Do not die

Meng Zhou jumped down from the water tank, put on his shoes, put down his rolled-up trouser legs and the hem of his robe tied around his waist.

He put a fist in front of his mouth with one hand and coughed twice. He put his hand behind his back and puffed out his chest. He slowly regained the majesty of a martial arts master and the leader of a gang.

Although he didn't do well in the spiritual world, he was involved in the world of martial arts as a martial arts master before the age of forty, and his temperament was very good.

With his tall and burly figure and well-groomed beard, Meng Zhou thought to himself when he saw his current image in the water tank:

"Even if you are a criminal, you can get to the top just by looking good."

But Meng Zhou was not happy about this, and instead shook his head.

This appearance is really too ostentatious.

The original owner didn't think there was any problem with this. After all, the current image was not deliberately created by him, but was formed bit by bit over the course of decades.

When he was still wandering around the secular martial arts world as a martial arts master, this image was basically fixed, and he would not feel anything wrong.

But for Meng Zhou, the image of him as an old casual cultivator at the bottom of Qi training who was over fifty years old and whose physical potential was almost drained due to mistaken practice of magic skills was a bit too eye-catching.

However, now he has to work hard to maintain his original personality.

As soon as Meng Zhou adjusted himself, he heard footsteps coming from far and near outside the hospital.

"Brother." Someone knocked on the door and shouted outside the courtyard.

"Come in."

Meng Zhouyi put his hands behind his back and let one hand fall naturally.

The courtyard door that he had unlocked in advance was pushed open, and a strong man walked in. It was the "third child" who knocked on the door for instructions in the morning, named Xu Lei.

"Brother." Xu Lei, the third child, saw Meng Zhou in the courtyard and quickly greeted him respectfully.

Meng Zhou nodded, walked to a nearby stone table, and sat down on a stone pier.

Xu Lei stood respectfully not far in front of him, adjusting his position slightly as he walked around, always facing him head-on.

Meng Zhou did not immediately invite him to take a seat, but first asked: "Is your patrol on the river going well today?"

Xu Lei nodded and replied: "It went very well."

Meng Zhou nodded, as if this was just a casual question, and then changed the topic: "Where's the second brother, why haven't you seen anyone else today?"

"Uh..." Xu Lei hesitated.

"Isn't he always the most concerned about patrolling the river? Why did he suddenly change his gender?"

Xu Lei still didn't speak.

Meng Zhou stared at him and said "hmm", which made him feel tremendous pressure, and then asked:

"Why, is there anything you can't say to me? Are my words so ineffective?"

Xu Lei was so frightened that he waved his hands quickly: "Big brother, second brother...two days ago, second brother just said that he wanted to go out for a walk and relax."

"Relax? Well, he feels aggrieved!" Meng Zhou nodded clearly and said firmly.

"No, absolutely not." Xu Lei defended subconsciously, but he seemed to feel that this statement was a bit weak, and his voice became much lower.

"Look, you feel the same way, right?"

Xu Lei wanted to shake his head and deny it, but faced Meng Zhou's eyes that seemed to have seen through everything, he said no more.

Meng Zhou pointed to a stone pier opposite and said, "Sit down and talk."

A somewhat embarrassed Xu Lei sat down opposite him, lowering his head, like a student being scolded in front of the teacher.

Seeing the "third child" being so submissive in front of him, Meng Zhou's eyes flashed, and the vague memories from the original owner became vivid.

The original owner was born into an ordinary farmer's family. His family was wiped out in a gang war. At a young age, he fled his hometown alone with a martial arts manual obtained by touching corpses. From then on, he started a career as a martial artist.

I took classes in private school, learned to read and write, practiced in secret, day and night, constantly pondering, applying what I learned, and improving my life. From being alone to having a small group. As martial arts practice improves, the small gang gradually turns into a big gang.

Before the age of forty, he has reached the pinnacle of life in the eyes of a warrior.

In terms of strength, he is a martial arts master and a giant; in terms of power, he has personally created a large martial arts gang. The leader of the gang follows what he says.

He has no shortage of fame or fortune.

But instead of enjoying all this, he turned around calmly. From then on, there was one less martial arts master and one more seeker in the world.

If the original owner's experience after seeking enlightenment is hidden, this is a perfect template for a protagonist in a low-level martial arts plane.

…

After practicing the Blood Demon Art by mistake and finding the only feasible method, the problem before the original owner became one: not enough spiritual stones.

Among the practices with healing properties that he had access to, "Water Nourishing Technique" was the best.

And in order to avoid repeating the same mistakes and being cheated again, he simply ignored the small street stalls and focused on large shops with a guaranteed reputation.

The efficacy is the greatest and the risk is the lowest. The original owner strives to do the best he can. The only drawback is that it's expensive.

Faced with this dilemma, the original owner showed a pattern of vision that far exceeded that of ordinary middle- and low-level Qi practitioners.

