Morning, leaving the house.
Lou Yi walked as usual on the narrow, uneven yellow mud path in the village.
On both sides were the latrines that every household had, and the unpleasant smell of waste wafted with the wind, making him wrinkle his nose.
'It's really smelly...'
But he knew that unless every household installed flush toilets and there was a leap in the underground sewage system, it would still be like this in a few hundred years.
"Hey, isn't this Lou the Warrior?" Aunt Gao just walked out of her house and her eyes lit up when she saw Lou Yi.
'Warrior?' Lou Yi was a bit puzzled, wondering when he gained such a title.
Aunt Gao's voice was especially sharp, and when she spoke, almost half of Erhe Village heard it.
"Ah Yi, I heard you lifted a cow, come tell us the details?" Aunt Chang next door, upon hearing the commotion, also came out to ask.
Lou Yi hadn't reacted yet.
The doors of each household seemed to have grown ears, opening almost simultaneously as a crowd of people came out, the Xu Family's old lady, Farmer Geng, Big Mouth Li, Fisherman Wang, Mrs. Zhao, Mrs. Liu...
Their questions came at him like a machine gun:
"How big was the cow? They say it was a rare breed from Jiang City?"
"Your father descended from the star of literary talent, you descended from the star of martial talent..."
"Stop chopping trees and join me at the riverside moving goods, it's more promising than what you're doing!"
"Go, go, go, Lou Yi will become a martial artist and make it big in the city soon, who wants to be a laborer with you?"
The bold young widow Mrs. Liu even rushed up and reached out to touch Lou Yi's chest.
"Wow, this skin, hard as stone, how did you train it?"
Frightened, Lou Yi fled in panic, dashing out of Erhe Village faster than a galloping horse, causing a wave of exclamations.
Went up the small hill.
His 'coworkers' cast him looks of admiration, and many who hadn't spoken before came over to greet him.
Steward Fat Yang even called Lou Yi to a secluded spot and offered him a meat bun.
"This thing isn't cheap, Brother Yang, what's the matter?" Lou Yi laughed, not taking it.
He usually ate steamed pancakes as his fast food, also known as coarse wheat steamed cakes, three coins each, more expensive than cooking his own food, but convenient for long trips.
Above the steamed pancakes were white steamed buns, lighter than the former, costing five coins each.
As for meat buns, white steamed buns with a meat filling, they often cost over ten coins each. In the whole Erhe Village, Lou Yi had only seen that little fatty Qi Silang eating them, ordinary families simply couldn't afford them.
"Ah Yi, don't stand on ceremony, brother is treating you." Fat Yang said.
Seeing Lou Yi still had no intention of taking it, he awkwardly stuffed the bun back into his bosom, unwillingly asking: "You really have no intention of joining our Jia Family Manor?"
"Monthly pay of two taels, with food and lodging included, that's double what ordinary guards earn!"
"Nowadays, Landlord Jia wants to expand big business, there might not be such a good opportunity in the future."
Seeing Fat Yang's sincere attitude, Lou Yi spoke openly: "Brother Yang, who doesn't want to earn silver? It's just that I'm timid and don't like trouble, besides, chopping trees on the landlord's mountain is also like working for the Jia Family."
"Alright, maybe you'll think it over yourself later." Fat Yang comforted himself after failing to persuade a second time.
Lou Yi returned to where everyone was, holding an axe in one hand, and swung it.
'Bang!'
The large tree seven or eight meters tall in front of him shook violently, branches trembled, and leaves fell like rain.
The other lumberjacks around him twitched their eyelids and instinctively increased their distance from Lou Yi, chopping trees further away.
By the time afternoon had only half passed, Lou Yi had already chopped down twelve trees, earning forty coins, equivalent to four times the average person's rate.
'My earnings aren't much less than being a guard.' Lou Yi thought with some satisfaction.
Of course, if he accounted for the consumption of food, it would be far less.
The reason he went down the mountain early was to search for meat.
With his now strong physique, Lou Yi's food demand was also several times that of an ordinary person.
He had to eat five or six big bowls of white rice with a large pot of bird meat to be seventy percent full.
His wanton hunting led to the near-extinction of birds around Erhe Village, so Lou Yi now had to run to other villages to search.
