Chapter 21: Rich Enough to Order the Whole Menu

Ding Ling now had a total of 20 spirit stones, 200 spirit coins, and two thousand Yuan in cash on hand, amounting to a total value of six thousand.

It was not a huge sum, only a modest profit, but it was enough to buy some things she had been wanting for a while, like an alchemy furnace. The only problem was that it was too bulky and would draw too much attention in the dorm.

She asked Sister Hong, “Where can I buy medicine-refining equipment?”

Sister Hong pulled out a slip of paper, wrote down an address, and handed it to Ding Ling. “Tools and equipment for refining medicine aren’t cheap. You probably don’t have enough money yet, right? Once you’ve saved up enough, go to this shop. When you get there, tell him I sent you. If I find out he ripped you off, I won’t let him hear the end of it.”

“If you’re really in a hurry, there’s a secondhand market every Saturday. You can go take a look today, but you’ll need a sharp eye.”

There were too many fakes and defective goods; without a sharp eye, it was easy to get scammed.

Ding Ling took the slip of paper between her fingers. “Thanks.”

As she turned to leave, Sister Hong called after her again, “Remember to hit Women’s Street first!” A young girl ought to dress like one, at least.

Aside from her rustic floral-print clothes from Nanzhou, Ding Ling had only a single set of underwear. It really was time to buy a few changes of clothes.

She followed the alleyway and turned onto the adjacent Women’s Street.

It was a relatively short street flanked by residential buildings on both sides, their upper-floor windows hung with neon signs of red, green, and every other color. Where the previous alley had been filled with the aura of wealth, this street was steeped entirely in lust.

It was called Women’s Street: the ground floor sold things for women, while the upper floors sold women themselves.

The narrow stairwells were plastered with posters of all kinds of women, some dressed specifically in Nanzhou or Dongzhou styles to drum up business.

Ding Ling glanced around; even bizarrely shaped intimate garments were hung out for sale along the street.

Most of the vendors were women as well. One shopkeeper hooked two flimsy pieces of cloth on her fingers, hawking her wares up toward the residential windows: “New goods! Fresh stock, just arrived!”

In her line of work, the first thing she looked at was a person’s chest. She turned to greet Ding Ling, about to say that being flat was nothing to fear, since wearing her bras guaranteed a skyscraper rising from flat ground.

Upon closer inspection, however, there was truly nothing there at all.

She jerked her chin toward the adjacent stall. “I don’t have anything you can wear here. Go buy an undershirt over there.”

Ding Ling had channeled all her spiritual energy where it was needed most; her hair was only an inch long, and she had not even grown back the flesh on her arms yet, so she had no time to develop anything else for now.

She picked a relatively “clean” shop. She wanted to buy tracksuits similar to her school uniform, just without the No. 1 High School logo.

The shop was no bigger than the palm of a hand, its three walls packed with hanging clothes.

The owner was wolfing down a boxed lunch, and when she looked up and saw Ding Ling’s outfit, a piece of barbecue pork nearly choked her.

She swallowed hard, stabbed her chopsticks into the styrofoam lunchbox, and shut the lid tight. “What are you looking for, little sister?” It was hard to tell if the customer was a boy or a girl, but dressed head to toe in floral prints and sequins, even a boy would have to be called “little sister.”

“Tracksuits. Sturdy and durable.”

The owner grabbed a clothes-reaching pole, rifled left and right, and pulled out two new summer styles in pink with frilly lace trims, catering completely to her customer’s apparent aesthetic.

To her surprise, Ding Ling frowned on sight and pointed to an all-white tracksuit hanging in the corner. “That one.”

The owner understood. A change of style, then.

She brought out all the solid-colored tracksuits in the shop. “Wearing long sleeves in this heat? This one’s great, light and breathable. The mint green is a new style, a color that just arrived.”

“How much?”

The owner gave her a once-over. With that outfit, she did not look wealthy. Weighing her words carefully, she said, “Fifty Yuan… lowest is forty-five a set. I’m not even making a profit off you at that.”

