Chapter 17: Aged Spiritual Valley
"The puppets and extra spirit stones are all inside, please count them."

In Lianyun Pavilion, Zhou Xingyun returned the storage bag that Fang Chen had given him, but the contents inside were different.

"No need to count. I trust you."

Fang Chen took the storage bag and hung it directly around his waist. Although he had only met Zhou Xingyun twice, Fang Chen could feel his sincerity and did not doubt that he would cheat on such a small thing.

Besides, this most common puppet is not a very precious thing. Its price is comparable to that of a lower-grade magic weapon, between fifty and one hundred spirit stones. It is not worth tinkering with.

Having achieved his goal, Fang Chen planned to go back and continue his secluded life until he broke through the fourth level of Qi training.

Seeing Fang Chen was about to leave, Zhou Xingyun hurriedly stopped him: "Don't leave yet, Fang Chen, are you planning to go directly to the mortal world later?"

Hearing the other party's words, Fang Chen also stopped, turned around and replied: "Yes, what's wrong?"

"Our bodies as cultivators have been transformed by spiritual energy. Staying in a place like the mortal world with thin spiritual energy for a long time will cause problems. Even if you want to retire, you must at least prepare a moonlight grass to ensure that you can be exposed to an appropriate amount of spiritual energy every day." Zhou Xingyun said earnestly.

Fang Chen raised his eyebrows. This was the first time he had heard of this statement. He couldn't help but ask, "Is there such a thing? Why have I never heard of it before?"

Zhou Xingyun waved his hand and said, "I didn't know at first. In every generation of our Zhou family, there are cultivators who are unwilling to seek the immortal path and voluntarily protect their mortal bloodline. As a result, they died after living in the mortal world for more than ten years, which is shorter than the lifespan of ordinary mortals. Later, we found out that it was due to the lack of spiritual energy."

This sentence startled Fang Chen, and a "川" character unconsciously appeared between his eyebrows.

Monks can use spiritual energy to gain powerful strength and a long life, but once they leave the spiritual energy, they will quickly die.

This is not difficult to understand, but it makes him a little worried.

If spiritual energy suddenly disappears one day in the future, will the monks disappear in the long river of history within a dozen years?
But Fang Chen soon realized that he was worrying too much. He adjusted his state immediately, put on a miserable expression and said to Zhou Xingyun: "Thank you for telling me such important information, but I only have these few dozen spirit stones in my storage bag. I can't afford to buy moonlight grass."

"I actually overlooked this point. How about I ask Uncle Six to let you manage the spiritual farm for a while longer? It won't be too late to leave until you have enough spiritual stones to buy a moonlight grass."

Zhou Xingyun suddenly thought of Fang Chen's mastery level of the Earth Spirit Curse, and made a suggestion.

Of course Fang Chen would not agree. What he said about not being able to afford it was just an excuse. If he really wanted moonlight grass, he could produce a large amount of it in a day.

There are even twenty plants of the more powerful Moonlight Spiritual Herb in his yard.

Originally there were nineteen plants. Two months ago, he bought a batch of evergreen grass seeds, which were the same species as the Moonlight Spiritual Grass. He also gave these evergreen grasses the characteristic of spiritual affinity to turn them into evergreen spiritual grasses.

Then, in order to make it an even number, he transformed one of the evergreen spiritual herbs into the moonlit spiritual herb.

So he refused without hesitation: "Don't bother you, I will be satisfied if I can live for more than ten years, and I don't have anything to worry about anyway."

"How can this be done? If you don't want to buy moonlight grass, there is another way. You can buy some spiritual grains and eat some every day in the first few years in the mortal world. Slowly let your body adapt to the environment with scarce spiritual energy, but you will lose your cultivation in the end."

At this point, Zhou Xingyun sighed and continued, "Fortunately, you are only at the first level of Qi training, otherwise this method would not work."

In fact, Fang Chen has already reached the second level of Qi training, but exploring the cultivation level of another cultivator requires spiritual power. Zhou Xingyun is at the fourth level of Qi training, so he doesn't know that Fang Chen has made a breakthrough.

Moreover, cultivators with spiritual awareness will not casually probe into the cultivation level of others. This is a tacit understanding among cultivators.

Unless the two parties have a deep hatred, or there is a huge difference in their cultivation, one can tell the strength of the other party with just one glance.

