The girl said this, her lips trembling, and continued with a slight pout:
"...Third Uncle, disciple, disciple is really too hungry to bear it any longer...
So, ancestors above, if punishment is needed.
First punish Third Uncle.
Then punish that villain from the Chen Family.
As for, as for disciple...
I believe the ancestors are wise and benevolent, and surely wouldn't punish disciple, right?"
After saying this, the girl seemed to finally let out a long breath, sat back on the ground, and reached her dirty hands into a bucket of paper, grabbing a piece of chicken and taking a big bite!
"Mmm... so fragrant..."
The girl's eyes widened.
·
Evening.
In the weather approaching winter, the sun sets early. Without the sunlight, the temperature drops even faster. It wasn't completely dark yet, and standing outside already let you feel the chill in the wind.
Chen Yan sat in the basement of the villa.
This place had been converted into a tool room by its previous owner, storing some miscellaneous items, some replacement parts for the household electrical equipment, and two toolboxes.
A workbench had been cleaned thoroughly by Chen Yan. The tabletop was covered with an oilcloth, on which a set of carving tools and several pieces of green stone cut to over a meter long were laid out. These were used by Chen Yan for practicing carving runes.
At the moment, two jade tokens were placed on the tabletop, one green jade, and one white jade. Both were ordinary, inexpensive pieces Chen Yan bought from a jade artifacts shop today.
Chen Yan sat at the table, staring at the two jade tokens, lost in thought.
After coming home, he had already conducted an experiment. Between the two jade tokens, the white jade had a better quality. However, using the Nurturing Technique to input Primordial Qi into it only took less than fifteen seconds before reaching its capacity.
The green jade was even worse; when the Nurturing Technique was applied during the tenth second, two fine cracks suddenly appeared on the surface of the jade token.
Chen Yan clearly remembered that before leaving, when he tried to input Primordial Qi into the Jadeite Ring using the Nurturing Technique, it lasted for a few minutes, and it was still not exhausted!
Although, naturally, emerald jadeite is of much higher quality than two low-grade jade tokens.
But ordinary materials in the mundane world shouldn't have such a vast difference in capacity.
Chen Yan became increasingly certain that this ring was no ordinary item.
However...
"Holding a gold rice bowl to beg for food."
Chen Yan helplessly sighed.
Knowing it's a treasure, but not knowing its use.
With his current cultivation level, he truly couldn't fathom the peculiarities of this Jadeite Ring.
Since the grandmother placed this treasure in the safekeeping vault and left it for him, couldn't she at least leave some sort of manual?
After much thought, Chen Yan finally made a decision. Starting from today, he would use the Nurturing Technique daily to input Primordial Qi and nurture this ring—time is limited, about a minute each day would suffice.
Any more, he feared it might damage the treasure.
Slowly nurturing it, and in the future, when his cultivation level is higher, he could gradually find a way to unravel the mystery.
·
Today, after planning to eat KFC outside but failing, and after coming home and working for so long, Chen Yan felt he could eat a whole cow.
As for the matter of the family bucket being snatched... he could only let it go. It was only worth a few dozen yuan. Chen Yan surely couldn't call the police and then ask the restaurant to review the surveillance footage, right?
It wasn't worth it.
Patting his empty stomach, Chen Yan thought, why not order takeout?
Hmm... Eating takeout all the time isn't healthy. Those takeout dishes are heavy in oil, salt, and spices mainly to cover up the cheap or even not-so-fresh ingredients.
Plus, the oil is often of inferior quality.
With this in mind, Chen Yan tidied up the workbench and walked into the kitchen to wash his hands.
There were still some ingredients at home.
There was half a pot of leftover rice from yesterday in the fridge, and a dozen eggs—in recent times, with more money, Chen Yan bought those supposedly sterile eggs that could be eaten raw.
After buying them, he tried a few, but didn't find anything particularly special about them.
Just felt like his mouth was full of the taste of money.
He took out two eggs and beat them in a bowl, then scooped out a large bowl of white rice.
Directly poured the bowl of egg liquid over the rice, then stirred it evenly with a spoon.
Then, heated the pan with oil, and when the oil was hot, poured the egg-coated rice into the pan to stir-fry.
The resulting egg fried rice had golden-yellow grains without any visible chunks of egg.
This was a "golden fried rice" dish Chen Yan had learned from his grandmother.
Before finishing, he added some salt, poured in a spoonful of dark soy sauce, and stir-fried a few more times.
Done!
In the large dining room of the house, sitting at a round dining table big enough for ten people, Chen Yan ate and, like most young people in the city today, picked up his phone.
There weren't many unread messages on Weixin. He wasn't someone who liked to socialize widely, so he didn't have many friends.
The latest one was from Hu Licking Dog—Chen Yan's Weixin nickname for him was Hu Licking Dog.
Hu Licking Dog: Brother, how's the house? I can provide after-sales service. If you have any problems, you can find me; I can help coordinate with the landlord.
Chen Yan read and thought, Hmm, Lao Hu is pretty nice. Will find him for help with housing in the future.
The second message was from Xiaozhao.
Zhao Shanhe: Brother, I suddenly had a thought. When I fell into the river back then, was it you who kicked me in? (dog-head emoticon)
Knowing this good friend was joking, Chen Yan didn't take it seriously and replied playfully: Guess? (dog-head emoticon)
The third message was from a relatively unfamiliar name: Someone Some Year.
Raising an eyebrow, Chen Yan thought, What an artistic name?
Someone Some Year: Mr. Chen, there's something I would like to visit and discuss with you, would it be convenient sometime soon?