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Chapter 20 The Little Maid's Ascension to Immortality 9

For a fleeting moment, Caihua considered secretly hiding the money pouch—after all, the spirit stones inside were worth three years' worth of her monthly salary—but the instant the thought crossed her mind, Caihua shook her head and banished it from her thoughts: her mother had taught her since childhood that money found should be returned to its owner and not kept for herself.

Within Ayaka's consciousness space, Lu Renkui and the system WQBYRZM watched with satisfaction as Ayaka decided to return the money to its owner, while also complaining that the bag was uniquely ugly.

"Who owns this purse? This sense of aesthetics is truly... unique." Looking at the purse with its bold color scheme, Lu Renkui suddenly felt that his own aesthetic sense was actually quite good.

System WQBYRZM quickly started flipping through the original plot: "This money bag looks familiar. I remember in the original plot, didn't one of the male lead's harems also have this money bag?"

Having not heard Lu Renkui's conversation with the system WQBYRZM, Caihua put the money bag in her arms. Since Xiaobai had brought the money bag back from the road, the owner would definitely come back to look for it. She would just take these money bags and wait for the owner.

At this moment, inside the restaurant, Chongxiang, the second elder of Huaiyu Sect, was ordering food with his two disciples, Xinping and Xinhe.

After ordering, Chongxiang said to his two disciples with a serious expression, "We came here to find good cultivators for the sect. Even if we can't find good cultivators, we still need to recruit more people to increase the sect's population. In recent years, the number of people has decreased, and we have suffered several times in the sect competition because of this."

“Master, there’s no need to worry. I’m an old friend of the Wang family head. We’ve come to Chuiyang City on the border to find promising talents, and the Wang family mansion is naturally the best place,” said Xinping, Chongxiang’s eldest disciple. “The Wang family mansion has a school full of cultivators, among whom there are countless talented ones. In particular, my old friend’s son, Wang Fenglang, is one of the best among his peers. It’s just a pity that he’s a bit too old and, being the eldest son of the Wang family, he can’t come with us.”

"But Master, don't worry. According to my old friend, there are quite a few kids who meet our criteria who are highly qualified."

"Really? That's wonderful, that's wonderful!" Chongxiang stroked his beard and laughed, and Xinping echoed his master's laughter.

After the two finished laughing, Xinhe, Chongxiang's second disciple, who was not particularly emotional, asked, "This is the border between the spirit world and the mortal world, where spirit stones may not circulate. Did you bring any money?"

"Of course I brought it. Why wouldn't I? I even brought my junior sister's really ugly bag to put the money in." Xinping was smiling as he reached for his money pouch in his bag—because he was never used to using storage space. Once, on a whim, he put things into his storage space and his junior brother, who had used magic to enter the storage space, almost took everything from him, leaving him with nothing but his underwear.

Although his junior brother said it was just a joke and returned the items, Shinpei still didn't want to use the storage space, so he got into the habit of carrying a small bag with him to put the things he needed.

He reached into his bag to put his purse, but only felt air. The smile on Shinpei's face disappeared. He quickly turned the bag over and found a hole in it.

"What's wrong? The money's gone again?" Xinhe, sitting across from Xinping, knew from the senior brother's reaction that Xinping had messed things up again.

"Never mind, I'll go back and look for it. Maybe it fell on the way." Xinhe said, getting up and leaving the private room to go downstairs to find the unusually ugly money bag made by her junior sister.

Xinhe walked to the entrance of the restaurant and looked at the endless stream of carriages and horses coming and going. She began to wonder when her senior brother's tattered pocket had dropped the money bag.

Hopefully it didn't fall on the carriage, otherwise searching for it one by one would be quite troublesome. As he thought this, he suddenly noticed a young girl sitting at the entrance of the restaurant. Judging from her attire, she seemed to be a maidservant, probably waiting for someone.

Xinhe glanced at the maid briefly, paid her no attention, and walked straight out of the restaurant to look for her money pouch.

Unexpectedly, the maid saw Xinhe and exclaimed, "Immortal!"

While Chongxiang, Xinping, and their master and apprentices were ordering food at the restaurant, the system WQBYRZM found out who owned the money bag and who made it.

