Realizing what this looked like, both of them cried aloud at the same time. Bai Luo jumped up, adjusted his clothes, and gave a dry cough. “Shidi, don’t misunderstand, shixiong and I were…”
“Stealing my chicken drumstick!”
The two voices sounded at the same time and the atmosphere immediately became even more awkward.
They glared at each other. Zi Mo picked up the roasted chicken drumstick that had fallen to the ground, patted off the dust on its wrapping leaves, and started to leave. When he walked past Mo Tianliao, he whispered, “Bai Luo is not in a good mood. Don’t mess with him. He’s a biter.”
A chunk of earth hit the back of Zi Mo’s head with great precision. The force made Zi Mo stumble, and he almost turned back to counterattack. In the end, he somehow managed to scurry away without looking back.
Mo Tianliao pursed his lips and turned to look at Bai Luo. He saw Bai shixiong, who had looked aggressive just a second ago, squatting beside the swordleaf grass, looking at the leafless plant with a sad face.
“What’s wrong with this spiritual grass?” Mo Tianliao could naturally see the leafless stems.
“The leaves, uh, I don’t know who ate them. With it looking like this, I’m dead meat.” Bai Luo looked up at Mo Tianliao, his dark eyes wide. He looked pathetic.
Mo Tianliao squatted down. “I’ve just learned a trick, let me try it.”
“It’s no use.” Bai Luo shook his head. “It’s earth grade spiritual grass.”
Spiritual grass and trees were divided into four grades, namely “heaven”, “earth”, “profound”, and “yellow”. The higher the grade, the more precious it was, and the more difficult it was to cultivate. Heaven grade was extremely rare. For example, the Sansang fruit found by da-shixiong was of this grade. Generally speaking, earth grade was a very high level for spiritual grass.
Even yellow grade spiritual grass could not be revived using his “Spring Comes to the Withered Tree”, so how could it be of use on earth grade spiritual grass?
Mo Tianliao raised his hand and touched the swordleaf grass. A wisp of wood qi mixed with the endless vitality of the Everlasting Tree slowly poured into the spiritual grass. A little while later, a small, almost unnoticeable, delicate bud appeared on the leafless stem.
Mo Tianliao quickly withdrew his hand. He had originally wanted to find some spiritual grass to test this on. He hadn’t expected his endless vitality could even save this high-grade spiritual grass. Mo Tianliao pursed his lips. He was thinking about what to do next when Bai Luo grabbed him by his clothes and said, “Shidi, you…”
Bai Luo had been staring at this spiritual grass all day and could detect even the slightest of changes.
“Your ability is really great!” The normally-quiet Bai Luo jumped three chi high and dragged Mo Tianliao deep into the garden.
Mo Tianliao wouldn’t have known it if he hadn’t seen it himself, but in this rare spiritual medicine garden, there were many half-dead plants. Some fruits were rotten, some leaves were half-missing, and even more outrageously, some roots were cut.
“How did this happen?” Mo Tianliao, who was holding the jaggedly-cut root, was puzzled.
When Bai Luo heard the question, he hunched his shoulders unconsciously. “Bit-bitten off.”
“Bitten off?” Mo Tianliao was even more shocked. The place was heavily guarded and even had high-level barriers in place. Neither people, birds, nor animals could get in. Were there bugs?
Bai Luo bowed his head and picked at the earth. This was his shidi; how could he be as intimidating as da-shixiong? “Don’t worry about it; just try to fix it.”
Mo Tianliao took the broken root in his hands and shrewdly said, “Shixiong, I don’t think anyone should know about the state of this medicine garden, do you? Including the Sect Leader… ”
When Bai Luo heard this, he suddenly raised his head and looked at him coldly.
“I only found out about my ability today, and it will be troublesome for me if the news gets out.” Mo Tianliao, seemingly oblivious to the murderous intent in Bai Luo’s eyes, stretched out his hand and patted him on the shoulder. “So, let’s help each other as good brothers and keep each other’s secrets. If you don’t tell others, I’ll help you cultivate this garden, okay?”
“Shidi…” Bai Luo was immediately moved, nodding. “No problem, we are good brothers!”
Mo Tianliao’s lips curved. He could control Bai Luo this way — since he had to rely on him to fix the spiritual grass from time to time, naturally, he would not betray him.
He held the broken root, pointing it up, and sent a continuous stream of wood qi that forced the broken part to produce a tiny new root tip. It had not been reconnected, but somehow, it could continue to live. Mo Tianliao’s forehead began to sweat, and his lips were pale after finishing two plants. This was a sign of insufficient spiritual strength. He panted and said, “Shixiong, my spiritual strength may not be able to support me, so we may have to continue another day…”
“It’s okay. I have lingshi.” Bai Luo was so unwilling to let him go that he immediately pulled out a handful of low-grade lingshi.
