The backdrop can also be propped up.

Ayaka lay in bed, sensing everything familiar to her, but absorbing spiritual energy was not as easy as immersing her arms in the lotus pond that morning. Ayaka could feel spiritual energy surrounding her, but the gradual inflow made her uncomfortable.

When Xiaobai was half asleep, it sensed a fluctuation of spiritual energy. As soon as it came out of its nest, it saw its little master absorbing spiritual energy.

In the eyes of Lotus Spirit Xiaobai, the little master's entire body was covered in a layer of white light, except for a small hole in the area around his heart. A mixture of dark black and greenish spiritual energy entered through that small hole in his heart, but because the opening was too small, the spiritual energy could only drip into Caihua's body drop by drop.

The lotus spirit, Xiaobai, noticed that Caihua was uncomfortable because it was the first time it had absorbed spiritual energy. So it crawled out of its nest, climbed onto Caihua's body, and bit the white light repeatedly, making several cuts. It even enlarged the gap at the heart, allowing the spiritual energy to flow smoothly into Caihua's body.

Before long, as the spiritual energy was about to fill Caihua's body, Xiaobai took a lotus leaf out of her mouth and pressed it against the large opening in her heart to prevent the spiritual energy from being lost in large quantities.

Seeing that Caihua's furrowed brows gradually relaxed, Xiaobai contentedly crawled back into its nest to continue sleeping.

Within her consciousness space, the spiritual energy that Ayaka had been finding difficult to absorb suddenly flowed in like a stream. Just as she felt her body was about to collapse, the influx of spiritual energy abruptly stopped. Ayaka felt the spiritual energy trying to escape from her body, and just as she was about to try to control it to prevent it from running amok, she felt the spiritual energy suddenly stop surging outwards and instead begin to move within her body.

Ayaka was overjoyed—she had actually succeeded in absorbing spiritual energy and even kept it in her body—where should she direct this spiritual energy next?

"Two immortals, Ayaka has already left the spiritual power within her body. What should she do next?" Ayaka felt that the spiritual power was flowing within her body and should be guided to a certain place, but she didn't know where to guide it. The first people she thought of were Lu Renkui, whom she regarded as an immortal, and the system WQBYRZM.

Having only read a few novels about cultivation, Lu Renkui once again turned to the system WQBYRZM for help.

Based on his own experience, the system WQBYRZM said, "First, try to guide the spiritual energy towards your stomach. After guiding it, imagine the spiritual energy is a seed, and let the seed sprout inside your stomach."

Ayaka did as she was told, trying to make the spiritual energy obey her commands and direct it towards her stomach. It was difficult at first, but Ayaka figured out the direction of the energy flow. This made things much easier; by changing the direction of the energy flow, she guided it all into her stomach. Ayaka imagined this spiritual energy as a giant lotus seed, and her stomach as a piece of land. She imagined digging a hole in this land and placing the seed formed from the spiritual energy inside—just like when she buried the blade of grass that Little White had brought back.

"Immortal, I've finished burying it. What should we do next?" After finishing, Ayaka asked Lu Renkui and the system WQBYRZM for the next step.

"It's buried? So fast!" System WQBYRZM was somewhat surprised. "Next, you should absorb some more spiritual energy to water this seed, but you've done enough for today. Let's talk about it tomorrow."

"Ok."

"It's late enough now, you should go to sleep." Lu Renkui said, patting Caihua's head twice. Soon, Caihua fell asleep.

"Does your hand have some kind of magic? Just a couple of touches and it puts people to sleep." System WQBYRZM watched in astonishment.

Lu Renkui replied shyly, "When my younger siblings can't sleep, I put my hands on their heads and pat them until they fall asleep. I usually pat them several times. Caihua, on the other hand, falls asleep quite quickly; she falls asleep after just a couple of pats."

After saying that, Lu Renkui remembered the extra mission she was currently undertaking and asked the system WQBYRZM, "System, has there been any change to our extra mission?"

"Yes! The progress bar has increased by 1%!" System WQBYRZM was extremely excited. Currently, she and Lu Renkui are still far ahead in first place, and their opponent is a system that is ranked first or second on the leaderboard. This is something that no other system has ever had before! Mom has made something of herself.

Unlike Lu Renkui and System WQBYRZM's happiness, Cheng Menqin and Melissa were on both sides.

Cheng Menqin stared intently at the 6% extra progress of the first-place finisher, convinced that it was Melissa. She began to ponder what kind of person Melissa was that allowed her to choose her as the protagonist and progress so quickly.

Melissa propped her face up with her left hand and tapped the table repeatedly with her right, wondering what kind of monster Cheng Menqin had chosen. First, her progress increased by 5%, and today it increased by another 1%. At this rate, that guy would definitely complete the extra task before her.

