"Qi Refinement First Layer Perfection."
Su Qiuran clenched her fists, feeling an unprecedented fullness within her, then turned toward Lin He, her eyes astonishingly bright. "Lin He, I feel like I could kill an ox with one punch now."
Lin He sat with his legs spread on the bench beside the table. Hearing that, he grinned. "Oh, give it a rest. With those skinny arms and legs? Punching an ox to death!"
The two were still immersed in the immense joy of their soaring strength and the hundred-plus Spirit Stones in their possession when a faint scraping suddenly sounded in the quiet room.
"Rustle, rustle-"
It sounded like something rough dragging across the floor.
Lin He raised an eyebrow, his gaze fixing on the battered wooden basin in the corner.
That was where he had casually put the snapping turtle after returning from fishing at Golden Lake.
The snapping turtle, as large as a washbasin, was laboriously scrabbling at the wooden basin's rim with its short, thick limbs.
With a clatter, turtle and basin flipped upside down together. Then the creature slowly righted itself, its fierce little mung-bean eyes swiveling to lock onto the earthenware bowl on the table that had held spirit rice porridge, and the small cloth sack beside it, with a few grains of uncooked spirit rice scattered nearby.
"Heh, you little turtle bastard." Lin He chuckled, stood up, and walked over, gently nudging its shell with his toe. "Hungry?"
The snapping turtle stopped, lifted its head, and nodded at Lin He, showing quite an understanding of people.
Yet its mung-bean eyes remained fixed on the spirit rice on the table, practically drooling.
Su Qiuran wheeled herself closer, glanced at the snapping turtle, and said thoughtfully, "The Spiritual Qi of the cultivation world holds a fatal attraction for all living things.
"This snapping turtle might look ordinary, but it grew this big in Golden Lake, got caught and released by you twice, and ended up fished out again. It's certainly hard to kill. It wants spirit rice."
"Then let it eat. We're on our way to a comfortable life now, after all. We can spare a few mouthfuls." Lin He chuckled and pinched two or three translucent grains of supreme-grade azure jade spirit grain from the cloth sack.
He crouched and held the spirit grain in front of the snapping turtle.
Its ferocious demeanor vanished instantly. Its neck shot forward, and with a smack, it swept the grains into its mouth, gulping and swallowing. It crunched them noisily, and a trace of almost human bliss actually appeared in its mung-bean eyes.
"Quack, quack! Quack, quack, quack!"
Goudan, who had been sleeping nearby, would not stand for that.
The little monster, with its duck head and coat of yellow-and-black dog fur, rushed over on four short, thick legs.
It shoved the snapping turtle aside with its rump and rubbed its duck bill frantically against Lin He's trouser leg, its tail wagging like a propeller. Its little mung-bean eyes were full of accusation, as though saying, You've been seeing another turtle behind my back!
"All right, all right, you'll get your share!" Lin He did not know whether to laugh or cry. Why was everyone in this household a glutton?
He grabbed another small handful of spirit rice and placed it in his palm.
Goudan immediately buried its entire duck bill in Lin He's hand and launched into a frenzied barrage, devouring the rice with immense relish.
Watching the scene of chickens flying and dogs leaping, Su Qiuran gave a helpless smile. "Since we've decided to keep it, it needs a name. We can't keep calling it little turtle bastard, can we?"
Lin He rubbed his chin, staring at the snapping turtle licking its lips as the naming system in his head began racing. "Goudan is Goudan, so this turtle... how about Turtle Grandson? No, that gives me far too much of an advantage. What about Iron Pillar? Its shell looks pretty hard."
Su Qiuran looked at him expressionlessly. "Lin He, could we show a little culture?"
"Then what do you suggest?" Lin He spread his hands.
"It came from Golden Lake, and fate brought it to us..." Su Qiuran pondered.
"Got it!" Lin He slapped his thigh. "It came from Golden Lake, and it's shaped like a round platter. Let's call it Ingot! Festive and wealth-attracting. What we need most right now is the luck to strike it rich!"
