The trek back to the village was mostly silent after the initial questions from Max. After losing so many people, the group was in a somber mood.

The village wasn’t fenced off. The only indication of where it started was a boulder that was about the size of a child. It had three characters on it.

‘That must say Bai Si Zun.’

Using his higher intelligence, he quickly memorized the characters. They didn’t look extremely difficult.

The group was quickly swarmed by people from inside the village. It looked like everyone had come out of their house to look for their loved ones. Among them was a middle-aged woman who reminded him of one of his aunts. She made a beeline to their small group of three. When the father-son duo saw her, their gloomy mood dispelled a bit. Chen Hu had even started running to the middle-aged women.

“Ahh, little brother Ma, that is Hu’er’s mother, Chen Hua.”

“Your son looks like a mama’s boy.”

“Hahahaha” Cough, cough, cough. “You are absolutely right! He is. Hu’er always denies it, but everyone knows he is the biggest mama’s boy in this village.”

As Chen Hu was talking to his mother, Chen Hua's expression changed several times. After a while, she looked up at Max. She gave him a grateful nod. Slowly Chen Ying and Max made their way over.

“Savior Ma, Hu’er has told me what you’ve done for my husband. And for that, I am eternally grateful.” After saying that, she bowed at the waist to him.

Max quickly came forward and put his hands on her shoulder and said, “Not at all, please aunty Chen you don’t have to be like this. I just did what I could.”

“Hu’er tells me that you came from the forest and don’t have a place to stay yet. How about you come to stay at our home. Our oldest just left with the last caravan and we even have an extra bed. And I can’t say I am the best cook in the world but in the little village if I say I am the second-best chef, no one dare claim to be first!”

Max had already made up his mind when he heard about the bed, but the part about cooking just sealed the deal for him.

“Ah, please. I am in your care aunty Chen.”

By now, the four of them were mostly smiles, but that was not the case for all the villagers. The ones that had lost family members or friends had filled the air with cries and sobs. Max could see that the Chen family was trying not to be affected by the atmosphere, but every now and then Chen Ying had to remind his wife that he and their son were alright.

After about 15 minutes of slow walking, the four of them came to a wooden one-story house. Chen Hu helped tie the horse to a post that was near the door and then helped his father down. Chen Ying was still in pain, but it didn’t look like he was bleeding.

The house had three rooms. As Max entered, there was a kitchen that was also used as the dining area. To the right of the kitchen was the Chen couple’s room and to the left was Chen Hu’s room, which had an extra bed.

The three men settled down around the table, while Chen Hua brought out dinner. It was already quite late in the day.

As he watched Chen Ying slowly sit down in his seat, it was clear that the man was not okay. Max had 20 drops of the Midnight Dew and wouldn’t mind giving a drop to the man, but he was concerned about how they might react. While he did save him and his family seemed nice enough, they were still practically strangers. He decided to wait and see if Chen Ying could recover by himself, if he could, then great, if not, then the idea was worth revisiting.

Once they were all seated, Chen Hua brought out a couple of dishes of food. As soon as the aroma hit Max, he was already drooling.

‘This must be how Ma Erk feels every time we eat.’

After the dishes were brought out, Max smelled the unmistakable scent of rice.

‘FUCK YES’

He had been dreaming about the day he would be able to eat rice again.

“Little brother Ma. Sorry we don’t have much food, but my wife wasn’t kidding when she said she is one of the best chefs in the village. Please dig in.”

Max didn’t have to be asked twice and began shoveling mouth-fulls of food into his mouth. He was so happy he could cry. Before he knew it he had cleared more than half the food on the table. Seeing Chen Ying’s savior devouring their family’s dinner, they didn’t know what to say.

When Max realized what he did, it was already too late. Sheepishly giving the family a smile he said “Aunty Chen’s cooking is indeed very good, I couldn’t control myself.”

There was a moment of awkward silence, then Chen Hu’s stomach let out a loud growl. This made Max even more embarrassed. Thinking on his feet, he went to his pack and quickly untied the wolf and presented it to Chen Hua.

“Please accept this wolf.” Before she could refuse, he dropped it in her arms.

“Little brother Ma, we can’t take this. This is too much, please take it back.” Chen Ying was the first to speak up.

“Nonsense, aunty Chen’s cooking is so much better than mine. If she can cook this, we all will have a chance to enjoy it.”

While the food was great, Max had noticed the very small portion of meat that was on the table. And after he got his hands on it, there were just a few scraps and some sauces left. Seeing this, he dug into his pack and unwrapped the three skewers of the hawk. He gave one to each of the Chen family members. The Hawk might have some healing properties that would aid Chen Ying’s injuries.