He first determined one thing. He was pressed for time and had no other talents except martial arts. If he relied on himself alone, he would not be able to save enough to buy the "Water Nourishing Technique" spiritual stones on the day he died.

And he had the life experience of starting from scratch and establishing a sect in the secular martial arts world, so he naturally thought of a way to break the situation.

It is too slow for one person to earn spiritual stones, so form a group. With more people, the speed of accumulating spiritual stones will naturally be faster.

With the idea of ​​starting a business again, the next step is to determine the direction.

The original owner, who has had an entrepreneurial experience, understands a simple truth: Eat as much food as you have the appetite, and carry as many bowls as you have the strength.

Not to mention that he couldn't think of any huge profit opportunities for a while, even if he knew about it, he wouldn't touch it. Even if there were ready-made fruits within reach, he would not pick them.

After thinking about it, it was also his past life experience that gave him the answer.

There is a kind of gang, even if other forces know that there is profit to be made, they will not covet it. Even if they still encounter competition, it will only be internal competition at the same level and in the same industry.

This includes those carrying bags at the pier, those pulling fibers on the river, and those driving large trucks in the busy city.

According to Meng Zhou's understanding, these can be summarized as "labor-type gangs."

Its characteristic is that there are no ready-made fruits for people to compete for. If you want to get rewards, you have to create them with your own hands. You must work first before you can get rewards.

Those rewards are more like the condensed embodiment of the participants’ labor.

Everyone knows that this kind of gang can also make money, but how many people will covet it?

With such careful thinking, the predecessor hatched a second entrepreneurial project, Baijiang Gang. It's said to be a gang, but it's more like a group of fishermen. A group of special fishermen composed of a small number of early Qi-training casual cultivators and a large number of ordinary warriors.

Baijiang is an ordinary river, but what is extraordinary is that it is connected to the second-level top spiritual vein, the waters of the 800-mile Jade Lake.

Jade Lake can catch a large number of spiritual fish and beasts every year, which is naturally not what the Baijiang Gang is qualified to covet.

However, the Baijiang River connected to the water area was also stained with oil, and there were also many semi-spiritual fish and even low-quality spiritual fish moving in it. But the number is very small, not large-scale, and the activities are irregular.

Those who want to make a fortune from this can't do it because they have no willpower; those who can do it have no power but no intention and they don't like it at all. If you have this ability, wouldn’t it be great to go to Cuiyu Lake to make a fortune?

This is useless, and this is exactly what the original owner wanted.

On an average per capita basis, the speed at which the Baijiang Gang earns spiritual stones would at most make a monk on the first or second level of Qi training hesitate. If a monk on the third level of Qi training takes a second glance, he is short-sighted.

But the secret is that the largest number of warriors are all working for free. Their only thought is to exchange their contributions for a chance to safely transfer to practitioners many years later.

Looking at the original owner's miserable experience of seeking Taoism, you will know how attractive such an opportunity is to ordinary warriors.

The only ones who can really participate in the distribution of benefits are him, the gang leader, and a group of backbone Qi practitioners.

And this is the reason for Meng Zhou's so-called "feeling aggrieved".

In order to get rid of the Blood Demon Technique as soon as possible, the original owner switched to the Water Nourishing Technique. When he did not have enough spiritual stones, he used up all the public funds.

This was not a spur-of-the-moment move, but a long-planned move.

Of course the original owner knew the disadvantages of doing so, but he did not hesitate at all, even if the Baijiang Gang fell apart because of this, he would not hesitate.

With these thoughts running through his mind, Meng Zhou placed his right hand on the stone table, tapped his index finger lightly, and looked at Xu Lei, who was sitting opposite with his head bowed.

"Lao San, are you preparing to attack the fourth level of Qi training now?" he asked suddenly.

Xu Lei replied: "We have to wait another year or two."

"Yes." Meng Zhou nodded and said apologetically: "This is because I delayed you."

Xu Lei quickly waved his hands to defend: "Brother, please don't say that. If it weren't for your support, I might still be struggling on the second level of Qi training."

In order to track and catch spiritual fish in the vast river area, Qi practicing monks are a must. This is why some Qi practicing monks in the Baijiang Gang have some casual training.

And those Qi-training casual cultivators selected by the original owner were carefully selected by him secretly.

Before he discovered these casual cultivators, they all had such labels: low cultivation, no background, no means of livelihood, older, and had practiced martial arts - for other people, this is difficult to distinguish, but for him For example, just by taking a glance, you can roughly tell what kind of martial arts the opponent has practiced and what level he is at.

It can be said that they are at the bottom of the cultivation circle. If there is no accident, it will be difficult for them to reach the middle stage of Qi training in this life.

One can imagine the status of the original owner who rescued them from that predicament and gave them a stable career and hope in the Baijiang Gang.

