A Prosperous Family Estate

Before long, Zhou Chengyuan and his sister had filled dozens of wine jars, burying them one by one in the cellar.

"Grandfather, Sister Qianling and I did a fine job, didn't we?" Zhou Chengyuan lay back lazily, fishing for praise.

"Not bad at all," Zhou Ping replied with a smiling nod. "Once we accumulate resources for a few more years, we will be able to exchange for the Four Arts inheritance."

In recent years, due to the Zhu Zhen affair, the immortal clans across the four southern counties had minded their own business, with the Huang family behaving the most restrained. As a result, although the Zhou family encountered a few setbacks over the past five years, they passed through them peacefully. Their various foundations and trades were flourishing.

Among these, the spirit wine trade advanced the swiftest. With a proper spirit wine inheritance in hand, the Zhou family's brews naturally diverged in quality, primarily dividing into four distinct types, each with its own effects.

The first tier was the White Marrow Brew. This was refined within the wine gourd, using White Marrow Grass along with several types of first-grade spirit fruits and Spirit Grass as raw materials.

Furthermore, bolstered by the secret method of spirit wine, the efficacy of the White Marrow Brew was slightly stronger than before. Although it still fell short of a Green Jade Pill's standard, it possessed seventy percent of its potency. If consumed by a cultivator with fifteen strands of Spiritual Qi, there was a considerable chance it could force a breakthrough.

However, since they had no immediate need for it and a single batch took four months to brew, the Zhou family only produced one jar a year. It was kept as part of their foundation, reserved for future clan members attempting to break through.

Naturally, if the spirit wine was stored properly in a place rich with Spiritual Qi, its efficacy would only grow stronger as it aged. If brought out after several years or even a decade, it was entirely possible its power might eclipse that of a Green Jade Pill.

Ranked second was the Baixi Brew, refined within the wine gourd using ordinary spirit fruits.

Enhanced by the secret method, its effects had also multiplied, making it no inferior to a Qi-Nourishing Pill. Its taste was endlessly mellow and rich. Because it caused the drinker's heart to surge with a fierce, joyous vigor, it was also known as the Baixi Tide.

Each batch required half a month to brew. Given the wine gourd's limited capacity, even when diluted with Earth Yin Cold Water, the Zhou family could only produce thirty-six jars a year.

Its price, however, was suitably steep, fetching one and a half Spirit Stones per jar.

Ranked third was the very brew Zhou Chengyuan and his sister were making now. Bypassing the wine gourd, it was brewed using various spirit fruits guided solely by the spirit wine secret method. It provided minor benefits to cultivation, and the Zhou family could churn out over eighty jars a year.

It sold for twenty-five jin of spirit rice, which amounted to less than a quarter of a Spirit Stone.

Because its taste was fiery, aggressive, and fierce, it had earned the moniker Fire Knife Liquor.

The lowest grade was the spirit wine brewed from spirit rice; ten jin of spirit rice could yield two jars. Although its efficacy was faint, the Zhou family added a measure of leftover fruit pulp to sweeten its taste. Priced at a mere seven jin of spirit rice or five taels of silver, it was highly favored by Rogue Cultivators in the market, as well as mortal officials and wealthy merchants.

Because the added fruit pulp left the brew cloudy, it was commonly called Cloudy Yellow Liquor.

The Zhou family now tended to twelve mu and three fen of spirit fields. With an average yield of three hundred and twenty jin per mu, even after setting aside the mandatory tribute for the Immortals' Directorate, they retained over two thousand seven hundred jin a year.

This was the subtle influence wrought by the Purple Gold Vine and the spirit vein. The denser the Spiritual Qi, the more spirit fields naturally formed, pushing the per-mu yield ever higher.

However, even if they did not eat spirit rice for every meal, the occasional consumption by the seventy to eighty members of the Zhou main lineage was no small amount. Furthermore, with the surging population over the last five years, several saplings with immortal destiny had emerged within the Zhou family's domain, naturally requiring a hundred jin of spirit rice annually to nurture them.

Tallying all these various expenses, the actual annual surplus of spirit rice was only about six hundred jin. This was barely enough to brew one hundred and twenty jars of wine, yielding a meager profit of merely two Spirit Stones.

Naturally, the Zhou family sold Cloudy Yellow Liquor primarily to build their reputation. Their true pursuit of wealth relied on Fire Knife Liquor and Baixi Tide.

The spirit wine trade alone brought the Zhou family a bountiful harvest of seventy-four Spirit Stones each year.

Next was the crafting of talisman paper. As the Purple Gold Vine and the spirit vein grew more robust, the raw materials for talisman paper multiplied. Utilizing not only spirit rice straw but also the discarded stems and leaves of various spirit plants, this endeavor yielded an annual return of thirty to forty Spirit Stones.

Then there was the sale of Spirit Grass. On the surface, the Zhou family's Spirit Grass business appeared to earn only twenty to thirty Spirit Stones a year, but in reality, that figure reached as high as fifty Spirit Stones.

Finally, there was the Earth Origin Paste. Though its price was cheap, the sheer volume moved brought in an additional thirty Spirit Stones annually.

