Clouds and Moon Shadow

Chapter 71 Moon Shadow Pavilion

"What's the price of this house?" Gu Qingyue asked the broker beside her, who was spitting as he spoke.

"Sir, this house is priced at four thousand taels of silver. It's the most affordable house available right now. It was previously lived in by a highly respected scholar from the capital. His students visited a few times afterward. It was only put up for sale the day before yesterday, and two buyers have already come to see it. They are both very interested. If you want to buy it, you should be decisive, sir."

Despite being brainwashed and flattered by the broker, Gu Qingyue looked around and found it quite nice, and didn't find it offensive.

After discussing it with Rong Qingqing and Liu Feng, they offered 3,500 taels of silver. The broker said he would ask the landlord and give them an answer the next day. His attitude was very sincere, and he was not angry because they had bargained down by 500 taels. This made Gu Qingyue look at him with new respect.

And he made up his mind to ask him to help him buy shops in the future.

The next day, the broker replied that the landlord's minimum price was 3,700 taels, and he couldn't go any lower. This was within Gu Qingyue's expectations. Without saying a word, she took out the money, signed the sales agreement, and instructed the broker to process the new property deed. Just like that, she got the property, and the three of them breathed a sigh of relief.

Looking at the three characters "Gu Qingyue" on the agreement, Gu Qingyue felt as if she had fallen into a fog, light as a feather. Even after receiving the agreement, she still couldn't believe that she actually owned her own property in ancient times. It was a large mansion with a garden, three courtyards in total. She never dreamed of such a thing.

That afternoon, the group moved into the new house with their belongings on their backs.

Three days later, after all the furniture and household items had been purchased, everything was back on track. Gu Qingyue solemnly convened everyone for an impromptu family meeting.

"Sister Rong, Senior Brother Liu Feng, the Wen brothers, Xiao Nian, Xiao Xiao, Er Gou, Mi Hu..." As she read out each name, Gu Qingyue looked at the spirited young man in front of her and felt a surge of pride.

"Who can tell me what your biggest wish is right now?" Gu Qingyue asked.

The boys looked at each other in bewilderment. "Drive out the southern barbarians and avenge my father!" Wen Qinghong's voice was resounding.

"Yes, let's fight those southern barbarians and avenge our families and fellow villagers!" the boys shouted in unison.

"How do you plan to take revenge? Do you have the ability now? Can you do it?" Gu Qingyue asked again.

"Practice your martial arts well, and once you're highly skilled, you can seek revenge against the Southern Barbarians!" Xiao Zhen shouted loudly.

"Before we master martial arts, how should we live?" Gu Qingyue asked again.

The boys were stunned for a moment, unsure how to answer.

Gu Qingyue looked around and said slowly, "What we need to do now is settle down and make money as soon as possible. With money, we can support our martial arts training in peace. After that, for the long term, we will need..."

Gu Qingyue carefully explained her thoughts, and seeing the increasingly bright eyes in front of her, she felt very gratified.

Based on the specific arrangements discussed by everyone, a radical renovation plan began inside the house.

Half a month later, the courtyard renovation was completed. Gu Qingyue and Liu Feng walked into the back garden, which was completely different from when they bought it.

Except for a few large trees on the lotus pond and lawn, all other artificial hills and other structures were removed.

Now, on that largest open space, a lot of training equipment has been built according to the training standards set by Gu Qingyue, serving as a physical training ground.

Of course, an open space was also left on the other side. In the pavilion next to the open space stood a very large wooden frame, which was filled with sharp longswords. This place would be mainly used for learning the Wuxuan Token and the introductory technique, Willow Leaf Twin Swords.

Looking at everything before her, Gu Qingyue felt as if she were in a dream. It was as if she had returned to the training ground when she was a child. It was an extremely arduous yet fulfilling period of time, and she still missed it very much when she thought about it now.

She wants to start over here.

The next morning, when everyone was standing there in matching purple outfits, Gu Qingyue handed out a training manual to each person. Although almost everyone except the Wen brothers was illiterate, it didn't matter. Starting today, they would learn to read and practice martial arts together, and they would become stronger as soon as possible.

This is a cruel world where the strong prey on the weak. When a person has no one to rely on and nowhere to go, the first thing to do is to find a way to make a living. Having strong fists is the primary condition for survival in this world. They all understood this simple truth, and their eyes lit up as they rubbed their fists together, eager to fight.

