When Su Li returned to her dwelling, as she expected, Jin Ying didn’t visit her again. Su Li closed the wooden door, and sat back on the bed, taking out the lowest-grade spiritual stone. She didn’t prepare anything, but a keen silver light soon lit up on her fingertips, and she drew a line on the spiritual stone.
Pit-a-pat!
The square stone split evenly into two triangular stones. If they were put to a scale, it would be found that the difference in weight between the two stones would be no more than 5 grams.
Su Li casually picked up one of them and closed her eyes for a moment. She murmured something, and then the earth-typed nimbus floating in the nothingness slowly condensed to her fingertips and gave off a bit of yellow glow.
Sensing the rapid depletion of spiritual power within her body, Su Li didn’t dare to waste time and quickly carved up on the surface of the spiritual stone. Her speed was many times faster than that of the first-grade matrix master, who was admired and envied by the audience during the day.
After just a few dozen breaths, a dazzling yellow light suddenly burst out from the surface of the lowest-grade triangle spiritual stone. When the light dissipated, lots of exquisite golden lines were engraved on the surface of the spiritual stone which originally looked poor, just like the most exquisite artifact in the world.
“I did it!”
Sensing the fusion between the earth-typed nimbus in her psychic awareness and the spiritual stone, Su Li shook off her sore arm, and dots of blood appeared on her fingertips.
With a pale face, Su Li shook her head helplessly.
The spiritual power at the fourth hurdle of Lianqi Realm was still too little. She couldn’t afford a spiritual pen right now, so, she had to use her finger instead of a pen. Her current physical body had not yet reached the level of that in the previous life, and it took over a hundred times more spiritual power to use a bare hand than to use a spiritual pen.
If her physical body had not reached the peak of Zhuji Realm, she would have already lost her fingers as she carved before.
“After the two earth-typed runes are sold, I can restore at least the cultivation to the sixth level of Lianqi Realm. Seven days later, at the beginning of the next month, I can get another lowest-grade spiritual rune.”
As Su Li was in the middle of her calculations, suddenly, there was a knock at the door, “rat-a-tat.” She knew who was in front of the door without using her psychic awareness.
Hiding the stuff on her bed and her injured hand behind her, Su Li got up to open the door.
Jin Ying, who was going to continue knocking on the door, immediately took a step backward like a frightened rabbit, and then reacted to force a stern face and coldly said,
“I… I don’t do it for your good! I just remind you that the master will test our practice in a few days. Two days have passed, but we haven’t got the practice method for practitioners in Yunti Realm. Tell me… what to do now?!”
Su Li was stunned. When Jin Ying saw Su Li’s expression, she immediately had a feeling of dizziness. She asked helplessly, “You… you can’t have forgotten about this, can you?”
Su Li pursed her lips and nodded slightly. How could she care about this unimportant matter?
“I…”
Jin Ying was at a loss for words. Finally, she knew why Su Li behaved sometimes well and sometimes severely, for Su Li could even forget all the important things that mattered for her destiny.
Unexpectedly, she was just stupid!
She didn’t know what fear was, and even less what humiliation was. It was no wonder she didn’t react at all, either in a spectacle or being yelled at by those four bad maids.
Did she… misunderstand her?
As Jin Ying wondered, Su Li frowned gradually, “Is there anything else?”
Hearing the question, Jin Ying was in such a muddle and depressed. However, she couldn’t help telling Su Li what happened that day.
“Today, I went to the book pavilion alone.”
Recalling the first time she asked Su Li to go to the book pavilion with her, Jin Ying flushed slightly. She then remembered something and growled,
“Su Li, we got trouble this time! Someone deliberately tried to stop us from getting the practice method of Yunti Realm, aiming at humiliating us in front of our master.”
Su Li frowned and thought of the young man in white.
“I saw that bad-tempered senior fellow apprentice in the book pavilion today. But this time, I didn’t follow the guard’s advice. I entered the book pavilion and thought I could get the practice method. However, those four bad maids were also in the book pavilion. I…”
Jin Ying’s eyes were getting red, and she didn’t speak on. It was not difficult for Su Li to imagine how those maids bullied her and therefore she failed to get the practice method.
“I see.”
Replied Su Li, after a moment of silence, and she was about to close the door.
Jin Ying was utterly stunned and stopped Su Li in haste. She said anxiously, “Junior Sister Apprentice Su, are you stupid or not? We’re on the same boat. If we still can’t get the practice method and begin to practice, something bad will happen when the master asks us. Let’s go to the book pavilion tomorrow, and maybe we…”
Su Li shook her head before she could finish, “I have something to do tomorrow. Let’s do it the day after tomorrow.”
She didn’t hear more told by Jin Ying and shut the door.
Jin Ying looked at the closed door dully for a long time, and then she stamped her feet and cursed, “Ostrich! Those maids were right. Su Yue, you’re an ostrich!”
“When I get the method, I won’t share it with you.”
“And you can expect the scolding of the master!”