All this allowed the Zhou family to earn an impressive sum of roughly one hundred and seventy Spirit Stones each year. However, the Zhou family dedicated a full hundred Spirit Stones annually strictly to nurturing the spirit vein. Coupled with the heavy cost of exchanging for the spirit wine inheritance three years ago, their treasury's actual reserves remained slim.

This was the very principle Zhou Ping adhered to: so long as they retained a portion of their resources for emergencies, the rest should be spent entirely to cultivate greater benefits, rather than left to gather dust in a vault.

Nurturing the spirit vein was indeed a bottomless pit that swallowed wealth, but the return it brought was equally massive. At the very least, the current flourishing of the Zhou family's endeavors was intrinsically tied to it.

Zhou Chengyuan spoke with a sudden, fiery indignation. "As long as we exchange for the Four Arts inheritance, our family will definitely become strong. Then we won't have to fear that damned Huang family anymore!"

Over the past years, the Huang family had not overtly crushed the other clans, but their hidden movements and quiet strangulation had never ceased. They sold fewer and fewer Green Jade Pills to the immortal clans of the four counties, all while ruthlessly driving down the purchasing price of Spirit Grass.

Backed by the existence of nine Qi Condensation cultivators, and with Huang Bailin having reached the eighth level of Qi Condensation, many immortal clans dared to feel anger but dared not voice it, helplessly enduring the exploitation.

As for blatantly selling their goods to outer counties, that was naturally out of the question. If the Huang family decided to stage another clan annihilation, who could stop them?

Had the Zhou family not possessed the Purple Gold Vine to ease their worries over spirit plants, their own trades would have suffered a severe blow.

The advantage the Purple Gold Vine granted the Zhou family was truly immense and deep-rooted.

Zhou Ping smiled but offered no reply.

The might of the Huang family could not be matched simply by exchanging for a single art or skill. Their foundation lay in the sheer power of their cultivators.

One might look at the Zhou family's massive profits, but they were still a far cry from the Huang family's wealth. The Huang family's Pill business alone was several times that of the Zhou family's entire operation. Not to mention, the Huang family had also secured several common inheritances from the Hundred Arts in recent years; the wealth they accumulated each year was a terrifying figure.

Such an advantage was like a rolling snowball, growing ever more terrifying as it gathered momentum. The Zhou family's snowball had yet to even begin rolling; how could they possibly catch up to the already monstrously developed Huang family?

If they wished to vault past them and seize the advantage, there was only one path: producing cultivators stronger than those of the Huang family.

Even if he poured all his Ding Fire into himself, Zhou Ping held little confidence in breaking through to the Foundation Establishment Realm, as doing so required a heavenly treasure to bear the burden. And without a Foundation Establishment cultivator, the contest naturally fell to the strength and numbers of their Qi Condensation cultivators.

The Huang family boasted many Qi Condensation cultivators-nine in the open, and who knew how many hidden in the shadows.

Zhou Ping's spiritual light currently stood at three cun and five fen. If he continued cultivating for several decades, he would certainly reach the ninth level of Qi Condensation. Yet even if he alone breached the ninth level, a solitary lion would struggle against a pack of wolves. The disparity in numbers was simply too vast.

However, manifesting too many cultivators within the family would easily draw suspicion. Even though Zhou Minghu and his brothers had sired many children over the years, it was impossible to naturally produce numerous immortal saplings from a pool of merely a few dozen mortals.

Therefore, Zhou Ping had hoarded all his Ding Fire these past few years, intending to force the birth of a descendant with Middle Grade aptitude.

A descendant with Middle Grade aptitude was virtually guaranteed to step into the Qi Condensation Realm. Supplied with abundant resources, cultivating to the eighth or ninth level of Qi Condensation would merely be a matter of time.

[Ding Fire]: 57

[Spiritual Aptitude]: Low Grade (Three Cun Five Fen)

[Cultivation]: Qi Condensation, Third Level

[Descendants]: 20 (6)

Over the years, Zhou Minghu and his two brothers had been relentlessly having children, bringing Zhou Ping's total number of grandchildren up to seventeen.

This meant that among Zhou Ping's descendants, there were five cultivators: the brothers Zhou Minghu and Zhou Xuanya, as well as Zhou Chengyuan and Zhou Chengming.

As for the fifth, it was Zhou Bai's child, named Zhou Chengquan.

He was born to Zhou Sisi, making him the future authority of Zhou Hu's lineage. Since he nominally belonged to a branch lineage, Zhou Ping had raised his aptitude to a modest one cun and three fen.

Naturally, this method could not be overused. Doing so once or twice was fine, but if done frequently, anyone with a discerning eye would quickly notice the anomaly.

As long as he saved up for a few more years, letting his grandchildren start their own families, he planned to produce a descendant with four cun of aptitude. He refused to believe he couldn't deal with the Huang family then.

Just then, Zhou Xuanya rushed up with hurried steps, his face grave and severe. "Father, the people from the Huang family have arrived. They are demanding we pay tribute!"

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