The system notification rang, and Gu Xiqiao looked at this old man with a young heart and rubbed her chin thoughtfully before agreeing to add him into her friend list.
After that, the two talked for a while and really hit it off, and Tang Wenbo thought that his girl was much better than that brat of his at home. “You’re almost the same age as my grandson, so you can call me Grandpa Tang!”
“Grandpa Tang.” Gu Xiqiao obliged with a smile, making the old man chuckle in satisfaction, before asking, “Are you here to look for anything in particular?”
Gu Xiqiao looked around at the shop’s wares, but there wasn’t anything that she wanted according to the system appraisal, and after thinking about it for a few moments, she replied, “I’m here to look for ancient pieces of jade, but it’s been hard…”
Such a big shop didn’t have what she wanted, after all, so the same could probably be said for the other shops and stalls on the street.
“Ancient Jade?” Tang Wenbo looked at the girl in surprise. “That’s a hard one, but you might be able to find it if you look for it closely enough. Why don’t I come with you, I don’t have anything else to do today?”
Gu Xiqiao agreed, and the duo went around the entire street, but didn’t end up finding any pieces of jade. In the end, Gu Xiqiao only bought two pieces of jade that were cut out on the spot.
“Well that’s strange, there should at least be one piece…” Tang Jinyu looked at the time, before looking at Gu Xiqiao. “How about you go home and come back tomorrow, I believe they’re going to restock?”
“Thank you for your help, Grandpa Tang, I’ll go do some more window shopping by myself, you go home okay?” Gu Xiqiao raised her hand to cover her eyes, before putting them down again. She had a strong hunch that there was a piece of ancient jade there, but she only couldn’t find it for the time being.
When she raised her hand, the jade bracelet that was on her wrist slid out into view, and Tang Wenbo was suddenly stunned as he looked at it for a long while.
“Grandpa Tang?” Gu Xiqiao asked curiously. “Is everything alright?”
“…It’s nothing.” Tang Wenbo retracted his gaze. “Well, I should be making my way home now, goodbye.”
Gu Xiqiao looked at the old man leave before raising her hand again, thinking for a bit before giving up and focusing on her current task—To find that vexing piece of ancient jade.
“System, this piece of ancient jade is too good at hiding, do you have any way to sniff it out?” Gu Xiqiao rubbed her head, feeling a headache coming on. She had already leveled up to Bone Refinement, and her mental power had grown much stronger too to the point where she could encompass the entire street with much to spare, but it was still impossible for her to find that piece of ancient jade.
Now that she had used up her mental power, it couldn’t be used for a while longer.
[Loading…50 points are required to detect the location of the ancient jade!] The system quickly notified.
“Why is it so expensive?” Gu Xiqiao asked in surprise. She thought that it would’ve been easy for the system to find the ancient jade just by scanning the street.
Hearing this, the system spirit replied: [Beauty Qiao, this piece of ancient jade is supernatural and has enough spiritual energy on it that it already learned how to disguise itself. The system would need to use up energy to find it, and the more energy it needs, the more points it’ll cost!]
“…Fine, I’ll bite.” Gu Xiqiao gritted her teeth slightly, before continuing,: “But you must find it!”
[Ding! 50 Points have been deducted successfully! Objective secured!]
A clear arrow appeared on the system interface, and Gu Xiqiao quickly found a stall with all sorts of knick-knacks after following it.
A small bowl was placed in the most eye-catching position of the stall, and that piece of ancient jade that she was looking for was currently as black as coal, and was apparently being used as a coaster of sorts.
In the end, Gu Xiqiao spent twenty thousand yuan to buy the bowl, and as if she didn’t know how much the piece of black stone was worth, she weighed it in her palm for a bit before looking at the stall owner. “I’ll take this back to put this bowl on it, is that okay?”
The stall owner was too preoccupied on finally managing to scam someone and was counting his money, and he didn’t even raise his head as he said dismissively, “Take it, take it.”
[Beauty Qiao, you’ve really gotten lucky with this!] The system spirit exclaimed with bright eyes. [Not only did you get this piece of ancient jade, this bowl is worth quite a lot too, right?]
“Yes it is. This is a piece of Guan Ware from the Qing Dynasty, but the signature marking on the bottom seemed to have been polished away by someone on purpose, so the stall owner didn’t notice either. He probably spent around a dozen on it, so he’s probably laughing at me for being stupid right now.” Gu Xiqiao took a taxi back to the mansion.
[Are you going to sell it? It’s probably going to sell for around a million, yes?]
“No, I’m going to let Haha use it as a dog bowl.” Gu Xiqiao nonchalantly threw the bowl into her inventory, before taking out the piece of ancient jade and looking at it carefully.
The system spirit: […]
‘Is your pet dog made of gold?’
***
She bought the piece of ancient jade to make an array described on the old book that the system gave her, and this ancient array could be stored into a piece of jade.
The gift that Tang Yanling gave her was too heavy, and she never thought of how to repay her until the system spirit told her about this jade array that could facilitate good health, keep her youthful and pretty, and protect her life when she needed it. Even though that last function might not be used, but it was the greatest gift that she could give at the moment.
She also wanted to gift Jiang Shuxuan a similar array, but since his level of ancient martial arts was too high, a regular seal and array wouldn’t be useful to him, and along with the level of array it would need the corresponding quality of ancient jade.
There was a layer of patina enveloping the piece of ancient jade, and since Gu Xiqiao was too lazy to send it to be cleaned by a professional, she used 5 points to buy a mysterious solution that had the same effect from the system.
As the outer layer of the ancient jade was washed off, it showed a round piece of white jade that was a somewhat translucent and the color of ivory, and there was a lifelike motif of a dragon carved onto it, and just by looking at it, one could feel that it had quite the history.
“System, I want to buy a Heavenly Talisman.” Gu Xiqiao looked at the beautiful piece of ancient jade appreciatively before speaking, feeling the warm ebbs of energy from the piece of jade flow into her through her palm.
[Ding! 1500 points have been deducted, transaction complete!]
Suddenly, a bunch of seals flashed through her mind, and Gu Xiqiao closed her eyes to practice these seals in the void multiple times before opening her eyes when she was ready.
The ancient jade floated in front of her, and Gu Xiqiao started to make seals with her hands as pulses of natural energy flowed into the piece of jade as if it were drawn by some sort of supernatural force into the piece of jade.
As her movements became quicker and quicker, beads of sweat started appearing on her forehead, and along with a final movement, the piece of jade spun in midair like a top before stopping!
At the same time, Jiang Shuxuan that was fighting with an old taoist priest on the outskirts of town looked over to the direction of the city, where a funnel of spiritual and natural energy had formed in the sky. He was quite surprised by this, and because his thought were preoccupied, he didn’t hold back even in the slightest, making the old taoist priest cough up black blood.
Jiang Shuxuan looked back at him coldly, and he waved his hand again as he saw the wisps of black energy surrounding the old taoist priest in front of him.
The next moment, the old taoist priest turned into ashes, and disappeared along with the wind.
Then, he stood there as he looked at the giant whirlpool of energy, unknown emotions flashing through his eyes as he muttered, “Even Grandfather would probably not be able to make such a commotion, which hidden master did this?”
After the whirlpool dissipated, he retracted his gaze and made a mental note to check on it later, before he disappeared with a flash.