"According to the original text, this money bag should have been made by Yu Mei, the junior sister of Huaiyu Sect, which the male protagonist Jing An joined after being expelled from the Wang family. This money bag should have been taken by Xin Ping, the eldest disciple of Elder Chong Xiang of Huaiyu Sect."

"They dropped their money pouches on the road, which was picked up by Jing'an. This was also the opportunity for Jing'an to join the Huaiyu Sect."

"Among the male protagonist Jing'an's many concubines, only Yu Mei's aesthetic sense is repeatedly mentioned as unacceptable. This purse perfectly matches the description of the male protagonist finding Xinping's purse. It is also like the description of the love token that Yu Mei gave to Jing'an, but the color of that love token is a bit more colorful, but the general color is still red and green."

"So the person holding this money bag is from the Huaiyu Sect. What is the status of the Huaiyu Sect in this world?" Lu Renkui asked, vaguely sensing that Caihua might have picked up a big shot's money bag.

"The Huaiyu Sect is a large sect, but due to a decline in the number of members joining, it has achieved mediocre results in recent sect competitions. As one of the three major sects in the Spirit Realm, this is fatal. Besides making it difficult for the other two major sects to respect it, there are also emerging sects outside that want to try to replace the Huaiyu Sect and become one of the new three major sects," said System WQBYRZM. "In summary, it has a deep foundation, but it is showing signs of decline."

"That must be pretty impressive, after all, even a starved camel is bigger than a horse." Lu Renkui said thoughtfully. After asking what the sect's attire looked like, she immediately told Caihua that if she saw someone wearing light blue clothes come up to her and ask if she had seen the money pouch, she should return the money pouch to that person and say that she had not touched the contents.

"Light blue clothes." Ayaka remembered the three people she had seen in the carriage drawn by four red horses, two of whom were wearing light blue clothes. "Were they the two people in the carriage earlier?"

"Hmm, probably." Lu Renkui only got a general idea through Caihua's eyes and didn't examine the patterns on the two people's clothes closely to see if they were from the Huaiyu Sect. However, the three people's clothing style didn't seem to be the style of people in this city. Maybe they were from the Huaiyu Sect, one of the three major sects in the Spirit Realm.

Following Lu Renkui's suggestion, Caihua sat at the entrance of the restaurant, waiting for someone dressed in light blue, expensive-looking clothes to come looking for her.

After sitting for a short while, Ayaka saw a person dressed in light blue clothes walk past her, but he didn't seem to pay much attention to her and walked straight out of the restaurant. Ayaka glanced at his clothes and then at the fabric of the money pouch, thinking that he might be the owner of the money pouch, so she called out, "Immortal."

Xinhe turned around and looked at the little girl in front of him, who was not even up to his hip, and asked patiently, "Is there something you need?"

“I just found a money bag. The material of the money bag looks the same as the clothes the immortal is wearing. I wonder if this money bag belongs to the immortal?” Caihua said as she picked up the money bag with the overly bold colors that she had found earlier.

Xinhe glanced at the money bag in Caihua's hand, and without even looking at it closely, he knew that only his junior sister Yumei liked to use this red and green color scheme. There was often a yellow thing embroidered on it, sometimes it looked like a chicken, sometimes it looked like a duck, but his junior sister always insisted that she embroidered a phoenix.

“Yes, this money bag is indeed mine.” Xinhe opened the money bag and saw the spirit stones inside, realizing that the bag must belong to them—after all, few people in the border region use spirit stones. He took out ten copper coins from the bottom of the bag and handed them to Caihua, saying, “Consider this small amount as a reward for finding my money bag, young friend.”

Xinhe thought for a moment, then took out a piece of greenish-blue spirit stone and said to Caihua, "The spiritual energy in this spirit stone is beneficial to the human body. If you take this one, you will be free from illness for the rest of your life."

Caihua looked at the ten copper coins, then glanced at the beautiful turquoise spirit stone, unsure whether she should accept them. Lu Renkui said in Caihua's mind, "Since he gave them to you, he probably hopes you will accept them. Huaiyu Sect is a legitimate sect and won't do anything to you. Just take them for now."

Caihua then accepted it.

Xinhe held the money pouch, pleased that he had found it so quickly. He didn't feel the slightest bit heartache about giving away the spirit stones and ten copper coins—after all, his senior brother had said he would cover the expenses, so what did it have to do with him, the second disciple? His senior brother was so careless; he should be taught a lesson.