DLWAV CH110

Zhang Ruize indeed had the flaw of fearing open flames and high temperatures.

But this wasn’t because he had been frightened in the past and developed a psychological trauma toward open flames and high temperatures.

It was because he possessed a Water and Wood Dual Spiritual Root, making him inherently afraid of flames.

Ao Ruize had originally been a little surprised. But then he thought about it: this world even had vampires, so his predecessor having two more spiritual roots than the average person didn’t seem all that strange.

Besides, this actually saved him a lot of trouble.

The little milk dumpling was incredibly smug: “Actually, it was precisely because I discovered Zhang Ruize had spiritual roots that I picked this identity for you.”

—Because Ao Ruize’s third mission had been in a cultivation world, he naturally knew how to cultivate.

Even though the spiritual energy in this world was relatively thin.

But that didn’t matter. When doing the third mission, it had brought back quite a few top-grade spirit stones.

It hadn’t used many of those spirit stones yet, so it could easily spare a little bit for Ao Ruize to use.

Once Ao Ruize successfully formed his Golden Core, let alone a mere vampire prince in a minor world, even if their ancestor Cain came back to life, he still wouldn’t be Ao Ruize’s opponent.

At that point, would they still need to worry about not being able to smoothly complete the mission?

As a system, it was truly becoming more and more proficient.

Seeing it look so happy, Ao Ruize naturally didn’t skimp on stroking its chin to smooth its fur: “You did well.”

The little milk dumpling: “Then let’s start cultivating right now.”

After all, these were all just its plans. Whether they could succeed or not still depended on their subsequent hard work.

However, in this world, there was no one to dual cultivate with Ao Ruize and feed him cultivation base for free.

One had to know, that vampire prince would come knocking at their door in just a year. So if they didn’t hurry up, by the time Ao Ruize broke through to the Golden Core stage, it might already be too late.

Ao Ruize: “Alright.”

But as a profiteer, the little milk dumpling was clearly still very unqualified—

Because, considering that all those top-grade spirit stones had been given to it by Ao Ruize in the first place, and coupled with the fact that Ao Ruize had previously agreed so easily to its condition that he wouldn’t cheat again, it gritted its teeth and directly sold those spirit stones to Ao Ruize at an incredibly cheap price.

Ao Ruize: “…”

Suddenly, he felt a little guilty again.

But this wave of guilt quickly dissipated. Probably because… after feeling guilty for so long, he had just gotten used to it.

Subsequently, Ao Ruize gripped a spirit stone and began to cultivate.

One minute later, he successfully drew qi into his body.

Ten or so minutes later, he broke through to the first level of Qi Condensation.

Then the second level of Qi Condensation.

The third level of Qi Condensation…

By the time Ao Ruize opened his eyes, his cultivation base had already stabilized at the fifth level of Qi Condensation.

The little milk dumpling: “…”

This is just absurd.

Weren’t we just saying that there’s no one in this world to dual cultivate with him and feed him cultivation base for free?

How is he still cultivating this fast?

But it quickly reacted.

That meant Ao Ruize wouldn’t need a year at all to break through to the Golden Core stage.

More than half of their mission was directly completed.

“That’s wonderful!”

The little milk dumpling couldn’t help but cheer.

It had to admit, although this guy Ao Ruize was a bit of a scumbag, his abilities were truly unquestionable.

Only then did it realize that Ao Ruize was currently buried under a pile of vines.

To be precise, he was buried by a pile of goji berry vines.

The little milk dumpling: “…”

Aren’t goji berries part of the nightshade family?

Since when could they crawl everywhere like Boston ivy?

Then it realized what had happened.

It must have been because when Ao Ruize was cultivating just now, he attracted all the spiritual energy in the surroundings. The goji berry tree Zhang Qingyan planted on the balcony, being in a favorable position to reap the benefits, absorbed some of it and ended up growing into this state.

So by the time Ao Ruize finished clearing away all the wildly overgrown goji berry vines, more than ten minutes had already passed.

Looking at the mountain-like pile of goji berry vines on the floor, and then looking at the living room that had been messed up by them, Ao Ruize shook his head and could only resign himself to cleaning it up.

The living room was actually easy to tidy up. Since both Zhang Ruize and Zhang Qingyan were extreme neat freaks, he only needed to pick up the bottles and jars that the goji berry vines had knocked over.

But how was he going to deal with that massive pile of goji berry vines?

Ao Ruize thought for a moment, and simply divided them into a dozen or so bags. Leaving one bag behind, he took the rest outside and gave one bag to each of the families of those old ladies and aunties.

By the time Ao Ruize returned, he was holding a bag of peaches, a bag of fried peanuts, a bowl of braised pigeon eggs, and two fried chicken legs.

Zhang Qingyan had also returned.

She was currently poking at the bag of goji berry vines on the table: “You bought these?”

“But are these really goji berries? Why are the stems so thick? They’re almost as thick as cornstalks.”

Ao Ruize placed the things in his hands on the table and repeated the excuse he had already said a dozen times over: “Mm, they’re goji berry vines…”

“The vendor said these goji berry vines were all cut from the experimental base of the National Academy of Sciences. Because those experts and professors were getting ready to research other crops, they didn’t want these goji berry vines anymore…”

Upon hearing that these goji berry vines were grown by experts and professors at the National Academy of Sciences, Zhang Qingyan immediately stopped asking questions.

“Alright then, we’ll have scrambled eggs with goji berry leaves tonight.”

Ao Ruize: “Alright.”

Because those old ladies and aunties had given them quite a few dishes, Zhang Qingyan only cooked this one dish of scrambled eggs with goji berry leaves.