Unfortunately, kindness is no match for reality.

At the beginning, apart from him, who was at the fourth level of Qi training, the second oldest, Li Heng, and the third oldest, Xu Lei, had the highest cultivation levels. They were only at the second level of Qi cultivation, while the others were all at the first level.

But that was back then.

Meng Zhou shook his head and said:

"Second brother You has more experience than you and has better talent than you. He successfully broke through to the third level of Qi training in the second year after joining the gang.

If nothing unexpected happens, he will definitely break through to the fourth level of Qi training within this year. "

As he said that, he looked at Xu Lei and said, "Wait two years and you will make a breakthrough. In the middle stage of Qi training alone, there will be three of us, not to mention that the cultivation of the brothers below will also improve a lot.

It seems like this is a good thing. Compared with when we first established the gang, our strength is more than twice as strong.

But the embarrassing thing is that the Baijiang Gang's ability to make money is limited. With the few fish and shrimps they catch now, they simply can't feed so many mouths! "

"Ah? There is still such a truth!" Xu Lei exclaimed in surprise.

Meng Zhou spread his hands and said: "Third brother, you understand, your second brother is smarter than you. Not only is he unhappy about this incident, he is also worried about the future situation."

Xu Lei nodded slowly. Not to mention that his second brother was such a careful person, even he was very worried now.

"Brother, what should we do?"

Meng Zhou said: "It's easy to handle, I quit."

"Ah?" Xu Lei stood up suddenly in shock, his eyes widened, he couldn't believe it, but he seemed not to understand at all.

"The pot is only so big and the rice is so much. Instead of not being full, it would be better to have two less mouths to eat.

You go tell the second brother that I won’t divide the future fishing income, and I’ll fill in the shortfall this time first.

He will temporarily act as the gang leader for me now, and I will slowly withdraw from the gang. At that time, he will be the second gang leader of the Baijiang Gang. "

Xu Lei stood there in a daze, opening his mouth several times but not knowing what to say.

"Okay, this is what I asked you to come here to talk about. Go ahead." Meng Zhou waved him away.

"Ah, by the way, I will be in seclusion frequently during this period. I will not go there after patrolling the river. You just need to send someone to bring some rice over regularly."

Xu Lei, who turned around and walked out, was a little distracted. There was no joy in his heart.

After confirming that the other party left, he closed the courtyard door and Meng Zhou let out a long sigh of relief.

He believed that such an operation would buy him more time, especially the "second child" who was thinking the most. With such a big carrot hanging in front of him, he thought he would be able to settle down for a while.

As for the third child, he doesn't need any hints at all, he will help him keep an eye on the second child.

In this way, he, the eldest child, can "free up" his hands and focus on development.

…

Because it is adjacent to the second-level spiritual vein Jade Lake, there are also many scattered spiritual lands along the Baijiang River.

The quality of this kind of spiritual land can be high or low, and the area can be large or small. Those with high quality and large area can develop some spiritual fields, and many of them are occupied by small immortal cultivating families.

There are also some Sansuiling spiritual lands with worse quality. Either there are some Sansui cultivators settling there, or no one cares about them and they are still a wilderness.

When the Baijiang Gang first established a foothold on this section of the river, they also had conflicts with some small casual cultivators. The former leader may not have strong other abilities, but his fighting experience can make him go sideways among the cultivators in the middle stage of Qi training.

If the body is not hollowed out by magic power, frequent fighting is suicide. Otherwise, being a tribulation cultivator is barely enough.

The rest of the Baijiang Gang were all concentrated in a small mountain depression a few miles downstream across the river. There was a spiritual land there. Although the quality was not very good, it was large enough.

The reason why the original owner set up another courtyard here is because there is a small spiritual place of excellent quality, which is enough for monks in the middle stage of Qi training to practice here. The disadvantage is that the area is too small, and a quiet room can completely cover it.

Meng Zhou sat cross-legged in the quiet room, closing his eyes and meditating.

"I'm just an empty shell now. I'll be broken if someone pokes me. Those methods are not foolproof. I still need to master a few self-protection techniques as soon as possible."

"The original owner knew very few spells, and he didn't master them very well. Before his death, he used martial arts to protect himself."

"Although I have completely received the memory of the original owner, and this body is completely mine, his martial arts disappeared with his death.

If I want to get it, I have to ‘download’ it again and turn the memory into real understanding! "

"With the addition of various factors, I can learn martial arts very quickly.

But for these martial arts to be effective, the higher the level of mastery, the better.

The higher the level, the more experience is required and the more time is needed to practice. "

"So, although I have a treasure trove of martial arts, my choices are very limited."

"In this limited choice, we must meet as many needs as possible. We must be able to attack and defend, chase and escape, hide and hide..."

As his thoughts turned around, Meng Zhou's thoughts became clearer little by little.