The next day, at the hour of Chen (7-9 am), a ray of sunlight pierced through the morning mist, illuminating Profound Star Sect’s marketplace. Just as he did every morning, Ye Anping opened the doors to his massage center early. When the morning class of Profound Star Sect ended, Bai Yuelin came to help with bookkeeping. She was accompanied by over thirty disciples from Profound Star Sect, all here to assist with his business.

Throughout the entire morning, Ye Anping was busy inside, not taking a break. Just like the previous day, by noon, he was exhausted. However, as he had promised to teach Bai Yuelin the healing arts, he had to keep his word. He went to the eastern marketplace and bought two live chickens, which he brought back for Bai Yuelin to practice on.

As he expected, Bai Yuelin couldn’t control her spiritual energy as precisely as he could. She ended up causing the two live chickens to explode.

Literally explode.

They couldn’t even be turned into roast chickens. Now, the walls and ground in the backyard of the massage center were covered in chicken blood and feathers.

Ye Anping had wisely stepped away and remained unscathed, but Bai Yuelin now looked like a bloody mess. She had no choice but to borrow his bedroom and prepare a hot bath for herself using hot stones and fire stones.

At this moment, Ye Anping had just finished cleaning up the massage center and training up his swordsmanship in the backyard and was about to take a short nap on the recliner. He was also contemplating how to address the issue of “excessive Yang energy” with his junior sister without making it awkward.

Without realizing it, he was already drifting off when he heard a familiar voice.

『Young master Ye, we’re back!』

Ye Anping was tempted to get up, but he quickly realized the situation and pretended not to hear, continuing to “rest.”

Seeing his lack of response, Xiaotian’s voice suddenly sounded hurt.

『Young master Ye, even if you can see me, I won’t do anything to you. Why are you so stubborn? Can’t you really hear me? I just want someone to talk to. Boo-hoo…』

Ye Anping estimated that this was a ploy and chose to ignore it. However, from its tone, he could tell that Feng Yudie had probably made quite a profit. He wondered how many spirit stones she had brought back from Heavenly Machine Fortress.

He only opened his eyes when he heard footsteps. He saw Xiaotian hovering in front of him, pretending to cry with a smiling face. Ye Anping didn’t pay attention and got up, passing his head through Xiaotian’s body.

This was the first time he had gone through Xiaotian’s body. Normally, Xiaotian would deliberately avoid people’s heads and rarely entered other people’s bodies on its own. As Ye Anping’s eyes entered Xiaotian’s belly, a golden light shot out, almost burning his retina. However, he vaguely saw a golden dragon holding a tiny book in its hand.

The size difference between the golden dragon and the book was striking. The book was smaller than the dragon’s eye. Did this creature’s belly contain Feng Yudie’s Immortal Emperor Dragon Body?

Of course, the image only lasted a moment in Ye Anping’s vision. After his head passed through Xiaotian, the scene disappeared.

Xiaotian seemed to react slowly, and after Ye Anping had already passed through, it shyly covered its chest. 『Oh my, you saw everything!』

Ignoring Xiaotian, Ye Anping looked towards the entrance of the massage center. Feng Yudie, wearing a white robe, had entered and was walking towards him.

Upon seeing Ye Anping, her eyebrows raised slightly, and she cheerfully greeted him, “Young master Ye, how have you been? Miss me?”

“… …”

Ye Anping stared at her silently for a moment, then gestured with his chin towards the inside of the room. He led her to the inner room, where he used runes and locks to ensure no one could eavesdrop.

“Everything went smoothly?”

“Of course! It was pretty much as you described. They blindfolded me and took me into Heavenly Machine Fortress. I followed the map and directions you gave me, and I easily reached the central hub. When I heard thunder outside, I opened the door to the outer hall of Heavenly Machine Fortress. Then a grumpy Profound Star Sect elder led a group of people inside… It was chaos in there, but it was exhilarating.”

Feng Yudie seemed eager to recount her heroic exploits in the Seven Slaughter Gate, but Ye Anping wasn’t particularly interested. He had already considered everything she might need help with. He nodded slightly and said, “Well done.”

“Not a big deal.” Feng Yudie shrugged and leaned her cheek on her hand as she looked at Ye Anping. “By the way, your spirit stones and…,” she said, using her fingers to form a “five” before taking out another dirty storage bag and a wooden box from her storage pouch, placing them on the table.

“Cold Sky Sand,” she stated.

Ye Anping remained silent for a while and picked up the storage bag. With a brief scan of his spiritual sense, he raised an eyebrow, “Over 40,000 spirit stones? Is this the total, or have you already divided it?”

Feng Yudie furrowed her brows upon hearing his question and replied, “The total is 43,021 pieces. I’ve already divided it for you. We agreed on a fifty-fifty split, right? I keep my word; you don’t have to worry about me shortchanging you.”

“No need, I trust you.”

“Actually, there were a lot more spirit stones there. If my storage bag hadn’t been confiscated, I would have cleaned it out entirely. The one I snatched is just too small.”

“It’s good that you were able to get so many. The rest has probably been confiscated by the Profound Star Sect.”

“Ugh, even though I was the one who achieved so much, that grumpy elder didn’t reward me with anything, not even a magic tool or something,” Feng Yudie complained, pouting.

Ye Anping shrugged slightly and then picked up the other box she had brought and opened it to take a look.

Inside the box was a pearl-sized jade sand, roughly the size of a thumbnail. Feng Yudie explained, “Young master Ye, when I returned this morning, the Profound Star Sect elder had me choose. I followed your instructions and picked the one with the character ‘空 (Void)’ on it. This is… does it look right to you?”

“Yeah.”

Ye Anping nodded and used a finger to flick the storage bag and the Cold Sky Sand into his waist pouch.

Feng Yudie asked with a hint of curiosity, “So, why did you want this? When I brought this back, the elder had a somewhat helpless expression. I asked him, and he said it’s an extremely cold material. You have the Dual Wood-Water Spirit Root, and Junior Sister Pei has the Trinary Water-Wood-Earth Spirit Roots. It seems like you’d need this for practicing extreme cold techniques, right?”

‘Of course, it’s for my junior sister’s foundation building…’

Ye Anping shrugged slightly. “You don’t need it, so there’s no need to ask.”

“Is there anything else? If not, I’ll head back. I haven’t seen my Junior Sister Pei or Senior sister Xiao in half a month, and I miss them.”

With that, Feng Yudie stood up and prepared to leave.

After a moment of thought, Ye Anping stopped her. “While you’re on your way, pass on a message to my junior sister.”

“What message?”

“Tell her to come to my place after sunset tonight. I have something very important to discuss with her.”

“What’s it about?”

“It’s private.”

“Got it.”

Feng Yudie pouted and agreed.

After watching Feng Yudie leave, Ye Anping sighed and continued to read.