Mo Tianliao took one look and lowered his eyes. “That’s fine, but the low-grade lingshi‘s qi is not pure, and the vegetation that may result might not be as good as the original one.”
“Then we won’t use inferior goods,” Bai Luo took out a handful of sparkling lingshi, each one the size of a baby’s fist, with even colour and lustre. They were top-grade lingshi with excellent appearance.
Different grades of lingshi had different qi content and purity. Top-grade lingshi was good for the meridians since they had less residue and thus were less prone to causing blockages.
Mo Tianliao thought to himself, so gullible. He put them into his pocket and took out one when needed.
He absorbed the spiritual force inside the lingshi while at the same time transferring it to the plants. It was a cycle of exhausting his spiritual force and then replenishing it again. Doing this repeatedly would cause one’s own spiritual force to grow rapidly. This was Mo Tianliao’s method of cultivation in his previous life. Of course, this was due to the fact that he was a craftsman who never lacked lingshi.
The two men squatted in the medicine garden for a whole day of plant-tending. They slowly found out that Mo Tianliao’s “Spring Comes to the Withered Tree” could not make dead spiritual grass come back to life, nor could it force vegetation to ripen. It could only increase a plant’s vitality.
After all, “Spring Comes to the Withered Tree” was about rebirth, but his power was endless vitality.
“So you shouldn’t call it “Spring Comes to the Withered Tree”; you should call it "Endless Vitality," Bai Luo said.
Mo Tianliao looked at Bai Luo with some surprise. He made sure he was just speaking casually, smiled, and did not answer. He then looked at the colour of the sky and said goodbye to him.
“Ah, wait!” Bai Luo looked at his shidi, who was still a little pale, and felt guilty. He turned around and gave him a basket of fruit. “Thank you very much for today, shidi. Take this to eat. Remember to come here often from now on.”
Mo Tianliao looked at the fresh and tender spiritual fruit in his hands. It was not a precious medicinal material, but rather some Firefruit, which contained pure fire qi and tasted very good. In reality, he had only used half of the top-grade lingshi, and he had easily slipped the rest into his storage bag. Today’s work had already been quite profitable.
Mo Tianliao lifted his hand to take the small basket, smiled, and quickly accepted it.
After returning to Woqing Abode to meditate all night and regain his spiritual strength, Mo Tianliao took out the Soul Condensing SanSang.
Yesterday, after testing on several spoiled fruits, he found that they could not be regrown after having been bitten, but could become fresh after having been rotten. He held a top-grade lingshi in his hand and absorbed it. Olive green qi entered his left hand and went out from his right hand, flowing into the withered fruit.
With a crack! the qi inside the top-grade lingshi in his left hand ran out, turning it into grey powder. Since this was a heaven grade immortal fruit; only one top-grade lingshi was obviously not enough. Mo Tianliao’s qi was constantly transmitted, and more lingshi were quickly depleted. It was not until three top-grade lingshi had been used and Mo Tianliao had exhausted all his power that the fruit finished absorbing qi.
The once-wrinkled fruit had now become tender and beautiful. The red fruit was crystal clear, almost transparent, emitting light from time to time. It looked like an exquisite fire crystal.
Mo Tianliao wiped the sweat on his forehead, packed the Soul Condensing Sansang into a cold jade box, and went to knock on shixiong‘s door. He happened to run into several of his shizhis.
“Shishu came to speak to Master?” asked Su Heng shizhi, who was always gentle and sincere. “I just saw Master go to the main hall of Qingning Palace.”
Mo Tianliao nodded and guessed that shixiong had gone to see Master. In that case, he didn’t need to look for him; he went there directly.
Qingning Palace in the daytime looked very bright. The beautiful master, dressed in white, leaned lazily on the soft couch, leisurely reading a book.
In theory, high-ranking cultivators were supposed to use jade slips, which could be read instantly, but he had to admit that the picture of a beauty holding a book was really lovely.
The long clothes swayed and dangled close to the ground; a pair of nude white feet pressed against a colourful and fluffy tiger skin rug. The feet were white as jade; the exposed toes buried in the fluff were round and full, appearing a little pink.
Mo Tianliao was stunned. He had never thought that a man’s feet could be so beautiful. He swallowed surreptitiously, walked up and whispered, “Master…”
The tiger skin rug on the floor suddenly opened its eyes, and a pair of big copper eyes stared at him.
“Master must have a unique sense for choosing disciples”
Carpenter: Why did Master accept shixiong as a disciple?
Big wet chest: Of course, it was because of my intelligence, unique potential, and cute appearance!
Master: It was just winter at that time
Carpenter: What does that have to do with it?
Master: I lacked a paw warmer
Practice fighting and stealing chicken drumsticks, huh? It’s that what we’re calling it these days…?
Here we see the birth of Mo TianLiao’s foot fetish, Master truly is amazing