Zhao Lin and Ma Jiu boarded the boat and carried two sacks of rice down. The foreman handed him two bamboo tallies.
The bamboo tallies were polished smooth and carved with patterns. They also had two grooves.
Zhao Lin asked and learned that the bamboo tallies were used to track payment; the two grooves were worth two wen.
Two wen for one trip meant twenty wen for ten!
'City work is tough, but it's definitely a faster way to make money than farming,' Zhao Lin thought.
The cost of living in this world was roughly equivalent to the 1990s of his past life. One wen could buy two pounds of coarse rice or half a pound of pork. You could eat your fill at a small streetside stall for three wen.
But this year's harvest had been poor, causing grain prices to skyrocket and the value of money to drop compared to previous years.
"Brother Ma, how long have you been a porter?"
A single sack of rice weighed around a hundred pounds, but Zhao Lin didn't find it strenuous to carry two as he casually chatted with Ma Jiu.
"Two and a half years."
Ma Jiu was a man of few words who never started a conversation, but he would answer any question put to him.
As a newcomer, Zhao Lin knew he should observe and listen more. Along the way, he took note of the locations of various establishments like inns, restaurants, markets, brothels, and teahouses.
He also made a point of observing how pedestrians looked at him. He saw contempt, avoidance, wariness, and even pity...
'Definitely at the bottom of the social ladder.'
Zhao Lin was getting a clear picture of what it meant to be a porter.
The two of them wove through streets and alleys, delivering the rice to a grain store before returning to the docks for another load. They made several trips back and forth.
Ma Jiu finally couldn't hold back anymore. "Brother Zhao, don't you get tired?"
Qinghe County was near the mountains, so the roads were often steep. Porters had no choice but to transport goods by carrying them on their shoulders or in their hands.
After the first trip, where he had managed two sacks, Ma Jiu could only carry one at a time, his face red and neck bulging with strain. Zhao Lin was also drenched in sweat, but he still looked like he had energy to spare.
Zhao Lin took a couple of deep breaths. "I'm still plenty tired! But what can you do? My family can barely put food on the table, so I have to work harder."
In truth, he wasn't tired so much as his shoulders were rubbed raw and aching.
He had to admit, the Spirit Beast Scroll was truly miraculous. After absorbing the old ox's Essence Soul, it had transformed his body from the inside out.
He now possessed not only superhuman strength but also incredible stamina.
The downside, however, was that his appetite had grown immensely as well.
Zhao Lin would have to stop and eat something after hauling goods for only a short while.
If his mother hadn't packed him some flatbreads before he left, he likely wouldn't have been able to last.
After all, strength couldn't come from nowhere; it was all energy converted from food.
No matter how powerful his ability was, it still had to obey the laws of physics.
As the sun began to set, the loading and unloading of cargo on the ships was completed, and the docks gradually quieted down.
"Lv Fa, twenty tallies."
"Miao Si, twenty-one tallies."
"He Quanshui, eighteen tallies..."
The porters gathered at the docks, lining up to have the boss's bookkeeper tally their day's wages.
When it was Zhao Lin's turn, he handed the ten bamboo tallies he was holding to the bookkeeper.
"Zhao Lin, ten tallies."
After calling out the count, the bookkeeper gave him five wen, explaining that another five wen had been deducted as a security deposit.
Zhao Lin rubbed his red, swollen, and aching shoulders. 'This is hard-earned money,' he thought. 'Without the Spirit Beast Scroll, I wouldn't have even lasted a single trip.'
It wasn't much money, but it was finally a glimmer of hope.
With his pay in hand, Zhao Lin didn't hurry home. Instead, he stopped by the grain store he had made deliveries to earlier.
He spent four wen on two pounds of white flour, a liang of sesame oil, and a small packet of salt, saving the last wen for the next day.
"Meat buns! Freshly steamed meat buns! Two for one wen! Big fillings, thin wrappers..."
As Zhao Lin left the grain store, he saw the owner of the neighboring bun shop shouting his wares.
The lid of the steamer basket was lifted, releasing a billow of hot steam and revealing large, white buns that were absolutely mouth-watering.
