Junior sister, I really need to control you.

With a thought, the golden characters before him faded away, and Li Yinsheng looked at Mu Xiaoyu.

She was sitting on the ground, holding the pale yellow talisman that represented one hundred coins in her hands and grinning foolishly.

"Hehe...hehehe..."

This tiny talisman was already a mountain of delicious food in her eyes; she was already imagining what snacks she could buy at the market called Baoguang Temple—

Candied hawthorn berries, knotweed candy, jade cake, sweet dew cake, crispy jade leaves, candied crabapple, perilla drink, deer cake...

"Junior Sister." Li Yinsheng's voice brought Mu Xiaoyu back to her senses.

"Senior brother!" Mu Xiaoyu looked at Li Yinsheng with a sweet expression, holding the talisman coins in her hands.

"Would you like to ask for more money?" Li Yinsheng asked.

Mu Xiaoyu hesitated for a moment, then nodded vigorously—who wouldn't want to buy more food?

"Would you like to make a bet with me?" Li Yinsheng said leisurely.

"It's currently the hour of Wei (1-3 PM), and there are still five hours until Zi (11 PM-1 AM). We'll bet on whether you can cultivate continuously without rest until Zi (11 PM-1 AM). If you lose, you'll have to return the one hundred talismans to me."

"If you win, I'll give you more talisman money. But you have to promise me that you won't spend it on anything other than snacks, and you must ask me before you use it."

Mu Xiaoyu's eyes widened, completely ignoring the additional conditions of the bet, and she cried out in terror, "Won't I die? I'll definitely be exhausted to death! Senior brother, are you going to give me talisman money or paper money?!"

"No," Li Yinsheng shook his head. "The first level of the Qingxuan True Scripture is all about solidifying the foundation. It only cultivates vital energy and not magical power. So at this point, you cannot be considered a true cultivator yet; you are still a mortal."

"Since you are just a mortal, with the Nourishing Essence Pill, you can make up for the deficiency, and you can cultivate for six or seven hours a day without any problems. Once you reach the second level and your foundation is stronger, you will no longer have this advantage."

"But I'm still tired!" Mu Xiaoyu exclaimed after taking several Nourishing Yuan Pills and practicing for several hours yesterday.

"But it won't kill you with exhaustion," Li Yinsheng said.

"I won't do it! I already have a hundred talismans, which is enough for me to buy lots of delicious food! I won't gamble! Absolutely not!" Mu Xiaoyu shook her head repeatedly.

"Really not going to consider it? If you win, I'll give you a lot of money." Li Yinsheng coaxed patiently.

"What's the use of giving me more, Senior Brother? I definitely can't last five hours. By then, I won't even have a hundred talisman coins left," Mu Xiaoyu said decisively. "No matter how many talisman coins you give me, I won't gamble!"

"You won't even gamble with 10,000 coins?" Li Yinsheng asked.

"No gambling..." Mu Xiaoyu's voice choked in her throat, "One...one...ten thousand coins!!!"

She lacked a concept of talisman coins; from a cultivator's perspective, she didn't know the significance of ten thousand talisman coins.

But from her own perspective, she felt as if a mountain of countless snacks and delicacies had risen from the ground before her, its circumference immeasurable and its height unmeasurable.

Alas, how perilous and lofty!

How long will it take to eat this?!

"Let's bet!" Mu Xiaoyu jumped up from the ground, displaying a pale yellow talisman worth one hundred talisman coins. "Senior brother, this is my bet!"

"You've already agreed? Won't you think about it more carefully?" Li Yinsheng kindly reminded him.

Mu Xiaoyu's eyes were so firm that she seemed ready to die.

Li Yinsheng smiled slightly, patted the Qiankun bag at his waist, and dozens of talismans of different colors and sizes flew out and hovered in front of him: "These are my betting stakes, and they add up to exactly ten thousand talisman coins."

Mu Xiaoyu put away her talisman coins, glanced at the dozens of talisman pieces floating in front of Li Yinsheng, swallowed hard, and resolutely walked towards the open space where she had just practiced, leaving behind only a simple yet utterly resolute statement—

"Senior brother, let's start the timer."

……

The moon hangs high in the sky, its clear light shining brightly.

Mu Xiaoyu lay on the ground, her hair and Taoist robe soaked with sweat, which even spread from her body and wet the surrounding ground. She stared blankly at the moon, her eyelids unblinking.

If it weren't for her flat chest heaving violently, she wouldn't look like she was exhausted, but rather like she died with her eyes wide open in disbelief.

