Chapter 221 Seeking the Inner Elixir
"Chu Chu, are you done with your work? Come here." The master greeted from a distance.
"Here it comes." Xu Chuchu put the big orange on the ground.
Daju straightened up: "Then this necklace belongs to me?"
Xu Chuchu lowered her head and carefully searched for the necklace buried under the big cat's head: "It's yours, but eat less at night, otherwise the necklace will break."
"Great." Daju happily went to show off to Jiji.
The master handed Xu Chuchu a bowl of yam and chestnut porridge he had personally cooked. "Are you leaving in a few days? You're still weak now, why don't you rest for a few more days?"
"Thank you, Master. I'm fine. It's better for us to leave as soon as possible." Xu Chuchu took the porridge and drank a few mouthfuls.
The two had discussed the matter of leaving beforehand, and the master also agreed, but he was worried that Xu Chuchu's body wouldn't be able to handle it. In ancient times, there were no comfortable airplanes or high-speed trains, and the carriage would be so bumpy that it would break your bones.
"Why? Don't you want that young master to come again?" asked the master.
"On the one hand, the five planets aligning soon." Xu Chuchu changed the subject. "Did Xiao Yu say that the energy was stolen? I have a feeling that things are not as simple as they seem. Something big might happen in the capital. We'd better leave as soon as possible. Anyway, even if there is another disaster... I won't be able to solve it."
After she woke up, the master naturally told her everything that happened after she fell into a coma, including the theft of energy in the tower and the death of the great master.
In Xu Chuchu's eyes, the Grand Master was already an extremely difficult enemy to deal with, and now it seemed that the mastermind hiding in the dark was even more powerful.
"That's fine." The master stroked her hair. "I see that Master Xiao is very concerned about the energy theft. If there's really a problem, maybe he'll go and solve it. Don't worry."
"Um."
"How have you been feeling these days?" the master asked softly again.
Xu Chuchu put down the bowl.
She knew what her master was asking about. It was not her physical condition, nor was it Xiao Yu, whom she had long since decided to forget... but her lost cultivation.
She has been practicing since she can remember, and both her physical and mental strength are much stronger than other children.
Other children could only take three flights of stairs at a time, but she could climb from the first floor to the second in a few steps. Other children cried while doing homework at the end of summer vacation, but she could stay up for three days and three nights to finish her homework, and still be full of energy after finishing it.
She has never been as plain and ordinary as she is now.
Even though she had never felt that cultivators were superior to ordinary people, the sudden feeling of powerlessness when she actually became an ordinary person still made it difficult for her to adapt.
Her body is now empty and she can no longer gather any spiritual power. This is even more difficult to accept than starting from scratch when she first traveled through time.
The master knew her best and was worried that she would never recover from this.
"It's okay. It's good to be an ordinary person. I don't have to worry about whether to meddle in other people's business." Xu Chuchu huddled in the chair, hugging her knees, "Master..."
"Um?"
"Do you think I'm really stupid? I sacrificed myself for others, but ended up with nothing." Xu Chuchu said self-deprecatingly.
"Isn't that what you always said to Master?" Master said calmly, "You're operating like a tiger, but when you see your balance, it's like, 'You're better than Master! You even know to charge a fee."
Xu Chuchu was immediately ashamed: "Am I really that fierce..."
"It was a childhood thing." The master smiled. "It's okay, Chuchu, don't tie yourself down. Life offers many choices. It doesn't matter if you have a high level of cultivation or are extremely wealthy. We only have one life, so just live happily and with a clear conscience."
"Yeah." Xu Chuchu nodded.
The master is very open-minded in this regard. Sometimes when he goes out to exorcise ghosts and catch monsters, he feels embarrassed to accept money when he sees that the people's families are poor, and in the end he pays for the round-trip fare back home himself.
"Have you decided where to go?" asked the master.
"Hmm... I want to go back to Tailing?" Xu Chuchu said, "I'm more familiar with that place, and the climate is better."
Although she had not lived in Tailing for a long time, it was her first time there after all, and she felt some homesickness.
"Okay, let's go to Linchuan County. I heard that the Xiangshan Mountain over there is full of foxtail flowers, which are particularly beautiful when they bloom in spring. Master wants to go and see them." said the master.
"Okay, let's travel around and enjoy the scenery on our way back." Since the master had made the request, Xu Chuchu naturally wouldn't disagree.
A few days later, they set off. Three people, a cat, and a dog squeezed into a small carriage and headed away from the capital.
All the magic circles around the yard were dismantled. When people from nearby villages passed by, they were amazed to see a few dilapidated small bungalows suddenly appearing on the wasteland, and said that this was the place where gods had come down to earth and settled down.
Xiao Yu came again with goods and treasures, and finally saw the small courtyard he had been thinking about day and night, but there was nothing waiting for him in the courtyard.
They left and cleaned up very cleanly, leaving behind not even an old piece of clothing or an old water cup.
Xiao Yu searched every place without giving up, and finally found a small cloth bag left under the dressing table in Xu Chuchu's room. It seemed that there was something hard stuffed in it.
He poured it out with hope and saw that it was a lone Lantian jade tassel earring.
It was impossible for Xu Chuchu to simply forget it; she deliberately didn't take it away.
…
Xu Chuchu traveled for several days and arrived at Linchuan County, but the further he walked, the more he felt something was wrong.
She asked the vendors in the market about the Xiangshan Mountain that her master had mentioned, wanting to know its specific location and what fun places there were. However, when everyone heard her say she was going to Xiangshan Mountain, they all dodged and avoided her, saying that it was a "ghost place" that could not be visited.
She felt something was wrong and thought back to what her master had said about wanting to go to Xiangshan to see the flowers, which seemed even more suspicious to her.
She had been with her master for so many years, but she never thought that her master was a person who loved traveling and enjoying the scenery. He was the typical person who slept on the bus and took pictures when he got off.
So she privately asked a local old man and learned that Xiangshan in Linchuan County is also called "Fox Mountain" because the mountain is full of foxtail flowers that bloom all year round, which is particularly strange.
Rumor has it that there is a giant fox demon living in the mountain, which comes down from time to time to harm people.
This made Xu Chuchu helpless.
"Master..." She ran after the dodging master after returning, "What are you going to Fox Mountain for? Why did you hide it from me?"
The master wasn't good at lying to begin with, and after being caught, he didn't know how to cover up his lies. He could only say, "Master also heard that a great fox demon lives on Fox Mountain. You're very susceptible to cold and sickness right now. Even with so many layers wrapped up at night, you still shiver. If you could obtain an old fox's inner elixir, your situation would be much better."
"Master!" Xu Chuchu was touched and amused. "What do you mean by asking for the inner elixir? The inner elixir is the most important thing for monsters. It is the foundation of their cultivation. Which monster would be willing to give it to us? You asked Daju, but he refused."
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