Chapter 2

At the age of eleven, Ye Jiangchuan had his own residence, which was originally a storage room, a small house with green stone tiles.

Ye Jiangchuan lived alone here, with no servants or elderly attendants to keep him company, left to survive on his own.

At mealtime, servants would bring food, and he would eat alone in his small room. His mother didn't like him and didn't want to see her foolish son sulking at the dining table.

Ye Jiangchuan didn't mind living alone. Although it was lonely, he felt better this way.

Returning to his residence, Ye Jiangchuan didn't go inside to rest but instead sat on a green stone stool in the courtyard, motionless.

From a distance, he looked like a wooden post, completely still, as if he were no longer in this world, dazed and foolish. This was one of the reasons people called him "foolish boy."

In fact, Ye Jiangchuan was no longer in this world. In a daze, he found himself in a tavern.

This tavern seemed both real and illusory, not very large, with only three or four tables and seven or eight drinkers, but Ye Jiangchuan couldn't see their faces clearly.

The only real and visible thing in the tavern was the bar, behind which a bartender was polishing glasses.

The bartender had dark skin, a balding head, and was somewhat old. He wore a white shirt, black vest, black trousers, and black shoes, looking neat as he polished the glasses.

Facing the bartender, Ye Jiangchuan smiled and said, "Old Black, I'm here to see you again. Do you miss me?"

Old Black was the name Ye Jiangchuan had given him.

Unfortunately, no matter what he said, Old Black wouldn't respond. He would just stand there, forever polishing the glasses, without any reaction.

But Ye Jiangchuan still liked talking to him because seeing him reminded him of his past life, full of beautiful memories.

Three months later, the tavern would change, becoming a different tavern with a different bartender.

Since his psychic ability awakened at the age of eight, the tavern had changed twenty-three times, each one different. There were ancient Eastern taverns, Western saloons, modern suburban eateries, and modern urban bars.

Different types of taverns appeared one by one, and three times they weren't even human taverns—lizard people, fish people, beast people, and even a future mechanical tavern.

Old Black had appeared four times, making him a familiar face to Ye Jiangchuan.

Returning here, Ye Jiangchuan felt incredibly at ease because it reminded him of his past life, and it had also changed his current life!

After reincarnating, the infant's body couldn't accommodate an adult's soul. Ye Jiangchuan was always in a daze, unconscious, and seemed like a fool.

It wasn't until he was eight that he gained control of his body and woke up, awakening his psychic ability. However, his body and soul still didn't match, and his constitution was very poor. Practicing the family's inherited "Wood Leaf Condensation Technique" yielded no progress at all.

Ye Jiangchuan knew that his only hope was this tavern.

He often came here, hoping for a chance. In the summer of his ninth year, the opportunity finally appeared.

At that time, the tavern was in a dilapidated state, an ancient Eastern tavern, very old.

The others were all blurry, but by chance, Ye Jiangchuan saw the first clear figure.

It was an old man in a Taoist robe, with a full face, a high forehead, white eyebrows hanging down, sharp eyes, a kind expression, and a flowing beard!

And by his side was a blue ox.

He seemed to have just finished eating and was about to set out on a long journey.

Ye Jiangchuan immediately knew who he was: the sage Laozi, also known as Li Er or Lao Dan, the Supreme Elder.

Without a word, Ye Jiangchuan knelt down and shouted, "Sage, save me, save me!"

Then he desperately recited the "Tao Te Ching."

"We are from the same hometown, save me!"

"Dao that can be told is not the eternal Dao, name that can be named is not the eternal name..."

He hoped to catch the sage's attention.

The sage seemed to be taken aback and then said, "In the vast universe, among countless temporal rifts, to meet here is a matter of fate!"

"Good!"

He lightly touched, and a beam of light flew into the tavern, then he rode the blue ox and drifted away.

At that moment, the bar in the tavern subtly changed, and a beam of spiritual light appeared.

To Ye Jiangchuan, this light seemed like a talisman, a scripture, a bamboo scroll, or a jade tablet...

No matter what it was, it had an indescribable ancient and simple feel, as if it carried a divine aura, the essence of this world.

Suddenly, a strange force seemed to permeate, colliding with it.

The light kept changing, from a scripture, a bamboo scroll, a jade tablet, to bizarre forms like horns, human skin, and smoke.

Ye Jiangchuan inexplicably felt as if the world had split in two, or two worlds had merged, engaging in an endless and limitless battle.

This collision lasted for dozens of breaths, and then the light changed one last time. Under this collision, it wasn't a talisman, a scripture, or a bizarre form, but a card.

The final fusion artifact was like a game card from his past life!

In the depths of his mind, Ye Jiangchuan understood that this was called a Miracle Card, a fragment of the truth and the core power of this universe, the help the sage could give in this form.

Shaking his head, Ye Jiangchuan stopped reminiscing and looked at the card on the bar. This was his golden finger!

On the bar, there were two Miracle Cards, one bright and one dark.

The bright card could be seen clearly, showing all its contents.

The dark card was wrapped in a card sleeve, and it was unknown what card it was, requiring a draw to reveal.

At the top of each card was its name.

Below the name, the card was divided into two parts: the top part was a vivid image, and the bottom part was text explaining it.

The text varied widely, but Ye Jiangchuan could read all of it.

For example, the card in front of him was called "Flying Dragon Probes the Clouds."

The image on the card was a hand in a grabbing pose.

Below the image was text explaining that activating this card would grant the user the Flying Dragon Probes the Clouds technique, allowing them to steal money and items from others, like a flash of a dragon, in the illusion of probing the clouds, making it hard to be detected.

