Eternal Life Begins Chapter 4: A Peaceful and Prosperous Era?

Chapter 4: Chapter 4: A Peaceful and Prosperous Era?

Chu Mu strolled leisurely down the street, occasionally responding to greetings from people he knew and so he didn’t.

The original owner’s mories spanned nearly two decades, a truly imnse amount of information. For Chu Mu, it was impossible to absorb all of it in an instant.

Due to his brain’s self-preservation instincts, those twenty years of mories were like a library. They were all there, but accessing a specific mory required a trigger. Only then could he digest it piece by piece.

Take the people he’d just encountered, for example. Before seeing them with his own eyes, they were complete strangers to him. He wouldn’t recognize them unless he consciously tried to recall them, thereby triggering one of the original owner’s mories.

This situation naturally made Chu Mu all the more cautious in this new era.

Even when a mory from the past two decades was triggered, it didn’t beco perfectly clear in an instant. It all took ti to adapt to and digest.

All along the way, he was t with smiling faces. He responded to each greeting while slowly digesting the original owner’s mories and, little by little, coming to understand this new age.

Following the original owner’s mories, he walked for about fifteen minutes before finally stopping in front of a dicine Hall.

’Mingxin Hall.’

Standing outside the dicine Hall, Chu Mu gazed at the plaque hanging over the entrance and silently recited the two words in his mind.

He was literate, and yet he was not.

He could read, of course—the Han characters of his past life. But this world... though it strongly resembled the ancient eras he knew, the script, unfortunately, was not Chinese.

At least, in every character he laid eyes on, he couldn’t find the slightest trace of a connection to the script he knew.

The original owner, moreover, was completely illiterate and couldn’t even write his own na.

As for how he knew the na on the plaque was "Mingxin Hall"... well, that’s just what everyone called the place.

For all he knew, he could have misheard the na, and it might have been sothing that only sounded like "Mingxin."

’I was a college student, for goodness’ sake, and now I’m illiterate...’

After grumbling to himself, Chu Mu gave the plaque one last look, shook his head, and stepped into the dicine Hall without further thought.

Elder Li of the dicine Hall was one of the few people Chu Mu could consider an acquaintance in this world.

After all, when he had first arrived in this world, the original owner had fainted, and it was Elder Li who had co to treat him. The old physician had even made house calls for two days straight.

Afterward, Chu Mu had been busy with the funeral, so Elder Li hadn’t visited again. He had simply instructed him to co to the dicine Hall for a follow-up appointnt once everything was settled.

Although he didn’t feel like anything was seriously wrong with him, it was best to trust an expert. He couldn’t very well ignore a physician’s instructions.

The dicine Hall wasn’t very large, and its layout was quite similar to the traditional Chinese apothecaries he had visited in his past life. The thick, pungent aroma of herbs was identical as well.

Elder Li, the physician Chu Mu had t a few tis, sat alone behind the counter, intently reading a well-worn book.

"Brother Mu, you’re here..."

Elder Li the Physician set down his book and looked up at Chu Mu.

Chu Mu smiled in acknowledgnt and approached the counter.

"...Have a seat."

Elder Li gestured toward a chair at a nearby table. Once Chu Mu was seated, the physician rose and ca over to take his pulse.

After checking his pulse, Elder Li took Chu Mu’s arm and kneaded it a few tis before speaking. "It’s nothing serious, just so strained muscles and tendons..."

He paused, then asked, "Brother Mu, have you been practicing martial arts?"

"Just so amateurish forms. I was practicing in my spare ti."

Hearing this, Elder Li nodded.

"If you’re going to practice martial arts, you mustn’t overdo it. Overexertion is harmful, and besides, your constitution is already a bit weak, Brother Mu..."

"How about this: I’ll write you a prescription to replenish your qi and nourish your essence. You need to rest and recover properly."

With that, Elder Li lifted his brush, dipped it in ink, and after a mont of contemplation, began to write out a prescription.

An apprentice at the side quickly ca forward. The mont the prescription was finished, he took it and began pulling herbs from the various cabinets.

anwhile, Chu Mu remained seated at the table, chatting with Elder Li. Or rather, it was mostly Elder Li the Physician giving instructions, while Chu Mu the patient listened quietly.

In his past life, Chu Mu hadn’t known much about traditional Chinese dicine, but he had spent years trying to make a living in Yue Province. The practice was deeply ingrained in the culture there, so he had picked up a fair bit of knowledge through osmosis.

Now, listening to Elder Li and combining it with the original owner’s mories, Chu Mu realized that the dical Skill practiced in this hall seed no different from the traditional Chinese dicine of his past life. It was all based on the sa theories of Yin Yang Five Elents and Essence, Qi, and Spirit, and even the dicinal ingredients were identical.

"Take this prescription once in the morning and once at night. After taking it, you should move around a bit..."

The thought was fleeting, and before Chu Mu could dwell on it, Elder Li’s voice pulled him back.

Chu Mu didn’t dwell on it. ’He’d already transmigrated; what was a similar dical system in the grand sche of things? There could be any number of explanations. If I obsess over every little detail, I’ll never find any peace.’

Once the prescription was filled and he had paid nearly ten silver, Chu Mu didn’t linger, leaving the dicine Hall with the herbs in hand.

The morning was over, and the foot traffic on the street had picked up. This ti of day was typically the most boisterous period in Qinghe County.

Peasants from nearby villages coming for the market, town rchants and residents, and boisterous children filled the streets. Occasionally, a carriage or sedan chair with servants clearing a path would pass by, along with on-duty soldiers of the Patrol Departnt. The streets bustled with activity.

With his body still aching, his plan to report to the Inspection Departnt had to be put on hold. Thus, Chu Mu found himself with ti on his hands.

He strolled leisurely down the street, observing the scenes of daily life in this ancient town and comparing them with the mories swirling in his mind.

His pace wasn’t fast—not that he could have moved quickly with his aching muscles.

As he andered along, stopping here and there, Chu Mu managed to pick up a rather useful piece of information.

The food sold on the streets, from grain sold by weight to prepared items like stead buns, all seed remarkably cheap.

A stead bun could be bought for a single copper. A *shi* of unhusked rice—one hundred *jin* by this era’s asure—cost only seventy or eighty coppers. That ant a single *jin* of rice was less than one copper.

For an average person, two or three coppers at most would cover a full day’s food.

Such low grain prices were clear proof that, at least in Nanshan Town, there was a massive food surplus.

He knew from the original owner’s mories that Nanshan Town was built around the Nanshan Iron Ore mine. Nestled among mountains, it was by no ans a major agricultural hub.

For a non-agricultural town to have such a food surplus offered a glimpse into the bigger picture: the people of Qinghe County must be living quite well.

After all, one copper was the smallest denomination of paper currency. If a single copper had that much purchasing power, then no matter how poor the common folk were, their lives couldn’t be too terrible.

If other regions were anything like this, then the realm of Great Chu was experiencing a golden age of peace and prosperity rarely seen in the annals of history.