"Mom can still work, so I ought to earn more money. Otherwise, how am I supposed to help you?"
The two of them talked nearby. Their words moved Su Mu, but deep down, he did not want them to keep working so hard.
It was just that, given their personalities, Su Mu could not possibly persuade them.
Even if Su Mu took out ten million and laid it before them right now, they would still be the same.
It seemed that finding some more effective tonics sometime and giving them more to take would actually be better.
After finishing the meal, Su Mu saw quite a few villagers outside the door.
There were actually not many people left in the village now, only some elderly people who stayed behind.
Whenever Su Mu saw someone, he greeted them, then added that he had come back for a visit.
When these elders asked when he was leaving, Su Mu casually gave them a time. They were only asking casually anyway, so a casual answer would do. Nobody would take something like this too seriously.
Night fell. A chorus of frogs sounded outside, and quite a few fireflies flew past.
The air around Su Mu's home was not particularly polluted, and the sky was thick with visible stars. That counted as one advantage of the countryside.
Su Mu stayed by the door for a while before going back inside.
At that moment, his mother sounded a little puzzled. "Hey, you don't seem to have coughed tonight?"
Usually, once Su Mu's father lay down, he would start coughing. The harder he worked during the day, the worse the coughing became. Sometimes, it sounded as though he would cough his lungs out.
Hearing this, his father was somewhat surprised as well. He rubbed his chest. "It really does feel different today. Usually, it feels like something's blocking my chest, and it's terribly uncomfortable. Today, even my breathing is much easier."
"Looks like the medicine is working!"
His mother was delighted to hear this. After all, he was the husband she had been married to for so long. Of course she was happy that his health could improve.
"But don't they always say Chinese medicine takes longer to work? This medicine actually worked so quickly."
His mother was a little curious.
Hearing their conversation from outside the door, Su Mu felt thoroughly satisfied. He had hurried back precisely because he knew his father would cough incessantly when he went to bed at night.
He could not even sleep properly, and his mother was often woken during the night as well.
As long as the medicine was working now, that was good. Tomorrow, he would process some more of the remaining medicinal ingredients, then stay home for a few days, and that would more or less take care of it.
With that thought, Su Mu returned to his room, entered meditation, and returned to the cultivation world.
"Come on out. Get ready to teach me to read."
Su Mu came out and called to the lady in the painting, only to freeze the next moment.
The lady was not inside the painting but outside it. At that moment, she was actually gathering literary essence!
Su Mu took one look and hurriedly averted his gaze.
"Aren't you afraid of this righteous Qi?"
Su Mu was a little puzzled. She was a lady in a painting who had become a spirit. Shouldn't a being like her fear this righteous Qi?
"When this humble girl lived in the painting, I was steeped in this righteous Qi day and night. Why would I fear it?"
Having finished gathering literary essence, the lady replied airily.
Su Mu felt like coughing up blood at her answer. She was not afraid of it, and he alone was. Wasn't that just infuriating!
"Which calligraphy work were you gathering from?"
"Yours, of course, young master."
The lady answered as though it went without saying, then added, "But it really is rather unusual that you can produce calligraphy like this despite being unable to read, young master."
At this, the lady clicked her tongue in wonder.
Su Mu rolled his eyes. That did not sound like a compliment.
"Did Xiao Wu ask you to help gather literary essence?"
Su Mu sat down nearby and arranged the brush, ink, paper, and inkstone beside him, preparing to practice writing.
"Yes."
The lady nodded and floated lightly over, a veil covering her face. "But why can this calligraphy work be copied so many times? Normally, after a six-inch calligraphy work has been written out a hundred times or so, there shouldn't be any righteous Qi left when gathering literary essence."
Su Mu froze for a moment. "What do you mean? If a calligraphy work is written too many times, it runs out of righteous Qi?"
"Of course. You actually didn't know, young master?"
The lady turned to look at Su Mu's bewildered, ignorant expression and was momentarily speechless.
When she first learned from Xiao Wu that Su Mu was the one who had produced a six-inch calligraphy work, she had been rather surprised. Now, seeing that he did not even understand this, she was even more speechless.
"With calligraphy, the first copy contains the most righteous Qi, so it is the most valuable. Every subsequent copy of the same piece drops several grades in righteous Qi. Generally speaking, once a six-inch calligraphy work has been written out a hundred times or so, that composition will no longer contain righteous Qi."
"A seven-inch calligraphy work can generally yield around five hundred copies for gathering literary essence, while an eight-inch work yields over a thousand. Otherwise, calligraphy works would already be flooding the world. How could they still be worth so much?"
The lady explained beside him, and understanding dawned on Su Mu as he listened.
So that was it. He had been wondering whether he could simply keep making money by writing the same calligraphy work over and over. He had never imagined there would be a restriction like this.
"No matter. Since you can gather literary essence, I'll have you write some more. I ought to at least earn back the money I spent on you."
Looking at the lady, Su Mu was still quite pleased. He had spent five taels of gold on her. Although he did not know how else to spend that gold, parting with it had still pained him somewhat.
Now that he saw he could earn it back through her, he immediately felt happy again.
Hearing this and seeing Su Mu's utterly serious expression, the lady clenched her pearly teeth slightly.
Was this fellow serious? After bringing me back, he actually said he wanted me to do hard labor and earn money.
"If I could get more paintings of ladies like you, wouldn't that amount to having an entire production chain?"
Su Mu stroked his chin as he said this, growing animated.
Over the past few days, he had been thinking about one thing.
That was how to open a passage from Earth to this side. It did not actually need to be a very large passage; just a tiny one would do.
As long as he could send something from here to Earth-these were things from the cultivation world! Even the slightest thing sent over would be a treasure among treasures!
And a passage like that would definitely require a formation, while a formation would consume a tremendous number of Spirit Stones.
Su Mu certainly had no Spirit Stones right now, but if he made money by selling calligraphy works, wouldn't he be able to earn what he needed?
After earning the money, he could exchange it for Spirit Stones, and then he could put this plan into action.
At that thought, Su Mu's heart immediately raced with excitement.