My virtue is above yours.

The villagers outside could only hear a series of thumping sounds coming from inside, but they couldn't make out what was being said.

Everyone was extremely anxious.

"Oh no, that beast is banging Lao Luo's head against the wall! If this continues, someone will die."

A hot-blooded young man raised a hammer: "Let's fight him to the death!"

"What are you going to use to fight? That beast could kill a cow with a flick of his finger, you—"

The door suddenly opened, and Xiao Bao walked straight out.

Silence fell instantly.

Everyone retreated, fearing that the beast might go berserk and use them as scapegoats.

The more everyone retreated, the more that guy pressed forward.

With a "thump".

Xiao Bao knelt down, bowed deeply, and shouted, "Fellow villagers, I, Luo Xiao Bao, deserve to die a thousand deaths! Please forgive me!"

The crowd looked at each other in dismay, and then, terrified, they quickly knelt down as well.

Xiao Bao stood up and shoved the whip into Old Man Luo's hand: "Third Uncle, I shouldn't have hit you. I was wrong. Whip me. Whip me hard."

Old Luo trembled with fear, the whip burning his hand. He quickly threw it to the ground and said in a trembling voice, "I dare not, you are a god, I dare not touch you."

"What kind of god am I? I, Luo Xiaobao, am a rotten person! A vermin! A heinous beast! My son was born without an anus!"

The more Chen Jingxuan cursed, the more satisfied he felt, and the shouts in his head grew louder and louder.

"Stop cursing! Stop cursing! My cultivation level is decreasing!"

Chen Jingxuan manipulated Xiaobao to pick up the whip and lash himself twice: "If you won't whip me, I'll whip myself!"

The crowd trembled with fear at the sight, wondering what this beast was up to now.

Chen Jingxuan got tired of whipping, put down the whip, and manipulated Xiao Bao to crawl on the ground to Uncle Luo's side: "Uncle, I have offended you today, which is truly hateful. Please ride back."

Uncle Luo was so frightened that his face turned ashen and he didn't dare to say a word.

Xiao Bao dove under him and lifted him up, shouting, "Second Uncle, say 'Giddy up'!"

Uncle Luo lay on his back, not daring to move.

Xiao Bao's screams echoed in Chen Jingxuan's mind.

"Don't do this! I've worked so hard to accumulate this cultivation! Calm down, Luo Xiaobao, you have to believe that this is also brutal, that's right. As long as you believe this is brutal, your cultivation will definitely stabilize! I can't believe it! How is this brutal? It's like being a grandson! Damn mountain god, get out of my body!"

Chen Jingxuan ignored him and continued to manipulate Xiao Bao's body, putting the plow that was originally meant for the old ox on his own back, and getting down into the field without looking back.

He moved with incredible speed and was much stronger than an ox. He pulled the plow across the paddy field at breakneck speed, splashing mud and water three feet high, as if a mad bull was rampaging through the field.

The villagers were stunned and didn't know what to do, but then they heard a young man's voice coming from not far away.

"Don't worry, folks, from now on he will not do evil again."

Everyone looked in the direction of the sound and saw a young Taoist priest striding towards them, handsome and composed.

"Could it be that the Taoist priest helped us subdue him? Thank you so much for your help, Taoist priest!"

Just as the villagers were about to kneel down to express their gratitude, Chen Jingxuan quickly stepped forward and stopped them.

"Chen Quan'er is late, causing the villagers to suffer!"

"Are you Brother Quan?"

The villagers looked her over carefully, and Zhang's wife even came up and tugged at the hem of her clothes.

Chen Jingxuan quickly dodged, and his sister-in-law excitedly shouted, "It really is Brother Quan! Even the mole on his chest is exactly the same!"

Everyone was overjoyed: "Brother Quan, how did you subdue this beast?"

"It's just a minor trick, nothing to brag about."

When navigating the world, one must keep one's methods well-hidden; the villagers don't need to know so much.

Everyone excitedly hugged him.

