After finishing handling the matters regarding the storefront and the house, Jiang Xia's parents set off on a trip.
They planned to go on a nationwide tour, visiting all the places they wanted to go, and experiencing the local customs and cultures, since they had plenty of time anyway.
As for Jiang Xia, she went back to Immortals' Valley to continue her cultivation.
Upon returning to Immortals' Valley, Jiang Xia began her grand plan for the valley's construction.
First, she needed to cut down these excess trees, turn them into lumber, and then she could build the wooden house she had been dreaming of.
However, her current sword-handling skills were still quite limited, making it rather difficult to cut down trees; she decided to give up on that for now.
Jiang Xia felt she should focus on cultivation first, practice her swordsmanship properly, and then cutting down trees would become convenient.
Jiang Xia's daily routine still consisted of growing vegetables, watering them, practicing her spiritual power, and raising her cultivation level.
One day, while Jiang Xia was concentrating on her cultivation, a huge vortex of spiritual power appeared above her head.
Jiang Xia successfully broke through the Spirit Disciple stage and reached the Spirit Practitioner stage.
At her current level, she was already the cream of the crop among the modern younger generation.
Yet, this was the result of just a few months for Jiang Xia.
Jiang Xia practiced her spiritual power every day, but without comparison, she had no idea how capable she had become.
However, what made Jiang Xia happy was that she could now cut down trees.
Jiang Xia channeled her spiritual power into her sword and swung it. A beam of sword Qi flew toward a tree beside her.
In the beginning, a single burst of Jiang Xia's sword Qi couldn't even budge a single tree; now, a single burst of her sword Qi could fell fifteen trees.
This was certainly progress.
Jiang Xia placed all the felled trees to the side and piled them up, ready to be used whenever needed.
On this day, Jiang Xia was video chatting with her best friend.
Jiang Xia's best friend was named Song Xinxin. She was a cast-and-crew actress whose dream was to become an outstanding actress and star in exceptional productions.
The company she was signed with was in Beijing.
As soon as she followed the film crew back to Beijing, she hurriedly contacted Jiang Xia.
"Xiaoxiao, I miss you so much." As soon as the video call connected, Song Xinxin expressed how much she had missed Jiang Xia.
"Where on earth did you go? We haven't been in touch for so long, and when I tried to contact you, nobody answered," Jiang Xia asked Song Xinxin with concern, seeing as they hadn't seen each other for such a long time.
Song Xinxin was moved almost to tears knowing her best friend was concerned about her, so she began to complain and pour her heart out: "Wuwuwu, I went off to the Northwest with the crew, and the cell service there was completely terrible."
"We were stuck there for five whole months. I've finally made it back."
Jiang Xia understood, then looked closely at Song Xinxin's face and offered a well-intentioned reminder: "You went to the Northwest? The sunlight must be very intense there; it feels like you've gotten a lot darker."
"Is it that obvious?" Song Xinxin instantly grew excited upon hearing this. Was it really that obvious? Her phone even had beauty filters built in.
"Mhm, mhm," Jiang Xia nodded.
"Oh no, what should I do? I applied sunscreen every single day. It's going to take ages for my skin to recover." Looking at her skin tone, Song Xinxin looked utterly distressed, on the verge of tears.
She was an actress, after all, and she wasn't even famous yet; now that she had also gotten darker, her life was just too tragic.
"Don't worry, I have a fantastic skincare product; I'll mail some to you later," Jiang Xia comforted her. She happened to have quite a few good things on hand.
She could turn the spirit liquid into skincare products; perhaps this could even turn into a business venture.
Anyway, she had plenty of spirit liquid, as she received it every day simply by signing in.
"Really? I love you to death! Hey, your skin actually looks a lot better. You look like a completely different person." Only then did Song Xinxin look closely at Jiang Xia on the screen.
Before that, she had been too busy admiring her own beauty—she was truly a narcissist.
"Hehe, you're only noticing now?" Jiang Xia looked at Song Xinxin on the other side of the screen with a look of disdain.
