Lin Chunxi took out a small blue floral coarse cloth bundle from his chest, and inside were palm-sized wild vegetable cakes.
"I appreciate your kindness, but you should take the food back. I..." Jiang Yuanxin felt a surge of emotion, thinking how grateful and simple even NPC villagers could be.
But judging from their clothes and the food they brought, their living conditions were evidently harsh. Why would he, who travels between two worlds trading, lack a bite to eat?
He casually replied, "I don't need this food. If you have time to gather mushrooms, I can buy them at market price."
Jiang Yuan wasn't too hopeful about hiring someone to gather mushrooms.
Mainly, he ate mushrooms for the freshness. Riverfront Village and Shuiyun Lake were separated by Cat Ridge, with no transportation available, only relying on walking. If the round trip took too long, the mushrooms wouldn't be fresh anymore.
If they were to cooperate, at most he would purchase the dried mushrooms they picked. But the sales path was still a problem. He had to figure out how to get the big strawberry to "launch" successfully and open up a market before considering fine packaging to sell the mushrooms.
Jiang Yuan originally insisted on not taking the food, not wanting to add survival pressure to their impoverished lives. Unexpectedly, Wan Mingchuan directly imagined him as some reclusive sage, his voice trembling with excitement as he asked, "Are you a cultivator, so you no longer consume the grains of common folk?"
Jiang Yuan: ...
The formula was wrong but the conclusion was right. He was exiting a game in the modern world full of food where he could eat anything he wanted, and he surely wouldn't want to gnaw on dry vegetable cakes.
So many cakes would take quite a bit of wild vegetables; two kids taking them back untouched could feed them for several meals.
Seeing the other party didn't deny it, Wan Mingchuan stepped forward a few paces, fell to his knees with a thud, and incoherently pleaded, "Please accept me as your disciple! My grandfather was killed by the He Family; I must seek revenge and have real skills. But now, alone, I'm no match for their entire clan."
"I can do anything, as long as you are willing to teach me so I can avenge my grandfather. I'm willing to go through fire and pitchfork for you..."
[Wan Mingchuan requests apprenticeship and his sincerity is 100%, unlikely to betray, would you like to form a master-disciple relationship?]
Accept a disciple?
The NPC's operation puzzled Jiang Yuan, and crucially, the system popped up a query.
Lin Chunsheng cautiously asked, "Will apprenticing mean I can breathe fire? Then... I want to learn too!"
[Lin Chunsheng requests apprenticeship with sincerity at 20%, might betray anytime, would you like to form a master-disciple relationship?]
Jiang Yuan could not help but rub his forehead. Wouldn't a simple single-player farming adventure game suffice? Why bother getting entangled with NPCs?
"Big brother, Mingchuan is really pitiful, please consider accepting him," Lin Chunxi sighed, looking at her brother hesitatingly kneeling. "My dad was burned to death by a rat demon; Wan grandfather was also framed and burned to death by a rat demon. Our families are always bullied in the village as they're small households, and now after the disaster, we face even more oppression!"
Though she was young, she spoke more coherently than the overly excited Wan Mingchuan. Starting from her brother Chunsheng's experiences, she detailed how the He Family clan leveraged their wealth and manpower to oppress small households like theirs. Hearing this, Jiang Yuan became distressed.
The story was heartrending, leaving him somewhat indignant and pondering whether the NPC storyline might involve sidequests. So should he accept this disciple or not?
What could he teach him?
He thought about it and let the two kneeling youths stand up, casually taking out the Heaven-Burning Scripture from the Storage Bag that belonged to the Flame Rat leader.
After all, glancing at the thing wouldn't erase it. He let them peek at it; whoever could learn it would have a shot. If they couldn't, that's it, since he himself didn't learn it step-by-step and didn't understand any tricks.
"Accepting disciples requires a sense of destiny," Jiang Yuan made a comment without closing off possibilities. "Secret Technique Manuals aren't something anyone can cultivate; it also depends on personal insight. I understand your urgent desire to become strong and seek justice, but whether you can cultivate, and to what degree, depends primarily on talent."
As the saying goes, 'A master leads the way, cultivation is up to the individual,' talent and insight can't be forced. I have a book here. Whoever can understand it, indicates talent; if you can't, I have no solution."
He didn't explicitly state whether he would accept a disciple, considering the game's secret cultivation technique found after defeating monsters was just lent to them for a glance. It wouldn't just disappear, treating it as a goodwill gesture offering a chance for mountain village youths to rise; it's just a small effort, costing nothing.
"Look at the book?" Upon hearing there's a chance for apprenticeship, Wan Mingchuan, who's excited and breathless, turned pale, then glanced nervously at Lin Chunsheng, embarrassed and flushed, speaking quietly, "But we can't read..."
Reading and literacy have always been privileges for the wealthy and powerful; children from small households growing up in remote desert island villages have no means to learn literacy.
Just attempting to take the first step in cultivation had them brushed aside, which left Wan Mingchuan feeling uneasy.
"No words, just some illustrations," Jiang Yuan said, opening the Heaven-Burning Scripture.
He had only looked at the book once. The flashy drawings seemed like creations sloppily done by a lazy illustrator, but since the wilderness game set up players to learn and use them, perhaps NPCs could learn just by looking?
Lin Chunsheng was young, merely suffering from challenging family circumstances, without any deep grievances. Therefore, he didn't desire power as strongly as Wan Mingchuan, who thus had lower sincerity. If he could learn it, it'd be his fortune; if not, Jiang Yuan wouldn't lose anything.
Wan Mingchuan, about seventeen or eighteen, bore a deep feud. When he escaped from the mine, it showed he was calm in the face of adversity, courageous and responsible. Moreover, his sincerity was one hundred percent. If he could learn to breathe fire and avenge his grandfather, wouldn't that be good?
Upon hearing it was just looking at pictures, Lin Chunxi was curious too.
She quietly moved closer, seeing her big brother didn't object, stretched her neck to also take a look, thinking it'd be great if she could understand and take him as her master.
"Is this... a drawing of little people?" Lin Chunsheng, filled with excitement, felt his heart racing as he looked over, his expression freezing the next second. "My mother draws much prettier than this!"
Lin Chunxi nodded, agreeing with her brother's assessment. The book's messy lines in bright colors were something even a child in the village could effortlessly surpass with a few drawings on the ground. If she hadn't seen the big brother breathe fire, she'd suspect he was deceiving them.
Then she reconsidered, possibly suspecting the big brother didn't want to accept any disciples, thus using this to stall and fool them?
Seeing this, Jiang Yuan shrugged, preparing to put the Heaven-Burning Scripture away, feeling sorry that he couldn't help.
"Huh!" At this moment, Wan Mingchuan suddenly inhaled sharply.
Throughout, he believed in Jiang Yuan unwaveringly, with his demeanor calm in the face of the rat demon, unafraid of hauntings, vanquishing evil bats, breathing fire, and the ability to make items disappear into thin air proving his inner suspicion time and again, reinforcing Jiang Yuan's image as a secluded master in his heart.
How could such a figure deceive him?
Thus, when confronted with the chaotic drawings, he didn't join Lin Chunsheng and his sister in doubting Jiang Yuan, instead suspecting his own dullness for not understanding or comprehending.
Feeling frustrated, he couldn't bear to blink, staring hard at a particular line on the page, trying to seize the fleeting chance.
The next second, the red line he focused on suddenly protruded from the book page, and Wan Mingchuan felt a flow of energy seemingly moving inside his body in a corresponding position!