Chapter 321: Chapter 317: Prosperous Incense_1
Lady Zhang quickly tried to defuse the tension: “Let’s go inside and take a look first. It’s said that the stalagmites inside are very beautiful.”

The lady then said to her son, “Sanlang, stop arguing with the townsfolk. Look after your sister and let’s go inside.”

The young man snorted at the villager and led the group inside.

Yingbao lagged behind and said to the still angry villager: “Uncle, you don’t need to worry. These flowers would fall off soon even if they weren’t picked. If you don’t want the flowers to be picked, you can place a wooden fence around them to prevent people from getting close.”

As a merchant, how could she not tolerate people’s grievances? As long as she had a thick skin and a strong tolerance, none of these mattered.

The village business just started, Yingbao didn’t want a good venture to be ruined just because of a small dispute.

The young man just now was the son of the Sima family, and his father held a position in the Prefecture City just below Governor Zhang. He is the most powerful person in the Prefecture City. If he wanted to make trouble for the villagers of Jujube Tree Village, I am afraid even Governor Zhang wouldn’t be able to stop him.

Taking a step back, the sky is wide and the sea is vast. Although Yingbao didn’t want to bow her head to others, sometimes she had to do so.

Or perhaps, she should make another miracle to awe those young boys and girls?

The villager nodded: “I’ll listen to the young Master and go make a fence!”

With that, he turned around and left the cave.

Yingbao sent the villager on his way, and then leisurely walked into the cave.

Thanks to the crowd up ahead that were holding torches, she managed to clearly see the path underfoot.

Soon, there were waves of exclamations from the crowd in the front.

Yingbao ran over and saw that there were jagged stalagmites hanging from the roof of the cave, and shiny white stalagmites on the ground. The tallest one was even taller than a house.

The internal part of the cave was vast, but the path was rough, with countless water droplets falling from the ceiling and gradually gathering into small streams flowing outside.

This was the source of Shiquan Spring.

After admiring it for a while, Yingbao didn’t go further inside but instead went to place a huge stalagmites and fetched the prepared stele from her cave house, and quietly slipped it behind.

Yesterday, she sneaked out of the Prefectural Government Office and went to a Stonemason Shop. She asked him to carve some words on a stone tablet, which read that this place was the abode of the goddess of the heavens, who blesses the people with prosperity. The villagers living in this place were also under her protection.

The inscription said that the villagers should safeguard the Peony Divine Tree within the cave and not let any humans or animals harm them.

It also warned that anyone who wantonly damaged the flowers, trees or spring water or insulted the villagers here would be plagued by bad luck and have nothing going their way for their entire life.

Yingbao gently pressed this huge stone tablet behind the stalagmites, relying on her young age and dark clothing for saw her stealth. She then slipped quietly away to join her second brother.

Zhang Min was currently taking a wooden box from a cavity in a rock wall, laughing as he said to his mother: “Mother, this is something I hid here a long time ago, I didn’t expect it to still be here.”

“What did you hide?” Xuehua leaned over and asked.

Zhang Min opened the wooden box to reveal a few childhood toys.

Xuehua made a sound of disinterest.

But Zhang Min was happily holding the items in his arms, turned his head to see his little disciple sister, and said, “I’ll give them all to you later.”

Yingbao was speechless.

The toys in the box were rotting, how could he give them away to someone?

People stayed in the cave for a long time before someone spotted a stone stele behind a large stalagmite.

The stele was about the height of a person, embedded in a crack, with many indistinct characters on it.

“Everyone, bring the torches over here! There are a lot of words on this stone tablet, let’s see what is written!” a young man called.

All the people hustled over. Zhang Min and Lady Zhang also came to take a look and fell silent after seeing it.

The little girl who broke the flower earlier was scared to tears by the inscription and kept asking her mother what to do.

Her brother frowned: “This tablet must be the trick of the villagers, I don’t believe there is any such thing as a goddess of heaven…”

This time, Lady Sima did not let her son go, but shouted sharply: “Shut up! You are spouting nonsense at such a young age, did you read all your books into the dog’s stomach?”

