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"Sure, I'll make it for you tonight." Because they had to run the stall, they usually did not eat dinner until after seven. Su Yan decided that from now on, he would bring food to school for lunch every morning and eat dinner at Aunt Xu's place in the evening.

The vegetable stall gradually got on track, and demand increased day by day. At this rate, he would soon be able to buy jade that satisfied that person.

The days passed into October, and the seven-day National Day holiday arrived—the last leisurely days of their first year of high school.

On the eve of National Day, Su Yan delivered the goods to Aunt Xu's home for storage. Her house was piled full of vegetables, enough for her to run the stall for the next seven days.

That night, Su Yan took a train to Fuzhou, Fujian. His first destination was the Wuyi Mountains, famed for producing Big Red Robe, supposedly the finest tea in the world.

The only six remaining Big Red Robe tea trees were renowned both at home and abroad and had survived for more than three hundred years. There were also many long-lived plants within the Wuyi Mountains. Big Red Robe was his foremost target; he only needed to secretly obtain a broken twig. With the Spiritual Spring to cultivate it, he did not have to worry about failing to grow it. On the day he arrived at the Wuyi Mountains scenic area, Su Yan secretly entered the space while sightseeing. He waited until deep into the night, when everyone had left, before emerging and quietly feeling his way to the tea trees on the cliff. After taking a small branch, he stopped.

"These tea trees really are spiritual, but they're getting old too."

Su Yan paused at those words, then casually sprinkled several tea trees with plenty of Spiritual Spring water. Only then did he find a spot to enter the space and rest. The next day, when tourists arrived, he easily blended in and left the Wuyi Mountains scenic area.

The Wuyi Mountains lay on the border of Fujian and Jiangxi. The mountain range covered a vast area, and its outskirts were thick with trees, including many ancient ones, as well as plenty of wild animals.

Su Yan followed this route into the mountains of Jiangxi and harvested quite a few Spirit Woods, including many wild fruit trees. He was overjoyed. Most interestingly, when he was about to leave Jiangxi, he saw two wild muntjacs at a farmer's home. The family had just caught them and planned to slaughter and sell them. Wild muntjac meat could sell for several dozen yuan per jin and tasted excellent. In his previous life, Su Yan had been fortunate enough to eat it twice. Seeing them now, he hurriedly bought the live muntjacs and happily headed straight for a famous thousand-year-old tree in Jiangxi.

There were quite a few ancient trees over a thousand years old in the country. Su Yan did not dare steal any rare protected species, so he only took half of a broken branch and placed it in the space to cultivate. Raising seedlings from thousand-year-old trees greatly increased the spiritual energy in the space. As that person put it, even the mother tree had become a spirit, so how could the child turn out badly?

Broken branches absorbed energy in the space and grew quickly. Each day brought a startling change; Su Yan had no idea how that person did it, but individual trees were eventually cultivated into forests. The spiritual energy in the space became increasingly abundant, while the Red Mist gradually faded.

"Is cultivating Spirit Woods over a thousand years old like this better than a six-hundred-thousand-yuan jade pendant?"

That person gave a strange laugh. "Heh heh, they're different. Jade can be called a living thing, yet not a living thing. Flowers, grass, and trees with good seedlings can become spirits, but look at those vegetables—ones that can become spirits are... practically nonexistent. Every so often, a freak appears, but that's rarer than once in a thousand years! Ancient trees are somewhat better. At the very least, they live a long time, and they live even longer here with me. But if something goes wrong, they will still die one day. Only Spirit Stones are different; they can endure alongside heaven and earth."

Su Yan half understood. "So apart from jade, other Spirit Stones work too?"

"Yes, but stones with spirituality are extremely rare. Jade is one naturally formed kind, and it's the most suitable."

"Oh. Next time, let's go to Yunnan. They produce jade there."

After Jiangxi, his next stop was Guilin. The scenery there was beautiful, and there was also a thousand-year-old banyan tree. Sightseeing while working made for a truly enjoyable holiday.

During those seven days, Su Yan ate and slept in the open, yet he did not tan at all. His skin remained its original color, and his body did not feel tired in the slightest. He felt especially fulfilled and content. Being able to travel and wander around whenever he had the time was a very happy thing. It was not as if he had lacked money to travel in his previous life, but he never had enough time, and traveling had never felt this carefree. Now that he had set aside more of his burdens, his heart was instead at peace.

At a little past five in the afternoon on October 7, Su Yan returned home with a huge travel backpack on his back and a suitcase in hand. After sorting out the local specialties and gifts he had specifically bought for Aunt Xu, along with a National Day red envelope, he went to visit her. Aunt Xu warmly invited him inside and said happily, "I figured you'd be back today, so I went out and bought a few meat dishes. They're almost ready. We'll eat soon."

"Thank you, Auntie. These are gifts and a red envelope for you. You worked hard during the National Day holiday!"

"Why are you being so polite with me? I'll accept the gifts, but keep the red envelope." Aunt Xu tried to refuse, but Su Yan insisted. The red envelope contained two thousand yuan, payment for her hard work over the past month. Aunt Xu watched the stall every day without a single day off and never complained. Besides, she was an honest person; she never cheated customers out of even a cent when selling vegetables. Where could one find someone like that these days?

Aunt Xu could not outargue him and accepted the red envelope after all. Including it, she had earned 3,800 yuan from working that month, an unprecedentedly high income. In this residential complex, very few people earned that much in a month.

That night, Su Yan had a little insomnia. The next day, he got up at five to deliver vegetables, then rode his bicycle listlessly to the bun shop for breakfast. He reached the classroom one minute before morning self-study began. After muddling through self-study and morning exercises, the homeroom teacher came in halfway through the first English class and interrupted it.

Ma En smiled. "Class, quiet down. Today, a new student will be joining our class. He's a transfer student from City A, Liang Kui."