As night approached, he returned loaded with a fat pigeon and several sparrows.
Just as he stepped into the village, Gu Yong came looking for him.
"Ah Yi, the stone mill at our place is stuck. Can you come have a look?"
"Right away, just let me put these things down," Lou Yi replied cheerfully.
Back when he didn't have a shovel, only the Gu Family was willing to lend him one, and Lou Yi always remembered this favor.
He arrived at the Gu Family's yard and saw the two stone mills, smaller on top and larger below, with surfaces pitted and dented, marked by the passage of time.
Lou Yi stepped forward to try them and found that the central connecting axle was broken, preventing them from turning. The top mill had to be removed to make repairs.
And even the smaller stone mill was as wide as a person stretching their arms, surely weighing over a thousand pounds.
"Can you manage it by yourself?" the elder lady of the Gu Family asked with concern.
She had heard about Lou Yi's feats with bulls and thus asked Gu Yong to invite Lou Yi over.
Whether Lou Yi could manage it, she wasn't sure.
Though Lou Yi's reputation had spread, as a neighbor who had watched him grow up, it was still difficult to believe in his abilities all at once.
"Oh, Lou the Warrior can lift a bull; what is a small stone mill to him?" A sharp voice sounded, as a tall woman in her forties with a lean face walked over. Who else could it be but the village gossip, Sister Gao?
Sister Gao's voice was piercing.
Neighbors from Erhe Village had gathered at the Gu Family's door without anyone realizing, everyone coming to watch Lou Yi repair the stone mill.
Lou Yi was at a loss, retorting, "I didn't lift the bull, just overturned it."
His explanation only made everyone more excited.
"What's the difference?"
"Come on, show us your strength!"
Lou Yi shook his head, stepped forward, bent down, and grasped the base of the stone mill with both hands, pressing it against his chest.
"Hey!"
A soft shout later, the small stone mill gradually rose, and when it reached the top, Lou Yi's legs were already standing straight.
Then, it was steadily placed onto the empty space beside them.
"Bravo!"
Someone cheered, and the crowd erupted into applause.
"Ah Yi, you're truly amazing!"
The eyes of the young widow, Mrs. Liu, became even more moist as she looked at Lou Yi.
At the back of the crowd, Qi Long, with a square face and thick eyebrows, turned and left, looking somewhat gloomy.
"Dad, let's not get on Lou Yi's bad side," was the first thing Boss Qi said upon returning home.
"Cough, cough..." Butcher Qi was smoking a dry tobacco pipe and choked upon hearing this, causing Qi Long to rush forward to pat his back.
"How did I raise such a coward?" Butcher Qi scolded angrily.
"It's not that, that kid is too strange," Qi Long explained, feeling wronged. "I just saw him lift a thousand-pound stone mill... just like I usually move a watermelon, no, maybe even more effortlessly."
Hearing this, Butcher Qi fell silent.
"Dad, when Old Four builds his house, we may not need to tear down his side. We could fill up the ditch on the other end instead..."
Before Qi Long could finish his sentence, a sarcastic female voice interrupted: "An entire family, afraid of a fatherless brat, isn't that embarrassing? However powerful Lou Yi is, is he more powerful than the second one? More powerful than the Government Office? More powerful than the third one, our future Martial Artist of the Qi Family?"
The speaker was a burly woman comparable in size to a man, wearing colorful clothes, her face heavily powdered, looking slightly comical.
Hearing this, Butcher Qi, who was initially wavering, regained his fierce expression: "Back then, I made concessions to Scholar Lou and let it be, and now I can't even overcome his son, where is my old face supposed to go?"
"If the second son gets noticed by the Inspector and gets promoted, we can deal with him later!"
"You... women don't understand anything!" Qi Long dared not get angry at his father, only glaring at the obese woman, his wife.
The woman, in turn, rolled her eyes at him.
"At worst, give him more silver." Qi Long thought dejectedly, "Why make enemies unnecessarily?"
Lou Yi was unaware that the Qi Family was planning against him and probably wouldn't take it to heart even if he knew.
His thoughts were soon drawn to another matter.
One day, Yang Er rushed to his house with bad news.
"Brother, don't wander around these days. Five or six miles away in Gangzi Village, there's a tiger—a man-eater!"
...