Zhou Ping had not walked far when he suddenly turned back to gaze at the Liu family compound. He felt something was off, yet he could not put it into words.

"Brother, I need to go into the mountains for a while. You go home first," Zhou Ping said to Zhou Hong.

"Alright."

Zhou Hong nodded, knowing that his younger brother had some plans in the mountains.

With that, the two parted ways.

Zhou Ping went into the mountains to pick several medicinal herbs he had discovered earlier to assist Zhou Minghu in his cultivation.

He himself had no possibility of further improvement, and could only continuously polish his bottleneck to raise his own limits. But Zhou Minghu was different; he still had infinite potential.

However, the Spiritual Qi in Baixi Village was too thin, utterly unfavorable for cultivation. Although it was somewhat richer in the mountains, Zhou Minghu was still young. If Zhou Ping brought him up the mountain, not only would there be danger, but if someone with ill intentions saw them, it would also arouse suspicion.

Aged medicinal herbs contained a trace of Spiritual Qi, making them the best choice for Zhou Minghu's cultivation.

When Zhou Minghu was young, Zhou Ping had begun continuously gathering fresh medicinal herbs to nourish his body, hoping to solidify his foundation and give him a better chance of breaking through to the Qi Condensation Realm.

Sixteen strands of Spiritual Qi formed the heavenly moat between mortal and immortal. Success meant a lifespan of one hundred and twenty years and the bright light of immortal arts; failure meant remaining a mortal forever, toiling through life without achievement.

Zhou Ping had already failed five times, with only ten strands of Spiritual Qi within his body. He had long since lost any extravagant hopes and preferred to focus on nurturing his child.

But Zhou Minghu's spiritual light was one inch and nine tenths. With a few more attempts, it was highly possible for him to touch that threshold.

"A twenty-year-old ginseng is quite rare."

"A ten-year-old lingzhi can nourish Minghu's blood and energy, which is beneficial for the flow of Spiritual Qi."

These were all hidden places where he had discovered medicinal herbs growing in previous years, and today he harvested them.

However, they were all merely ordinary medicinal herbs, not a single Spirit Grass. If there were even one Spirit Grass among them, it might have been able to raise Zhou Ping's limits.

But Spirit Grass required harsh growing conditions; the Spiritual Qi concentration had to reach an extremely high level. Zhou Ping had only seen them on the Spirit Medicine Peak of the Azure Cloud Sect. How could they grow on such a wild mountain with thin Spiritual Qi?

After gathering the medicinal herbs, Zhou Ping went deep into the mountains to collect Mountain Clear Qi.

This Mountain Clear Qi was a type of heaven-and-earth Qi. Compared to Yin Malefic Qi, it was far inferior in both price and utility, but its advantage lay in ease of collection-one only needed to search the mountains at dawn and dusk to find it.

Because Mountain Clear Qi was gentle and upright, unlike the violent and cold Yin Malefic Qi, it was favored by many Qi Condensation cultivators.

He collected Mountain Clear Qi not for himself, but for his clan.

Each strand of Mountain Clear Qi required three months of toil to gather enough and was worth only one Spirit Stone. In Qingshui County, other cultivators who had family estates would not bother with such hard work, even if they knew the collection method.

After all, staying hidden in the mountains far from civilization for months was an ordeal.

He expended effort and hardship to collect it to pave the way for his clan.

His family was weak and lived in the countryside. To develop quickly, they needed connections. Li Mu had operated in the county town for decades, possessing broad connections and paths, and was even able to trade with the Pingyun Huang Clan.

But the Zhou family's own products were only the most ordinary grain and mountain goods. How could Li Mu be interested in those? Only Zhou Ping, as a fellow cultivator, could seek out spiritual objects and treasures to establish a relationship with him.

The result of this was very good. The Zhou family's grain could be sold directly to Li Mu at a very fair price.

Of course, although Mountain Clear Qi was worth one Spirit Stone, in such a barren place as Qingshui County, transactions were settled in gold and silver.

One Spirit Stone was roughly equivalent to sixty taels of silver, while the Zhou family's grain and mountain goods brought in only seventy or eighty taels a year. If not for Zhou Ping, how could the Zhou family have so much surplus money each year to buy land and fields?

