The steward gently knocked on the courtyard gate.
First, the Purple Cloud Azure Rain slowly drew inward. By the time Liu Dongqing came over and opened the gate, all the steward could see behind him were rows of tender, rain-drenched seedlings in the two plots of earth.
In fact.
The casting of the Mirror-Illuminating Cloud-Birthing Purple Rain Art had merely been Liu Dongqing's cover.
Under the shroud of the purple clouds, even Manager Hou, standing in the courtyard above, had been unable to glimpse the details of Liu Dongqing's courtyard.
Taking advantage of that purple cloud's concealment, Liu Dongqing had cleanly planted all the Jade Cloud Fruit seedlings he had cultivated overnight with the Branch-Splitting Myriad Transformations Origin-Seizing Art into the plots.
The parts belonging to the Bloodthirsty Medicinal Vine's offshoots, including the wooden knots at the grafting points that served as nutrient stores, had all been buried deep beneath the soil by Liu Dongqing.
Moreover, Liu Dongqing had cast the Branch-Splitting Myriad Transformations Origin-Seizing Art with even greater precision.
He had not matured the Jade Cloud Fruit plants all at once. Instead, he had merely forced them into the form of tender seedlings.
For one thing.
This would let Liu Dongqing better control when the Jade Cloud Fruit matured, allowing him to set the pace and fleece Senior Sister Zhang more efficiently.
For another thing.
Everyone knew that the tender-seedling stage was the most fragile. They could wither and die at the slightest disturbance. With such delicate seedlings planted in the soil, no matter what suspicions arose in Zhang Qiwei's steward when he arrived, he would not go so far as to pull them out of the earth for inspection.
Just as expected.
When Liu Dongqing ushered the steward into the courtyard,
the middle-aged Daoist spent only a dozen or so breaths silently and carefully examining the seedlings. He then glanced at the deep furrows Liu Dongqing had dug between the rows of seedlings.
Clearly,
Liu Dongqing had already prepared to bury the demonic beasts' blood filth and bone fragments in them to fertilize the plots.
Thus, the steward did not even walk a few more steps toward the fields before turning around and looking at Liu Dongqing with an extremely haughty bearing.
It was a hauteur Liu Dongqing had never even seen on Manager Hou or Zhang Qiwei.
"Young man, you seem fairly diligent in your work. My mistress didn't choose the wrong person."
He said it as though he were the one who had not chosen the wrong person.
Right there, Liu Dongqing opened his mouth in response, but before he could say anything, he let out a tremendous yawn.
In an instant, seven-tenths of the steward's aggressive momentum vanished without a sound.
Only then did Liu Dongqing's somewhat bleary, weary voice follow.
"Not at all, not at all. I merely did my best. Senior Sister's affairs couldn't be delayed, so it was only right that I stay up and work through the night. Fortunately, I'm fairly nimble, so I didn't hold up Senior Sister's time. As it happened, I finished the work out front before the steward arrived.
Now... I'm only waiting for the rice to arrive so I can put it in the pot."
The steward hooked up the corner of his mouth, revealing a smile that did not reach his eyes. His gaze swept over Liu Dongqing's face like a pair of hooks.
Seeing that Liu Dongqing's manner was respectful, fatigue still difficult to conceal in his expression, and that he had referred to "Senior Sister" this and "Senior Sister" that throughout his speech,
he abandoned the thought of making things difficult for Liu Dongqing.
He even tossed Liu Dongqing a playful reply.
"Then the 'rice' you've been waiting for has arrived."
As he spoke, the steward raised a hand and beckoned. A spell seal shot toward the sky above Departure Peak.
Whoosh—
A sound tore through the air right behind it.
Blazing radiance settled into Liu Dongqing's courtyard. When the light dimmed somewhat, Liu Dongqing finally saw clearly that it was an illusory flower basket.
At that moment, the phantom flower basket was suspended half in the air and tipping toward Liu Dongqing's courtyard.
Within the illusory light, solid black streaks came tumbling down one after another.
Bang—bang—bang—
Then, amid the sounds of heavy objects striking the ground, Liu Dongqing focused his gaze and saw that what had fallen were cage after cage made of blackwood, each holding a bird.
