I run a casino in the immortal realm.

Two hours later, the ten spirit stones turned to dust.

Zheng Yifei spread his hands, his palms still covered with fine powdery spirit stones, like a handful of cheap sand.

The sea of ​​qi in his dantian had indeed expanded again, and the progress was real, but the price was also real.

He quickly did some mental calculations.

At today's rate of consumption, it would take at least a thousand low-grade spirit stones to go from the second to the third level of Qi Refining.

One thousand yuan.

Even if the entire family of four didn't eat or drink and spent their whole lives planting sacred rice, they still couldn't accumulate this amount.

This is only the second to third level of Qi Refining. Each subsequent breakthrough requires several times the resources of the previous level.

The Five Elemental Roots are indeed a bottomless pit.

Zheng Yifei patted the powder off his hands, not disappointed, but instead a slight smile appeared on his lips.

A thousand spirit stones is an astronomical figure for a spirit farmer.

For the gambling king, it was just a few days' work.

The plan is clear: go to the market tomorrow, win forty or fifty spirit stones from each of the three gambling dens, and then leave, keeping the total amount under one hundred and thirty.

Then buy a batch of Rejuvenation Pills to stock up, go home to cultivate, and use up all the spirit stones before going out to earn more.

Frequent visits to casinos are a major taboo. Even if you wear a mask, if you go too often, the dealers and regulars will remember your figure, your standing habits, and your betting rhythm.

The first principle of cheating is not being fast, but making others forget you exist.

So, make a profit, hide for a while, and then make another profit.

It's the same principle as fishing. You have to fish in different ponds in rotation. If you fish a pond until all the fish are gone, they'll all be gone.

Early the next morning.

Zheng Yifei, as usual, sent his younger siblings to school, and then took a long detour to his rented room in the East Alley to change clothes.

Today, he wore the scarred youth mask, paired with a gray rogue's robe, and his hair was down, covering half of his face. He looked like a wild rogue who spent most of his time hunting, and his demeanor was completely different from the square-faced merchant from yesterday.

Zhao Family Gambling House, second floor.

He went in with his hat pulled down, stood at the table playing dice for less than 15 minutes, won 42 spirit stones, and muttered "my luck was so-so today" as he left.

The mouse was still squatting at the entrance on the first floor, eating sunflower seeds, its eyes sweeping over him without pausing.

Wang Family Gambling House, second floor.

He changed his position, adjusted his betting interval, and pocketed forty-eight spirit stones.

Liu Family Gambling House, second floor.

In the final battle, we played steadily and cautiously, earning forty spirit stones.

The three gambling dens together have a total of 130 low-grade spirit stones.

Zheng Yifei didn't rush home. He went to Wanbaolou first to buy ten Rejuvenation Pills. Ten pills would be enough for his father for ten days, saving him the trouble of buying medicine every day.

Back in the rented room in East Alley, I changed back into my original clothes and face, divided the spirit stones into several portions and hid them in my inner bag, and locked the extra masks and clothes in a secret compartment.

When we came out of the alley, the sun was shining brightly.

He walked along the ridges of the fields back to the shantytown, with the hustle and bustle of the market behind him and the lush green rice paddies in front of him. In the distance, several tenant farmers were bending over, pulling weeds in the fields.

Zheng Yifei glanced at his three mu of spirit rice fields, where weeds had already sprouted quite a bit.

My father was injured for more than half a month, and my mother had to do all the work in the fields by herself. She was only at the second level of Qi Refining, and she had to take care of the wounded and the children. How could she manage?

Upon returning home, Zheng Yifei did not go inside to cultivate; instead, he rolled up his trousers and went down to the fields.

The water in the rice paddy was ankle-deep, the mud was soft and fluffy, and the roots of the weeds were deeply embedded. One by one, they were pulled out and thrown onto the ridge.

With the strength of someone at the second level of Qi Refining, this job was indeed much easier than before.

Lin Wan, the mother, came over from another field and saw her son working. A smile of satisfaction appeared on her face.

