Cheng Ruyi kept a close eye on the development of events every day, and seeing that things were basically going as she had guessed, her tense nerves finally relaxed.

She was also very curious about how the old Taoist priest would be dealt with in the end. He even said he would take the blame for her, but she didn't know what he meant. Unfortunately, these things should involve confidential information, and ordinary people naturally couldn't know.

Therefore, she still needs to find Guo Qinglan to understand the details!

Sigh... She's finally realized that intelligence was the most important resource in ancient times! Being completely ignorant really puts you at a disadvantage and leaves you with no chance to prepare and take the initiative.

No wonder all the male protagonists in TV dramas and novels run an intelligence organization. With all the world's intelligence at their fingertips, what can't they accomplish?

Should she also open a teahouse to gather intelligence, like others do?

Forget it... The information and intelligence that can be gathered in an ordinary teahouse are limited, and I feel that the effect should be about the same as her current shops, so she might as well actively complete the system tasks. Maybe one day the system will give her a prop with a similar effect.

There's no point in overthinking; life goes on as usual.

Cheng Ruyi stayed at home to rest and recuperate for several days, and finally received a task completion notification from the system as the end of the year approached.

"Ding-dong! Congratulations on completing a special mission."

Special Mission: The Mystery of Wolong Village (Completion Level: B)

Mission Details: Wolong Village, located at the intersection of three regions, seems to hold a great secret, possibly involving multiple hidden forces. Use your wisdom and courage to unravel the mystery and perhaps discover a surprise after clearing away the fog of confusion.

Note: This special mission is valid for half a month only and will automatically expire after that.

"Special mission completion: B, reward: five points of spiritual power."

Current spiritual power level: 390

I didn't expect it to take so long to settle the matter. Was it because they needed to wait for the final result before making an assessment? So does that mean this matter has finally been resolved? And the ownership of the iron ore has been decided?

It seems like it's time to go into town tomorrow.

However, why was the task completion grade only "B"? Even stranger, she herself felt both surprised and somewhat unsurprised...

This Wolong Village is indeed incredibly deep. She has already discovered so many terrifying secrets, yet there are still other secrets that haven't been found. It proves that she is indeed just an ordinary person with limited vision.

Cheng Ruyi sat at her desk, resting her chin on her hands and trying to recall what she had overlooked. And what kind of secrets might those she hadn't discovered be?

The most suspicious place is the back mountain. Although she passed by there, she did not search inside. She did not search when she went there because she did not know there was an iron mine there, and she did not search when she left because she was terrified by the old Taoist priest and only thought about escaping. So, she thinks that is the biggest oversight. Therefore, it is very likely that there is something else there besides iron mine.

Secondly, she hadn't actually searched the other buildings inside the stronghold carefully, so it's possible she missed some details and didn't discover anything suspicious.

Finally, the spy story about the Western Jin Dynasty is also highly suspicious.

Since the Western Jin Dynasty went to such lengths to send people to infiltrate the mountain stronghold, they certainly wouldn't have sent just one person. After all, they would need to relay messages or provide support, so it's very likely that there were other accomplices. However, these accomplices might not have been skilled in martial arts and instead fell for the old Taoist priest's or her tricks, thus escaping unscathed.

In any case, this matter has now been settled, and for the time being, no one has suspected her, so she should be considered to have escaped successfully.

Now you can relax and prepare for the Chinese New Year!

With the New Year fast approaching, even though it's still snowing every day and the prices of grain, meat, and vegetables have doubled compared to previous years, people still have to go out to buy New Year's supplies.

As a result, the streets and alleys of the county town have become crowded and bustling again in the past few days, seemingly no different from previous years.

This is Cheng Ruyi's second New Year here. Before she knew it, she had been in this world for almost two years.

At this time last year, the villa had just been built, and people had to bring their own supplies when they moved in for the New Year.

However, after a year, the entire villa has undergone tremendous changes, filled with the atmosphere of life. All kinds of furniture and daily necessities are readily available, and various garden landscaping, flowers, trees and shrubs have gradually taken shape, adding a lot of beauty to the villa.

After living here for so long, everyone has come to realize that the design of the villa is truly very comfortable, especially the bathroom, toilet, and underfloor heating and heated kang bed, which allow everyone to live comfortably even in the cold winter.

It's just some waste charcoal...

In fact, Chongzhou has many mountains and trees, so the price of charcoal has never been too high. According to the market in previous years, ordinary quality charcoal is about 100 wen per pound, which is about 10 jin.

However, this price cannot be considered cheap. After all, charcoal is a consumable product, and it is sold in large quantities. People usually buy it in bulk, such as dozens or hundreds of kilograms, which adds up to a lot of money. Ordinary people may not be able to afford it.

In the past, the Cheng family would only dare to buy about 100 jin (50 catties) of food each month. They remembered that they had to endure the winters by sheer willpower.

I remember the winter when Shen Yun passed away was exceptionally cold. His already weak body was invaded by the cold and he fell seriously ill. His subsequent care for warmth and nutrition was inadequate, and his condition continued to worsen until it became irreversible...