"Hehe," Song Xinxin laughed sheepishly.
Then Song Xinxin went on to talk about her plans: "I'm going home tomorrow first, and then I'll come visit you, okay?"
"Don't come over just yet; I've moved, and I'm pretty busy right now." Jiang Xia refused. Song Xinxin wouldn't even be able to get into her current place, and besides, she still needed to research skincare products.
Song Xinxin indicated she understood, and then she noticed the scenery behind Jiang Xia.
"Alright, are you outside?"
"Mhm, the scenery here is so beautiful. Let me spin the camera around to show you." Jiang Xia very happily showed Song Xinxin the scenery of her Immortals' Valley.
"Whoa, seriously?" Song Xinxin looked at the scenery on the video call and thought it looked gorgeous.
Then she hurriedly asked, wanting to go herself.
"Where is this? I want to go on a trip so badly."
"This is a place in Q Province. You can come whenever you have time," Jiang Xia replied.
"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Song Xinxin nodded repeatedly, indicating she would definitely go.
"I can't chat anymore, my manager is calling me." Song Xinxin's manager was calling for her.
"Bye."
After hanging up the phone, Jiang Xia felt that her plan was viable and could even earn her quite a bit of money.
After all, who in this modern society didn't love beauty?
Her spirit liquid was so wonderful.
The cosmetics made from it would surely capture the market in no time.
However, all of that was a matter for the future.
Opening a company would probably be quite troublesome, so she would look into it after she understood more about it.
Right now, she should hurry up and make some skincare products to send over to Song Xinxin; who told her to be such a super-vain person?
Who knew how long she would spend grieving over her tanned skin now.
Jiang Xia honestly had no idea how to make skincare products, since this wasn't her specialty.
Still, after giving it some thought, she decided to simply make a toner.
Skincare products were still too difficult for her.
After pondering for a moment, Jiang Xia decided to keep it simple: spirit liquid mixed with water, diluted quite a bit.
Just use it every day like a regular toner.
She couldn't use pure spirit liquid directly, because the effect would be far too obvious, and since Song Xinxin interacted with a lot of people, someone would easily discover her oddities.
The change couldn't happen too quickly.
What kind of cosmetics could instantly transform someone like that?
Jiang Xia took out a bottle of spirit liquid, found many nice-looking empty bottles, and began making the toner.
She filled each bottle with water, and then dropped a few drops of spirit liquid into each one.
After packing them up, Jiang Xia left the valley once more, found a courier station, and mailed the package to Song Xinxin.
She told her to just use this as a toner every day.
It could also be used for baths, though not too much at a time.
It would show results very quickly.
The packaging might not be very fancy, but the results spoke for themselves; she used this exact thing herself, so there was guaranteed to be no problem.
Thus, Song Xinxin spent every day waiting for the delivery.
When she finally picked up the package and saw the packaging, she was truly speechless.
Looking at this packaging, she had no idea where Xiaoxiao had scraped this toner together from; it was lacking any and all effort.
Sigh, as long as it worked.
She trusted Jiang Xia anyway.
Jiang Xia had also mailed Song Xinxin some of the vegetables and peaches she had grown.
She told her to eat more of them whenever she had free time, as they were good for her.
She could even give some away; they were all pollution-free, additive-free, pure natural green foods that were super delicious.
She could eat them without worry, without needing to fear gaining weight, and they were nutritious too.
When Song Xinxin saw the vegetables and peaches, she was over the moon. Such huge peaches and such thriving vegetables—she couldn't even bring herself to give them away.
Although she didn't know how to cook, she was staying at home these days, and her mother's cooking was simply amazing.
After mailing the package, Jiang Xia took a trip to the supermarket to stock up on supplies.
Since she rarely came out, she had to fill up her storage space a bit; she had plenty of money now anyway.
A whole month had already passed, and the items in her storage had decreased by nearly a third.
She and Xingxing were still quite big eaters.