"Fei'er, are we not going to the gambling den today?"

"Manager Zhao gave me a few days off, so I can help you weed the fields."

"That's great! I really can't manage these few acres of land on my own."

Zheng Yifei buried himself in weeding, responding to his mother's words, but his mind was calculating how to allocate the spirit stones.

After deducting the cost of the Rejuvenation Pill from the 130 spirit stones, I still have a little over 100 spirit stones left. If I use them all for cultivation, it should last me about seven to eight days.

Seven days later, they would enter the market again to make another profit, and so on.

Over the next few days, Zheng Yifei helped his mother with farm work during the day and locked himself in the room at night to cultivate the "Five Elements Technique" using spirit stones and a spirit-gathering array.

Consuming twelve to fifteen spirit stones daily, the Qi Sea in the dantian steadily expands.

The morning of the fourth day.

Zheng Yifei was watering the rice in the field when he bent down and scooped up a ladle of water from the ditch and splashed it out.

A voice came from the edge of the field.

"Hey, Xiaofei, so you're farming."

Zheng Yifei straightened up and saw Haozi standing on the edge of the field, hands in his pockets, tilting his head to look at him.

Two people followed behind him, the two thugs he had beaten up in the alley the day before yesterday. One of them had a strip of cloth wrapped around his wrist; he was the bald man whose shoulder he had dislocated.

When the bald man saw Zheng Yifei, he visibly shrank back, but then straightened his chest, probably because he felt emboldened by the presence of rats.

"Brother Mouse, what's up?"

Zheng Yifei leaned on a water ladle, his expression natural, yet tinged with a degree of tension.

The mouse's gaze swept over him, then looked at the rice paddies in the field and Lin Wan, who was bending over to work in the distance, and narrowed its eyes.

"Xiao Fei, why haven't you come to the gambling den these past few days? I'm still waiting for you to pay back that loan shark loan."

"I returned it, didn't I return it the day before yesterday?"

Zheng Yifei frowned: "Brother Haozi, you have a bad memory. I'll repay you in front of you."

"Yes, yes, I returned it."

The mouse waved its hand: "What I mean is, you're not coming to the gambling den anymore?"

"I'm not playing anymore. I've lost all my money. My mother scolded me and told me to go back to farming."

Zheng Yifei patted the mud off his body, looking miserable.

The mouse remained silent, its gaze lingering on Zheng Yifei for a few moments.

He certainly didn't look wealthy; he wore coarse cloth and short trousers rolled up to his knees, his feet covered in mud, just like any other barn worker in the shantytown.

"Didn't your father take a Rejuvenation Pill? That stuff costs three hundred spirit coins. Where did you get the money?"

"As I said, I won a big hand before and bought a few, and now I've finished them all."

Zheng Yifei sighed, "Brother Haozi, if you don't have anything else to do, I need to get to work quickly. These few acres of rice will die of drought if we don't irrigate them."

The mouse stared at him for a while, then finally scoffed and turned away.

As the bald man was leaving, he turned back and glared at Zheng Yifei, only to be slapped on the back of the head by Haozi: "What are you looking at? Let's go."

The three figures disappeared at the end of the field ridge.

Zheng Yifei lowered his head and continued watering, his expression unchanged.

He knew that Haozi didn't completely believe him. This man had been working at the bottom of the market for several years, relying on his sharp eyes and quick wit, but he hadn't found a flaw yet.

It's good that we can't find it.

He can't make a move as long as he can't find evidence that he's won money.

The tenants in the shantytown were under the management of the Zhao family. No matter what, Haozi was just a henchman of the gambling den. Without the Zhao family's manager's approval, he dared not lay a hand on the tenants in the shantytown.

This is the protection provided by the rules.

Although this protective layer is as thin as paper.

Zheng Yifei bent down to scoop water, his gaze sweeping across the direction of the distant market.

There are only thirty-odd spirit stones left, enough to last for two more days at most.

Two days later, he would have to go back to the market.

But the rats clearly wouldn't let it go.