Don't farm, cultivate immortality!

Just as Zhuang Xing asked the question, he saw a small tip emerge from the mud behind Yunling, followed by a snow-white head.

It was that white mouse. It poked its little head out and squeaked twice at Zhuang Xing and Yun Ling.

Yunling's eyes lit up. She placed the fish skewers on the small stove, squatted down, and reached out to touch the white mouse's forehead.

The white mouse didn't flinch at all, letting her stroke it and showing affection.

"I don't see you on ordinary days, but you come running as soon as I start grilling fish. What, do you want to eat fish too?" Zhuang Xing chuckled.

The white mouse shook its head and squeaked.

Yunling looked at the white mouse thoughtfully and asked, "Did you come here to ask for our help?"

The white mouse nodded and crawled out of its mud burrow.

Chapter 36 A Clear Conscience

"Can you understand what it's saying?" Zhuang Xing asked Yunling.

The same thing happened last time. It seemed that Yunling and the white rat were on the same wavelength, and she could always quickly understand what the white rat meant.

"I can roughly understand what it means." Yunling stretched out her palm, and the white mouse hopped into her hand.

"So, what do you need our help with?"

Zhuang Xing tore off a small piece of fish and placed it in front of the white mouse. The white mouse did not refuse and nudged forward to eat the fish.

Zhuang Xing was secretly delighted. He already knew that this white rat seemed to have the bloodline of the Platinum Rat. If he could get along well with such a treasure-hunting rat, or even raise it, he might just find a gold bar next to his pillow one morning, just like the White Lotus Hermit wrote in his little diary.

This isn't just a rat, it's a money tree! How can we not treat our money tree well?

"Squeak, squeak." The white mouse squeaked twice.

Zhuang Xing didn't understand, so he looked at Yunling. Yunling frowned slightly and tentatively asked, "You want us to go with you?"

The white mouse nodded, extended its left forelimb, and pointed towards the direction outside the village.

"Are you going?" Yunling asked.

Because she is illiterate and lacks physical exercise, she has often consulted Zhuang Xing for advice over the past two weeks. Although she is a little older, Zhuang Xing is the one who makes the decisions between them. For example, today's grilled fish picnic was suggested by Zhuang Xing.

“I really want to go, but... I don’t know how far it is. If I can’t get back to the village before sunset... I’m afraid we won’t be able to help,” Zhuang Xing said, stroking his chin.

He and Yunling were, after all, underage children who had just begun to train themselves and were not even beginners. At this time, going to a place far outside the village was clearly not a wise choice.

However, after hearing Zhuang Xing's words, the white rat patted its chest. This time, Zhuang Xing understood that the guy was saying it wasn't far at all and he would be back soon.

"What a clever little devil." Zhuang Xing smiled, then tore off a piece of fish with the skin on and fed it to the white mouse. "Yunling, do you have anything else to do this afternoon?"

Yunling shook her head: "No more."

"Then let's go take a look."

Zhuang Xing stood up, used his wooden sword to shovel dirt, and extinguished the flames in the small stove.

The white mouse immediately jumped off Yunling's palm and led the way for the two of them.

It was quite clever, knowing to walk on exposed sand and gravel so that Zhuang Xing and Yun Ling wouldn't be able to see it.

"What do you think it's taking us to do?"

Zhuang Xing gnawed on the half-eaten grilled fish. He couldn't let it go to waste since he rarely got to eat fish.

Yunling was also eating fish, and she replied casually, "I don't know."

Zhuang Xing had spent half a month with her and knew that she wasn't good at chatting with people. In the past, she rarely responded to jokes he made with her. That's just her personality; she means what she says.

After finishing his grilled fish, Zhuang Xing waved the charred bamboo skewer.

He glanced at the white rat walking ahead, then looked back at the fish bone he had just spat out, and suddenly a question arose in his mind.

"Yunling, why did you go to save that white rat that day?"

"Because I heard its cries for help."

"But you saved the white mouse, yet you helped me kill the fish. In your eyes, are the fish and the white mouse different?"

“This…” Yunling paused in her eating, “I’ve never thought about this kind of question before.”

"Let me rephrase the question: If a fish were trapped in the river that day, would you rescue it and release it back into the river, or would you eat it?"

“I will put it back.” Yunling answered without hesitation this time.

"Don't you want to eat fish?" Zhuang Xing asked.

Yunling hesitated. She suddenly stopped in her tracks, looking at the half-eaten grilled fish in her hand, her brows furrowing tightly.

Zhuang Xing and Bai Shu stopped to look at her. She looked as if Zhuang Xing had asked her a question, as if she had fallen into some kind of logical fallacy.

"Don't take it too seriously," Zhuang Xing chuckled. "I was just asking casually."

Before Zhuang Xing could finish speaking, Yunling suddenly took a bite of fish. She chewed it carefully, and her brows immediately relaxed.

"I've figured it out," Yunling said.

"What have you figured out?" Zhuang Xing asked curiously.

“Fish and white mice are the same to me,” Yunling said. “The difference is not whether I was a fish or a white mouse trapped back then, but the difference between me that day and me today.”

"What do you mean?"

"Back then, I could survive whether I ate fish or not, so whether it was fish or white mice, they were just lives that needed help. But now, I'm practicing warm-up techniques, and if I don't eat fish, I won't be able to grow stronger."

