After confirming the rental of the courtyard with the spiritual spring, both parties quickly completed the handover. The slightly plump young cultivator indeed helped Lu Xuan handle various trivial matters, saving him a lot of time and energy.
Lu Xuan paid half a year’s rent upfront, which used up more than half of his spirit stones, leaving him with just over a hundred and sixty. Fortunately, the Spirit Firefly Grass was maturing, and he still had fourteen Moon-Eroding Fruits that he hadn’t sold yet, so he wasn’t too worried about running out of spirit stones for the moment.
For now, the new courtyard was protected by a first-grade formation provided by the Tooth Merchant. The key formation plate was handed over to Lu Xuan. As long as he adjusted the formation patterns on it, other cultivators would find it difficult to enter the courtyard. They would have to either break the formation with brute force or be skilled in formations to solve it.
So, Lu Xuan decided to take advantage of this free and effective protective formation for now. When he had more resources later, he would replace it with a formation of his own.
In the previous small courtyard, Lu Xuan looked at the spiritual plants and felt a bit reluctant. This small courtyard had accompanied him through many stages of his life—cultivating, living, and nurturing spiritual plants, each corner held countless memorable moments.
In the spiritual field, the spiritual plants had grown from the initial Spirit Firefly Grass to two planted Corrosive Moon Trees. After the appearance of the White Light Orb, he added a first-grade Red Cloud Pine, a second-grade Sword Grass, and a second-grade Dark Marrow Fungus.
“Out with the old, in with the new,” he thought, calming himself and remaining optimistic.
Moving was relatively simple. He didn’t have many clothes, and he didn’t need to mention pills, talismans, or artifacts; a storage bag was more than enough.
However, there were two main problems that were hard to solve. One was the spiritual plants growing in the spiritual field. Since spiritual plants were living beings, they couldn’t be stored in the storage bag, which only held dead items. Forcing them in would likely cause them to lose a lot of vitality. Lu Xuan had to choose to dig up the plants along with the spiritual soil and move them to the new courtyard as quickly as possible.
This would affect the plants a bit, but with his understanding of their current conditions, he could quickly help them recover. Four more Spirit Firefly Grasses had matured in the spiritual field, giving Lu Xuan a year’s worth of cultivation, along with experience packs for the Earth Summoning Technique and Gengjin Sword Art.
He estimated that the remaining ten spiritual plants would mature in a few days, and he planned to harvest them directly without bringing them to the new spiritual field. As for the Red Cloud Pine, Sword Grass, and Dark Marrow Fungus, which were smaller and valuable, he intended to dig them up and plant them in the new spiritual field.
The two Corrosive Moon Trees were simply too large and wouldn’t mature for a long time. Since they were not high-grade, Lu Xuan decided to give them to Zhang Xiuyuan and plant higher-grade spiritual plants in the new field.
The other problem was how to deal with the small courtyard. After all, he had just paid thirty spirit stones for the rent, and giving it up felt like a waste. But he didn’t have the energy to go back and forth between the two courtyards, so he had to focus on the new one.
If he handed the courtyard over to Zhang Hong’s wife to manage, it might bring them unnecessary trouble. It would be hard to settle if a mid-stage Qi Refining cultivator died in the courtyard.
“I can only rent it out cheaply to other wandering cultivators,” he decided. After searching the wandering cultivator market for a few days, he found a second-layer Qi Refining cultivator and rented it out to him for four spirit stones and thirty spirit fragments a month.
“Wasting spirit stones like this hurts,” Lu Xuan thought, feeling as if a piece of his flesh had been cut off when he received the rent from the cultivator.
After properly handling the small courtyard, he went to the Zhang family to say goodbye to Xu Wan and Zhang Xiuyuan before leaving.
“What? Little Lu, you’re moving?” Zhang Xiuyuan exclaimed, shocked after hearing Lu Xuan’s news, and immediately grabbed his hand tightly.
Xu Wan also showed a hint of surprise, then seemed to think of something and nodded in realization. “Yes, but the place I’m moving to isn’t far from your home. You can come visit me whenever you have time.”
Lu Xuan comforted him. “However, we’ll have to put aside the pest control project we were working on together for now.”
After the recent incident with Qin Ming, Lu Xuan’s desire to earn spirit stones through pest control had faded considerably. He felt there was something deeper going on and didn’t want to get involved again.
“Sister-in-law, I’ve already rented out the courtyard and the spiritual field. There are two Corrosive Moon Trees in it, and I don’t plan to take them with me. You can go and transplant them!”
Seeing Lu Xuan’s firm tone, Xu Wan, who initially intended to refuse, nodded in agreement.
“Little Lu, you’re moving too hastily.”
“I have no choice. After all, sister-in-law, you know how mixed the outer area of the North District is. It’s not very safe. After that incident at night, I’ve been thinking about moving.”
“Indeed, if our family had the means, we would also move to a more central area. Your move is beneficial and harmless,” Xu Wan agreed, fully supporting Lu Xuan’s decision.
Lu Xuan didn’t linger for long. He took fourteen Moon-Eroding Fruits and ten Spirit Firefly Grasses and headed to the Hundred Herbs Hall.
“Little Lu, you finally made it! Put down the spiritual plants in your hands and come meet someone with me!”
As soon as he arrived at the Hundred Herbs Hall, a thin old man grabbed Lu Xuan’s hand and led him inside.
The room inside was decorated extravagantly, with soft animal skins on the floor and furniture made of spiritual wood. In the center stood a huge three-legged medicine furnace, with fragrant smoke wafting from it, filling the air with a refreshing herbal scent.
A beautiful young girl sat on a wooden chair, petting a snow-white little ferret on her lap.
“Miss, this is Lu Xuan, as I mentioned. He has a great talent in spiritual plants and can cultivate high-quality and even top-quality spiritual plants in large quantities,” Steward He said, bowing respectfully to the young girl.
Lu Xuan also slightly bowed in response.
The beautiful girl shifted her gaze from the white ferret to Lu Xuan and looked him over. Lu Xuan quietly activated his Concealment Technique to maintain his cultivation at the second layer of Qi Refining.
“Steward He, it’s rare for you to introduce a spiritual plant cultivator to the hall. His skills must be impressive,” the girl said, raising her chin slightly.
“However, I see he’s younger than me and has low cultivation. He still needs to prove himself with good performance.”
“The spiritual seeds in the Hundred Herbs Hall are hard to come by. I’m not comfortable giving him second-grade seeds to cultivate.”
“So, for the initial period, the Hundred Herbs Hall will provide him with a certain number of Spirit Firefly Grass seeds, and he can also choose one first-grade seed. If he performs well later, we can add new varieties.”
“That’s only natural; that’s already enough.”
The thin old man nodded respectfully, then pondered for a moment. “Currently, there are still a few types of first-grade spiritual plants in high demand. I’m somewhat familiar with this kid, so I’ll take the liberty of choosing one first-grade Blood Jade Ginseng for him. Miss, what do you think?”
“Sounds good.”
The beautiful girl nodded in agreement.
Seeing this, the thin old man showed a hint of joy on his face and led the somewhat dazed Lu Xuan out of the room.
(End of Chapter)