Shan Yundi rubbed her slightly aching calves while shaking her head, saying, "There's no need. In the tomb chamber, I also learned your Changsheng Sect's mental cultivation methods and divine abilities, so these few black crystals can be considered a small token of my appreciation."
Li Feng immediately started flattering her again.
If he could encounter such a wonderful thing as borrowing money and never having to repay it every single day, how wonderful that would be!
"You truly are a living bodhisattva who saves the suffering! If there is ever anything in the future where I, Li Feng, can be of service, just say the word and I will willingly go through fire and water, without hesitation!"
Li Feng casually handed Shan Yundi a blank check without a moment's hesitation.
Unexpectedly, Shan Yundi thought about it for a moment and said, "Then help me massage my legs."
"Huh?"
For a moment, Li Feng failed to react. Had this young woman lost her mind? Was she throwing herself at him?
The next second, he immediately sat down on the ground and reached out to grab Shan Yundi's left leg.
Shan Yundi had not expected that she merely wanted to tease Li Feng, only for this fellow to actually start massaging her legs.
In a daze, Li Feng had already gently placed her calf upon his knee and begun massaging it with a gentle touch.
Shan Yundi instinctively pulled her leg back, but heard Li Feng say, "Don't move around recklessly. A hundred days are needed to recover from injured tendons and bones. It's only been about ten days for you, so you mustn't bump or knock yourself again."
Watching Li Feng attentively massage her legs, Shan Yundi's stiff body gradually relaxed.
A strange sensation she had never experienced before welled up in her heart.
Not knowing how much time had passed, Shan Yundi slowly awoke from that wonderful feeling.
She softly said, "Your cultivation level... seems to be much higher than a few days ago."
Li Feng gave a hum of acknowledgment and said, "These past few days, I have been cultivating the mental methods inscribed on the stone wall and have gained considerable insight. My cultivation has already broken through the Primordial Spirit (mid) and stepped into the Primordial Spirit Peak Realm."
Shan Yundi then asked Li Feng if he had told his junior brothers and junior sister about what the two of them had been through.
Li Feng shook his head and immediately shared the general lie he had told Yang Mo and the others with Shan Yundi, so that the two of them could keep their stories straight and avoid slipping up in the future.
Shan Yundi was quite cooperative as well, since she knew the cruelty of this world better than anyone.
Now the Changsheng Sect was left with only these few disciples; if outsiders found out that Li Feng possessed so many top-tier mental cultivation methods and divine abilities, within three days, the Changsheng Sect would completely vanish from the Jiulong Mainland.
Having unified their stories, Shan Yundi saw that Li Feng had been sitting on the ground massaging her legs for a long time, so she told him to stop and sit by her side.
The bright moon hung in the clear sky, the night breeze gently caressed them, and their silence spoke louder than words.
Shan Yundi sat on the bamboo pole, resting her chin in her hands, her autumn-water-like eyes gazing up at the bright moon overhead.
She softly said, "So beautiful."
In his past life, Li Feng was an ordinary man devoid of any artistic sensibility, and he felt nothing special about the moon or the stars.
While Shan Yundi was looking at the moon, he was looking at Shan Yundi's profile.
Hearing Shan Yundi say "So beautiful."
He gave a hum of acknowledgment: "Mm, indeed very beautiful."
Shan Yundi glanced sideways and saw Li Feng staring at her cheek with a complete fool's expression, drool practically spilling from his mouth.
Frowning, she said, "What are you doing?"
Li Feng immediately snapped out of it and said, "I mean the moon is beautiful, right, the moon!"
Unconvinced, Shan Yundi said, "You like the moon too?"
Li Feng said, "Of course, the moon is my absolute favorite. If you don't believe me, listen..."
Curious, Shan Yundi asked, "Listen to what?"
Li Feng stood up, cleared his throat, and recited:
"When will the bright moon appear? Wine in hand, I ask the azure sky. I do not know what season it is this year in the palaces of heaven.