"Well... if we had eaten spiritual grain every day in the past few years, the spiritual grain we needed would probably be more expensive than moonlight grass."

Fang Chen quickly did the math in his mind. The price of one pound of spiritual grain has always been a constant, one spirit stone, and it has not changed for decades. If he wanted to eat spiritual grain for several years in a row, he would need at least a few hundred pounds of spiritual grain. The spirit stones required would be enough to buy several moonlight grasses.

"Of course I'm not asking you to buy normal spiritual grains."

Zhou Xingyun quickly added, then looked around, and after confirming that no one was present, he lowered his voice and said, "I have a channel to buy aged spiritual grains."

"Old Spiritual Valley?"

Fang Chen's eyebrows raised again. Just from these four words, a lot of interesting information popped up in his mind.

"That's right. In order to maintain the price of spiritual grains, Lianyunfang City destroys a large number of unsold spiritual grains every year. They are usually burned and turned into fertilizers. My sixth uncle is one of the people responsible for handling the spiritual grains. He found that if these spiritual grains were sold at a low price, the spiritual stones obtained could buy the same amount of fertilizers and still have a surplus..." Zhou Xingyun trusted Fang Chen and revealed all the secrets to him.

"Is that so? What is the price of the aged spiritual grain?"

Fang Chen asked curiously on the surface, but his heart was boiling with anger.

This is the cultivation world's version of overproduction.

In order to pursue profits, Lianyunfang City wants to maintain the price of spiritual grain unchanged on the one hand, and on the other hand, it keeps the wages of the spiritual farmers who take care of the spiritual fields very low.

Lingzhifu is just a microcosm. The vast majority of cultivators earn a meager income in Lianyunfang City.

In this way, he could no longer consume expensive necessities such as spiritual grains, and could only choose to use fasting pills to cope with hunger.

The spiritual grain could not be sold, not because there was so much of it that all the cultivators could eat it, but because the price was unaffordable for most cultivators, thus creating the illusion of overproduction.

At this time, Lianyunfang City was still unwilling to lower the price of spiritual grain, but spiritual grain could not be stored for a long time, so it simply destroyed the excess spiritual grain.

It’s the same principle as those merchants in previous lives dumping milk.

"One spiritual stone weighs fifty kilograms. However, because it has been stored for a long time, the spiritual energy contained in it is much less than that of ordinary spiritual grains. However, it is still beneficial for cultivation and can solve the problems you encounter after returning to the mortal world."

Fang Chen was stunned by the price Zhou Xingyun quoted. It was so much lower than that of a normal spiritual valley. Even if some spiritual energy had dissipated, this situation should not have occurred.

Unless they have a lot of aged spiritual grains.

"The market is also stupid. Since the spiritual grains cannot be sold, they should adjust the spiritual plants planted in the spiritual fields."

Fang Chen, who figured out this information, couldn't help but complain in his heart.

What he didn't know was that Lianyunfang City wanted to switch to growing other spiritual plants, but they were short of manpower.

Compared to spiritual plants that require special care by spiritual plant husbands, spiritual valleys are much easier to care for.

Anyone can do the job of taking care of the spiritual valley.

"Then I'll take 500 kilograms."

Since the other party had quoted a price, Fang Chen felt embarrassed to refuse and spent the last ten spirit stones in his storage bag.

After taking the spirit stone, Zhou Xingyun immediately took out the spirit grain from his storage bag, put it into another storage bag and handed it to Fang Chen.

Fang Chen was stunned by the whole process.

He actually carried the aged spiritual grains that he was going to sell with him. What a big storage bag this would have to have to hold so much spiritual grains.

But when I thought about the other party's no-cost business of selling aged spiritual grains, it suddenly seemed much more reasonable.

Spiritual plants with spatial properties, such as Kongling Grass, can be traded freely in Lianyunfang City, so storage bags with large space are not rare.

After buying these spiritual grains, today's affairs were completely over, and Fang Chen said goodbye to Zhou Xingyun.

"Have a safe journey, fellow Daoist."

Zhou Xingyun sent Fang Chen out of the store and did not call him by his name. Instead, he used the word "fellow Taoist" just like Manager Zhou did at that time.

Fang Chen also knew what this meant. He bowed and disappeared into the night.

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(End of this chapter)