"Congratulations, junior sister, you actually lasted for five hours. Let's go, I'll take you back to rest."

Li Yinsheng nodded in satisfaction, made a hand seal with one hand, and used his manipulation technique to lift Mu Xiaoyu up with an invisible, gentle force.

A clear, roughly human-shaped, sweaty stain was left on the ground.

"Zero...snacks..." Mu Xiaoyu's unfocused eyes suddenly cleared a bit. "No, that's not right...it's...talisman money...Senior brother...talisman money..."

"Don't worry, I won't renege on my debt," Li Yinsheng said. "Since you don't have a Qiankun bag yet, I'll put the talisman money in your room."

In fact, in principle, disciples who have just begun their cultivation should receive a Qiankun bag from the Taoist temple.

Although the space inside is generally about the same size as a regular burlap sack, it is basically enough.

However, there is only one Qiankun bag in the entire Xuanzhen Temple right now, which is on Li Yinsheng's waist. He bought it himself after he made money, so naturally there are no extras to give to Mu Xiaoyu.

While using his magic to carry Mu Xiaoyu towards her bedroom, Li Yinsheng silently made a mental note that when he went to Baoguang Temple to shop a few days later, he should remember to buy a Qiankun bag for Mu Xiaoyu.

Reaching the bedroom, Li Yinsheng pushed open the door and used his magic to place Mu Xiaoyu on a rattan recliner in the room.

"Senior brother..." Mu Xiaoyu lay on the recliner, feeling soreness, numbness, swelling, pain, and heaviness all over her body. She didn't want to move at all. "Put me on the bed, I want to sleep, sleep..."

"You're soaked to the bone, how are you going to go to bed? You've only been practicing for two days and you think you're immune to all diseases and colds?" Li Yinsheng shook his head. "Lie down for a while, let the sweat dry, and then go to bed."

After saying that, Li Yinsheng looked at the ironwood bathtub in the corner of the room.

He made a hand seal with one hand, still using the art of controlling objects.

There was a well in front of the bedroom courtyard. The sound of rushing water came from the well. A column of water about a foot thick rose from the well, and in the air it looked like a transparent python, winding through the door and disappearing into the bathtub.

Before receiving those thirty years of cultivation, he would never have been able to perform object manipulation to this extent.

"Wow..." Mu Xiaoyu, who was already exhausted, widened her eyes slightly upon seeing this scene, and her voice barely lifted a little, "Senior brother, is this the magic of immortals?"

"This is magic," Li Yinsheng said. "As for immortals, I've only ever heard of them."

"Senior brother, could you teach me some magic too?" Mu Xiaoyu asked.

"You can only learn magic once you've cultivated the Qingxuan True Scripture to the second level," Li Yinsheng retorted.

"Oh……"

As they were talking, the bathtub was already seven or eight-tenths full.

Li Yinsheng withdrew his control over objects technique, and made more than ten hand seals. A beam of fire flew into the bottom of the bathtub, and the flames slowly burned without charcoal, heating the water in the tub.

At its peak, Xuanzhen Temple was incredibly wealthy, even its bath tubs were made of ironwood that was resistant to ordinary flames. However, since its decline, almost all of the temple's property has been sold off.

"Although you are tired now, with the profound mysteries of the Qingxuan True Scripture, you won't be tired when you wake up tomorrow morning." Li Yinsheng used his object manipulation technique to move Mu Xiaoyu to her bed and covered her with a blanket.

"I'll boil some water for you now, so you can take a bath and change clothes when you get up in the morning."

"The water will be cold by tomorrow morning..." Mu Xiaoyu huddled in the blanket, her eyelids trembling.

As soon as she lay down on the bed, her fatigue and aches instantly turned into weariness.

"I slowly boiled the water using the Fire Wind Technique. Although this technique is a type of ordinary fire, it uses wind as fuel, so it can burn without wood and will not go out for several hours. Therefore, the water temperature should be just right by tomorrow morning."

Li Yinsheng laughed and said, "But if you're going to stay in bed, then it's hard to say."

He paused, then added, "But you can't stay in bed too long. I'll come and wake you up to practice in the morning."

"Ahhh—" Mu Xiaoyu let out a weak wail and covered her head with the blanket.

Li Yinsheng's lips curled slightly as he glanced down at the steadily burning flame beneath the bathtub—

He often lit a fire to brew medicine for his uncle, and he knew very well that before his cultivation improved, he would never let a flame burn for most of the night, even if it was just an ordinary fire.