Two days passed in the quiet pocket space in the blink of an eye, yet outside in the real world, only half a day had gone by.
Chen Jinshu cultivated inside the spirit planting space while tending to the various plants, letting the slow, repetitive work of the garden steady her racing mind. She sat cross-legged on the soft earth before the bamboo house, her hands forming seals as the Verdant Wood Rebirth Formula circulated smoothly through her body.
The vast, pure wood-aligned spiritual energy within the space seemed to find its way home. It flowed toward her without any pause, threading into her meridians, nourishing her Golden Core and washing away the mental fatigue left behind by those long days of upheaval.
Her thoughts gradually settled into a quiet focus.
What had happened with Zhou Wanning had become a warning etched deeply into her heart. The path of cultivation was treacherous and unpredictable. One wrong step was enough to erase life and Dao alike. In the end, only strength could cut through everything.
…
Not long after, inside the inner market of the Medicine King Marketplace.
Stalls lined both sides of the long street, packed tightly together in the heat of the afternoon. Spirit herbs glowing with soft light, ores, and various beast materials filled the eye wherever one looked. Bargaining voices overlapped with the hum of furnaces and the cries of exotic spirit beasts. Sweet floral scents mingled with sharp medicinal smells in the dusty air.
Chen Jinshu changed into an unremarkable gray-brown hemp dress, completely concealing the aura of a Golden Core cultivator. She blended into the bustling crowd without drawing any attention to herself.
On her shoulder perched Xiao Yin, its strange aura fully restrained. It now looked like an ordinary little gray bird, its round black eyes flicking alertly over the surroundings like tiny beads of obsidian.
Over the past few days, she had harvested quite a bit of spirit medicine from the space. She planned to sell part of it in the marketplace to exchange for spirit stones, preparing for the upcoming Hundred Herbs Secret Realm and any unexpected risks.
Although she now had a good place like Meiyun Residence, and Liu Qingchen hadn't intended to charge her any rent, several days of continuous purchases of spirit plants had already emptied her pockets.
Now that she had reached the Golden Core stage, the cost of resources had multiplied several times over.
What little spirit stones she had left were nowhere near enough for her needs.
She moved through the crowd, her eyes sweeping over one stall after another.
In the end, she stopped before a stall in a less favorable location. The vendor was a mid-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator who looked honest to the point of plainness, with a thick, scruffy beard covering his face.
The stall displayed mostly common second-grade spirit herbs and rough ores.
"Daoyou, do you buy spirit medicine?" Chen Jinshu asked him directly.
The bearded vendor lifted his eyelids and glanced at her.
"I do. Let me see the goods first."
She didn't waste words. From a worn storage pouch at her waist, she took out several jade boxes. When the lids opened, she didn't deliberately stimulate the medicinal properties, yet the fresh, earthy wood spiritual energy still spread instantly.
Inside lay dew grass, fire whisker root, and earth vein vine, all in excellent condition. Their leaves were full, their roots were intact, and each plant was over fifty years old. It was obvious they had been carefully cultivated rather than gathered in the wild.
The bearded vendor's cloudy eyes lit up. He set aside the ore in his hands, picked up a stalk of dew grass, examined it closely, sniffed it, then gently rolled a leaf between his rough fingers.
"Tsk, fine quality. Strong spiritual energy. Freshly harvested. Good stuff. Dew grass, fire whisker root, earth vein vine…"
He muttered as his fingers snapped across a wooden abacus.
"Dew grass, fifteen spirit stones each. Fire whisker root, twelve. Earth vein vine, twenty. Altogether… fifty-six stalks. That makes seven hundred and eighty low-grade spirit stones."
It was a reasonable but clearly lowballed price, a stall owner's usual trick.
Chen Jinshu kept a calm expression. She knew the price was low, but she didn't want to haggle over scraps. More importantly, she wanted to finish quickly without attracting attention.
"Make it eight hundred," she said cleanly.
A flash of delight crossed the bearded man's eyes. He clearly hadn't expected her to agree so readily and had been prepared for counteroffers.
Afraid she might change her mind, he nodded quickly. "Deal. Done. Daoyou is straightforward."
He swiftly put away the jade boxes, then counted out a pile of shining low-grade spirit stones from his pouch. With a pained look, he added a few with slightly poorer quality and pushed them toward her.
Chen Jinshu swept them with her divine sense, confirmed the count, stored them away, and turned to leave.
Behind her, the bearded vendor called out warmly, "Daoyou, if you get good goods again, come back anytime."
She sold several more small batches of high-quality second-grade spirit medicine at different areas in the market using the same method.
By the time she finished, there were over two thousand five hundred low-grade spirit stones in her storage pouch. It wasn't a fortune, but it was enough to cover her daily expenses for a while.
During the process, she also ran into quite a few crafty cultivators who tried to swap her spirit medicine for inferior goods while lowering the price, taking advantage of moments when she seemed distracted.