The corner of Su Qiuran's mouth twitched. Though she found the name unbearably tacky, she looked at Lin He's smug face, then at the snapping turtle lying on the floor savoring the spirit rice, and finally sighed. "Fine. Ingot it is."
The moment she finished speaking, something unexpected happened.
Ingot, who had been lying sluggishly on the floor, suddenly stiffened all over.
Lin He and Su Qiuran both noticed something was wrong.
On Ingot's thick, dark-green shell, the white scratch that had looked as though it had been scraped against a rock suddenly began to emit a faint light.
At first, the light merely flickered like a firefly, but after just two or three breaths, it abruptly brightened.
Then, spreading out from that scratch, intricate, bizarre golden inscriptions emerged from deep within the shell's patterns!
As though alive, the inscriptions wandered and flickered across every plate of the shell, giving off faint fluctuations of ancient, obscure Spiritual Qi.
"Holy shit..." Lin He's eyes widened, and he even forgot to put down his knife. "Honey, has... has this turtle become a spirit? Or has it grown a QR code on its back?"
Su Qiuran's gaze instantly sharpened. She abruptly leaned forward, staring intently at the golden inscriptions. "This isn't an ordinary turtle! When ordinary beasts eat spirit rice, it strengthens their bodies at most.
"Is this... a bloodline awakening? Or has the pure Spiritual Qi in the supreme-grade spirit rice activated some innate talent?"
The legends of Golden Lake that Lin He had mentioned flashed through her mind-a golden meteor had fallen from the sky centuries ago and blasted out Golden Lake, and decades ago, something glowing had fallen to the lakebed during a battle between immortals.
This snapping turtle, which spent its years at the bottom of Golden Lake, had definitely come into contact with something it should not have!
Before the two could work out what those inscriptions meant, Ingot suddenly moved.
As though answering some powerful summons, it abruptly turned around. Its short, thick limbs burst into motion at a speed utterly at odds with its build, and it shot toward the back courtyard door like a little tank with a shell.
"Come on, follow it!"
Lin He scooped up the dazed Goudan and pushed Su Qiuran's wheelchair, hurrying after it into the back courtyard.
It was nearly dusk, and the wind blowing from Golden Lake carried heavy moisture and the raw scent of reeds.
In the muddy back courtyard, Ingot had stopped before a small mound overgrown with weeds.
The golden inscriptions on its back flashed faster and faster, like a signal receiver that had found a source with full reception.
Then it lowered its head and began frantically digging with its two front claws like an excavator.
"Scrape, scrape-swish, swish, swish!"
Dirt flew. Ingot's claws were extraordinarily sharp, and in mere moments, it had dug a hole half a foot deep.
Lin He stood a few steps away with the wheelchair, his brows tightly knitted. "What's down there that's got it digging so hard?"
Su Qiuran kept her gaze fixed on the hole. "Be ready. If anything goes wrong, get me out of here immediately."
Lin He nodded, his muscles already poised to explode into action at any moment.
"Click."
Suddenly, Ingot's claws struck something hard in the dirt, producing a crisp clink.
Ingot stopped digging, bit down on the mud-covered object, and tugged backward hard, pulling it from the soil before spitting it onto the grass beside the hole with a plop.
Then the golden inscriptions on its back gradually dimmed, finally disappearing completely into the depths of its shell. It became an ordinary snapping turtle again, seemingly good for nothing but looking fierce.
Lin He and Su Qiuran's gazes landed simultaneously on the muddy object lying in the grass.
Lin He carefully stepped forward, nudged the hard object, and scraped away half the dirt covering it.
When he saw what it really was, his breath abruptly caught.
It was a stone only half the size of his palm, shaped like an irregular diamond.
Though its surface was covered in grime, the sunset's lingering glow still revealed a soft, familiar glimmer shining from within.
Lin He bent down, picked up the stone, and rubbed it hard against his sleeve.
Hard in texture, with its Spiritual Qi contained within.
"A low-grade Spirit Stone..." Lin He opened his mouth, his voice sounding somewhat unsteady. He turned to Su Qiuran, who sat in her wheelchair looking equally stunned. "Honey, this turtle of ours... it... it seems it can hunt for treasure, too?"