I wish to ride the wind and return on high, yet I fear those jade towers and crystal mansions are far too cold for me to bear. I dance and play with my clear shadow, as if I were no longer in the Mortal World.
It sweeps past the vermilion pavilion, lowers at the carved lattice, and shines upon the sleepless. It should hold no resentment, yet why is it always full when people are separated?
People experience sorrow and joy, parting and reunion; the moon has its cloudy and clear days, its waxing and waning. Such imperfection has existed since ancient times.
May we live long and share the beauty of the moon together, even though we are a thousand miles apart..."
From the dumbfounded expression on Shan Yundi's face at that moment, it was clear that this transmigrator had successfully flexed once again.
Li Feng was not at all surprised by Shan Yundi's reaction.
Su Shi was one of the Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties, and this Ci poetry piece "Shuidiao Getou" could well be called an eternal masterpiece.
Although this world had a sun and a moon, and everyone spoke Chinese and used Chinese characters, the terrain, geography, and historical background were completely different.
It was much like a parallel world to Earth.
"Thank goodness this is an immortal cultivation world. If it were a struggle for imperial supremacy, I would have become the Literary Immortal long ago!"
He had always liked reading web novels where male protagonists transmigrated and used classic ancient poems from Earth to show off and win the hearts of female leads.
Now Li Feng had shown off a bit himself.
It really felt amazing.
For a long time, Shan Yundi could not snap out of it, continuously savoring the poem Li Feng had just recited within her mind.
She was deeply shocked by the artistic conception within the verses.
In her spare time away from cultivation, she would also read books to pass the time.
The poem Li Feng recited used simple, vivid imagery to sketch out an ethereal and distant realm of a bright moon filling the sky, loved ones a thousand miles away, and a sense of lofty solitude.
It caused Shan Yundi to involuntarily think of her family members who had been murdered by bandits.
Two trails of clear tears slowly slid from Shan Yundi's eye sockets down her peerlessly handsome cheeks.
Her expression was sorrowful and heartbroken.
Over the years, she had always worked hard to maintain an icy-cold-as-frost demeanor, yet who could know that hidden beneath her frosty exterior was a painful and fragile heart?
Li Feng panicked a little.
No way! No way!
Was Old Su's "Shuidiao Getou" really this devastating? It actually went and cried this otherworldly young woman?
Li Feng hurriedly said, "Yundi, are... are you all right?"
Shan Yundi also sensed her own loss of composure, and she gently wiped away the tear tracks.
Gazing deeply at Li Feng, she asked, "This poem... did you write it?"
Guiltily, Li Feng shook his head and said, "No, no, no... of course I didn't write it. It was written by a gentleman named Su from my hometown."
Looking at him, Shan Yundi asked, "Earth Village?"
Li Feng said, "That's right."
Shan Yundi said, "Don't lie to me. I've flipped through the *Jiulong Chronicles* these past few days, and the Jiulong Mainland has no such Earth Village. Where on earth do you come from?"
Li Feng forced a wry smile, not knowing how to answer. He certainly couldn't say he had transmigrated from a technological planet, could he?
Looking at this poignant and beautiful woman before him, he found it in his heart that he couldn't bear to deceive her.
So he said, "I'm not lying to you. There really is an Earth Village, though as for where it is, I don't know. I dream of returning to that place every day, but in this lifetime, I'm afraid I'll never be able to go back."
Seeing Li Feng's expression suddenly turn somewhat sorrowful and desolate, although Shan Yundi did not understand the meaning behind his words, she ultimately did not continue questioning him about Earth Village.
She softly said, "You seem to have many untold secrets."
Li Feng shrugged and said, "You have your secrets, and I have mine. Everyone has many secrets that are inconvenient to tell others, don't they?"
Shan Yundi lapsed into silence once more.
A moment later, Shan Yundi spoke up, "It's getting late, I should be heading back."
It was the dead of night by now. Li Feng wanted to urge her to stay at the Changsheng Sect for the night, but Shan Yundi did not give him the opportunity to speak.