"Our Quan-ge has made something of himself; he's become a highly skilled master!"

"I knew Quan-ge'er had been smart since he was little, and sure enough, he's so successful now! He's also handsome."

Old Luo held Chen Jingxuan's hand, his wrinkled old eyes filled with tears: "Brother Quan, I thought you'd forgotten all about us!"

Chen Jingxuan cupped his hands and said, "I grew up on the kindness of many families; the villagers have been incredibly kind to me, and I will never forget it, Quan'er! I've been busy cultivating on the mountain these past few years and haven't been able to return home, which I truly regret!"

Everyone laughed and said, "It's alright, it's good that you're back. Let's eat first. We're starving. But what should we do with that beast? Will he go berserk again?"

Chen Jingxuan explained, "It's alright, he can't cause any trouble now. I've already written to my master, and after he finishes plowing the fields and sowing the winter seeds, my master will come back to take him in. But Uncle Luo, Aunt Luo, Xiao Bao will have to endure some hardship on the mountain."

The Luo couple said excitedly, "It doesn't matter! Let Master Xuantong torture him as much as he wants, and we'll pretend we never had this son! But whatever you do, don't let him die."

"I understand, after all, they are my own flesh and blood."

"No, I mean to torture this beast until it's on the verge of death, unable to die!"

Chen Jingxuan was taken aback. Considering what the couple had gone through in the past six months, he realized that this was understandable and exactly what he wanted!

Everyone looked back at the hillside again. Xiao Bao had already plowed all the way down the hill, panting heavily, and was still pulling the plow like a donkey.

Chen Jingxuan suddenly felt dizzy and collapsed.

Fortunately, the others caught him: "What happened to you?"

"It's alright. Subduing this fellow just now used up too much of my energy. I'll recover after a while."

He was still using his divine sense to control Xiao Bao, and he could only withdraw his divine sense when his master arrived. Moreover, Xiao Bao's noise kept echoing in his mind.

"Chen Quan'er! Give me back my cultivation! I've painstakingly cultivated for half a year! And it's all gone in a flash! The plow is so heavy, I can't pull it anymore! Chen Quan'er! You've made me suffer so much! I wore open-crotch pants until I was six! Six years old! There's no way Yu'er would like me then! Chen Quan'er! I hate you!"

Chen Jingxuan was helped into the house by the others; the house was filled with a musty smell.

"It doesn't taste good, but please don't mind it."

"It's alright, I grew up smelling this."

He lay on his familiar bed, looking around at the crumbling earthen walls, the old earthenware jar with a missing rim, and a patchwork garment made of tattered strips of cloth hanging on the wall.

A ray of sunlight shone through a crack in the roof, making the dust particles in the air clearly visible.

He closed his eyes contentedly: "The feeling of childhood has come back."

He felt his cultivation level increase significantly, unsure whether it was from saving the villagers or tormenting Xiao Bao to satisfy his inherent virtue.

The Qi seed within his body is growing stronger, taking him one step closer to the second level of Qi Nourishing Realm. When that time comes, he will be able to control the Qi of Virtue to cast spells and bid farewell to close combat.

I don't even know what my innate spell will be, I'm really looking forward to it.

"Brother Quan'er."

Chen Jingxuan opened his eyes and saw a slender, pretty girl standing by the bed. Her hair was tied in a bun with a grass ring, and the ends were tied into swallowtails that hung over her shoulders. She didn't look like a peasant girl, but rather like a young lady from the city.

She wasn't dressed like this just now.

Why did you tie your hair up like that?

Feng Yuer smiled and tilted her head, moving with the agility of a rabbit, her eyes sparkling in the sunlight.

"Does it look good? I copied the hairstyle of the woman in Old Luo's painting. He said that young ladies in the capital love this kind of hairstyle the most."

"It looks nice." Chen Jingxuan asked casually, "Why aren't there any cobwebs in my room?"

"Because I'll come and clean."

"No one lives here anymore, why bother cleaning it?"

