Ergou left.
As he walked, his steps were unsteady, and he looked thoroughly dejected.
He didn't even drink the meat porridge.
Because Zhao Xuan wasn't cheap enough to hand over half a pot of life-saving meat porridge to someone who had tried to screw him over.
Instead, he added half a ladle of water, reheated the rest of the porridge, and drank every last drop.
The night is the hardest to bear for a poor single man.
There was no entertainment, and no raw physical exercise to be had.
Even manual labor was out of the question—overexerting himself would only add insult to injury for his already malnourished body.
Zhao Xuan's home was bare of everything, and he couldn't afford an oil lamp.
After washing up and lying down on the bed, he found himself unable to sleep because it was too early, so he couldn't help pondering his way out.
His short-term plan was beyond doubt: rely on his talent to improve his archery, use his archery to secure game, and then trade it for food and other daily necessities to solve the problem of basic survival and live a good life.
But this was only temporary.
He couldn't possibly be a hunter and a farmer for the rest of his life.
Dishan Village was too remote and cut off from the news.
Once his situation improved a bit, he had to venture out and see if there were any channels for advancement.
With his talent, as long as there was a path to take, rising to high military and civil office was only a matter of time.
When that day came, taking in a few more beautiful concubines to live a life of luxury and pleasure—wouldn't that be wonderful?
Accompanied by sweet dreams, Zhao Xuan gradually drifted off to sleep.
……
The next day, just as dawn was breaking.
Aman-with-high-ambitions Zhao Xuan briskly got out of bed, filled his stomach with a bowl of clear porridge, and headed straight for the back mountain with his bow and arrows.
Today's mission: hunting.
Goal: Basic Archery progress +3, game weighing over 3 catties.
Climbing to the mountaintop in one go, Zhao Xuan distinctly felt the difference from yesterday when he had been panting and wheezing; today he was only slightly out of breath and felt mildly fatigued.
The physical enhancement brought to him by the improvement of Basic Archery was fully displayed at this moment.
His luck was pretty good today.
Looking out from the vantage point, he spotted a flock of turtledoves frolicking in the distance.
Counting roughly, there were no fewer than thirty or forty of them.
In a word: go get 'em.
Zhao Xuan unstrung his bow—no, unslung his bow, nocked an arrow, and crept forward on tiptoe. Reaching firing range without panic, he drew his bow, took aim, seized the right moment, and loosed an arrow.
With this unsporting sneak attack, the turtledoves didn't have time to dodge, and one of them was struck square in the chest, tumbling down from the treetop.
A triumphant start!
Zhao Xuan didn't rush impatiently to collect his trophy; instead, taking advantage of the other turtledoves fluttering about in panic, he loosed arrows in rapid succession.
After firing a dozen or so arrows, hard work paid off, and another unlucky bird was hit in a vital spot and lost its life.
The remaining turtledoves scattered and fled, gradually escaping his firing range.
As the Great Ancestor said, one should pursue the retreating enemy with remaining vigor.
Zhao Xuan hurriedly picked up his spoils and chased after the flock of turtledoves.
Along the way, he stopped, went, and shot intermittently.
It wasn't until the turtledoves were completely far away and out of reach that he reluctantly stopped.
Panting heavily with exhaustion, Zhao Xuan casually found a patch of grass to sit down, drank some water to rest, and tallied his haul.
Eight.
After a bout of chasing the fleeing flock, he had brought down a total of eight turtledoves, consuming eighty-two bamboo arrows.
His hit rate was close to one in ten.
The hit rate might not seem high, but considering that Zhao Xuan was using broken equipment like a bamboo bow and bamboo arrows, and was a complete novice, this was already an extraordinary performance.
Looking at his Basic Archery progress: 8/100, an increase of two points.
Highlight of the day: actual combat improves archery at least twice as fast as training.
This was easy to understand; a target doesn't move, but prey won't sit around waiting to die.
After resting for a moment and recovering his stamina, Zhao Xuan continued on his journey.
Before that, he needed to retrieve his stray bamboo arrows first.
This time he had brought a total of 130 bamboo arrows, and after consumption, there weren't many left.
If he didn't recover some of them, he would likely face a situation of gazing at the "birds" and sighing in despair.
While picking up arrows in a patch of grass, Zhao Xuan suddenly heard a rustling sound.
He looked up and saw a rabbit poking out two ears not far away.
<divclass="contentadv">
The moment their eyes met, Zhao Xuan decisively drew his bow and loosed an arrow, while the rabbit turned and bolted.