Fortunately, her divine sense had already reached the Golden Core level. Otherwise, with only mid-Foundation Establishment perception, she would have never seen through the sleight of hand used by late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivators.
After several such encounters, Chen Jinshu decided to switch to another way of earning spirit stones.
The next day, inside the inner market, on a long street paved with blue jade stone.
She continued to suppress her Golden Core aura, disguising herself as an ordinary mid-stage Foundation Establishment loose cultivator. At a decently trafficked crossroads, she spread out a clean piece of coarse cloth. With a flick of her wrist, several small jade bottles and sealed jade cases appeared on the cloth.
The bottles contained Crimson Sun Melting Snow Pills. The pills were round and smooth, with a faint warmth seeping through them, excellent for stabilizing fire-aligned foundations.
Inside the cases were several hundred-year soul-calming flowers harvested from her spirit fields, along with a segment of purple-patterned fo-ti root brimming with spiritual energy. These were treasures Foundation Establishment cultivators eagerly sought to nourish the Primordial Soul and solidify their foundations.
"Top quality Crimson Sun Melting Snow Pills, stabilizing the foundation and strengthening vitality. Hundred-year soul-calming flower stamens, nourishing the sea of consciousness," she called out coolly, her voice neither loud nor soft. It stood in stark contrast to the hoarse shouting of the nearby vendors.
Before long, cultivators stopped to look at her goods.
A middle-aged cultivator with a pale face and slightly unstable aura picked up a bottle, pulled the stopper, and inhaled lightly. Joy spread across his face at once. "Daoyou, this pill is excellent. What's the price?"
"Three hundred low-grade spirit stones per bottle, or equivalent gold or earth attribute materials," Chen Jinshu quoted a fair price.
The man hesitated briefly, then counted out the stones without complaint. "Deal."
He carefully put away the pill, his complexion already looking healthier, and left with lighter steps.
The soul-calming flowers and fo-ti root soon attracted more buyers, and the transactions went smoothly.
"As expected, running my own stall earns more," she thought.
She had only sold a few items, yet the spirit stones in her hand had already reached several thousand.
Her face remained calm, but she was quietly pleased. Once her funds were sufficient, she planned to look for auxiliary materials for refining higher-grade pills, and maybe gather some scattered clues about wood transformation secret arts.
However, not long after she handed a segment of fo-ti root to an elderly cultivator, a shadow fell over the stall.
Two young cultivators wearing the light cyan disciple robes of Medicine King Valley stood before her, their waist badges engraved with the character "Patrol" hanging at their sides.
The one in front had a clean, pale face and a slightly raised chin. His scrutinizing gaze swept over the bottles and cases, then landed on Chen Jinshu's plain face. His tone carried unquestionable arrogance.
"You. Where are you from? Selling spirit medicine here, do you have a Hundred Herbs Permit issued by our Medicine King Valley?"
Chen Jinshu raised her eyes, slightly surprised by the interruption. "I just arrived here and didn't know about such a thing. Selling self-harvested spirit plants also requires a permit?"
The disciple sneered as if he had heard a joke.
"Ridiculous. Medicine King Marketplace is the holy land of spirit plants and alchemy across the five continents. Do you think just anyone can dig up a few wild weeds and set up a stall here? Without a permit, your goods are of unknown origin. At best, you disrupt market order. At worst, you bring in inferior medicine or fake pills and harm fellow cultivators."
The other disciple stepped forward half a step, his hand resting on the hilt of his standard-issue sword. A faint aura of pressure spread out from him.
The nearby customers who had been about to approach immediately retreated, watching from a safe distance.
A chill spread through Chen Jinshu's heart. The arrogance of Medicine King Valley really was carved into their bones. Even a patrol disciple carried himself with such overbearing airs.
Her fingers curled slightly inside her sleeve, then slowly relaxed.
Exposing her identity or causing trouble over something so small would only bring unnecessary complications, and might draw attention she didn't want.
She lowered her gaze, hiding the cold light in her eyes, and said with faint impatience, "If that's the case, I will pack up."
Without another word to the two disciples, she swiftly collected the remaining pills and spirit plants into her storage pouch.
The pale-faced disciple hadn't expected her to yield so cleanly. It felt like punching empty air. A trace of boredom crossed his face as he snorted.
"At least you know better. Dare to sell without a permit again, and it won't be so cheap next time."
Only then did the two of them leave, their heads held high.
As Chen Jinshu was about to depart, she caught fragments of hushed conversation from the nearby stall owners.
"Did you hear? There have been strangers lurking in the stone forest at Black Wind Hollow to the west lately. Sneaky ones."
"Black Wind Hollow? That desolate hellhole? It's not far from the waste slag grounds."
"Keep your voice down. Someone said it looks like that Lin alchemist who was expelled by Elder Liu some days ago."
"Lin Xiao? He hasn't gone far yet? What's he doing hiding there?"
