Chapter 58 Chapter 58 First Update

"The anti-Confucius working groups that were dispatched have all been recalled." Director Zhang walked to a deserted wall and explained the outcome of the previous incident involving Team Leader Qu, Sun Tiebian, and their group to the old branch secretary. "The anti-Confucius faction led by someone is in internal disarray, with their infighting and backstabbing causing great dissatisfaction among the leaders. In a previous internal speech, she harshly criticized them... To quickly calm the situation, she ordered the swift disposal of the triggering factors... The seven extremist groups named were among them."

Team Leader Qu and his group are doomed. I heard several were killed by their own people before they even received notice of their execution. But the situation isn't over yet. Those "fighters" specialize in fabricating stories, exaggerating minor incidents, and acting with ruthlessness. They're like that when their guns are pointed outward, but turning them inward doesn't change the underlying nature. Now the fire has ignited, and there can be no end to it without a repeat of the chaos at the beginning of the movement. Those who used drastic measures to suppress it were like throwing ice on hot oil; sooner or later, it would backfire on them.

Anyway, the trouble is an internal matter among those people. I don’t know how many people are silently waiting for the moment to applaud.

Director Zhang looked remarkably relaxed. "Although the 'anti-Confucius' movement is still ongoing, the plot to escalate the situation and attack the old leaders has failed." Old Zhang was well-informed, and his connections in Beijing told him that those people had originally planned to use the criticism of Confucius as a weapon to launch another nationwide cultural cleansing early next year, "digging out poisonous weeds" and "activating" from top to bottom... But now this plan has been shelved indefinitely, someone has been forced to take care of it! Director Zhang was delighted at first, but then a chill ran down his spine. If another large-scale cultural cleansing really took place, the situation that had finally stabilized in recent years would be disrupted again. The trend was unstoppable, and even small Song County would certainly not be able to maintain its stability.

"...You've truly done a great job!" Director Zhang muttered incoherently. He had carefully reviewed both He Qing's and Lao Guo's reports. While seemingly coincidental, he could still discern some inconsistencies between the lines. Combined with Dr. Xiaolin's rumors, Director Zhang was certain Lin Xinghuo had done something. He had worked with He Qing for nearly twenty years, and he knew him inside and out. The old wily fellow had been acting strangely since that spring planting inspection, and it was easy to trace the blame back to Lin Xinghuo.

The old Party Secretary quickly waved his hand, signaling that the conversation was over. Some things were best left unsaid; knowing the situation in mind was more effective than anything else. Then the old man began to seriously show the two leaders around the auditorium.

The auditorium in the countryside is different from that in the city. It is not easy to build such a large house, so we just want to use every possible space.

This auditorium also has a high platform, but the layout below has nothing to do with board style. Unlike the rows of tables and chairs in the city, it is just a huge open space with smooth and flat planed boards and two types of chairs stacked against the wall.

Director Zhang looked at the board. Underneath, four legs concealed a foldable table. "Not a single nail was used! What a craftsman!" It was a genuine ancestral mortise and tenon joint. He studied it and discovered a tenon-and-tenon joint between the legs and the tabletop. The wooden axle at the top of the leg had a groove in the middle, allowing it to pull on the tenon. He bent the legs apart, pushing them upright into the grooves in the tabletop, and the legs stood upright. Finally, he inserted a dovetail joint horizontally, securing them. This way, even if the table was moved, the axle wouldn't slip off the tenon. It was truly ingenious; I hadn't seen anything like it in years.

The old Party secretary thought to himself: That's right! Those nails and hinges have to be bought with coupons, right? The brigade is still in debt for that boss's wind turbine.

"This is something Hong Zhong figured out." The old Party Secretary then pulled Hong Zhong, his chosen successor, over to show him his treasure. "He learned it from the veterans in the logistics department when he wasn't training in the army. He can also repair cars. He's been helping the car soldiers a lot, so he's very skilled. The agricultural reclamation team comes to pick him up every year before the busy farming season."

