Just as Black Snake touched the Spirit Realm, he suddenly withdrew his magical power.
"I'll go in a couple of days."
He flicked his tongue.
"There are a few Medicine Fields I haven't tended yet. I'll visit the Spirit Realm once I'm done."
The Medicine Fields needed care to grow well. Some had been cultivated for over a hundred years; he could hardly neglect them out of curiosity about the Spirit Realm. What if weeds choked them to death, or someone stole them?
After chatting with Xiao Yu for a while, Black Snake picked up the saliva-covered medicinal herbs in his mouth, slipped down the mountain saddle, and returned to Azure Cloud Monastery Back Mountain.
He continued traveling through the surrounding mountains, tending each of his scattered Medicine Fields.
He bit down on weeds and pulled them out, then snapped off branches that blocked the sunlight.
He slithered around the Medicine Fields, rubbing his body against rocks and tree trunks to leave his scent, warning off other birds, beasts, and humans. Once he finished in one place, he hurried to the next, diligently cultivating his herbs from sunrise to sunset.
At dawn, he coiled atop a rock on the summit as usual, contentedly breathing in the morning mist that wreathed the mountains and absorbing the rising sun qi.
The rising sun qi slowly entered his belly, traveled through his meridians, and warmed his entire body before finally flowing into his yin spirit.
If he kept cultivating this way, his yin spirit would fully transform into a yang spirit by the time he was five hundred years old.
Then he could go out during the day, rather than snatching that brief window at dusk to hurry to the county seat and set up his stall.
Suddenly, he remembered something.
The Spirit