Zhou Ping walked through the mountains, crossing peaks and streams. Coming and going, several months passed before he finally gathered one portion of Mountain Clear Qi. When he returned home, he saw someone in the courtyard and felt a hint of joy.

In the courtyard, a refined youth was teaching three younger brothers to study literature and practice calligraphy.

It was Zhou Changhe, who studied at the county town's academy.

"Changhe."

"Nephew pays respects to Uncle." Zhou Changhe cupped his hands and bowed.

Zhou Ping asked in confusion, "Is it not yet time for the break? Why have you returned?"

Although his nephew had only started his elementary education at age five, he was naturally intelligent. In five years, he had mastered various classics. Zhou Ping was overjoyed and hurriedly sent him to the best academy in the county town.

He even rented a small courtyard in the county town and sent a servant there.

Those maids and servants had been with the Zhou family for five years. Coupled with the fact that they were not very old to begin with and the Zhou family treated them well, they could be considered loyal.

"In a few days, it will be the prefectural examination. The teacher let us return home to rest and prepare," Zhou Changhe explained. His steady and refined demeanor made him seem nothing like a ten-year-old child, despite his short stature.

Zhou Ping nodded. "Then you should rest well."

"Nephew also came to report good news."

"Good news?" Zhou Ping asked in confusion, then paused. "Is it the Qian family?"

Zhou Ping had exhausted his efforts collecting Mountain Clear Qi to build a connection with Li Mu and expand relations in the county town. From beginning to end, it was all for the clan's prosperity and to eliminate those four families.

Each of the four families had their strengths. Although the Wang and Sun families had their roots in the village, they had clansmen serving as minor officials and clerks in the county yamen. Zhou Ping had Zhou Changhe build a good relationship with Lin Zhaohe-Lin Ruohe's son-to maintain the friendship between the two families. Through this, he could later uproot the Wang and Sun families' foundations in the county town.

As long as their foundations were severed, the two families left in the village would be easy to handle.

The Liu family had always been cautious, even enduring the situation five years ago. In the five years since, they had remained withdrawn, making them difficult to target.

The Qian family had always followed the path of commerce, selling mountain goods and grain. They were extremely familiar with the county town's merchant houses and had established a relationship with an old cultivator. This meant that the Qian family's rise and fall were closely tied to their business.

Even though Zhou Ping, relying on the authority of Registrar Lin, constantly squeezed the Qian family's business in the county town, the effect had not been obvious.

After all, the county town connected to the prefectural capital. The Qian family sold goods like grain and mountain products, which never lacked buyers.

"It's a major incident at the Bai Family Merchant House," Zhou Changhe said in a low voice. "A few days ago, several grain ships of the Bai Family Merchant House were heading north on the Luo River to the prefectural city when they were robbed by river bandits-ships and grain taken together. The Bai Family Merchant House suffered heavy losses!"

Zhou Ping was stunned, then ecstatic.

The head of the Bai family was the old cultivator the Qian family relied on. He had established roots in the county town decades ago and single-handedly built the merchant house, which had some reputation throughout Nanyang Prefecture.

This was the advantage of staying in the county town-it was connected in all directions, linking the eight townships and over a hundred villages, while externally connecting to the prefectural capital and neighboring counties. As long as one could gain a foothold, one could quickly attract wealth from all directions and rise.

Families like the Li family and the Bai family were dozens of times larger than the Zhou family.

If not for the safety of his family, Zhou Ping would have wanted to settle in the county town. But he also knew that the county town was fierce, already divided cleanly by established families. To try to intervene would come at a huge cost.

Most cultivators like him who returned to their hometowns either became small landlords in their respective villages or joined those families.

Now, with the Bai Family Merchant House suffering such a heavy blow, Zhou Ping guessed that it was not the work of river bandits at all, but rather a move by Li Mu and other families. Unable to suppress the Bai family openly, they resorted to underhanded means to prevent it from advancing further.

Several grain ships, loaded with so much grain, meant a massive loss of tens of thousands of taels. It would likely take the Bai family years to recover, let alone the various small families under its banner.

The reason he had been unable to suppress the Qian family's business before was that they had invested their principal in the Bai Family Merchant House. Now that the Bai family was in such a state, the Qian family was bound to be in jeopardy.

"Hahaha, come, let's go eat," Zhou Ping laughed loudly. "Just wait. The Qian family will come to us to sell their fields and land."