Director Zhang and He Qing both knew Hong Zhong, a staunch veteran. When he was demobilized, the security departments of several factories in the county wanted to recruit him, but he refused, returning instead to Buxian Village, where he had been supported by hundreds of families. Many people at the time murmured that this young man might be too stubborn. While wanting to repay his fellow villagers was a good thing, he could have done the same by staying in the county. Giving away those tickets that made life difficult for rural residents would have been more useful than returning to the village to farm.

But now it seemed he wasn't just stubborn; he was clearly resourceful and shrewd. After years in the military, he had not only excelled in training but had also quietly mastered his trade. Director Zhang was even a little jealous. If only he had stayed in the county, he could have easily secured this talented individual with a simple transfer letter.

Hong Zhong smiled naively. At first glance, he seemed to be the kind of person who didn't like to think too much, just like the team leader Huang Dazhuang. But as soon as he opened his mouth, Director Zhang and Minister He's hearts trembled: "Minister Guo said last time that the Armed Forces Department retired several trucks. They were the oldest batch of Liberation trucks. They have been in service for more than ten years and are particularly prone to breaking down..." The car soldiers were rushing to harvest them, and they could not get any at all in their remote small county. Hong Zhong meant that he could overhaul those vehicles and contact his comrades at Chuncheng FAW to help apply for spare parts, but after the refurbishment, he hoped that the county could allocate one to the Bushantun Brigade.

Those trucks weren't in too bad a condition. After all, the armed forces had treated them meticulously, and if they were properly repaired, they'd have no problem using them for another ten years. As for a major overhaul, even the bus mechanic could handle it. The hardest part was actually getting the parts. They were so hard to get! There were only a few major factories, but the applications were overwhelming. Anyone who knew how to do it knew how much a simple tip from an internal employee could help. The trucks had similar problems; even trying to piece them together into a working vehicle was impossible. Director Zhang smacked his lips. Since Hongzhong said he could help with the applications, he must have the skills. Besides, a large farm in the north was hiring people year after year, so it was probably because Hongzhong had connections with FAW.

"Okay, your team will write a report and submit it when the time comes." He Qing poked Director Zhang, meaning that Lao Guo must have let the cat out of the bag, otherwise he wouldn't have said this to anyone. After all, it was the equipment of the armed forces, and it needed to be kept secret from outside.

The old branch secretary patted Hongzhong's shoulder with a smile. The thirty-year-old man smiled naively, revealing a row of white teeth.

Director Zhang quickly took a few more steps to the side. Wow, the little fox trained by this old fox is even smarter than him, but he pretends to be like a mindless calf.

Here is a pile of chairs. One is a very short stool, and the other is a compact and simple chair with a backrest. Take whatever you need.

The small stool was fine; it was perfect for spinning, and farmhands often squatted on it. But Director Zhang, looking at the armchair-like chair with extra-wide armrests and a small hollowed-out rattan pillow tied to the backrest, couldn't help but wonder, "What's that for?"

Hongzhong, who was now also in charge of the carpentry team, had polished many of these chairs himself. He went over and scratched the small pillow, unexpectedly opening a 'small door'. Inside was a flat, palm-sized, coarse earthenware jar. "Put a shovelful of hot ash in there, and then toss in the pills Doctor Lin made. This warm fumigation will be good for bone problems."

He Qing tried to pry open another small pillow and took out a flat jar to examine it. He found that there were many tiny holes on the top of the jar. Isn't this the kind of hand warmer or incense burner that was only found in the homes of wealthy landlords in the past? When he smelled it, he could smell the fragrance of the medicine pills.

"Tsk tsk, life in your brigade is so much more comfortable than in the leadership." He Qing swallowed the thought of "isn't it a bit capitalist?"

Hong Zhong was very sincere: "In our area, not to mention the elderly, even among people of my age, how many can say that they have no problems with their bones? This bone disease can be fatal when it comes, but it is also very torturous and delays work. Fortunately, we have Doctor Lin in our team, so we can treat this disease now while everyone can still sit still."