Shan Yundi summoned her Purple Cloud Sword; perhaps because her leg injury made things inconvenient, she sat directly on the blade's body and departed on the flying sword.
Li Feng opened his mouth, but failed to utter any words of retention. He simply waved at the streak of light gradually vanishing into the night sky, and then departed with a bitter smile.
When Li Feng returned to the Changsheng Valley, he thought Yang Mo and the others had already gone to rest, but he did not expect the three of them to still be sitting before the bonfire.
Seeing Li Feng return, Qi Shisan craned his neck to look toward the bamboo grove.
"Senior Brother, where is my goddess?"
"It's so late, she's definitely gone home to sleep! Why aren't you three resting yet?"
Qi Shisan's face was full of disappointment.
Yang Mo spoke up, "Waiting for you to come back, Senior Brother. Is the rent settled?"
Li Feng nodded and pulled the pretty purple cloth bag out from his bosom.
Yang Mo opened it up, and his eyes instantly lit up.
"Five black crystals! Fairy Yunshuang is truly generous! All right, the heavy stone in our hearts has finally landed, I'm going back to my room to sleep!"
Yang Mo was an extremely rational person; he was not like Qi Shisan, who refused to face reality.
What kind of person was Fairy Yunshuang? Was she someone they could set their sights on?
Rather than suffer the pain of unrequited love, it would be better to find a maiden of matching status in the future to become cultivation partners.
Both Yang Mo and Qi Shisan went into their rooms.
Situ Fuyao, on the other hand, crowded over to inquire what the Senior Brother and Fairy Yunshuang had talked about in the bamboo grove.
Li Feng said, "We didn't talk about much, just chatted casually for a bit. Junior Sister, the food is all gone. Let's head into town early tomorrow morning and buy some daily supplies."
Fuyao, who had been single-mindedly digging for gossip, instantly seemed like a different person upon hearing that they were going into town tomorrow.
She joyfully cried out, "Great, great! With five black crystals used to pay the rent, we still have over eight hundred taels of silver, and we can buy lots and lots of food!"
Before dawn, Shan Yundi returned to the Yunhai Sect.
Lighting a candle, she sat before her desk, taking out paper and brush.
"When will the bright moon appear? Wine in hand, I ask the azure sky..."
As expected of the proud daughter of heaven of the Yunhai Sect, after just hearing Li Feng recite it once, she actually transcribed Old Su's "Shuidiao Getou" without a single error.
Supporting her head with her arm, she looked at the text before her, feeling the artistic conception within the poem, her eyes gradually growing hazy.
"This poem belongs only in the heavens..."
"Li Feng, where on earth do you come from? How many secrets are hidden within you?"
She murmured under her breath, growing increasingly interested in Li Feng.
The next day.
Li Feng, who had rested for less than three hours, was awakened from his sleep by his Junior Sister's knocks on his door.
Pushing the door open, not only was Fuyao there, but Yang Mo and Qi Shisan were also standing outside the door.
Learning that they were going to town today to purchase daily supplies was even more exciting to them than scraping together the rent for this year; they had come to knock on Li Feng's door at the crack of dawn to urge him to go to the market.
Li Feng was utterly helpless.
Yet he also wanted to see what the cities of this world were truly like. After washing up, the four junior and senior martial siblings used Airborne Flight and headed toward the north.
A hundred miles north of Tianyu Mountain stood a large city named Baiyun City.
Baiyun City was one of the ten ancient cities of the Jiulong Mainland, located in the central part of the mainland, backed by the outlying ridges of Tianyu Mountain and adjacent to the Hidden Dragon River. Its commerce was extremely developed, and its permanent resident population exceeded one million; it was a first-tier city in the truest sense.
Changsheng Valley was located right at the northern end of Tianyu Mountain and was not very far from Baiyun City. After the four of them flew in the air for about half an hour, Li Feng saw a massive city emerge beneath his feet to the north.
Much like a large city in ancient China, it was surrounded by tall city walls, outside of which ran a wide moat, with commoners and merchants living and doing business within the city.