"Who knows what a Jīndān Zhēnrén is thinking. That place is heavy with yin energy, full of snakes and vermin. It's a good place to lie low."
Chen Jinshu paused briefly, then turned and left without showing any reaction. Her heart, however, thudded heavily in her chest a few times, a faint sense of unease quietly rising within her.
…
Time slipped by in the calm rhythm of cultivation at Meiyun Residence, with occasional trips into the spirit planting space to tend to new seedlings, and spare moments spent selling pills and herbs at the marketplace. Ten days passed in silence.
On this day, Chen Jinshu pushed open the door of her meditation room, preparing to begin a new round of cultivation.
The moment she stepped over the threshold, her gaze froze.
Just inside the vermilion courtyard gate of Meiyun Residence, beneath the narrow gap of the door carved with simple defensive runes, lay an object.
It was a wooden box about a foot square.
The craftsmanship was unusually fine. The edges were smoothly rounded, and a layer of restriction light covered its surface.
Beside the box lay a plain white letter.
A sudden sense of foreboding seized her heart. She hurried forward, first sweeping the box and letter with her divine sense to confirm there was no danger. Only then did she draw them to her side with a spell.
The paper was the most common type sold in the marketplace.
When she unfolded it, the handwriting was familiar. It was Zhou Wanning's.
"To Chen Daoyou, personally opened.
Chen Daoyou, it feels as though I see you again.
Thank you for the generous gift of spirit pills. Their medicinal power was abundant, like spring returning to withered wood, allowing this broken body to be nourished. This kindness is heavy and is engraved deep within my heart.
The turbid energy of the waste slag grounds has soaked into my bones for two hundred years. Both my body and spirit are exhausted. Now that my lingering obsession has been resolved, there's nothing left to hold me here. I have decided to travel far away, to find a quiet place and end this remnant life. The departure was rushed, and I couldn't bid you farewell in person. I ask for your understanding.
What this wooden box contains is the result of my life's study of formations. In my early years, I boasted of glimpsing a fraction of the world's veins, only to later realize it was no more than firefly light. Still, the foundational principles of formations within, methods of dismantling restrictions, and some clumsy insights on forcibly carving out 'purity' in polluted lands may hold a trace of use for you.
If one day you encounter a junior with suitable fate, firm character, and sincere dedication to the Dao, I earnestly ask that you pass on this shallow inheritance, so it doesn't vanish into nothingness. That would fulfill this old woman's final wish.
Inside the box is one Kunyuan Boundary Stabilizing Talisman, my most treasured possession. When activated, it can deploy the Kunyuan Wu Earth Formation, making defenses solid as iron walls in an instant. It can withstand a full-strength strike from a late Golden Core cultivator for a short time. It's difficult to refine, so use it only in moments of true danger. It may buy you a single thread of survival. Please accept it as a token of my heart.
The road ahead is long, the mountains high and the waters deep. We won't meet again.
Your neighbor, Wanning, bids farewell."
Chen Jinshu stared at the letter for a long time before letting out a soft breath. The heavy knot in her chest seemed to loosen slightly with that exhale.
She carefully put away the letter, which was still warm with feeling.
Then she opened the box.
A simple space expansion formation had been used inside. The interior was several times larger than it appeared.
What came into view were several scrolls made from unknown beast hide, tanned and darkened to varying shades. Beside them lay a thick stack of neatly arranged jade slips, each polished smooth and clearly handled and wiped countless times by their owner.
These were the crystallization of Zhou Wanning's life's work in formations.
"I focus on alchemy and don't study formations deeply. This inheritance from Zhou Daoyou can help broaden my knowledge, but keeping it with me is ultimately a waste."
She resolved that in the future, she would find a successor with true talent in formations, pass on Zhou Wanning's knowledge, and also pass on that unyielding will.
Above the texts lay a single talisman, palm-sized, irregularly hexagonal, and earth-yellow in color.
Chen Jinshu picked it up gently. It felt slightly heavy, as though she were holding a condensed fragment of a mountain in her palm. She could clearly sense the vast and stable earth attribute spiritual power sealed within, along with the overwhelming defensive intent formed by its exquisitely precise runic structure.
This was no mere keepsake as Zhou Wanning had described. It was a true life-saving trump card.
"Zhou Daoyou actually gave me something like this?"
Surprise flickered across her face, and her heart sank with a new weight.
Xiao Yin seemed to sense her mood. It perched quietly on her shoulder and rubbed its small head against her temple in comfort. Though she and Zhou Wanning had known each other for only a few days, they had formed a bond no weaker than close friends.
Zhou Wanning had guided her and saved her life. She, in turn, had given healing pills, allowing Zhou Wanning a chance to recover.
They owed each other nothing, yet there were threads between them that couldn't be cut.
Thinking of the rumors she had overheard in the marketplace not long ago, the unease in her heart deepened.
"I only wonder if Zhou Daoyou's journey will bring fortune or disaster…"