The half-burnt, dried-out, and unknown meat skewers did not look appetizing. But seeing their guest’s expectant face, they didn’t have the heart to say no. Chen Hu was the first one to move. He quietly took what’s left of the sauce his mother had made for the meat and covered the skewer with it.

Even with the sauce, compared to his mother’s actual cooking the skewer was still bland, and by no means would he call it good. But for some reason, he just couldn’t stop eating.

Seeing their son voraciously eating the mystery meat, they couldn’t help but be a bit curious as well. Chen Hua took a small bite and also found herself unable to stop. After Chen Ying saw this, he gave in as well. His eyes widened as soon as he swallowed the first bite.

He wanted to tell his family to stop eating, this was too valuable, but his body also craved the meat. He felt some of his bruises start to heal. In the end, his willpower lost out, and like the rest of his family, he devoured the skewer.

Seeing how the trio was eating his skewer with such speed, Max would have thought it was prepared by some Michelin chef, but he knew that was almost the exact opposite.

The son was the first to finish, followed by the father and lastly the mother.

“Umm, dad. I feel different.” As he said that the teenager flexed his hand.

“Honey, me too.” the sentiment was echoed by Chen Hua.

“Little brother Ma, where exactly did you get this meat? It’s so potent that I can feel my injuries healing by the minute.”

“Well you see, before I left the forest, there was a hawk that had trespassed into our home and my father was angered by how cocky it was being and slain it.”

Max underestimated how potent the meat of a 4th Stage Chi Condensation beast was. Looking at the teenager and aunty Chen, it looked like they had just broken into the Body Tempering Realm. He could feel the subtle changes in the two’s presence.

“This hawk that your father slew, do you know how strong it was?” Chen Ying was now staring intently at him.

“Umm. I think he mentioned it was somewhere in the 3rd or 4th Stage of Chi Condensation.”

After hearing this Chen Hua and her son left out a collective gasp and Chen Ying started coughing.

“And what cultivation realm is your father in?”

After saying that, Chen Hua gave her husband a pull on his sleeve.

“Ah ahem. Sorry, little brother. I got too excited and had forgotten my manners.”

“Hahaha, no matter. I don’t know my old man’s cultivation. He had always told me that the cultivation stage is not important, but how you can effectively use your cultivation.”

Max had no clue what he had just said. It sounded like something he would read in his novels. The point was to make his backing as mysterious as possible and not give away too much information.

Chen Ying was unsure if it was good to push the subject any more than he already had. Asking about one’s cultivation was a big faux-pas, especially in the higher realm.

“Big brother Ma, thank you for helping start my cultivation.” This was the first time the teenager spoke directly to him since they entered the house. After saying that, Chen Hu got up from his chair and knelt on both his knees and bowed.

Max quickly helped him up and said “There’s no need for that. Just as your family had shared food with me, I am sharing my food with you.”

This time it was Chen Hua who spoke up, “This meat might not be anything special in your eyes, but it makes all the difference for my son and me. Each year, when the village gets cultivation resources, there is nowhere enough for everyone. And most of it is given to the ones that have meritorious contributions to the village or those who are already cultivators. There is nothing wrong with that, we would rather have a few very strong cultivators than a lot of weak ones. For someone like me to become a cultivator is unheard of in this village.”

Chen Ying added, “Hu’er is still young and hasn’t contributed much to the village and at his rate, he might start cultivating when he turns 20 and by then he’ll miss a lot of his growing years. Just look at me, I’ve been cultivating for over 10 years and I’ve only gotten to the 4th Stage of Body Tempering.”

‘Something is not adding up here. Even with the Midnight Dew, I was able to get one point in cultivation for each extraneous hour of workout. If I remember correctly, to get the second stage I only needed 50 points in cultivation, and the threshold increases by 50 for each stage. So to get to the 3rd they would only need 300 hours, which even at 1 hour a day should take less than a year. So why is he still at the 4th stage after 10 years?’

Seeing Max’s puzzled face Chen Ying explained “My young friend, you might not have this issue in the forest, but here we mostly eat grains and while it gives us the energy to do our work, it doesn’t do much to fuel our cultivation. We do go out to hunt or set up snares for smaller animals, but there are so many of us to feed and there is just not much to go around.”

That cleared up some things for him, it also explained why Ma Erk is always eating and sleeping.

The rest of the dinner went by quickly, the Chen family was in a great mood now that both mother and son have become cultivators and Chen Ying’s injuries had also started healing.