The young man dared not speak again and lowered his head in silence.

Truthfully, he was quite scared, but he did not want to appear weak to others, which is why he forced himself to utter those words.

Nobody dared to stay in the cave, so they all left in succession.

Upon reaching the peony tree, Lady Sima joined her palms together in prayer and bowed to the peonies. She muttered something, but Yingbao could not hear it distinctly.

Afterward, Lady Sima forcefully donated two hundred coins worth of oil to the Taoist temple, hoping that the people in the temple would recite additional scriptures and spells for her son.

Yingbao had to oblige her, but did not tell her that no one in their Taoist temple was seriously practicing Taoism.

Neither the master, nor the elder, not even his second elder brother, nor himself.

They were all charm masters of the Yin Yang Department of Apricot Grove, a world apart from most Taoists.

On the second day, this group of people finally left.

But they bought with them dozens of barrels of spring water.

Afterward, people from the Prefecture City sequentially came to buy water. Even a few masters from the Prefecture School came for a visit and even entered the cave to have a look at the stele.

They, too, bought several barrels of water to take back.

From then on, the number of tourists increased, and many civilians came bearing incense and sacrificial offerings.

Of course, the incense money was given to the Taoist temple, and Master Zhou Wuchang unceremoniously accepted it all.

In no time at all, half of the money used to buy the mountain land and construct the houses were recovered.

Yingbao had local villagers bring stones to encircle the entrance to the Shiquan Cave. Anyone who wanted to enter for sightseeing would have to pay fifty coins.

This approach not only reduced the number of people entering the cave but also maintained the water source’s purity.

Who knows if those people would wash their hands or feet in the cave, or wash off some horrible disease? If so, wouldn’t the water that flows out of the cave become unclean?

Once warned by her, the villagers immediately installed a circle of stone stools in the cave.

With these stone stools, people wouldn’t have to walk directly on the cave floor upon entering.

Time passed until the twelfth lunar month, where the weather was exceedingly cold, and even the water stored in the kitchen had turned into ice.

Zhang Min and the head disciple were in the kitchen hammering the ice to get water, then mixed the water with flour to make food.

Yingbao leaned against the window, watching the snowflakes drifting outside and started to ponder.

Jingzhou was way colder than her hometown, according to Cui Lan. The ice on the pond was three feet thick, and you could skate on it.

When Yingbao went ice-skating as a child, it was merely on a narrow little ditch where one could easily slip into an ice hole, which was not fun at all.

However, it was bone-chillingly cold here. After just a stroll outside, your eyebrows and eyelashes would be coated with frost.

During this time, she was so frozen that she dared not leave the house and kept stuffing the kang–a brick bed heated by a fire underneath–with firewood.

In this cold weather, if you fetched a bowl of water from Pupil Spring, it would certainly become a lump of ice within two hours.

Earlier, Yingbao had considered storing ice in the cave dwelling. When summer arrived, everyone could then enjoy icicles.

However, the climate in her hometown was damp and the winter was not as cold as it was here. The thin layer of ice could not be stored at all.

In contrast, this place was a natural ice cellar. If she stored enough ice, she believed it could certainly last until the next summer.

No sooner said than done.

Yingbao put on her cotton-padded jacket, jumped off the kang, put on a tiger-patterned headwear, and dashed outside.

A few thatched huts had already been constructed beside the Shiquan Cave, which were being guarded by several villagers in shifts.

“Little Douzi, please help me buy some Dahuang pots from the village and deliver them to the Taoist temple.”

“Alright!” Little Douzi agreed without asking what little master wanted with Dahuang pots.

Yingbao added another instruction: “I only want new ones—no used ones.”

Many villagers used Dahuang pots as manure pits to collect fertilizer by burying them in the ground. All sorts of human waste was dumped inside, therefore used Dahuang pots were strictly unacceptable.