Of course, Gu Qingyue was not an idealist. She knew that to master the internal and external skills of this world, one needed to persevere for several years or even more than ten years before achieving anything.

But who is she? Besides being a top-notch special agent, she is also a physician who has studied traditional Chinese medicine extensively, both ancient and modern.

She decided to temper everyone's physique through acupuncture and ancient Chinese medicine formulas. At the same time, she would use methods from her previous life to conduct comprehensive physical training, including Sanda, Taekwondo, Muay Thai, and Karate courses, all of which she would refine. If the tempering was successful, then within two or three years, these children would reach their physical peak, make rapid progress, and quickly become masters in terms of internal strength and skills. This was not just wishful thinking.

Based on the differences in the children's skill levels, after discussion, they decided to divide the children into three groups and develop separate training plans for each group.

To instill firm beliefs and goals in everyone, Gu Qingyue established her own organization—Moon Shadow Pavilion, which means "the moon is hidden deep in the clouds, and ghostly shadows linger."

As for what her main tasks would be in the future, Gu Qingyue, as the head of the pavilion, already had a plan in mind.

At the same time, the names of the nine children who were later rescued were changed, with Yue and Ying as their surnames, and they were named Yue Shen, Yue Ming, Yue Wan, Yue Qian, Yue Lie, Ying Feng, Ying Yu, Ying Xiu, and Ying Mian. Among them, Yue Shen and Ying Feng were the children with relatively good aptitude and some martial arts skills. If they performed well in the future, they would become the leaders of the Yue and Ying divisions, respectively.

Wen Qinghong, who is currently the most skilled among the trainees, will temporarily supervise the children's daily lives, while Liu Feng, as their master, will be fully responsible for their training.

Gu Qingyue participated in the training for the first three days, mainly to demonstrate the use and precautions of these devices, and finally handed over this part of the physical training to Wen Qinglan for supervision.

She had always thought Wen Qinglan was rather gentle and mild-mannered, but in the past three days, his training and comprehension in this area surprised Gu Qingyue and made her look at him in a new light.

After arranging all these matters and handing over her monthly training plan to Liu Feng, Gu Qingyue began to act as a hands-off manager.

She prepared everything, told the head of the family, Rong Qingqing, and then prepared to go up the mountain alone.

She visited every shop near the Gu residence, bought a whole truckload of everything she could think of that she would need in the deep mountains, and then took the opportunity to sweep it all into her spatial storage, which was truly reassuring.

On the day she went up the mountain, her master Liu Yuan came down the mountain to visit everyone at the Gu residence, thus perfectly missing Gu Qingyue.

Gu Qingyue was unaware of this, because she was currently doing something extremely important.

At this moment, Gu Qingyue had already entered the deepest part of Meigu Mountain. She wanted to collect all the herbs for body tempering to improve everyone's physical condition.

In half a month, she had basically found all the herbs, but the quantity was very small, not enough for twelve people, which made her, who had the superpower of mental strength, feel very frustrated.

Of course, deep in the mountains, there are many precious medicinal herbs such as ancient ginseng, lingzhi, and gastrodia elata. She even found a piece of century-old He Shou Wu. After the excitement, she was still depressed.

Her purpose in this trip was to find the body-tempering medicinal herbs. It had already taken her about twelve or thirteen days to gather them all, and today was the fifteenth day, but she still hadn't found any more.

On a sunny day, Gu Qingyue lay on a large rock by the river, her hands behind her head, staring blankly at the large, ever-changing cloud in the blue sky, completely at a loss.

There aren't enough medicinal herbs. To achieve the initial body tempering effect, each person needs to take a medicinal bath at least once or three times. The medicinal herbs currently stored in my space are simply not enough, and some herbs only have one or two plants.

Unless there are large areas of medicinal fields available for cultivation, body tempering can not be successfully implemented at each stage.

She had seen this body-tempering formula in an ancient medical book in her previous life. She had tried it, but in her previous life, it was not easy to find herbs that could be picked in the wild. Most of them were artificially cultivated, and the medicinal effects were not as good as she had imagined. Moreover, she had not cultivated internal energy at that time, so she could not fully cooperate with the ancient formula to achieve the desired effect. But now it is different.