In these past few days, Li Feng had digested most of the memories left behind by the original body, giving him a general understanding of this world.
The Jiulong Mainland was ninety-eight thousand miles from north to south and one hundred sixty-eight thousand miles from east to west, with a population of at least four hundred million.
Its civilization history was far more ancient than Earth's.
Because this was an immortal cultivation world, cultivators lived very long lives and could also use special secret methods and talismans to preserve writing and other things for long periods of time.
At least ten thousand years ago, a mature writing system already existed on this continent, which was much longer than China's five-thousand-year civilization history.
The origin of the name Jiulong Mainland dated back to ancient times, when heavenly meteors fell and split into nine pieces, crashing into nine locations across the continent. Because the meteors bore dragon-shaped patterns, it acquired the name Jiulong (Nine Dragons).
Today, the practice of immortal cultivation was extremely flourishing in the Jiulong Mainland. Following the reshuffling of a battle between immortals and mortals eight hundred years ago, there were now six major immortal sects and five major demon sects on the continent.
The six major immortal sects were the Tiandao Sect, Ziyuan Palace, Yunhai Sect, Xuanjian Valley, Kushai Temple, and Bafang Taoist Temple.
The five major demon sects were the Luosha Sect, Soul Refining Sect, Jiuyin Sect, Bliss Palace, and Medicine King Valley.
Beyond these, there were also five forbidden grounds, six immortal realms, and so on.
Humans were not the only sentient beings in this world.
There were also the demon race, beast race, water race, spirit race, and others.
Naturally, the human race was the most powerful among all intelligent life forms, firmly holding the most prosperous Central Plains world of the Jiulong Mainland.
As for those demon races, spirit races, and demi-human races, they had long since been driven by the powerful human race into the frontier wilderness beyond the borders.
Approaching Baiyun City, Li Feng's worldview was shattered once again.
For he discovered that in the skies all around Baiyun City, there were actually many flying ships floating about!
Of course, they were not spacecraft, but rather wooden flying vessels of every bizarre and varied design.
Searching carefully through the original body's memories, he realized those things were called spirit boats.
By engraving magic arrays on the hull and then using the spiritual energy within spirit crystals as a power source, through a series of complex transformations by special arrays, the heavy hull could be made to hover and fly through the air.
This contraption was developed by cultivators and was mainly sold to mortals.
Due to the high manufacturing costs and massive consumption of spirit stones, they were generally ridden by wealthy mortal tycoons.
Only because Baiyun City was a first-tier mortal city with numerous tycoons could one see so many spirit boats.
They were rarely seen anywhere else.
Most mortals would either ride horses or take carriages when going out, or walk on "eleven legs" for shorter distances; they could never afford the starting price of thirty taels of silver for an aerial spirit boat.
"This world is too crazy!"
Li Feng let out a heartfelt exclamation.
Baiyun City had regulations stating that cultivators were not allowed to directly fly in and out via Airborne Flight. Although many practitioners paid no heed to this rule, the Changsheng Sect was currently far too weak, and to avoid unnecessary trouble, the four of them landed at the South City gate and joined the queue to enter the city.
The South City gate was massive, and the commoners and merchants lining up to enter and leave were numerous. Judging from these people's clothing, the commoners in this world did not seem to be living very well; many of them were sallow-faced and wore clothes with patches.
Commoners did not need to pay to enter the city, but traveling merchants had to pay an entry tax.
Li Feng and the others waited in line for about ten minutes before entering the city.
As expected of a millennium-old city, the roads within were wide, featuring separated lanes for traffic going left and right, separating pedestrians from vehicles.
This main thoroughfare running north to south was called Suzaku Avenue and was wide enough to let four or five carriages drive abreast.
Shops lined both sides of the street, and peddlers hawked their wares along the roadside.
Looking around, Li Feng muttered, "Chang'an during the prosperous Tang Dynasty when all nations paid homage could hardly be more than this, right?"
Whenever Yang Mo and the others had come to Baiyun City in the past, it was to do odd jobs or carry heavy loads.
Today was different; they were here to spend money!