Zhuang Xing was surprised that a young girl who had never been to school could say such things in such a short time. He became interested and asked her more questions.

"So, the only difference is whether the fish is useful to you? If eating white rats were useful to you, would you also skewer them on bamboo sticks and roast them?"

The white rat in front seemed to have heard that it was going to be roasted. It suddenly shuddered and plunged its head into the soil, leaving only its small head sticking out. It seemed as if it would run away immediately if things went wrong.

Yunling shook her head: "I can't imagine what it would be like for me to eat a white mouse."

The white mouse breathed a sigh of relief and poked its head out a little.

"But you still haven't answered my question from earlier. If doing something would benefit you, would you choose to do it or not?" Zhuang Xing continued.

“You can’t just look at the benefits when you do something.” Yunling clutched her chest. “Before you do something, you have to ask your heart. Your heart is more important than anything else.”

Her eyes were serious, and her expression was solemn.

“Well said.” Zhuang Xing nodded in agreement. “That’s what it means to have a clear conscience.”

"I have a clear conscience..."

Yunling murmured these four words, looked at the grilled fish in her hand, seemed to be deep in thought, and then took another bite.

"Hahaha." Zhuang Xing laughed loudly, "Little guy, don't just stand there, keep leading the way."

The white mouse scratched its head, spread its little paws, and gave an expression that seemed to say, "You humans have so many tricks up your sleeves," before crawling out of the hole and continuing to lead the way.

Soon, they passed through a grove of trees and came to a shady spot covered with decaying leaves.

The white mouse suddenly stopped, and Yunling also raised her index finger, signaling Zhuang Xing to keep quiet.

Yunling pointed to a tree not far away, and Zhuang Xing followed her directions, looking carefully, and finally saw the long snake that was brown all over and almost blended into the leaves.

The snake was curled up in a ball, its head buried in its body, as if it were sleeping.

It surrounds a lush green plant, from which hang several vibrant red fruits.

The white rat bared its teeth at the long snake. Zhuang Xing then discovered a beast's den next to the vermilion fruit that looked almost exactly like the white rat's den by the river, as if the long snake had taken over the white rat's territory.

Chapter 37 Sustainable Development

"This fruit...?"

Zhuang Xing opened the box, took out the jade slip, and activated the second white jade piece from the left to the right.

This is a jade tablet from the "Compendium of Spiritual Plants," which records various uses of spiritual plants and herbs.

Zhuang Xing carefully examined the appearance of the vermilion fruit and turned to the forty-ninth item: Snake Fruit.

Both the texture of the leaves and the phenomenon before my eyes match the red fruit of the forty-ninth order.

"Red apple: warm in nature, sweet in taste."

"The snake fruit ripens once a year. Snakes often coil up near the snake fruit plant, but the fruit and snakes have no symbiotic relationship. It is because the fruit emits a unique fragrance that snakes like after it ripens that it gets its name from the snake fruit."

"Eating this fruit raw can nourish blood and qi, and replenish spirit. The younger the child, the better the effect. Snake fruit can also be used in medicine and alchemy. It has many uses. Some cultivators also use snake fruit with potent poisons to make snake-repelling medicine, or use snake fruit as bait to set traps to catch snakes."

After reviewing the description of the snake fruit, Zhuang Xing put away the jade slip, lowered his head, and asked in a low voice, "You want us to help you kill this snake?"

The white mouse pointed at the bright red snake fruit that bent the branches and squeaked twice.

Yunling listened intently and said, "It seems to be saying that just driving the snake away will solve the problem."

"Squeak."

The white mouse dug through the decaying leaves and suddenly started circling on the muddy ground.

After a while, Zhuang Xing realized that it was drawing.

It used its claws to draw a small figure on the ground, a little person holding a sword, waving the sword at the long snake, then the long snake ran away, and the little person got the snake fruit.

So that's how it is. It was because I saved it with my sword energy last time that it thought of asking me for help?

"Yunling, do you think this snake is powerful?" Zhuang Xing asked.

Yunling's eyes were veiled with a thin layer of mist as she looked at the brown snake.

"I didn't sense anything special. I think it's probably just an ordinary snake."

"Is that so..." Zhuang Xing scratched the white mouse's forehead.

In the past two weeks, he has finished reading the Compendium of Demons.

He was no longer ignorant about demons; he learned many ways to distinguish demons from ordinary animals, the most common and practical of which was judging by their aura.

If a creature becomes a demon, it will possess a special aura, commonly known as "demonic energy."

Human cultivators also possess similar auras. All living beings possess "auras," but the auras of cultivators are far stronger than those of ordinary beings. When their life energy overflows to a certain extent, their auras will manifest, leaving traces in their surroundings. At this point, one only needs to focus the "auras" on their eyes to see those traces.

Zhuang Xing and Yun Ling, who were practicing the warming-up technique, had already developed a faint "qi" within their bodies. Cultivators call this cultivated "qi" "acquired qi," also known as "true qi." In addition to "acquired qi," there is also "innate qi."

In this world, only a very small number of beings possess "innate Qi," which is something they are born with, like winning the lottery. Some people have it, and some don't; there seems to be no particular pattern to it.