Instead of dwelling on her worries, she decided to take action and find the people Melissa had chosen. With that thought, Cheng Menqin waved her hand, and several men in black emerged from the darkness—these were the bodyguards assigned to Wang Fenglang by his father.

Cheng Menqin said to the guards, "Go and check if anyone in the vicinity has been cultivating at an unusually fast pace recently. If you find anyone, report back to me."

"Yes," the guards replied, then disappeared back into the darkness.

Meanwhile, Melissa ordered numerous notices to be posted throughout the Demon Realm, stating that anyone whose cultivation rate was unusually high should be reported immediately.

The two stopped betting on just one person and started casting a wider net.

Melissa and Chengmenqin made this decision based on the assumption that the distance between them when they were in the same world wouldn't be too far. They hadn't considered the situation where one of them was on the border between the spirit world and the mortal world, and the other was in the very center of the demon world—a distance that was far too great.

After absorbing spiritual energy and sleeping through the night, Ayaka woke up the next day feeling refreshed and energetic, without the dizziness she had experienced before. She got up with high spirits to cook, do laundry, sweep the floor, and then went shopping with the shopping lady, taking Xiaobai, who had already gone out three times, with her.

From the Prince's Mansion, they walked all the way to the largest jewelry store in the city. Granny Huang, the purchasing agent, found a conspicuous and crowded spot—on the stone steps of the restaurant opposite the jewelry store—to let Caihua sit down. She then greeted the shop assistant and went into the jewelry store to buy the ornaments that the maids and servants wanted.

There are many maids and servants in the Prince's mansion, and there are many ornaments to buy. Granny Huang will not come out for at least an hour and a half.

As Caihua waited for a long time at the entrance of the restaurant, Xiaobai, who was wrapped around her arm, became a little impatient. She climbed up and down Caihua's arm, wanting Caihua to take her to another place.

"Xiaobai, stop fooling around. How about I buy you something to eat?" Caihua took out three copper coins from her purse and asked the old man selling candied hawthorns for a skewer.

The red hawthorns were coated in a glassy sugar coating and sprinkled with white sesame seeds. Besides the sweetness of maltose, they also had a hint of floral fragrance. Caihua let Lianhua Ling bite into the first hawthorn, then took the second herself.

After taking a couple of bites, Lianhua Ling had her fill of hawthorn and started only licking the candy, while Caihua ate the rest of the hawthorn. Halfway through, a carriage drawn by four red horses pulled up in front of the restaurant. Three people sat inside: an elderly man and two young men. The elderly man wore a dark purple Taoist robe with auspicious cloud patterns, while the two young men wore light blue Taoist robes.

Ayaka knew immediately that the person in the carriage was an important person, so she quickly got up and jumped down the steps, intending to wait until the important person had passed before sitting down herself.

The carriage stopped, and the two young men got out first, then helped the older man out of the carriage.

The three entered the restaurant, and Caihua sat back down, holding a candied hawthorn to Lianhualing Xiaobai's mouth, letting her lick the candy. However, Xiaobai seemed to have lost interest in the candied hawthorn. She cautiously peeked out, sniffing left and right, and finally leaped out of Caihua's clothes, rushing straight into the bustling street.

Ayaka was startled and got up to look for Shiro, but Shiro turned into a little white bird and flew back with a bag in its mouth.

"Xiaobai! Don't suddenly rush into the street next time! It's dangerous!" Ayaka was very angry because Xiaobai didn't value his own life. "What were you picking up just now? You don't care about your life."

Little White transformed into a fluffy little bird, nuzzling against Ayaka's palm in a pleading manner, hoping that Ayaka wouldn't be angry anymore. Seeing Little White like this, Ayaka found it hard to stay angry. She stretched out her other hand, frowned, and said, "Let me see the bag you picked up."

Seeing that Caihua wasn't as angry as before, Xiaobai immediately placed the thing it had just brought in Caihua's palm. As soon as Caihua received the package, it suddenly pressed her hand down, and she had to use a lot of strength to catch the bulging bag. After taking the bag, she examined it closely—it had to be said, the bag was truly ugly; the extremely saturated red and green color scheme was embroidered with something that looked like a bird in glaring yellow.

Caihua untied the bag, which was tied with an extremely dark blue rope, revealing a collection of colorful, transparent stones inside. Within these stones, a faint, flowing light, like quicksand, shimmered: some were jet black, some emerald green, some fiery red, some golden yellow, and some snow white.

As a maid of the Wang family, a powerful clan located at the border between the mortal and spiritual realms, Caihua had heard others describe what spirit stones looked like, even if she had never seen them before. In addition, these beautiful stones gave her a warm feeling similar to spiritual energy, so she recognized them as spirit stones at a glance. After rummaging through the bag, she found some gleaming silver coins under the spirit stones, and some gleaming copper coins under the silver coins. She wondered whose money bag had been left there.

How could you not feel anything when such a heavy thing fell to the ground? Ayaka wondered curiously, wondering whose it was.