Longevity, starting from being a chicken raising servant - Chapter 25
Chapter 25: Chapter 25 Plaguel i
Translator: 549690339
“Class I, middle grade!”
Wang Ba looked at the rising white light in the burning smoke in surprise.
Although he made some guesses, when he really confirmed the class and grade of Jia 5 at this moment, he couldn’t help but lose his composure a bit.
Jia 5, however, didn’t seem to recognize that it was a middle-grade Spirit Chicken and was rubbing affectionately against Wang Ba.
Wang Ba immediately rewarded him with several discarded Spirit Insects.
But he still felt a little regret in his heart.
“It’s a pity that Jia 5 is only a meat chicken, not the kind of Spirit Beast that can fight. If I had a Class I, middle-grade Spirit Beast to protect me, that would be great!”
For some reason, Wang Ba had a faint suspicion that there was something odd about the atmosphere within the Sect recently.
It wasn’t so noticeable when he was at Lu’s Grain Shop, but when he found that the herbs and talismans in the stores were all sold out, he began to feel a sense of unease.
However, being within the Sect, he really couldn’t think of what dangers there could be and where these dangers could come from.
He didn’t think too much about it. After all, if the sky fell, someone taller would be there to hold it up.
Time flies quickly.
On the fifth day after Wang Ba successfully broke through to the sixth layer of the Strong Body Sutra.
At the foot of the villa.
Old Hou was curious about the extra barrels of chicken feed.
“What’s going on with you? Why does your chicken feed fluctuate so much in less than a short span of time?”
“You know, I’ve been studying how to breed Spirit Chickens recently, so the consumption is indeed unstable. Leave these barrels here for now. The weather is getting colder, so it doesn’t matter if fermentation takes a little longer.”
Wang Ba smiled helplessly.
He didn’t hide the fact that he was researching Spirit Chickens from Old Hou.
In fact, he had hoped that Old Hou would know about it.
However, he deliberately hid his results.
Wang Ba had purposefully done this to prepare the Sect for any eventualities. He wanted the Sect to know that he didn’t suddenly hatch a large number of Spirit Chickens, but it was a process with a clear progression.
Even if Deacon Li ran into issues, he could always rely on Old Hou to leave hints in the Sect.
When necessary, he could use this to his advantage.
It was like having double insurance.
Not revealing his results was to avoid revealing his hand prematurely and attracting the curiosity of others.
After all, many chicken-tenders in the Sect dreamed of turning their circumstances around by breeding Spirit Chickens, but hardly anyone had ever succeeded.
Even if everyone knew Wang Ba was conducting research, most people would not believe he could succeed.
This was Wang Ba’s standard explanation, so Old Hou did not ask any more questions. He just helped Wang Ba to carry the chicken feed into the villa
Seeing Wang Ba seemingly completely engrossed in his chicken-raising business, he shook his head and said,
“You really are patient! Haven’t you noticed anything unusual in the Sect recently?”
“Unusual? Everything seems fine to me, why, did something happen?”
Wang Ba’s heart stirred, but he still wore an oblivious look on his face.
Seeing this, Old Hou glanced at Wang Ba disapprovingly and then began to blabber,
“Don’t you know? The Sect is conscripting labor!”
Wang Ba was a little puzzled.
“They’ve sent some of the menial workers outside the Sect to do hard labor!”
Old Hou continued to spill the beans.
“Hard labor? That’s unlikely, isn’t it? The immortal of the Sect could do the work with a wave of his hand, why would they need manual labor?”
After some thought, Wang Ba shook his head and looked at Old Hou with suspicion:
“Didn’t that person from the Chengxian Society tell you again?”
“Shush!”
Old Hou hastily raised his finger, looking left and right: “Lower your voice!”
“Does anyone need to tell me this? I personally saw the disciples from the External Affairs Room escorting the servants away!”
“Moreover, I overheard someone from the Purification House, saying that a spirit spring was discovered not far from the Sect. Probably they are being sent to dig it up!”
“Besides, if these disciples could really solve everything by lifting a finger, why would they make us do all the work!”
The tone of the conversation suggested dissatisfaction with the Sect Disciples.
Upon reflecting, Wang Ba also agreed. If the immortals were truly omnipotent, they certainly would not need them to raise chickens.
“However, what does this have to do with us? We belong to the Beasts Room, the External Affairs Room shouldn’t hold sway over us, should they?”
“Besides, I raise chickens. They surely can’t expect me to abandon all these chickens to go dig up a spirit spring, can they?”
“Don’t the immortals need spirit food anymore?”
Wang Ba’s words were logical. Old Hou had no rebuttal, he racked his brains and finally could only indignantly say:
“Anyway, 1 think us lower rank servants should come together. Only then will no one dare to look down on us, or bully us!”
“This really doesn’t sound like something you, Old Hou, would say. Did someone from the Chengxian Society say it to you again?”
Wang Ba joked with a laugh.
“Go away! What are you babbling on about! Go and feed your chickens!”
Old Hou glared at Wang Ba irritably and rode off in his donkey cart.
But before he went far, he jumped off the cart as if he just remembered something, running quickly back.
He crossed the hundred or so yards in a flash, reaching Wang Ba without panting or blushing.
“Almost forgot about something important!”
Old Hou quickly said: “I heard that the ‘Jia House’ that raises pigs and the ‘Yi House’ that breeds cattle and sheep have all suffered from diseases! Moreover, now, more than twenty households at Ding Villa are plagued with chicken plague, you must be very careful!”
Upon hearing this news, Wang Ba couldn’t help but look slightly changed.
“More than twenty households plagued with chicken plague?! I remember it started spreading more than three months ago. Haven’t the immortals from the Beasts Room resolved it yet?”
He had heard from Shopkeeper Lu before that some households in Ding Villa were plagued with chicken plague, but he didn’t expect it to have affected more than twenty households now.
“I don’t know about that. The households affected by the chicken plague were not the ones I delivered their chicken feed. I only found out because 1 saw a lot of dead livestock in the Purification House a few days ago and happened to ask about it. Anyway, you must be careful!”
Having said that, Old Hou sprinted away. He had many households to deliver to every day and his time was limited.
He wasn’t sure if it was just his imagination, but Wang Ba vaguely felt that Old Hou’s agility had seemed to improve recently.
But his thoughts were soon occupied by the issue of the chicken plague.
“So many households are plagued by chicken plague! This is going to be troublesome!”
Chicken plague is a term for avian diseases.
Even in his previous life, there was no specific treatment for this disease. It could only be stopped from spreading through disinfection, quarantine, and massive slaughter of poultry.
If the immortals in this world were also helpless in the face of chicken plague, the precious chickens in Ding Villa were likely to face an extermination-like slaughter.
No, perhaps the entire East Saint Sect will never see a precious chicken again!
Wang Ba didn’t care about the loss of the Sect. What he was more concerned about was if the precious chickens in the Sect were affected, then his plan to break through to the tenth stage of the ‘Strong Body Sutra’ relying on these precious chickens would fall apart.
Furthermore, he found something puzzling:
“The chicken plague started three months ago. In normal circumstances, it should have drawn the attention of the Sect, shouldn’t it?”
“But what happened is, the chicken plague broke out again.”
“Moreover, the causes of chicken plague, swine flu, and cattle and sheep diseases are all different. Yet they all broke out coincidentally.”
“There’s definitely something wrong here!”