And they had over eight hundred taels of silver on them!
Excitedly, Yang Mo said, "Senior Brother, can I buy some clothes? I only have this one patched outfit, and I don't even dare wash it when it gets dirty..."
Li Feng also felt that as the Second Senior Brother of the Changsheng Sect, Yang Mo wearing patched clothes all day long was quite shameful.
Therefore, he said, "From clothes to shoes and socks, two sets for each person, to take turns wearing! It's on me!"
The three of them immediately cheered and hurried off to find a garment shop.
Watching their happy, skipping figures, Li Feng revealed a faint smile.
"This feeling of being kept doesn't feel bad either!"
Li Feng secretly thought to himself: if he could make his junior brothers and junior sister happy and keep the Changsheng Sect from perishing, he wouldn't mind sacrificing himself, holding onto Shan Yundi's long legs, and uttering that line: "Fairy, this servant doesn't want to work hard anymore..."
Spending someone else's money while handling his own affairs.
This was once the capitalist behavior Li Feng hated most.
Now he had once again become the very thing he loathed and despised.
Inside a draper's shop named Pianpian, the group deliberated for a long time.
Li Feng's idea was to buy ready-made clothes directly. After inquiring, Situ Fuyao felt that ready-made garments were too expensive; it would be better for each person to buy two bolts of fabric and sew them for everyone themselves back home, and the leftover fabric would be enough to make everyone an extra set of clothes.
This proposal received wholehearted support from Yang Mo and Qi Shisan with both hands and feet.
Standing to the side, Li Feng calculated mentally: two sets of ready-made clothes and two pairs of shoes for each person would total about thirty-two taels of silver.
Buying fabric to take back and make themselves would save twelve taels, but it would consume a vast amount of Fuyao's time.
They were all cultivators, after all; their precious time should naturally be spent on cultivation.
Thus, it was decisively rejected by Li Feng.
After buying new clothes, Yang Mo immediately changed into them.
The handsome young fellow hugged his Senior Brother and cried, saying he hadn't worn new clothes in three years.
This made Li Feng feel quite wistful.
Leaving the Pianpian draper's shop, they came to a sundry store and bought plenty of rice, flour, cured meat, eggs, salted fish, and even two large vats of wine.
Unfortunately, they were all poor wretches and didn't possess Qiankun storage bags like Shan Yundi that could hold many things.
They could only carry them themselves, and Li Feng, acting as the Senior Brother, carried a pole with two half-person-high wine vats on his shoulders, looking rather bizarre.
After strolling through Baiyun City all morning and purchasing numerous daily supplies, they had only spent a total of two hundred fifty taels.
Unable to carry any more, Li Feng suggested finding a restaurant to eat a good meal.
The thrifty Fuyao, alongside Yang Mo and Qi Shisan who were terrified of poverty, resolutely refused.
Fuyao said, "Any restaurant with even a bit of class in Baiyun City is very expensive. We've already spent a lot of silver today.
This silver was lent to us by Fairy Shan, and we'll have to pay it back later. Now that we've bought most of our supplies, there's a noodle shop on the street ahead, let's just eat a bowl of noodles and head back."
Helpless, Li Feng had to agree.
At the same time, he secretly swore in his heart that he would definitely let them live good lives in the future, at least never having to worry about money again.
The noodle shop was called Zhu Laoliu's Noodles, set up simply as a shed on the street with a few dilapidated tables and long benches.
A bowl of noodles cost only ten copper coins, making it quite economical and affordable.
Li Feng and the others carried large and small bundles, resembling refugees fleeing a disaster.
Just as they found a spot and sat down, they heard a mocking voice.
"Tsk tsk, aren't these the few good-for-nothings from the Changsheng Sect? How is this... tomorrow is the final deadline, and you're already moving out today?"
The four of them turned their heads to look at the source of the sound and saw a group from the Xiaoyao Sword Sect.
There were eight of them in total, led by their Senior Brother Zhao Qi.
The one who had just spoken was a male disciple standing behind Zhao Qi.