The moment the goji berry leaves entered her mouth, her eyes lit up.

How should she describe this taste?

It was no exaggeration to say that the fresh fragrance practically shot straight up to her scalp, instantly refreshing her somewhat fatigued brain.

Although, like other goji berry leaves, the first bite was a little bitter, almost simultaneously, traces of sweetness spread across the tip of her tongue. The key was that this sweetness didn’t clash at all with the original saltiness of the dish; it even brought out the umami flavor of the eggs.

“These goji berry leaves taste really good. Try some, Little Rui.”

“I don’t eat greens.”

“Just try it, it’s really delicious. It’s even tastier than meat. When has Grandma ever lied to you, Little Rui?”

“Then I’ll try… just a little bit.”

“How is it? Is it yummy?”

“Mhm, mm, mm, yummy.”

“If it’s yummy, eat some more.”

The ones speaking were Granny Chen’s family next door.

Zhang Qingyan ended up eating until she was utterly stuffed.

Granny Chen was right; these goji berry leaves were much tastier than meat.

They were both goji berries, so why was the pot she raised so disappointing? It had been three or four years, and she still hadn’t gotten to eat its leaves even once.

Thinking this, Zhang Qingyan cast a slightly disdainful glance at the sparse goji berry plant on the windowsill outside, which had only grown four or five small branches.

(The goji berry tree, which out of 365 days a year only barely got sunlight for 65 days, and had just been given a buzzcut: …)

Then, as if thinking of something, she fell silent for a moment. Finally, she took out her phone and transferred three thousand yuan to Ao Ruize.

She tried to formulate a few sentences that wouldn’t hurt Ao Ruize’s pride, but she couldn’t manage it even after a good while.

In the end, she could only simply say, “Take this money first. If it’s not enough, let me know.”

If Zhang Ruize were here, he might have truly felt embarrassed.

But Ao Ruize wouldn’t think that much of it. Moreover, his predecessor’s savings really were almost entirely depleted.

He nodded: “Alright.”

This also reminded him that cultivation actually wasn’t the most pressing matter right now; making money was.

As it happened, there was an antique market right next to the urban village.

The little milk dumpling was eager to try: “Isn’t that simple?”

After all, reading auras was a basic skill for cultivators. The so-called Golden Eyes or X-ray vision from male protagonist novels… wouldn’t necessarily compare to Ao Ruize’s eyes.

So the little milk dumpling also wanted to witness the grand scenes from novels where the protagonist casually picks up a bargain like a Yuan Dynasty Blue and White Porcelain, a Tianhuang stone, or a Buddhist relic…

Most importantly—

“Even though that vampire prince can’t hurt us, there’s no guarantee they won’t target Zhang Qingyan. So shouldn’t we prepare some self-defense items for her in advance?”

Generally speaking, antiques were the easiest materials to craft into magical artifacts because they had existed for a long time and absorbed more of the essence of the sun and moon than other materials.

Ao Ruize thought the same.

As a result, they strolled around the antique market for a whole lap, and only managed to dig up a single blue-and-white porcelain brush pot—and it was from the Republic of China era at that.

In the end, they barely made a profit of eight hundred yuan.

The little milk dumpling: “…”

One of them was an incomparably brilliant system, and the other was a fifth-level Qi Condensation cultivator. They had rushed about for a whole day, and in the end, they actually only dug up a brush pot worth nine hundred yuan.

The disparity was just too huge.

Ao Ruize, however, said, “It’s normal.”

“After all, China has been peaceful for over sixty years now. Plus, Chinese people inherently have a hobby of collecting antiques. So the antique shops on the market have long been scoured who knows how many times by those collectors. Where would there be so many things left for you to pick up for a bargain?”

The little milk dumpling: “…”

The novels lied to me.

“Then what do we do now?”

Go for a spin at the casino and win 225 million?

But that would be a bit too destructive to the casino.

Or go into the stock market and slaughter our way in and out seven times?

But right now, the total money in Ao Ruize’s hands didn’t even exceed five thousand yuan. Let alone slaughtering in and out seven times, even if he slaughtered in and out ten times, he still wouldn’t make more than a few thousand yuan.

Or perhaps go to the high seas to salvage cultural relics?

The little milk dumpling instantly grew excited.

Because it felt its methods were finally going to be useful.

But when it checked—the thing this world lacked the least was ability users. The things it could think of, they naturally could think of too. So by now, the cultural relics in the high seas had long been pretty much salvaged clean.

The little milk dumpling: “…”

Ao Ruize: “It’s fine, we still have plenty of time. We’ll just take it slowly.”

So for the next few days, Ao Ruize lived a life of strolling through the antique market during the day and cultivating at night.

But in the eyes of others, this was Ao Ruize exposing his true colors—not wanting to find a job, and only wanting to muddle along, eat, and wait for death.

Upon hearing that in just these few days, Ao Ruize had spent three to four thousand yuan to buy seven or eight so-called antiques and brought them back, some people’s minds instantly became active.

Especially Zhao Cheng. He immediately went home.

“Mom, do we have anything at home that’s pretty broken but looks like an antique?”

Mother Zhao thought for a moment: “Something that looks like an antique? Does the bowl we use to feed Da Huang count? It seems you picked that up from somewhere before, and it even has the words ‘Made in the Qianlong Reign’ carved on it.”

Zhao Cheng’s eyes instantly lit up: “That’s the one.”

After getting his hands on that filthy bowl, Zhao Cheng couldn’t even hold back his laughter.

“Zhang Ruize, oh Zhang Ruize. Who asked you to mock me? This time, I’m definitely going to make you bleed severely.”

Support me on Ko-fi