Xiao He surfaced from beneath the water, her serpentine eyes fixed on Song Yan's expression.
"What's wrong? Did the alchemy not go well?"
"...No, that's not it."
Song Yan rubbed Xiao He's head. "Xiao He, we can't keep the pot boiling anymore, you know?"
Xiao He tilted her head. "What does that mean?"
Song Yan thought for a moment, then said, "It means... we have no money for food."
"What's the big deal?"
"You hardly need to eat anyway, and as for me... I can find little field mice to eat myself."
Xiao He flicked her forked tongue.
She had thought it was something serious.
"Didn't Grandpa say? When you're poor, you live a poor person's way."
"..."
Song Yan nodded in agreement. "You remember Grandpa's words pretty well."
"Of course."
Xiao He wasn't wrong. He had survived scavenging rubbish for a living in Fireworker Stockade before.
He began thinking.
I can sell all the Qi-Nourishing Pills I've refined over these past three months.
Keep a few bottles of Yellow Sprout Pills, and all the Qi-Congealing Pills.
Use the Spirit Stones from selling the pills to buy a few Little Spirit Gathering Formations... I'll have a very good chance of breaking through to the Qi Refining Eighth Layer.
Once he broke through the bottleneck, he would first go to Beiya Mountain to find Liang Feng.
If there really were several Moon-Supporting Ancient Lotus seeds, as Liang Feng had said, he could conceal his identity and sell one or two on the black market. Then he would have Spirit Stones.
How could he travel without some Spirit Stones for expenses?
As Song Yan pondered, he suddenly sensed something.
"...Hm?"
Someone had come to visit outside his cave abode's courtyard.
Song Yan stepped out of the warm pool, dispersed the water vapor,