The bamboo arrow traced an arc through the air, landing accurately on the rabbit's back.
Good news: he hit it.
Bad news: the distance was too great, the momentum was insufficient, and the bamboo arrow was deflected by the rabbit's soft, smooth fur.
Damn it!
Zhao Xuan cursed inwardly.
It seemed that until he upgraded his equipment, flying creatures were his primary targets.
Thick-skinned and heavily-furred beasts like rabbits were just something to look at.
Such was reality; when an opportunity was placed right before him, he couldn't catch it without the strength.
Zhao Xuan made up his mind: once this batch of game was sold off, he would strive to trade for a strong bow and get several iron arrows.
He still understood the logic that an artisan must first sharpen his tools if he wants to do his work well.
After all, that rabbit from just now was worth twenty turtledoves.
Twenty!
Zhao Xuan almost lost the mood to gather his bamboo arrows.
He managed to collect fifty of them, then moved to another mountain to hunt for prey.
On his way up the mountain, his enhanced hearing allowed him to faintly hear "cluck-cluck" sounds.
Following the sound, he discovered a brood of mountain chickens in a ravine.
There were both large and small mountain chickens.
Four large ones, thirty to forty centimeters long, looked to be about two catties each—fatter even than the turtledoves.
Six small ones, like newly hatched chicks, about the size of eggs.
One of the mountain chickens was stepping on the back of another, up to goodness knows what mischief.
Zhao Xuan aimed his arrow at the mountain chicken that was bullying its companion. Among the whole lot, its feathers were the brightest, its build the plumpest, and its actions the most lewd.
As the bowstring was released, the bamboo arrow pierced the mountain chicken's eye, killing it instantly.
That'll teach you to pull filthy stunts in broad daylight.
As soon as the large mountain chicken died, the other three panicked and burrowed into the grass, disappearing from sight and leaving behind a few chirping chicks running in circles in the same spot, at a complete loss.
For a split second, Zhao Xuan had the impulse to take these little mountain chickens back to raise.
Yet when he picked up the big mountain chicken, the smell of chicken droppings that rushed into his nostrils made him dispel the thought.
He only had a single room; living in it himself and raising chickens at the same time—wasn't that just asking for trouble?
Forget it. Leaving them to roam free in nature without needing to feed them, and coming back to catch them once they got fat, was a pretty good idea.
After harvesting the mountain chicken, Zhao Xuan's luck for the day seemed to have run out.
After wandering around for a few rounds, he encountered a few scattered birds, but before he even had time to draw his bow, they had already fled.
During this time, he also encountered rabbits a few times, roe deer twice, and a wild boar once.
The wild game was quite abundant, but to someone with equipment as poor as his, it was like a eunuch visiting a brothel—completely useless.
Especially that wild boar, which was 1.5 meters long with tusks twenty centimeters long.
Thanks to Zhao Xuan being far away and running fast, otherwise one charge from that wild boar and he probably would have met his end on the mountain.
Still shaken, seeing that the day was getting late, he packed up his spoils and hurriedly hiked down the mountain to home.
Back home, Zhao Xuan picked one turtledove to clean, following yesterday's method: plucking the feathers, chopping it into pieces, blanching it, and boiling porridge.
The other seven turtledoves and the mountain chicken, he planned to take to the market to sell.
The rice at home was running low, and only a small pinch of salt was left.
These daily necessities, along with a hunting bow and iron arrows, all had to be bought at the market.
In Zhao Xuan's memory, there were two markets near Dishan Village.
One was called Shangtang Market, eight miles away, established alongside the Shangtang Post Station by the imperial highway.
The other was called Chang'ao Market, ten miles away, built near the Chang'ao Pavilion.
Imperial power does not reach the villages, and the pavilion was responsible for helping the government collect taxes.
Chang'ao Pavilion could be considered the political center for miles around.
Neither market was close to Dishan Village, but compared to the county seat fifty miles away, they were already the choice for the vast majority of people nearby.
If Zhao Xuan remembered correctly, Shangtang Market held market days on dates ending in one.
That means the tenth, twentieth, and thirtieth of every month.
Chang'ao Market held market days on dates ending in eight, specifically the eighth, eighteenth, and twenty-eighth of every month.
Every market day, people from all the surrounding villages would gather, bringing not only abundant goods but also increased trading volume.
Today was the tenth, so he should head to Shangtang Market.