“I’ll take four sets.” Two white, two black.

…

The shopkeeper felt a pang of regret. The filling of a meat bun truly wasn’t in its pleats^[1]; if she had known, she would have asked for eighty! At forty-five a set, she was only making five Yuan per set. What a loss, what a loss.

Ding Ling produced three hundred Yuan and picked out two baseball caps and a sporty crossbody bag. She had noticed earlier that all the shopkeepers wore one slung across their chests to hold their cash.

She changed her clothes right behind the shop’s fabric curtain.

When the curtain was drawn open again, the shopkeeper stared in astonishment. This was an entirely different person from the eyesore earlier. Stepping out dressed like this now, she was bound to draw swarms of bees and butterflies.

Ding Ling strapped the bag across her chest and stuffed the discarded clothes into Yao Beibei’s little sequined bag.

Once she saved up more money, she would also need to get a cosmos bag, preferably by saving up spirit stones to draw a formation and make one herself. Yao Beibei had mentioned that even a low-grade cosmos bag cost nearly ten thousand, and its storage capacity was quite limited.

Medicine-refining equipment, a cosmos bag…

She had too little money and far too many things to spend it on. She was still far too short on cash.

Dressed in the black tracksuit and baseball cap, Ding Ling zipped the collar all the way up, shoved her right hand into her pocket, and pulled the brim low, revealing only a pair of eyes.

Even with only those eyes showing, several women along the roadside tried to solicit her as she passed through the alley: “Hey there, handsome, want to come upstairs and sit for a while?”

One bolder woman trailed her for a few steps with a beaming smile. “First time here? Come with big sister, and big sister will give you a nice red packet.”

“Thanks, but no need.” Ding Ling gave a polite nod.

Ding Ling soon found the secondhand market.

The open-air venue was packed with all manner of stalls selling various magical artifacts, spirit stones, and medicine-refining equipment. The quality and condition of the goods varied wildly, so finding anything worthwhile truly depended on having a sharp eye.

With a single sweep of her gaze, Ding Ling spotted several counterfeits right in front of the spiritual plant stalls.

There was even a vendor saying, “This is an S+ grade I went through immense trouble to get. You know what kind of effects it has, right? It hasn’t been diluted at all. Selling it to you for two hundred is practically giving it away.”

“Two hundred Yuan?”

“Two hundred spirit coins!”

Ding Ling glanced over as she walked by. It was dyed and adulterated; eating too much of it would cause enteritis.

The stall owner assumed she was interested, flashing a mouthful of yellow teeth in a grin. “Young man, you’re so young and you already need something like this? How about I cut you a deal?”

She browsed stall by stall until she finally spotted what she wanted. Stopping, she asked the vendor, “How much for this?”

“This one? A second-generation portable alchemy furnace. It’s only the size of a rice cooker, an absolute essential for home and travel. Even though it’s secondhand, all its functions work perfectly. How about one hundred spirit coins?”

Ding Ling inquired with several vendors in a row and finally settled on a secondhand alchemy furnace for forty spirit coins.

Next, she bought cinnabar, spirit powder ground from standard spirit stones, and some basic alchemy materials.

Zhang Tianyu walked a full circle around Xuanyuan Street without catching even a glimpse of Ding Ling.

He circled back to the entrance of the market street to the shops whose addresses he had given Ding Ling, asking the shopkeepers if a girl had come by to sell anything.

A shopkeeper asked, “What kind of girl?”

“Dressed in Nanzhou style, crew cut, carrying a tacky pink bag, oh, and grayish skin.” With a look like that, how could anyone miss her? How on earth had he lost track of her?

He stepped out of the shop and scanned the street. Nothing bad had happened to Ding Ling, right?

After all, they were classmates, and he was the one who had given her the addresses…

Could she have gone to Women’s Street? The moment he reached the street entrance and saw the women’s clothing hanging on both sides, scraps of fabric no bigger than a palm, Zhang Tianyu flushed red and backed right out.

