zhenshan approached and gently stroked its mane.

The fiery red mane was smooth and soft, very comfortable to touch.

He handed the two peaches to Red Cloud, who swallowed them one by one.

After eating, it even nuzzled Yang Zhenshan with its head.

Yang Zhenshan chuckled, ”Come on, let’s go out for a run!”

Saying this, he untied Red Cloud’s reins and led it out of the stable.

As soon as they left the stable, Red Cloud became restless, its physique growing stronger and its vigor seemingly endless, so it was very reluctant to stay in the stable.

This was only manageable at the Yang Mansion, otherwise, it would have run out on its own to frolic.

Yang Zhenshan leaped onto the horse’s back, ”Slow down, we’ll run after leaving the city!”

Very soon, the man and horse left the Yang Mansion, and as Yang Zhenshan stepped out the main gate, ten personal followers immediately mounted their horses and followed.

Yang Zhenshan had twenty personal followers, who were the twenty soldiers he had brought from Yinghe Castle originally.

They usually did nothing, living in the yard next to the Yang family, and once Yang Zhenshan stepped out, they would take turns following.

A group of eleven riders moving on the street made many citizens step aside, but they didn’t show annoyance or dissatisfaction; instead, many of them greeted Yang Zhenshan with a cupped hand salute.

Yang Zhenshan responded with a smile and a nod.

As an official, Yang Zhenshan was very populace-friendly, often walking outside; if not going to City Gate Castle, then to the garrison outside the city, and sometimes he even went shopping with his family.

Thus, the city’s citizens were very familiar with him.

And since Yang Zhenshan never oppressed the citizens nor engaged in messy affairs, they respected him greatly.

Of course, if he went to the garrison, that respect would turn into reverence.