At the bottom was a line of text: "Mom no longer worries about my pocket money."

Ye Jiangchuan looked at it with great envy. If he could get it, he would gain a new ability. Although stealing was despicable, it was a real skill.

Just getting one card would change his life.

But it was too difficult; there was no free lunch.

The sage had given him an opportunity, but to get it, he still had to rely on himself. Below the card "Flying Dragon Probes the Clouds" was a number: one hundred!

The unit was gold essence coins, and it would cost one hundred gold essence coins to buy this card.

Gold essence coins didn't exist in the real world but were unique to the tavern. However, they could be exchanged with the real world.

Anything with spiritual energy in the real world could be brought to this tavern and exchanged for gold essence coins.

However, it was very difficult.

Real-world currencies like copper coins and silver, or antiques and furniture, were useless here.

Only items with spiritual energy could be exchanged, and the most valuable were spirit stones. One spirit stone could be exchanged for one gold essence coin.

But Ye Jiangchuan's father, Ye Ruoshui, earned only two and a half spirit stones a month, which supported the entire Ye family, including five wives, thirteen children, and over a hundred servants and maids.

In other words, it would take forty months of the family's living expenses to buy one Miracle Card.

It was impossible!

Not just for Ye Jiangchuan, but even his father, Ye Ruoshui, couldn't do it!

But there was always a way out!

Below the number one hundred was another number: eight, representing the eight gold essence coins Ye Jiangchuan already had.

Below the eight were a hundred small boxes, seventeen of which were already lit. Once a hundred were collected, the eight would become nine.

This was the way Ye Jiangchuan found to earn money. Besides his father's spirit stone salary, this place wasn't a dead zone for spiritual energy.

Every morning, in the Ye family's back garden, as the first ray of sunlight hit the dew on the flowers, sometimes one or two strands of spiritual energy would spontaneously appear.

This spiritual energy, it was said, could only be seen by condensation practitioners.

Ordinary people, including his father, couldn't see it.

They appeared and disappeared randomly.

Ye Jiangchuan could see them, possibly due to the side effects of entering the tavern countless times.

He found that as long as he was halfway between the real world and the tavern, he could see and capture these strands of spiritual energy and bring them to the tavern.

The frenzy by the pond earlier was because he had captured a strand of spiritual energy, adding one more box to his gold essence coins.

One strand of spiritual energy added one box, and a hundred strands added one gold essence coin.

However, collecting dew wasn't always fruitful. Sometimes he could collect for several days in a row, and sometimes he wouldn't get anything for over ten days. The real harvest came from the Ye family's pond.

A strand of spiritual energy would definitely appear in the pond every one or two days.

This was why, no matter how hot the summer or how cold the winter, Ye Jiangchuan always wandered by the pond.

In a month, he could collect about twenty to thirty strands of spiritual energy from the dew and the pond.

Before he turned twelve, he wasn't very skilled and could only accumulate a few dozen strands in a year. Gradually, with practice, he improved and had such a harvest.

His constant presence by the pond had already attracted attention from the Ye family. At first, seeing him capture spiritual energy and switch between the real and illusory worlds, they would feel inexplicable fear.

Ye Jiangchuan had no choice but to continue acting foolish. Everything a fool did was laughable and stupid, which could explain and dilute the eerie fear.

Even so, some servants would still come to interfere, so Ye Jiangchuan started to push them into the pond, one by one, using a joke from his hometown.

After that, no one came to bother him anymore.

Life was so hard!

Besides these two ways to earn money, the rest was saving.

He had to be harsh on himself, saving from his mouth and body!

On the first day of every month, the Ye family's children received a bowl of spirit porridge as a benefit. On that day, Ye Jiangchuan had the right to return to the main table of the third house and drink a bowl of spirit porridge made from spirit grains.

Each time, Ye Jiangchuan would drink only half a bowl and bring the rest to the tavern, which could add three or four strands of spiritual energy.

Or during the New Year's Eve dinner, he could secretly save a dozen strands of spiritual energy.

However, this led to his weak body and lagging cultivation. After five years of hard practice, he had only reached the second level of the family's "Wood Leaf Condensation Technique."

Through such bitter accumulation and desperate collection, using his mouth and body to save, Ye Jiangchuan now had eight gold essence coins and seventeen strands of spiritual energy.

Eight gold essence coins, though not much, were still far from one hundred.

But Ye Jiangchuan wasn't anxious because there was a second opportunity.

At the age of twelve, after struggling to save money, he finally saw someone gradually become clear in the tavern.

This person was handsome, wearing a white robe, exuding elegance and extraordinary presence.

Ye Jiangchuan couldn't tell who he was and asked for help.

The man smiled and said, "I am Luo Li from the Immortal Qin Yuanming Sect. I came to this time intersection by chance.

As long as you have ten Dao coins, I will sell you a great miracle."

Ye Jiangchuan smiled bitterly; he had nothing.

Luo Li shook his head and said, "Poor child, never mind, I'll help you. I'll give you a small miracle!"

With that, he slowly left.

Then Ye Jiangchuan discovered that on the first day of the first month of every year, the first quarter hour of the first hour, with the tavern's transformation, there would be a miracle moment.

During this quarter hour, the price of the newly transformed bright card in the tavern would drop from one hundred gold essence coins to ten gold essence coins!

A ten percent discount!

This was Ye Jiangchuan's opportunity, his small miracle!

Now, with four months left until the end of the year, he still needed one gold essence coin and eighty-three strands of spiritual energy to reach ten gold essence coins!

Ye Jiangchuan took a deep breath and silently encouraged himself!

The opportunity was right in front of him!

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Please give me a chance, too! Collect and recommend! Thank you!

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