GULP. Zhao Lin swallowed hard as his mouth began to water uncontrollably. He fought the urge to go over and buy a couple, then quickly turned and walked away.
'Once I have some money, I'm definitely coming back here and eating until I burst!'
Zhao Lin quickly crossed the street, left the city, and hurried in the direction of Baitou Mountain.
When he arrived back at the village, his parents were standing at the entrance, looking out in the direction of the county seat.
"Father, Mother, I'm home."
Zhao Lin called out. "Sigh, it's so cold out. You two shouldn't be out here."
"It's your first time traveling so far on your own. We were worried."
"We've only been here a little while. It's fine."
Hearing his parents say that, Zhao Lin could only sigh, telling them not to do it again the next day.
Back home, he took out the flour, oil, and salt, and briefly recounted his day in the county seat.
"You found work so quickly?"
"Our son is so capable!"
The old couple was astonished. They hadn't expected their youngest son to find a job so fast.
Finding work in the city was incredibly difficult these days, but with the proof laid out before them, they had no choice but to believe it.
Zhao Lin glanced into the kitchen and saw the stove was cold. Realizing his parents hadn't eaten yet, he announced, "I'll cook tonight! We're eating white flour!"
With that, he poured the flour into a basin and started boiling a pot of water.
"Use a little less flour. Your father and I aren't hungry."
His mother came in to help, scooping a large spoonful of elm bark powder from a sack and moving to add it to the basin.
Zhao Lin stopped her out of reflex. "Mother, please don't add that. If you do, I won't be able to eat much of it."
"All right, all right. I'll listen to you."
Mrs. Zhao smiled and put the powder away. "You must be exhausted, my son," she asked with concern.
"I'm not tired," Zhao Lin replied as he kneaded the dough. "I'm really strong now."
Mrs. Zhao said, "It's good that you're strong, but don't get arrogant. Always listen to your foreman, be polite to others, and try to be patient when you run into trouble..."
Zhao Lin yawned. He felt a sense of déjà vu...
After kneading the dough and letting it rest, he rolled it out with a rolling pin, cut it into long strips, and dropped them into the pot.
Once cooked, he scooped them out, sprinkled them with minced wild garlic, added salt and sesame oil, and poured in some of the noodle broth. The fragrant, handmade noodles were ready.
Zhao Lin ate the most satisfying meal he'd had since arriving in this world. He finished every last bit, noodles and broth, and his parents couldn't stop praising it.
'If I work harder tomorrow, we can have meat for dinner!'
Zhao Lin observed the Spirit Beast Scroll in his mind. The white mist in the first square was clearly denser than it had been after breakfast and lunch, proving that the amount of Primordial Qi was indeed directly related to his food intake.
After dinner, he changed into a set of his older brother's old clothes and took the ones he'd worn all day out to the courtyard to wash them.
"Lin'Er, you've worked hard all day. Go to your room and get some sleep. I'll wash these."
Mrs. Zhao snatched the clothes from him. Her body suddenly stiffened, and tears began to stream down her face.
It turned out that from carrying sacks all day, Zhao Lin had sweated so much that a thick, white, crusty layer of salt had formed on his clothes.
Even though Mrs. Zhao couldn't see it clearly in the dim light, she knew what it was the moment her hand touched the fabric.
"Oh, you poor thing," she lamented. "My son, you've suffered so much."
"It's not suffering. You can't work without breaking a sweat, can you?"
Zhao Lin said dismissively, trying to comfort his mother. "As long as we can eat our fill, being a little tired is nothing."
He was a little surprised with himself after saying that.
'In my past life, I would have been complaining nonstop about how unfair everything was. But now, I'm able to take on the burden of this family on my own initiative.'
'It seems I've really changed...'
In that moment, Zhao Lin felt he had truly accepted and become a part of this world.
Dragging his exhausted body back to his room, he collapsed onto the bed, still fully clothed.
As he drifted between sleep and wakefulness, images of large, white buns floated through his mind.
"Buns... I'll have them sooner or later..."
he muttered in a daze.