Chapter 034: The Method of Absorbing Qi

“What do you mean, ‘when they grow up’?” Qingzhen asked, slightly confused.

“When they grow up, we eat them,” Qinghu replied, looking at her little brother as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“Cough, cough, cough?” Qingzhen stared at her in shock. “You take such good care of those little fish, and it’s just so you can eat them when they’re grown?”

“Of course. Why else would I raise them? Isn’t that what fish are for?” Qinghu countered, utterly mystified by his question.

Qingjin was rendered speechless.

After a moment of stunned silence, Qingzhen clapped his hands together.

“That’s right! I should get myself a couple of young red-maned wild boars and raise them. They’re easy to keep, delicious to eat, and in a few months they’ll be big enough.”

Pfft—Old Zhao nearly spat out his drink.

Qingjin stared at his younger brother, dumbfounded.

Ning Qi and Zhou Ji doubled over with laughter, not bothering in the least about their dignity.

“What’s wrong with you all? When my little Hu raises fish, none of you laugh. But when I want to raise a couple of piglets, suddenly it’s the funniest thing in the world?” Qingzhen protested, thoroughly annoyed.

Ning Qi and Zhou Ji laughed even harder.

“I actually think piglets sound like a good idea,” Qinghu agreed, genuinely puzzled as to why everyone found the notion so amusing.

“No, but why do you specifically want to raise red-maned wild boar piglets of the ninth rank?” Zhou Ji asked, bewildered.

“The meat is delicious,” Qingzhen said with conviction.

Little Qinghu nodded as well. Indeed, among wild boars, only the red-maned wild boar’s meat was truly delectable.

“But the people from the Dao Court all say those pigs are filthy, only loose cultivators and commoners eat them,” Zhou Ji pointed out. In truth, due to the Dao Court’s rejection and disdain, red-maned wild boar was never accepted by the mainstream cultivator factions. Even though it was a bona fide ninth-rank ferocious beast, cultivators often left the meat behind when they hunted it. It had become the very byword for inferior beast meat.

It wasn’t just red-maned wild boars—any ferocious beast of the boar variety was generally looked down upon. The Dao Court considered their diet unclean and so their meat must be tainted as well.

“I don’t see anything unclean about it. Ever since the first time I tasted red-maned wild boar, I’ve loved it. Especially flavorful, and especially nourishing,” Qingzhen said.

“And especially cheap. It’s practically made for people like us,” Qinghu chimed in.

Qingjin’s heart ached a little. Because they had no money, his little brother and sister had turned to eating red-maned wild boar.

“I’ve eaten red-maned wild boar too. Besides spiritual energy, there is indeed some impurity in it. Processing it is troublesome—you have to expel the impurity. If you can’t get rid of it over time, it can affect your cultivation in the future,” Ning Qi added.

“But I never noticed any harmful impurity,” Qingzhen said, puzzled, looking at Ning Qi. “Brother Ning, what technique do you use to refine spiritual energy?”

“Just the Qi Transformation Method. I’m a loose cultivator; I don’t have any high-level techniques for refining spiritual energy,” Ning Qi laughed at himself.

“Then let me teach you the Qi Consumption Method,” Qingjin offered.

“Qi Consumption Method?” Ning Qi repeated, confused. “What’s that?”

“It’s a little trick for refining spiritual energy,” Qingjin explained.

“Why have I never heard you mention it before?” Ning Qi asked in surprise.

“I asked before if you all had your own methods for refining spirit meat and spiritual energy, and you all said yes,” Qingjin replied innocently. Besides, we weren’t that close at the time; how was I supposed to know you didn’t have even these little tricks?

“Wait, where did you get this little trick? If you teach us, won’t you get in trouble with the Shen family or your sect?” Zhou Ji asked anxiously. After all, in the human race, stealing or privately passing on cultivation techniques was a serious crime.

“It’s our own improved method. No trouble at all. Feel free to learn it,” Qingjin assured them.

“What… you actually improved a cultivation method yourselves?” Zhou Ji was dumbstruck. Even Ning Qi and Old Zhao stared at them in disbelief.

“What’s the big deal? It’s nothing,” Qingzhen said, lifting his chin with a proud little smirk.

“That’s not ‘nothing’! Qingzhen, you’ve really shocked me. Do you know who’s capable of improving techniques? Only the great elders at the Real Person level among the major factions can do that!” Zhou Ji exclaimed, ruffling Qingzhen’s hair. “And you’re just a kid!”

“Heh, heh, it’s all thanks to my big brother. The method my sister and I came up with made our stomachs gurgle all the time,” Qingzhen blurted out without thinking.

Old Zhao and Ning Qi burst into laughter again.

“That’s still incredible, you know? Who would give up cultivating with a new technique just because their stomach gurgles?” Zhou Ji shouted, half-laughing, half-marveling.

The truth was, the original family cultivation method from the Shen clan was so clumsy and awkward that Qinghu couldn’t bear it. Learning it felt like being a turtle stretching its neck—one stretch, then another, unbearably uncomfortable.

So she led Qingzhen in modifying the method, creating a little trick that let them rapidly absorb and convert spiritual energy and other essences into their own power. But she didn’t know much about local beings’ techniques yet, so where gaps appeared, she grafted on parts of cultivation methods from her memories of humanity.

The result was a bit jerky, and the way it circulated power was rather odd. Their stomachs often rumbled with strange noises.

Qinghu had thought she’d revise it again after a few more years, once she’d learned more. But before that, Qingjin discovered the little method—he was just barely over ten years old at the time—and after laughing for ages, boldly helped his younger siblings improve it further.

Thus, the Qi Consumption Method, a unique technique for refining spiritual energy and spirit flesh, belonging solely to the three siblings, was born.

Later, Qingjin even created a simpler version, though it was half as effective, and taught it to their parents. Their mother learned it in just a few days with her children’s guided assistance. Their father, unwilling to take shortcuts, took more than a month to figure it out on his own, and even then, only learned the simplified version.

From that point on, Qingjin noticed that his younger siblings possessed a wildly imaginative and unwavering faith in their own abilities, allowing them to grasp and innovate with cultivation methods far more freely than others.

By contrast, the cultivators around him, constrained by background, experience, and the Dao Court’s teachings, lacked the flexibility and inventiveness of his little brother and sister.