Ding Ling carried her pile of spoils, still wanting more.

Only after spending most of the money she had just made did she finally stop. She had not eaten all day, and rubbing her stomach, she felt a bit hungry.

Wandering over to the food street, she picked the cleanest-looking shop, sat down, looked at the signboard, and ordered, “Iced yuanyang^[2], iced lemon tea, roast goose rice, pork trotter noodles, char siu rice noodle rolls, tomato beef macaroni, cookie crust egg tart, and a buttered pineapple bun.”

Well, she recognized every single word, so she might as well try them all.

The waitress jotted down a couple of strokes, then looked up. “Are you… eating alone?”

“Yes.”

The waitress stopped writing altogether and shouted toward the kitchen, “First menu on the left wall, Table 6 wants one of everything on it!”

Zhang Tianyu was truly exhausted from searching. He had even checked the secondhand market. Walking into the tea restaurant at the street entrance to order some food, he turned around and saw seven or eight empty bowls and plates stacked on the table of the boy next to him, along with several empty cups.

A competitive eater doing a food review here?

The chef and the waitress in the tea restaurant were both staring at the boy. Zhang Tianyu sat there for a long time without anyone coming to take his order, so he knocked on the table. “Order, please!”

Her eyes still fixed on that table, the waitress only moved her mouth to ask, “What do you want?”

“Char siu rice.”

The head chef did not feel like working. “Just one char siu rice? Go eat next door.”

Zhang Tianyu rolled his eyes in annoyance and glared fiercely at the peaked cap at Table 6 as he left.

The cash Ding Ling had on hand dropped by another four hundred. Seeing how much she ate, the tea restaurant owner had even given her a twelve percent discount.

Now she had ten spirit stones, twenty spirit coins, and five hundred in cash left in her pocket.

It seemed that just on food alone, she was saving a lot of money at No. 1 High School.

Full and satisfied, Ding Ling returned to the front of Xuanyuan Temple, pulled out her ticket, had it checked, and entered the temple gates.

Many people came to worship at this temple. A tour group had just arrived, and a guide was explaining, “This temple was built after the second Great Deluge and has a history of over a thousand years…”

Where the golden light surged straight into the sky was precisely the main hall housing the statue of the deity.

Ding Ling stood before the main hall as the tourists lined up to bow on the prayer cushions in front. They bowed devoutly, and the golden light inside the hall flowed like water, shimmering with ripples.

The spiritual energy here was thin; relying solely on cultivation would make raising one’s realm exceedingly difficult.

Ding Ling tilted her head up to look straight at the divine statue. And you? How did you cultivate this golden light?

Naturally, the carved wood and clay idol could not answer her.

Just as she turned to leave, she caught sight of the donation box in front of the main hall. There sure was a lot of money inside.

The tour guide waved a little flag and pointed toward a side hall. “Over here is Taiyi Zhenren. Legend says he once used lotus roots to recreate a body for his disciple who had lost his physical form, and Nezha’s soul possessed that lotus root body…”

Ding Ling straightened up. Such a thing actually happened?!

She glanced at the tour group in red caps and shuffled over to the back of the line, hoping to hear more about shaping humans from lotus roots, but the guide had already finished speaking.

Where could she look this up?

Ding Ling picked up her pile of things and rushed out the temple gate. Back to No. 1 High School, to the library!

When she reached the gate of No. 1 High School, Ding Ling was stopped. The elderly doorkeeper looked grumpy. “Show your student ID. Non-students aren’t allowed in.”

She had not brought her student ID with her. Ding Ling thought for a moment, then pulled her charred hand out of her pocket.

The old guard took one look and let her through right away. “Class F, right? Go on in, go on in.” He kept muttering under his breath, “So much fuss on a broad Saturday. Investigating some curse… Where would a curse even come from in a school?”

“Hey, Class F student over there, go straight back to your dorm! The investigation team is looking into some curse!”