Cultivation by Trial and Error

The moonlight was hazy, and a fishing boat sailed through the surging waters of the river.

It wasn't easy to make money these days, and in pitch darkness, a single trip for the ship captain would only earn him two or three yuan.

Under the dim glow of the oil lamp at the bow, a few young faces scanned the blackness of the Yuan River.

Despite everything being as simple as could be, these enthusiastic students from class 103 found a sense of novelty like that of a pleasure cruise.

"Uncle, are you from Shuang State?" A male student, out of curiosity, suddenly asked this question.

"Mm!" The ship captain nodded. "Some years ago, my family indeed lived on Shuang State, but these past few years we've moved to live in the county!"

"With no special skills and no other ways to make money, luckily I have this boat. I ferry people back and forth between the county and Shuang State every day, just getting by."

He chuckled, then added, "What about those seven or eight classmates of yours, not taking the boat back? Are they planning to stay overnight on Shuang State?"

He charged per person for his ferry service, with a crossing fee of 50 cents.

Suddenly asking this question, it was unclear whether he was looking to do more business, or if he had some other purpose.

"Uncle, there are quite a few abandoned houses on the state, and now that the weather is warm, as long as it provides shelter from the wind and rain, you can just throw down a mat and make do for a night!"

"If I hadn't already agreed to stay with relatives, I'd really like to try spending a night on Shuang State to see what it's like!"

Another male student said enviously.

Mentioning going to a relative's house was just an excuse; he didn't stay overnight because he didn't have a familiar female classmate to accompany him.

Of course, he knew this himself and was certainly not going to admit it in front of the ship captain.

As this student finished speaking, the ship captain had not yet responded, but the two female students beside him already wore strange expressions and covered their mouths, 'tittering' and laughing.

"Folks, Shuang State is a good place to play during the day!"

"As for the night? Setting up a makeshift tent on the rocky beach is not a big deal."

"As for those abandoned houses in the forest, unless absolutely necessary, I advise you not to wander in!"

"In the past when many families lived on the state, all was calm. In recent years, most residents have moved to the county."

"Once the place starts lacking human presence and becomes quiet, some of those abandoned houses in the forest are not so clean anymore, often having strange things happen!"

Who knew what was going through the ship captain's mind.

Always smiling, he seemed much more guarded when he spoke these words.

"How could there be anything unclean? Hu Zhiyong, Zhang Zhi and the rest, with seven or eight people together, brimming with energy—if there were any evil spirits, they'd have already been scared off!"

"If anything strange does happen, it'd be a stroke of luck for Hu Zhiyong and the others—they could play the hero and save the damsel in distress."

"You're right. I bet those guys who decided to spend the night on the state are actually hoping for something like that to happen!"

...

Although the ship captain was serious in his words, the students, fearless due to their youth, clearly didn't take his warnings to heart.

They chattered away, quickly veering the conversation to topics beyond borders.

Watching this, the ship captain could only give a wry smile and didn't continue to speak.

He rowed the oars, making his way slowly towards the Hongjun Pier, now not far off.

...

On Shuang State, in the dense forest, in front of a very old abandoned wooden house.

"Guys, tonight, we're just going to make do and stay in this house!"

Hu Zhiyong took out a key and showed it off in front of everyone before he walked to the door of the wooden house, and with a loud 'clang,' unlocked the padlock hanging on the entrance.

As the door opened, a musty and sour strange smell wafted from inside the house.

Chen Hai and the other male students were okay, but the female students who were with them had already pinched their noses at the first whiff.

"What is that smell, it's so unpleasant? Brother Yong, can people really live here?"

Sun Fang pinched her nose and complained to Hu Zhiyong.

"A place that hasn't been lived in for a long time is bound to have a musty smell, that's normal!"

"A few days before the college entrance examination, I and some buddies came to Shuang State to have fun. I checked out the situation inside this house!"

"Besides the smell, overall, it's still pretty clean."

"Didn't we bring blankets and mats? Later we can just spread them on the ground and make do for the night, definitely no problem."

Hu Zhiyong chuckled and explained, as he pulled out the flashlight he carried with him and stepped straight into the wooden house.

There was a main hall as one entered, with two rooms on the left side and the kitchen on the right.

The furniture and such had been basically emptied out.

The bottom of the walls showed signs of having been flooded, and in some places, quite a bit of moss had grown.

However, the space inside the house was not small, and the floor was also fairly even.

As Hu Zhiyong said, if one wanted to sleep, all it took was laying out a mat on the ground.

With four boys and four girls, the eight of them, including Chen Hai, were said to be in pairs, but in fact, their understanding of love was still naive.

At most, they just had a little liking for each other. For them, being able to hold hands or steal a kiss was already considered a big step forward.

Spending the night in this wooden house, they would certainly be separated by gender, each sleeping on their own, and it wasn't possible to truly sleep together.

An abandoned house, of course, wouldn't have electricity, but everyone had brought candles.

Under the illumination of a few candle flames, the entire main hall was as bright as day.

"Hu Zhiyong, hasn't this place been uninhabited for a long time? How come there's mahjong?"

After settling down with the items they each carried on the ground, Li Ying peeked into the room on the left. She exclaimed in surprise, "Really, mahjong?"

Is there really mahjong?"

Zhang Yong, Zhang Zhi, and two other female classmates also rushed over in just a few steps, looking in the direction Li Ying pointed.

In the empty room, on an old, paint-peeled table, small, old-fashioned mahjong tiles the size of thumbs were neatly arranged.

All one needed to do was sit down and start playing right away.

"Isn't this just prepared for us? Come on, Zhang Zhi, let's move the table over to the main hall here!"

"It's still early, and we can't sleep anyway, might as well play a few rounds first!"

After calling out to Zhang Zhi beside him, Zhang Yong stepped over the threshold and walked towards the table with the mahjong set.

"Impossible, right? When I came here the other day, I didn't see any mahjong at all, did I?"

"Could it be that I didn't pay attention at the time and missed the existence of this thing?"

While scratching the back of his head, Hu Zhiyong's confusion was evident, even as Zhang Yong and Zhang Zhi had already moved the mahjong set and the table in front of him.