In fact, winters were very difficult for ordinary people in ancient times. All the warm clothing and quilts were beyond their means. So she hopes that her cotton-padded clothes, quilts and spicy hot pot can help people in some way.

During this period, Cheng Ruyi bought firewood and charcoal from the Guan family five times, each time in two large carts, estimated at about 1,500 catties per cart, costing no more than 100 taels of silver.

It can guarantee a continuous supply and the price is more affordable than buying in the county town. It's just a pity that the weather was too bad recently, and then there were bandits running around and heavy snow blocking the mountains, so the Guan family had to stop sending charcoal over.

Fortunately, she took advantage of the hot weather and the low price of charcoal to buy two carts of medium-grade black charcoal from each of the three charcoal shops in the county town, as well as four carts of coal she had previously bought from the prefectural city. The total amount of charcoal and coal she stockpiled was close to 25,000 catties.

Based on past weather conditions, this amount should be more than enough for the Cheng family to get through the winter.

However, this year is much colder than in previous years, and the temperature has remained at this low level since the drop, so the amount of charcoal used is naturally much greater than before.

According to the Cheng family's account books presented by Tao Fei, the entire Lishan Villa and all its shops consumed nearly 200 catties of charcoal every day. In less than two months, they had almost consumed all of the Guan family's ordinary charcoal, which is quite astonishing!

Of course, such an exaggerated amount of usage was also because Cheng Ruyi was not too strict in this regard, basically ensuring that every hired worker could get a share of charcoal and safely get through the cold winter nights.

Seeing that nearly half of the charcoal in the warehouse had been used up, she was a little anxious. Although the remaining medium-grade black charcoal and coal would last longer than ordinary charcoal, the difference wouldn't be too great.

The supply of charcoal in the county town is already tight. Although it is still available, the price has doubled compared to when she bought it before, which is not cost-effective!

Moreover, this cold weather is expected to last for several more months, and it's unclear when the Guan family will be able to come down the mountain. She fears that the price of charcoal will only continue to rise. Sitting idly by and waiting for death is not her style; she needs to think of another way.

So she had no choice but to turn her attention to the purple-veined bamboo that had been thriving in the secret plantation for a year.

Since it's bamboo, it should be able to be burned, right?

Cheng Ruyi's eyes suddenly lit up. She immediately ran over and used her black iron knife to cut down the thickest and tallest bamboo. Then she excitedly ran back to conduct her experiment!

After several days of experimentation, Ruyi discovered that ordinary flames could indeed burn the purple-veined bamboo. Moreover, because the purple-veined bamboo had excellent defensive properties, a section of bamboo could burn continuously for three days and three nights, which meant that a section of bamboo was equivalent to about sixty catties of charcoal!

Of course, purple bamboo also has some drawbacks, such as being extremely difficult to light, and the heat it produces when burning is not as warm as ordinary charcoal. Moreover, the color of the flame is somewhat purple, which looks a little eerie. However, she believed that these were not major problems and could be ignored in the face of cost-effectiveness.

After a year of cultivation, the original ten seedlings have grown much taller.

Especially this summer, because the spiritual spring water was drawn several times, the spiritual energy in the entire spiritual plant garden was very abundant. During that time, the purple-veined bamboo suddenly grew wildly, not only growing rapidly to six or seven meters tall, but also suddenly sprouting about thirty bamboo shoots.

It took her quite a while to rearrange the spiritual plants in the garden.

Now, another four months have passed. The initial ten bamboo stalks stopped growing at about ten meters tall, while the thirty or so small bamboo shoots have all grown to about three meters tall.

A ten-meter bamboo stalk has about eighteen to twenty sections, and ten bamboo stalks would have about two hundred sections, which is equivalent to more than ten thousand kilograms of charcoal!

While it may not be incredibly powerful, if the price of charcoal continues to rise and the supply decreases, this purple-veined bamboo is at least a backup plan!

Since these bamboos stopped growing after reaching ten meters, it might take a hundred years for them to develop purple thunder patterns before any changes occur. Anyway, she couldn't wait that long, so she simply cut them all down and put them in the warehouse, making room for the smaller bamboos to continue growing.

A few days later, Cheng Ruyi handed the purple-veined bamboo, whose exterior had been burned black, to Tao Fei and told him that these were extremely precious top-grade purple frost charcoal used even in the imperial palace. One section could burn for three days, and he asked Tao Fei to temporarily replace all the heating charcoal in the Lishan Villa with this.

Tao Fei was shocked when he heard this. Whether it was that even the imperial palace was using it or that it could burn for such a long time, these were all far beyond his comprehension. The longer he stayed here, the more he realized that his master was very mysterious and powerful, as if he could easily resolve any difficulty.

His admiration for Cheng Ruyi instantly soared to its peak, and he secretly resolved to work hard and follow his employer for life!

Ruyi was naturally unaware of Tao Fei's inner thoughts. She simply felt that while one potential threat had been temporarily resolved, she couldn't completely relax yet.