Return to the Great Ruins

"Jiang Ran, stop lying to me. Are you here to sell your spirit root?"

"No, I'm not... I..." Jiang Ran was completely dumbfounded, unable to defend himself with a hundred mouths, not knowing where to begin explaining.

"Zhang Jingjing, you've misunderstood. I'm not here to sell my spirit root. I'm here to transplant one."

"I'm planning to transplant a Mid-Grade Spirit Root..."

Yet the more he spoke, the more wrong it sounded. Even Jiang Ran himself felt like he had no conviction.

He was a lone orphan, a poor kid supported by the government. What right did he have to transplant a Mid-Grade Spirit Root?

No matter how one heard it, it sounded like a lie meant to bluff people!

Zhang Jingjing said nothing. She merely blinked her large eyes at Jiang Ran, looking as though she were saying, "I'm listening. Keep making it up."

Jiang Ran awkwardly rubbed the tip of his nose.

"Zhang Jingjing, if I told you I killed two demonic cultivators, and then the Pingjiang Police Bureau gave me a two-million reward, would you believe me..."

"Would you believe it?"

"Do you think I would?" Zhang Jingjing smiled.

"It does sound a little fake..." Jiang Ran deflated.

No one would be able to believe something like that.

"Jiang Ran, stop lying to me. I know you're proud." Zhang Jingjing sighed.

"Come with me first."

Zhang Jingjing grabbed Jiang Ran's arm and pulled him out of the line.

Her fair palm was surprisingly strong, so strong that Jiang Ran could not break free.

Actually... Zhang Jingjing was a proper top student too. She had long since broken through to Qi Refinement Level Three.

The two tugged at each other all the way to an empty courtyard behind the hospital.

"Zhang Jingjing, I really wasn't lying to you..."

"Jiang Ran!" Zhang Jingjing said solemnly, before her voice softened.

"If rejecting you in the past made you unhappy, I apologize to you now."

"But the two of us are impossible. You really don't need to waste any more time."

"No, I really wasn't trying to pursue you..." Jiang Ran wanted desperately to come clean, but she interrupted him again.

"Jiang Ran, you're a good person."

"I know you've worked so hard because of me, but selling your spirit root is absolutely not acceptable."

"If you sell your spirit root, your path of cultivation will be severed. No amount of money you gain will matter, and even the finest spiritual treasures can only help you for a while."

Zhang Jingjing spoke with painstaking sincerity.

She was firmly convinced that Jiang Ran had come to sell his spirit root.

"Hey, I'm not..."

Jiang Ran was unable to defend himself with a hundred mouths.

"Jiang Ran, thank you for liking me!" Zhang Jingjing said with utmost seriousness.

"Though we can't be together, I still hope you won't give up on yourself. You'll definitely find a girl who suits you someday."

As she spoke, she pulled her backpack around in front of herself and found a pink card.

"Here. The password is my birthday. It should be enough to last you for a while."

"Consider it a loan from me. You can pay me back after you have money someday."

"You..." Jiang Ran was stupefied.

No, were there really people like this? Throwing money at someone at the slightest disagreement?

The whole series of moves left him dazzled.

By then, Zhang Jingjing had already gotten to her feet.

"No... Zhang Jingjing, have you been reading too many melodramatic novels?"

Jiang Ran came back to his senses and wanted to return the card to Zhang Jingjing, only to discover that she had already hurried away without a trace.

He rubbed his brow hard, never expecting to encounter something like this today.

Honestly, Jiang Ran had never wanted to have anything more to do with Zhang Jingjing.

But today, what Zhang Jingjing had done forced some ripples to rise in his heart.

Perhaps she thought Jiang Ran pitiful, or perhaps other thoughts were mixed in.

Zhang Jingjing had actually given Jiang Ran a bank card outright...

In this world, money could buy everything, and it represented everything.

People this kind, or perhaps this innocent, were truly rare.

Jiang Ran took the card to an ATM in the hospital and entered the password.

Mm... Don't ask how he knew Zhang Jingjing's birthday. If you had to ask, it was because the original owner had something wrong with his brain.

[Pingjiang Bank - Available Balance - 194,626.98 yuan]

"So much..." Jiang Ran stood before the ATM for a long while, his heart filled with mixed emotions.

Aside from Tao Dapeng, this was the first time since coming to this world that he had felt such pure, straightforward "kindness."

More than 190,000, nearly 200,000 Tianlu Coins—this was absolutely no small sum.

If it had been exactly 200,000, that would have been one thing.

Zhang Jingjing's family was well-off; it could have been understood as parental love for their child.

But this money was precisely 194,626.98 yuan, with both odd amounts and round figures!

It was almost certain that this was savings Zhang Jingjing had accumulated herself.

"You really don't make people worry less..." Jiang Ran sighed.

"Forget it. I'll find a chance to return it to her."

Two hundred thousand was no small sum, but he could not possibly covet a girl's private savings. He still possessed that basic conscience.

Just as the attending doctor from the Spirit Root Department had said, the arrangements for the Spirit Root Transplant Surgery went very smoothly.

After Jiang Ran paid the fees, he returned to the consultation room and waited less than half an hour before being led into the "operating room."

The operating room for the Spirit Root Transplant Surgery was rather different from the cold operating table he had imagined.

It looked even more like a... bathhouse?

Under the nurse's guidance, Jiang Ran soaked himself in a large pool filled with thick, unidentified medicinal liquid.

"Focus your mind and calm your qi. The surgery is beginning."

All the lights in the operating room went out, and the only sound around him was the medicinal liquid churning in the pool.

"Huh?" Jiang Ran was bewildered.

It had been too long since the Low-Grade Spirit Root surgery in his memories, and those memories had become somewhat hazy.

But he vaguely remembered that turning off the lights had not been necessary...

He did not wait long before dense formation patterns lit up beneath the pool, around its edges, and even across the ceiling of the operating room.

The formation activated. A streak of blue light suddenly flew into the room, its radiance incomparably pure.

The formation erupted with brilliance. Jiang Ran instantly lost focus, feeling only as if he had sunk into infinitely warm currents.

The sensation seemed to last only an instant, yet also as if an eternity had passed.

The operating room lights came on one by one, and the doors opened automatically as well.

The nurses and doctors all walked in.

Various instruments and needles were connected to him. Jiang Ran felt as though he had become different.

"Doctor, when will the surgery begin?"

"Begin?" The nurse covered her mouth and chuckled.

"Handsome boy, get up and put your clothes on. It's already over."

After returning home, Jiang Ran was still somewhat dazed.

Only after entering a cultivation state did he discover that he truly had changed.

His realm had not broken through, but his dantian had clearly become brighter and tougher, while his meridians were slowly expanding.

Threads of spiritual energy flowed into his body. Not only was the speed faster, but the quality had become purer as well.

Without refining True Qi or taking any medicine, merely sitting in meditation and circulating a heavenly cycle increased his cultivation efficiency by at least threefold!

"A Mid-Grade Spirit Root really is far stronger..."

Jiang Ran immersed himself in the sensation, carefully experiencing every subtle change within himself.

The changes brought by a Mid-Grade Spirit Root were comprehensive—his dantian, meridians, physical body, spiritual energy absorption rate... and even his capacity for comprehension.

The effects of spirit root transplantation differed from person to person, but without question, a Mid-Grade Spirit Root was indeed vastly stronger than a Low-Grade Spirit Root.

Several days later, after finishing his spell class.

Jiang Ran leaped into the Cross-Boundary Gate.

"Grand Ruins Realm, I'm back..."