While saying, she kicked the door hard. The pain came from the tiptoes. She gasped and looked at the silent night outside. Then she bit her lip helplessly and hobbled back to her room finally.
Inside her room, Su Li exhaled, holding the second earth-typed rune, which glowed with a faint golden light. As Jin Ying called her, she was concentrated on drawing runes and didn’t hear Jin Ying.
…
The next morning, Jin Ying didn’t give up and knocked Su Li’s door again. But no one answered. She finally could take no more and the grievance she suffered in the last two days broke out like a flood. She squatted down at the door and burst into tears.
It lasted for an hour before Jin Ying stopped crying. Looking at the wooden door without any movement, she dried her tears and stood up. Then she left for the book pavilion, with stubbornness in her eyes.
At the same time, Su Li, who had been wandering in the market for a long time, finally stepped inside the building of Zhenlou Group. She jogged to an available window dedicated to acquiring materials related to the matrix, taking out an earth-typed rune. With an innocent glow in her eyes, she said in a crisp voice,
“Sir, my master asked me to sell something.”
Sitting behind the window sill, the old man saw that the visitor was a pretty little girl. Although she was dressed as a handyman, her aura from the inside out made the old man show an amiable look.
The desire to look attractive was universal.
It was an unchanging truth that good looks would be treated with many advantages, even in the cultivation circle.
“Okay, let me see what your master is selling.”
The old man reached out to take the earth-typed rune, and could not help but laugh lightly as his psychic awareness examined the rune, “It’s an ordinary earth-typed rune. We, Zhenlou Group, always offer a fair price. I will give you six low-grade spiritual stones for it. What do you think, little girl?”
Su Li frowned secretly, but pretended to be confused and said, “Sir, please take another look. My master said that this earth-typed rune is very different, and that’s why he got interested, otherwise, with my master’s…”
As she was saying that, Su Li suddenly covered her mouth, as if she had accidentally spilled the beans and hurried to remedy it.
His eyes flashed. It seemed that the master of this little girl was at least an extremely ranked inherited disciple of Huajian Sect, but how could he be interested in the first-grade earth-typed rune?
Thinking of this, he couldn’t help but look at the triangle matrix rune in his hand more carefully.
The foundation of Zhenlou Group was solid, and the old man had a great experience. Soon, he found something different. He changed his face and looked at Su Li, who was so innocent, in disbelief. Then he stood up and said,
“Little girl, for this earth-typed rune, I’ll offer fifty low-grade spiritual stones. Do you have any other runes like this one?”
Su Li’s heart was a little bit awe-inspiring. She didn’t expect that the old man would offer such a high price, but she pretended to be surprised. She handed the other rune over, with her eyes bright and shiny, “That’s all. My master gave me only two.”
The old man put the two matrix runes together, and they bent into one harmonious whole as he expected. There was a great light in his eyes as if he had found a rare treasure, and he hurriedly walked towards the deep building. Before he left, he didn’t forget to hand Su Li a heavy bag of spiritual stones.
Su Li swept through the building and found that quite a few people had already noticed her. So, she hurriedly asked for help from the steward who had given her the spiritual stones, “Sir, my master instructed that I must leave through the secret exit.”
The steward understood the situation instantly, thinking that the master of this girl was well-thought. Because he had just seen the attitude of the elder, he didn’t refuse Su Li’s request. He gladly took Su Li to the secret exit for leaving.
Many practitioners, who saw this scene, had to give up the idea of loot.
After Su Li left the building of Zhenlou Group through the secret exit, she did not stay any longer and immediately went up the mountain to her dwelling.
“With a hundred low-grade spiritual stones, I can reach at least the ninth level of Lianqi Realm.”
Su Li placed the spiritual stones under the futon and took a long sigh of relief. Then her eyes flickered slightly, revealing a look of calculation.
“It seems that the appraiser in that building knows the value of the runes. He will investigate me afterward, but…”
For she was clean, no matter how Zhenlou Group investigated, they would never look into her previous life. So, her fictional master would become more mysterious, which may make Zhenlou Group scruple to do anything.
If so, she could gain time to recover.
Even if Zhenlou Group finally found out it was she who made the runes, she would have recovered by then. In that case, why should she be afraid?
Thinking of this, Su Li smiled faintly. Then she picked up a spiritual stone and began to absorb it.
Meanwhile, in the secret chamber of Zhenlou Group.
The old man, who had just appraised for Su Li, stood respectfully in front of an exquisite-looking woman in imperial costume, who looked to be in her thirties, with no words.
Not long after, the earth-typed rune made of lowest-grade spiritual stones was immediately pinched into pieces by the woman in imperial costume.
The old man’s pupils shrank, and he was about to explain a few words, but the woman in imperial costume waved her hand, saying, “Having the ability to carve a first-grade matrix on lowest-grade spiritual stones, the one must be a matrix master.”
As she said that, a great deal of interest appeared in her eyes, “At this crucial moment, a matrix master appeared in Huajian Sect… Is this a warning to me?”