As soon as he opened his eyes, there was a golden ingot in front of him.
The old man rubbed his eyes hard, wondering if he had seen it wrong.
This is ten taels of gold!
"If you can fight, this gold ingot is yours. If you can't, forget it."
After saying that, Chen Xuan reached out to take the gold ingot back.
"Sir, please wait a moment!"
The old man's eyes widened. This was gold, a full ten taels!
I wonder how much iron work I have to do to earn so much money!
He directly held the gold ingot in his arms to prevent Chen Xuan from taking it back.
"I originally retired, and let my disciples do the blacksmithing. It's easy to lose your skills if you don't do it for a long time!"
"Forget it, young man. I think you and I are destined to be together. I just can't help it recently, so I will reluctantly come out and make a weapon for this little girl."
As he spoke, the old man stood up from the rattan chair in an exaggerated manner, like a carp jumping up.
Then, he hooked his finger at Yang Ying'er and said, "Come over here, little girl. There are a lot of weapons over there, including quite a few guns. Go and try them out and see which one is the heaviest and most suitable for you. I'll make one for you!"
Yang Ying'er curled her lips. She thought he was such a noble old man, but he behaved himself after seeing the money.
"Don't look at it, just make it according to this gun."
Yang Ying'er threw the badly worn silver spear in her hand to the old man to see.
The old man took one look and immediately started cursing: "Who made this silver spear? How could it be so bad? It's a disgrace to us craftsmen. A little girl could wear out this spear like this. The person who made the spear is a disgrace to our industry!"
Listening to the old man cursing, Yang Ying'er couldn't help but be very suspicious and couldn't help but say, "Old man, are you really capable, or are you just talking nonsense for money? I'm telling you, if the gun you make is not good, be careful or I'll punish you!"
The old man immediately blew his beard and glared at her, "What do you know, little girl? The broken gun in your hand is simply garbage. The guns shot by my newly-minted apprentice are ten thousand times more powerful than this piece of junk!"
"Just wait and see how I, the old man, will personally make you a peerless gun!"
After saying that, the old man directly drove away an apprentice who was forging iron, and he wanted to do the forging himself.
"Oh my god, isn't that Old Man Li from the blacksmith shop? Didn't he say he would stop and never forge iron again?"
"Old man Li's blacksmithing skills are amazing. When he was young, he even forged swords for many generals. He was named the imperial blacksmith in the capital, but later he left the capital for some unknown reason."
"This old guy has a bad temper. It is said that a few years ago, the governor wanted him to forge some weapons, but he refused by saying that he would never forge iron again in his life. Why is he doing it again now?"
There were pedestrians passing by the blacksmith shop. When they saw Old Man Li working on the iron himself, they were surprised as if they had discovered a new world and stopped to watch.
Chen Xuan and his friends had originally planned to go somewhere else for a stroll, after all, there was nothing interesting about blacksmithing. However, after hearing people around them talking about the old man, they suddenly became interested in him.
Was he once appreciated by the late emperor in the capital and became the royal blacksmith?
Later, for some unknown reason, he left the capital?
It seems that this old man has some skills, so it wouldn't hurt to take a look at his craftsmanship.
Soon, Chen Xuan saw the old man take a piece of iron and put it into the boiler for quenching, and at the same time he took off his shirt.
Although the old man is very old, with gray hair and beard, he still has muscles on his body, and they are very strong.
His disciples, with their shirts off, all looked very muscular, but compared to the old man, they looked like skinny dogs.
The old man seemed to be completely immersed in his own world. He couldn't hear any sound from the outside world, and his entire temperament had completely changed.
At this moment, he seemed like a master who had been working hard for many years. Just standing there, he was full of momentum!
Chen Xuan was not idle either. While the old man was quenching his temper, he deliberately started chatting with the crowd around him.
But what he talked about was not about blacksmithing, but something else.
"My friend, why do I see beggars everywhere when I enter the city? I remember that although the border where I worked was not very peaceful, when there was no war, we always had trade with the surrounding countries, so the economy should be quite prosperous."
Along the way, there were too many beggars and people who had starved to death. The carts carrying corpses were piled high one after another, which was a shocking sight.
Does this still look like a normal city?
If it weren't a time of chaos, so many people wouldn't have died!
"My friend, you are from other places, right? You don't know what's going on in this barbarian city."
"Now this Barbarian City has been divided up by the three major families: the Qin family, the Chen family, and the Liao family."
"Among them, the Qin family is a relative of the prefectural government. With a big mountain behind them, they are so powerful that they can walk sideways in the city. No one dares to offend them. The bank in our Mancheng is opened by the Qin family. In addition, there are also gambling houses."
"The Chen family only collects rent. There are countless houses in Mancheng that belong to the Chen family. They also run pawnshops and work in cahoots with the Qin family, cheating gamblers out of their heirlooms at the lowest price. The Chen family is involved in brothels all over the place."
"As for the Liao family, that's even worse. The head of the Liao family made his fortune by making money through illegal means. After he became rich, he opened a casino and a brothel and bought women from other places to sell. This is not the most unethical thing. The most unethical thing is that the Liao family controls the largest rice shop in the city."
"Since the Liao family took control of the rice shop, the price of grain has been rising day by day. Many ordinary people can't afford to buy grain, so they buy houses and sell land, and finally even sell their sons and daughters to exchange for grain. In the end, they really have no choice but to become beggars and starve to death, or go to the casino to gamble and lose their lives."
"Those bastards in the Liao family are worse than pigs and dogs. They have caused countless people to be torn apart and their families to be destroyed."
Many people gnashed their teeth in hatred when they mentioned the Liao family.
Food is the primary need of the people. Grain is the foundation of the people. What is the difference between deliberately raising the price of grain and committing murder for money?
"The Liao family is so excessive, and the prefectural government doesn't care?" Yang Ying'er asked indignantly.
"Care? What a joke. The governor's office is in the same boat with them, why should they care?"
Someone immediately spoke sarcastically.
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