He was right. Even high-ranking county officials like Director Zhang and He Qing suffered from this condition. Their bones ached here and there, and whenever their shoulders, necks, and backs ached, they envied the warm, heated kangs in the countryside, where they could at least warm themselves. He Qing, the minister in charge of production, was even worse. During his annual inspections of farmers, he had to soak his hands in water while tending to the rice seedlings. The daily backache was a minor issue; the most tormenting thing was the swollen finger joints. In severe cases, he couldn't even hold a pen. The sheer volume of questions and experiences to review was truly exhausting.

"Xiao Lin!" the old Party Secretary called out, "Take the pulses of the two leaders and see if our fumigation pills are effective."

Lin Xinghuo put down the finished pillowcase, heaved the caracal onto her shoulder, and walked over to take his pulse. Director Zhang thought this young doctor had excellent medical skills; his pulse-taking and examination style had the leisurely air of a renowned physician, so he eagerly inquired. He Qing, watching him ask questions from the side, felt a pang of annoyance. But it was Lin Xinghuo's skill that mattered. The reputation of her traditional Chinese medicine pills, both effective and effective, had spread throughout the county. Otherwise, how could Old Zhang have such respect for a veteran Chinese medicine practitioner who wasn't even twenty?

Seeing the fairy nod, Hong Zhong quickly brought out two armchairs, used the hook on the other end of the shovel to open the round door on the big belly under the tripod gourd stove, shoveled out the slightly dark fine white ash from it, filled it into the pottery jar and shook it left and right to evenly mix it, then took out two vermilion pills from the cloth bag hanging on the wall, threw them in, put the lid on, and done!

"Just this little bit of ash?" He Qing wondered. The ash was all burnt white, how could it still be hot? But when he took it in his hands, he found it was indeed quite warm. It wasn't scalding, but the steam coming out of the lid was a slightly damp, fumigating feeling. It was really comfortable.

Director Zhang tried it, then took out a vermilion pill and squeezed it. This longan-sized pill was smooth and solid. How could it not dry out at all after being heated? He Qing thought, this thing really does resemble those legendary elixirs. The elixirs that alchemists presented to the emperor in historical records are all this vermilion. He thought about the shapeless ointment that Lin Xinghuo had originally prepared, then the solidified frostbite ointment pills, and now the hard vermilion pills. Could it be that Lin Xinghuo had really just started refining the elixir?

In fact, her wild guess had some truth to it. These fumigated red pills were indeed made by Lin Xinghuo using a failed gourd furnace, following the simplest inherited recipe for a body-building pill. This wasted the spiritual materials she had painstakingly gathered, resulting in a elixir of shockingly low spiritual energy, hardly even a first-grade elixir. The only consolation was that the first furnace produced over eighty red pills, contradicting the recipe's requirement of ten pills. By the tenth furnace, the number had surpassed two hundred. Lin Xinghuo crushed the pills, only to discover they were hollow, containing only a small amount of spiritual dew that had accumulated in the furnace while she practiced the incantation. It turned out that this tiny bit of spiritual energy wasn't actually contained within the pills themselves, but rather trapped within them. No wonder so many pills could be produced from just one batch of ingredients.

"Or should we start warming up the alchemy furnace from the beginning?" The caracal transmitted the message. The human stared at the gourd furnace in a trance again. The solemn expression on the caracal's face made the hairs on the human's tail stand on end. It was unknown whether it was related to the fact that Lin Xinghuo had collected the gourd vine as his natal spiritual vine. Anyway, no matter what shape the two of them made of the furnace embryo, after being refined by Lin Xinghuo's true fire in the sea of ​​​​qi and his spiritual consciousness, it would become a gourd shape. The three legs of the three-legged gourd furnace now placed in the center of the auditorium were added later.

Although it is not a high-quality gourd-shaped alchemy furnace, it does have the characteristic of being warmed by the medicinal power of wood energy during alchemy. As long as it is used more, its grade may be upgraded.

"Tell me, if you remove the top half of the gourd," Lin Xinghuo suddenly said, "what does the remaining half look like?"