After more than a hundred breaths,
the steward raised his hand and beckoned again. At once, the phantom flower basket suspended in midair stopped tipping. The various illusory lights then drew inward, condensing into a bright-yellow jade talisman that landed securely in the steward's hand.
Liu Dongqing cast an envious glance at the bright-yellow jade talisman, then eagerly shifted his gaze toward the cages.
The possessions of wealthy households were still far beyond his reach, but these cultivation resources were already within arm's length.
Sure enough!
Beneath Liu Dongqing's deliberately weary expression, waves of delighted thoughts were already surging through his mind.
Everything was unfolding in reality exactly as he had predicted.
Using demonic beasts to correspond to Bing Fire, Senior Sister Zhang had indeed sent the steward with flying demonic beasts.
And furthermore,
the proportion of crow-type demonic beasts was just as Liu Dongqing had expected, making up as much as sixty to seventy percent of these flying demonic beasts.
At this moment,
the inheritance of the Crimson Crow Spirit Incantation surged through his mind like a flood, stirring up wave after wave.
Every recorded list of demonic beasts containing the Crimson Fire Divine Crow Bloodline, preserved by the successive pioneers of the Crimson Crow Lineage, rose into Liu Dongqing's thoughts and matched, one by one, with the flying demonic beasts he was observing.
Ash-Feathered Crow, Purple-Feathered Fire Crow, Ghost-Faced Crow, Yellow-Billed Crow, Azure-Flame Nether-Eyed Crow...
Delighted thoughts swept through Liu Dongqing's mind like a raging tide. At that moment, they even made it impossible for him to maintain the disguise on his face.
More gratifying than the pleasing number of flying demonic beasts was the explosive increase in the varieties of crow-type demonic beasts!
After all, the Ash-Feathered Crow was merely a distant relative of a distant relative of the Crimson Fire Divine Crow, its bloodline inheritance among the weakest of the weak.
It might seem that his progress was still acceptable for now, but Liu Dongqing understood that if he truly intended to cultivate toward the ultimate Great Accomplishment of the Crimson Crow Spirit Incantation, then even if he slaughtered and refined every Ash-Feathered Crow in the Southern Border, he might still be unable to condense the complete origin of the Crimson Fire Divine Crow Bloodline.
If he continued cultivating in vain, the Ash-Feathered Crows might only bring him an increase in pure cultivation, while leaving him unable to condense even one more Fire Crow Dao Sigil.
Only by broadening the species of crow-type demonic beasts he refined would he have hope of fully mastering the bloodline origin of the Crimson Fire Divine Crow.
This was extremely difficult for Liu Dongqing to accomplish alone. He would have to spend long years searching bit by bit, and he would also need tremendous luck. Perhaps only then could he gather enough of the various crow-type demonic beasts in both number and variety.
But in the eyes of someone born into an Aristocratic Clan like Zhang Qiwei,
they naturally possessed channels Liu Dongqing could never even come into contact with. For them, something like this might be accomplished with nothing more than a single order.
In fact, to help the Jade Cloud Fruit grow better, the grades of the flying demonic beasts Senior Sister Zhang had sent were astonishingly high.
Among the various crow-type demonic beasts, the most common Ash-Feathered Crow was instead the least numerous.
According to the records inherited by Liu Dongqing, quite a few species, such as the Purple-Feathered Fire Crow and the Azure-Flame Nether-Eyed Crow, were far, far closer to the Crimson Fire Divine Crow in terms of "kinship" than the Ash-Feathered Crow.
This meant that they possessed stronger, richer power from the Crimson Fire Divine Crow Bloodline's origin.
It was precisely as Liu Dongqing was examining them so carefully that
suddenly,
the steward's somewhat impatient voice came from the side.
"What is it? You've been staring at these beasts for so long without saying a word."
The middle-aged Daoist's voice dragged Liu Dongqing back to the real world.
Almost instinctively, Liu Dongqing was about to answer the steward, but when the words reached his lips, he first paused on reflex. Then, the greedy desire in his heart could no longer be restrained.
Perhaps because he had already entered the Lesser Thought Art, at that moment, Liu Dongqing's greed coursed through his mind and even fused into his spoken words. The voice he uttered actually made the steward feel a chill in his heart.
"Not enough! These aren't enough! They're still far, far from enough!"
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