Jing Sisters

The next day, Lu Mingyuan got up early.

The night before, he had been so excited about his Divine Ability that he kept wanting to refresh the Divine Ability Treasury page and see if anyone had bought it. Every time a new sale appeared, he would be thrilled for ages.

But he couldn't act too excited, so he had to keep suppressing himself, which made him feel terribly restless.

It was like having an unparalleled beauty right in front of you. You wanted to look, but some concern held you back. You couldn't stare too much, lest you give yourself away and someone notice.

So Lu Mingyuan was torn.

Should he look or not?

He tossed and turned until the Hai hour, the bedtime he'd set for himself. Only then did he push down the conflicting thoughts and fall asleep counting sheep.

The reason Lu Mingyuan had set a bedtime for himself was that in his previous life, he had worked 996 hours, and sometimes even 007. That was what had wrecked his health and brought him to this world.

In this life, he had to stay vigilant so he wouldn't repeat the same mistake.

Having been given another chance at life, Lu Mingyuan treasured it all the more. After awakening the memories of his previous life, the first lesson he'd realized was this: his body was the foundation of everything.

So he had not only set a strict sleep schedule, but occasionally gave himself a few days off to rest. Combined with a suitable amount of exercise every day, it had left him in far better shape than he had been in his previous life.

After getting up and moving around a little in the courtyard, Lu Mingyuan once more immersed his mind in the Divine Ability Treasury to check the sales of his peerless divine ability.

A moment later, Lu Mingyuan's face lit up with a radiant smile. He clenched his fist and let out a quiet, "Yes!"

Judging by his reaction, things must have gone very well.

As it turned out, in just one night, thirteen copies of his "Chicken-Rabbit Cage Divine Ability" had sold.

At a hundred Qi Luck Points each, thirteen copies came to 1,300 points—more than half of his costs already recovered. If Lu Mingyuan's calculations were right, he would have broken even sometime during the day.

How could he not be happy about earning back his costs in a single day?

And as time went on, Lu Mingyuan believed more and more people with discerning eyes would recognize its value, allowing him to earn more and more. It would be like a snowball, growing bigger as it rolled.

What was more, this meant that the plan he'd been keeping in his heart might actually come true.

It was no longer a castle in the air, something visible but impossible to reach.

Of course, the free Divine Ability Stone wasn't included in the calculation of his costs.

In fact, if he really counted the cost of the Divine Ability Stone, hardly anyone would be able to recover their costs by selling divine abilities.

After all, Divine Ability Stones were incredibly valuable, far beyond what ordinary people could imagine.

One important reason divine abilities were so cheap nowadays was that everyone received a free Divine Ability Stone when they awakened, which they could use to create a divine ability. That was why divine abilities weren't priced sky-high and ordinary people could easily buy them.

Otherwise, suppose a newly promoted Three-Star Cultivator had four inches of Talent Qi. They would earn four Human Luck Points a day, meaning they would need only twenty-five days to afford a divine ability, albeit the lowest-grade kind.

But when you put it that way, weren't divine abilities far too cheap?

If Lu Mingyuan remembered correctly, in most of the fantasy and even mythological stories from his previous life, even the lowest-grade cultivation methods and martial techniques weren't things ordinary people could afford—not unless they were willing to sell everything they owned.

And even then, it might not be enough. You also needed connections to break through the monopolies and restrictions; otherwise, you wouldn't even know where to begin.

Take the famous divide between immortals and mortals in the cultivation world, for example: once you entered an immortal sect, you never saw your family again.

If they wouldn't even bring along their closest family members, ordinary outsiders certainly couldn't expect anyone to show them kindness.

This life was different, though. Thanks to the Divine Ability Treasury, most people uploaded their divine abilities and family texts to it to earn Qi Luck Points, which they could then use to buy other divine abilities and texts.

The currency for these transactions—Qi Luck Points—was generated automatically for everyone every day. The amount varied according to one's strength, but it still gave everyone a relatively fair starting point. The road wasn't completely blocked off.

Of course, that didn't mean no one in this life tried to block other people's paths.

Studying the classics could rapidly increase one's strength, so there were very few commentaries or explanatory books in the Divine Ability Treasury. It mostly contained the original texts.

Take the Tao Te Ching, the Huangdi Neijing, and the Book of Changes, for example. Without a teacher, hardly anyone could understand the obscure, difficult passages just by reading the original texts, let alone study them in depth.

If you truly wanted to learn them, you'd have to join a school of thought, an academy, a great family, or even a nation.

Unless you were a genius who could learn on your own.

There probably weren't many people like that, though.

Lu Mingyuan had known all this for a long time, so he had already made his plans.

Now he'd taken the first step. What came next would depend on how the times unfolded.

After thinking all this over, Lu Mingyuan went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast.

Why did he do it himself?

Hadn't the old saying gone, "If you want to eat well, get up and cook for yourself"?

He was simply honoring tradition.

"Knock! Knock! Knock!"

Just as Lu Mingyuan was busy in the kitchen, a series of knocks sounded at the door.

He couldn't step away, so he called out, "Come in!"

As he spoke, Lu Mingyuan suddenly pressed his lips together in a smile, as if he'd guessed who it was.

"Sis, I'm telling you, Mingyuan's definitely in the kitchen making something delicious."

Before she even arrived, her voice had reached him.

At the sound of that familiar voice, a mischievous little girl appeared in Lu Mingyuan's mind.

That girl was definitely here to cause trouble.

A moment later, two young women, around seventeen or eighteen, appeared together at the entrance to Lu Mingyuan's kitchen.

One wore a white dress, the other a green one.

"Zhi's here. And our little Yue, too."

Seeing Lu Mingyuan's blatant difference in how he greeted them, the girl in green flung off her companion and bounded over to him in a few quick steps.

"Mingyuan, do you want me here that badly? If you keep this up, I'll drag my sister out shopping every day so she won't have time for you. Then we'll see what you do!"

Lu Mingyuan exchanged a smile with the young woman in white but said nothing.

The two young women and Lu Mingyuan had known each other since childhood.

The older one was named Jing Zhi. She was the same age as Lu Mingyuan and was the one in the white dress.

The girl teasing Lu Mingyuan in front of him was Jing Zhi's younger sister, Jing Yue.

Jing Yue twitched her nose and sniffed hard. "Mingyuan, what delicious thing are you making this time?"