Chapter 32 – Charcoal Grill Matsutake (1)
Translated by Gumihou
Please read this at kitchennovel dot com
The convoy of carriages snaked along the road slowly. The estimated time to reach the Imperial City was about 20 days, just in time to start lessons at the Imperial College. Moreover, Shiyu was also not in a hurry to reach the Imperial City. On the way they would past by several towns and cities, all of which she would visit to investigate their local culinary offerings.
As for her secret dimension, Shiyu had planted some of the herbs and vegetables she had collected there. Right now the space was particularly lush looking, and was slightly bigger than the first time she saw it.
A few towns later, Shiyu found herself running out of money. Before leaving Qing Shan City she had brought about 100,000 taels of silver plus change. She later left the entire 100,000 tael of silver with the Yong Ming party and after a buying spree, found herself left with very little money.
In some desperation, she looked through her space for something to sell and found a likely candidate. The Jade Lotus Flower. This flower was something that she had picked a pond at the Beast Mountain.
Though she had no idea what kind of flower it was, the lotus flower exuded a particularly sweet and elegant fragrance. The petals itself tasted sweet, once eaten her skin became smooth and pretty. What’s more astonishing was that all the previous injuries on her body had disappeared. Thus, she concluded that this thing was no ordinary flower and have collected it as a future ingredient.
Right now, the flower was planted in the pond within her space, around that original lotus flower were four new buds poking out beside it.
Shiyu had just decided to bring one of the flowers to the next auction house to find out more about it as well as its cost. She was just about to leave when she noticed that the small tree next to the pond was covered in small red fruits. The fruits were bright red, perfectly round, and looked very cute, so Shiyu plucked a few pieces to snack on later.
When she popped out of the space, she noted that the Radish Demon which had been hiding inside a flower pot, was sound asleep. Shiyu left it alone and waited for sunrise.
Somehow she fell asleep, and was woken up by something pressing against her. She opened her eyes and saw the Radish Demon had somehow rolled onto her lap and was doing its best to squash its body against one of the red fruits in her pocket.
“San Pang, what are you doing?” Shiyu picked it up.
“Let me go, let me go!” The Radish Demon cried, “I want to eat Cinnabar Fruit! One bite, just one bite I’ll grow a bit more!”
“Cinnabar Fruit?” Shiyu raised one of the red fruits to her eye. “This one?”
“Don’t talk nonsense! Quickly pinch a bit for me to eat!”
Shiyu brought the fruit to her nose for a sniff. There was a peculiar fragrance to the fruit. She looked down at the frantically rolling radish and thought, could this thing in her hand be something precious?
“What’s so good about this fruit, tell me first. I’ll let you have some if I’m satisfied with the answer.”
“According to how you humans rank your powers, this Cinnabar Fruit could help a cultivator breakthrough from peak level to the next stage. Naturally, only one or two fruit would not make much difference. More is needed in order to achieve a breakthrough, furthermore, there are some side effects. However, if one eats three of these fruits at peak level, the probability of advancement would increase several times.”
“In other words, I can make money from this?” Shiyu thought about the tree in her space, there should be about a few tens if not a hundred berries there. So, did this means she’s rich?
“Then, do you know this thing?” Shiyu pulled out the Jade Lotus Flower.
“Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah!” The Radish Demon’s few straggly roots suddenly straightened out like needles. It looked like it was about to bodily throw itself at it. “Immortal Jade Petal Lotus! Quick let me eat it! Just one petal is enough! Give me quick! Ah ah ah ah ah! If you let me have this I shall be your slave forever.”
At the Radish Demon’s excitement, Shiyu could only smile helplessly. Without hesitation, she plucked one of the petals for it. The moment the petal was brought to the radish demon, they found that the petal could not fit into its mouth. She had to use her spiritual fire to reduce the petal down to a tiny jade coloured pill and pressed the hardened pill into its body for it to slowly absorb.
