"The minimum charge for this shop is ten taels of gold, and you must prepay beforehand... Oh? Are you... the esteemed guest who reserved the ancient tree?" The shopkeeper's familiar voice rang out, and the quoted price was as outrageous as ever.

Hey, what a coincidence! This is the very shop that Yu Ling visited first!

Yu Ling was also surprised. She felt a little flustered when Chu Fan was too close. He just walked into the shop next door without really choosing the place.

However, he vaguely remembered that the boss had said that the goods would not be delivered until a week later, so he replied, "It's me, but I think I came a day early."

"Oh! It's perfect if you can come anytime!" The shopkeeper rubbed his hands together like a fly, his attitude incredibly humble. He said, "Honorable guest, please come in. I've already... cough... stocked up for you!"

The boss led Yu Ling to a hidden small warehouse behind the second-floor counter. Pushing open the door, rows of ancient trees, weathered by time, came into view. The thick trunks of the ancient trees were not large; removing the outer ring would make them just the width of a palm for display pieces. They were all neatly arranged, seemingly waiting for Yu Ling's inspection.

"These are all top-quality ancient trees, none of them are less than a thousand years old. Do you think these are enough?" The shopkeeper gestured for the wood with his hand.

Yu Ling glanced through the rows from left to right. There were nothing particularly surprising or bad; they were all pretty much the same. But he didn't engage with them. Instead, he pretended to pick and choose to kill time, so he wouldn't rush out and run into the protagonist who had turned into a city protector.

"I'll take this one, and that one too, and this one and..." Yu Ling kept adding the more attractive ancient tree stumps to her collection, while the shopkeeper followed behind, taking them one by one.

Outside the shop, Chu Fan struggled to stay afloat under the watchful eyes of the city guards, but Yu Ling was nowhere to be seen. Strange, he had just seen her; could he have been mistaken? That couldn't be!

With the pursuers hot on his heels, Chu Fan didn't have time to search the area carefully. He knew he couldn't defeat so many people without using magic, so he had no choice but to continue frantically chasing after them.

A chaotic chase ensued...

The surrounding businesses quickly and skillfully closed their doors, fearing that their shops would be damaged, including the shop where Yu Ling was selecting wood.

Seeing that the shopkeeper had closed and locked the door, Yu Ling knew that Chu Fan could no longer find him. She said to the shopkeeper:

"These are all we need."

Life away from the main character is so peaceful and comfortable. He'll just have to wait until that Nascent Soul stage cultivator leaves before he gets involved in some minor incidents.

"Alright, alright, I'll pack it up for you right away!" The shop owner beamed, his mouth practically stretched to the back of his head. Based on his calculations of selling it at dozens of times its original value, he could earn enough to open another shop after this transaction was successful.

These ancient trees weren't particularly large or small. The shop owner even found a huge, beautiful velvet bag to pack them for Yu Ling, who was so generous with her order. In reality, in the shop owner's eyes, this pile of wood wasn't even as valuable as the bag containing his mobile phone.

"Let's settle the bill." Yu Ling picked up the bag of wood, almost tossing it into her storage space, but after thinking it over, she decided not to expose it under the nose of a Nascent Soul stage expert, so she changed it and carried it on her shoulder like a backpack.

"35 taels of gold, after deducting two prepayments, you'll need to pay an additional 15 taels." The shopkeeper first raised the price, hoping to lower it later when the esteemed customer tried to negotiate.

But he had no idea how wealthy Yu Ling, the original owner of this body, was. She was a sword cultivator who only took in all her income and never gave it out. She had accumulated more gold, silver and spirit stones than she could ever spend.

"good."

Yu Ling paid very decisively, so decisively that the boss was afraid that she might be planning to cheat him out of both money and goods.

"Okay, okay, have a good trip... Oh right! I almost forgot to give our distinguished guest a little something."

After the shopkeeper took the money and verified the authenticity of the gold, he took out a small box from a nearby jewelry shelf. The box was so exquisitely beautiful that it was worth buying the box and returning the pearl. He handed it to Yu Ling with both hands.

"Although this item isn't made of jade, it's beautiful and feels nice to the touch. It's fine to play with as a small object."

Hehe, he found this on a dead person several months ago. He didn't dare to sell it openly because the person seemed to be someone important. He got it for free, so he's giving it away as a free gift. It's a good way to build rapport with his esteemed customer. It's a win-win situation.

"Thank you." Yu Ling took the box, and seeing that it wasn't very big, she didn't open it but simply put it in her sleeve pocket. Then, knowing the answer already, she asked, "This door...?"

Hearing the commotion outside, which sounded like a demolition, the shopkeeper replied, "Oh, isn't it a bit noisy outside? For your safety, why don't you rest here for a while? You can leave when things calm down."

Yu Ling readily agreed! Wasn't this exactly what he wanted?! So, naturally and confidently, she sat down in the shop's reception area for distinguished guests and started drinking tea, chatting with the system in her mind.

"System, was the gem in the very center of the box just now inlaid with cold stone?"

Cold Stone is not a cold stone, but a mineral unique to this world. Its sole purpose is to ensure that the spiritual power of spiritual medicines or spiritual treasures with harsh living conditions is not lost.

【Yes, host.】The system didn't see anything wrong with using a fingernail-sized piece of cold stone as decoration; the stone was indeed shiny and quite pretty.

"Interesting. Cold stone bought from the mortal realm? This shopkeeper is quite interesting. Cold stone is worth far more than thirty-five taels of gold."

Yu Ling took out the small box from her sleeve, deciding to open a blind box to see what this treasure stored in the cold stone was.

"Hmm? Is this a piece of ice?" Yu Ling looked at the small, round, stick-shaped, crystal-clear, unidentified object in the box, picked it up and examined it in her hand. "It does feel nice, but why do I feel something's off?"

As soon as Yu Ling finished speaking, the unknown object began to melt like ice, and then slowly seeped into Yu Ling's palm.

This precisely means that this item only reacts to cultivators (otherwise, when the boss first saw it, this item would have been gone long ago).

etc.......

The more Yu Ling looked at it, the more strangely familiar the way it disappeared seemed, as if she had a feeling of déjà vu.

Damn it!

Isn't this a characteristic that I developed after my mutation?

Since he was able to transform, he has hardly ever shown his true form. He had almost forgotten what his tree-like form was. So, could this thing be his corpse, or rather, his dead body?