Chapter 3: Decree of Bestowal!
Madam Chen held a banquet in Li Yanchu’s honor and gifted him one hundred taels of silver as a reward.
According to the currency system in the Kingdom of Qian, a hundred wen[1] equaled one qian, and ten qian equaled one tael[2]. The Chen family generously gifted him a full hundred taels.
In modern terms, that would be over 300,000 yuan.
Before this, all of Li Yanchu’s savings amounted to just thirteen wen. Meanwhile, a yamen officer[3] earned no more than two qian of silver a month, and ordinary people made even less, making it even harder to save money.
With this, Li Yanchu had suddenly leapt into the ranks of the modestly wealthy.
In the end, real skill is what truly matters, Li Yanchu thought to himself. He felt a renewed sense of reverence for his master. If not for the skills his master had passed on to him, how could he have come this far?
With his newly earned fortune, the first thing Li Yanchu did was buy several bottles of good wine and head to his master’s grave to pay his respects. He mumbled on for quite a while before finally leaving.
Now that I have money, I can check out the ingredients for the Revitalizing Pill at the pharmacy, he thought.
The Yellow Court Classic left by his master was an exceptionally difficult cultivation method. It was hard to get started, hard to practice, and even harder to make any progress. But for Li Yanchu, just having a legitimate Daoist method to cultivate was a rare blessing. He wasn’t about to be picky.
In the Yellow Court Classic, there was an alchemical formula called Revitalizing Pill. It could accelerate a cultivator’s absorption of the spirit qi of heaven and earth, and help raise their cultivation level. But the ingredients it called for were incredibly rare and expensive, including precious medicinal herbs.
Daoist alchemical formulas like this were extremely rare and valuable, and pills like this were incomparable to the pills commonly found in the jianghu.