"It looks like a tripod," Fang Tongjian said, "one of those large bronze tripods from the Shang and Zhou dynasties." Fang Tongjian was only a semi-expert in bronzeware, but he was quite familiar with the inscriptions and patterns on them. He'd noticed this on the smaller gourd stove at the Riverbank Farm: faint lines on the surface and inside. At first glance, these lines looked like the result of a rough-hewn clay surface, but with patient delineation, one could see a pattern within them. That day, Fang Tongjian was crouching in the yard, fascinated by the patterns scratched with tree branches, and nearly froze to death. Only when Old Ning kicked him did he wake. From that day on, Fang Tongjian grew even closer to Lin Xinghuo. Especially after learning about her parents' professions, he felt a natural desire to teach her, prompting Old Ning to advise him, "I know your family has a rich history of learning, especially in ancient Chinese characters. You've never found a disciple you can catch your eye. When I first arrived, I noticed you were paralyzed by the prescriptions written by Xiaolin. But Old Fang, it's inappropriate to engage in this now!"

Yes, it's inappropriate! That day, Fang Tongjian rarely let go of his intellectual arrogance and said it all: "Old Ning, I'm not like you. I don't have brothers or sisters, let alone children... Even if my old friends are still scattered, they all have their own strengths and are not interested in what I'm doing... I'm fifty-eight years old, and maybe one day I won't be able to open my eyes again. If the accumulation of my master's knowledge and the research of generations of my ancestors are all destroyed in my hands, I will be a sinner even if I die!"

Since then, the stubborn old man Lao Ning never tried to persuade people to do this again. He even dragged Fang Tongjian to participate in the collective labor in the auditorium. With his encouragement, the smart people among Lin Xinghuo's close friends had already figured out something, not to mention Lin Xinghuo.

At her current level, it is common for her to have a photographic memory and an earful memory. As the saying goes, "It is always good to have many skills." It is not difficult for Lin Xinghuo to accept the knowledge related to cloud scrolls and formations. Although it is not stated explicitly, the old and the young get along very well.

Director Zhang was a little uncomfortable with Fang Tongjian's initiative to talk to him. He thought that he had been taking care of this high-level intellectual for several years, but they still had never had a full chat. Usually, they would just exchange a few dry questions and then this talented man would think about other things and forget to pay attention to him.

"Yes! It looks like a cauldron!" Lin Xinghuo held the caracal's paws and clapped his hands. It looked like a cauldron for refining weapons!

Hey, is this a blessing in disguise? Lin Xinghuo stood up with a jerk, startling He Qing, who was comfortably leaning on a warm rattan pillow to iron his waist.

*

This time, Lin Xinghuo spent a lot of money. He even contributed a section of the natal spiritual vine on his wrist and obtained a handful of Xuan-level spiritual soil, which he added as the "eye" of the Huang-level spiritual soil.

She was even more bold in using the True Spirit Gourd as a base to refine the gourd furnace. The gourd planted by Lin Xinghuo at the entrance of the main hall finally bore fruit in the autumn after her constant infusion of spiritual energy and nourishment of lotus heart water. However, these two rare fruits were obviously as difficult to care for as the gourd vine. Swallowing her "Power and Control Technique" was as easy as drinking water, but it only grew from the size of a peanut to the height of a palm, and the green spiritual energy was compelling.

Perhaps it was because she had harvested another gourd seed from the same mother gourd into her natal vine. Lin Xinghuo had an intuitive sense of the two small gourds that had grown, so she reluctantly plucked one and refined it into the furnace...

He did not dare to stop or distract himself for nine days and nine nights, and the day the furnace was completed happened to be New Year's Day in 1975.

Lin Xinghuo quickly added this matter to the letter to his master. The fox pine tree that delivered the items in front of Buxian Temple was very considerate and stood at the edge of the white fog for a whole day without disappearing. The master also wrote back for the first time.

The letter began with simple instructions to her disciple, asking her to start a furnace to make a few pieces of glass and send them over on the first day of the next month, as the glass in many windows of the temple was broken.

Lin Xinghuo was silent, and suddenly remembered that his doors and windows were also missing glass.

Well, even the needs of monks are so simple these days.

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The author has something to say: See you later~