"What if you come back one day and find the house so dirty that no one can live there? That would be terrible."

Chen Jingxuan was touched; such a good girl was a rare find.

"Brother Quan'er, they're going to throw you a welcome dinner tonight. Erniu and the others have already gone to pick wild vegetables."

"Don't make them work so hard. The village is out of food. How about we all eat tree bark for the welcome feast?"

Feng Yu'er leaned against the headboard, cupping her delicate face in her hands and smiling sweetly, "Did you bring us anything nice this time?"

"I almost forgot if you hadn't mentioned it."

Chen Jingxuan quickly went to rummage through the package, while Feng Yuer watched him intently from the side.

He pulled a book out of the package: "This one."

A hint of disappointment flashed in Feng Yu'er's eyes. She barely knew any words and couldn't understand the book. Oh well, it's all from Brother Quan'er's kind heart; he'll surely encourage me to learn more characters. Anything Brother Quan'er gives me is fine!

She obediently reached out her hand to take it.

Chen Jingxuan looked surprised: "What are you going to do?"

"Isn't this for me?"

"You can't read. This is for Old Man Luo."

Feng Yuer's beautiful face immediately wilted.

"This is for you."

Chen Jingxuan took out a tube of toothpaste and a toothbrush from his bag and handed them to the other person.

Feng Yu'er's face lit up immediately. She took a deep sniff of the toothpaste: "It smells so good! What is this?"

"This is called toothpaste. It's used for brushing your teeth, once in the morning and once at night. It helps with dental health. I invented it when I was bored in the temple."

"Thank you, Brother Quan'er!" Yu'er closed her eyes and kept smelling the toothpaste. "It smells so good."

Chen Jingxuan took his self-written "Agricultural Improvement Manual" to the shade of a tree and gave the book to Old Man Luo, who was resting in a rocking chair.

"Old Luo! I've got something good to show you!"

The other person glanced at the book, quickly flipped through a few pages, then immediately became serious and turned back to the first page to study it carefully.

"Brother Quan, where did you get such a good book?"

"I wrote it myself."

"You wrote this yourself? You're truly remarkable. I've always known you're exceptionally talented, but I never imagined you'd be so accomplished in agriculture as well. I'll definitely teach everyone according to the methods you recorded in your book. If we can really increase production several times over as the book says, the village will be spared from hunger and cold."

Chen Jingxuan wanted to innovate agriculture when he was a child, but the village was too poor. At the age of five, he could not make a living without working. Everyone was too busy to help him. He could not move the tools and raw materials needed for equipment improvement, and no one was willing to believe the ideas of a five-year-old child.

After he went to the mountains to cultivate himself, he had the leisure to ponder these things. Based on his vague memories from his previous life and repeated testing, various traditional methods of mixed fertilizers, different types of waterwheels, crop rotation, and improved curved plows have been promoted in the surrounding areas, greatly helping local villages increase production.

Old Luo looked troubled: "I just don't know how we'll get through the winter. Xiao Bao's mischief caused everyone to miss the autumn planting season, and now every household has no surplus grain. We don't know what to do about the food for the winter, the grain for next year's planting, or this year's autumn tax. Alas."

Chen Jingxuan also felt that these were all problems. Fuyun Temple had always been poor and did not have any extra money. Neither he nor his master had any magic to help plants grow.

Old Luo suddenly spoke up again: "A scholar came here a few days ago and was locked up in a cave in the north by Xiao Bao. I think he looks quite dignified, and he might be rich. We rescued him, so why don't we ask him for help? Why don't you go and try?"

"A scholar? Could it be the one I tricked yesterday—no, I mean, the one who was so helpful?"

In a cave north of the village, a young scholar dressed in a long robe looked up at the sky and sighed.

"Heaven is jealous of my talent! Heaven is jealous of my talent! God, you must be jealous of my unparalleled genius, and want me to be trapped and die in this desolate wilderness!"

"If Heaven had not given birth to my king, there would be no eternal darkness!"