“I shall go to sleep now.” The Radish Demon seemed really weary. “You must never let anyone know you have this Immortal Jade Petal Lotus, otherwise you will face great danger.”
Without another word, the radish demon stopped moving.
“… …” Shiyu was speechless, how could this stupid thing not tell her what this lotus petal was for before sleeping?
After looking down at San Pang for a while, Shiyu felt that she should not rush to turn it into soup. It’s entirely possible that it may prove useful again in the future.
After considering various matters a bit more, Shiyu decided to put away the Immortal Jade Lotus Petal and collected more Cinnabar Fruit to sell. Also, after hearing San Pang’s words, she wanted to try using some for herself.
She placed one of the Cinnabar Fruit into her mouth and felt its unique fragrance and sweet juice flow down her throat. Then, a very obvious warmth began to spread to all four limbs, the warmth followed her meridian paths, gradually grew hotter and hotter.
Shiyu tried swallowing one more fruit, and felt her meridians swell a little more. Another piece of fruit, and more swelling, one by one she kept eating until she reached the tenth fruit. Her meridians felt swollen to the point of pain, like her stomach when she had eaten too much.
After that, Shiyu did not dare to eat any more and proceeded to concentrate on circulating the spiritual energy within her body, hoping to ease the swelling. However, the curious thing was that she still could not reduce this swollen feeling. She took a peek at her tummy to check her Dan Tian, the 6th droplet still hasn’t formed yet, which meant she was still stuck at Level 5.
Cultivation is so troublesome! That brat Ling Fan surely has reached the Elementary Level, ba!
Thinking about how far she had to catch up roused Shiyu’s competitive instincts. However, she knew that her own cultivation ability was different from others. If she wanted to speed up her cultivation, she would have to find a way to properly evolve that Fire Seed inside her.
As for information on how to evolve a Fire Seed, she’d better check out that floating book inside her secret space.
… please read this at kitchennovel dot com …
Not sure if it was due to her luck or not, their next stop was a small city. The city was not very big, but it was very lively. It was said that this was due to some kind of famous sect that had set up a branch nearby, therefore attracting more cultivators then your usual city.
Shiyu didn’t really care about the details, she was more interested in finding a pharmacy that would buy up her Cinnabar Fruits. Of course, she would first check out whether that shop actually has any for sale first. After confirming from one nice shopkeeper that, ‘1 Cinnabar Fruit is 50,000 silver taels’ she then took out 3 fruits from her bag and told them she wished to sell those.
The shopkeeper was stunned, he saw that the colour on these fruits were particularly good and they started to bargain with each other. The final result was 3 Cinnabar Fruits for 100,000 tael. With the money in her pocket, Shiyu quietly returned to the convoy.
It’s just… while lunching at one of the restaurants at Liu Yi’s invitation, she heard Mo Yin’s happy voice booming from the other end of the table. It sounded like she had bought something good, and took out the very same Cinnabar Fruit that Shiyu had sold off earlier. Whaaat…
“How much did you buy them for?” The people around her asked.
“Not expensive, only 200,000 taels for 3.”
Shiyu, “… …”
“Cinnabar Fruits are good for cultivators in all kinds of ways, but these are a bit expensive!” Fei Yue said.
“These Cinnabar Fruits are unique, you can tell from its colour that they’re a better variety than the common ones.” Mo Yin clearly was not bothered by the amount of money she had spent. “As long as it can help me increase my cultivation, what’s a bit of money spent?”
After saying this, she exaggeratedly made an ‘ah’ motion and turned to Shiyu with glee, “Little Yu, since your cultivation is so horrible, you should also buy some. If you don’t have money just stick out a hand at Liu Yi. He’s a well known philanthropist, and would even give out a few taels to the beggars in the streets. As long as you open your mouth, you’ll definitely get even more.”
[Gumihou: My cannon fodder senses are tingling. Also, Mo Yin, why are you such a trash?]
^_^
Translated by Gumihou from kitchennovel dot com.
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typo: she had picked a pond —> she had picked at a pond
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Thanks for the new chapter!