CHAPTER 604: CHAPTER 603 CONVERSATION

Taozi took out the jades from the brocade box and counted them. There were eight pieces, all square and about palm-sized, and each had a different color, with the white jade being the most common.

"These jades are quite valuable, but why would anyone give you jades?" Taozi said, puzzled.

And such a large quantity of jades, no less.

Shen Siyuan chuckled as he explained his guess to Taozi.

Taozi, hearing this, curiously asked, "So can you really use these jades to set up an array to aid your cultivation?"

"No," Shen Siyuan said bluntly.

In the Great Wilderness, indeed, there were items similar to jades used by cultivators to set up arrays and make magical treasures.

But the jades in the Great Wilderness were entirely different from those in this world.

The jades in the Great Wilderness naturally glowed, with tiny star-like dots inside, resembling a flowing galaxy.

This was actually the nature’s spiritual energy contained within the jades, with different jades containing different amounts of energy, arranged in varying ways, having different functions.

Some jades even naturally possessed various magical abilities, requiring no extra refining.

Some people even gained divine skills by comprehending these jades.

These phenomena seemed like a gift from the heavens, so these jades were also called the Heavenly Book.

But the jades he had now were just ordinary stones.

Though they held substantial economic value, for cultivation, they were...

Well, maybe not entirely useless.

Shen Siyuan noticed Tang Tang sneaking closer again, her little face eyeing the other jades on the table.

He looked down at the jade he had just exchanged back with her.

Perhaps these jades weren’t entirely without purpose.

Shen Siyuan raised the white jade in his hand again, his gaze falling on the golden pattern on it.

It looked like a totem, or perhaps a character. Even with the Jiuyou Demon Lord’s memories, he had never seen such a design.

How Tang Tang left a pattern inside this jade, he had no idea. What use it had, he equally had no clue.

So he reached out and pulled over Tang Tang, who was trying to sneakily steal the jade again.

"Tell me, how did you make the pattern inside, and what’s it for?"

"Oh~"

Tang Tang turned her gaze toward the balcony.

Shen Siyuan followed her gaze and saw the blue sky, puffy white clouds, and the faint golden net.

"Huh?"

Shen Siyuan suddenly realized, was there a connection between the pattern in the jade and that large net in the sky?

Tang Tang took this chance to slip out of Shen Siyuan’s grasp again, quickly grabbing a jade and running off before Taozi could catch her.

"han~"

She was so smug.

She found a corner and quietly hid the two jades.

-----------------

"Dodo, what are you looking at?"

Xiao Yue noticed Dodo’s gaze and curiously asked.

"There’s someone over there, spying on us," Dodo pointed to a distant corner.

"Who is it? A bad guy? Watch me catch him!"

Dou Dou said, rushing over while Xiao Yue tried to grab him but couldn’t, so she could only follow.

Dodo, seeing the two go, hurriedly trotted to keep up.

The person hiding in the corner was startled by the three little ones, turned to run away but hesitated, then stopped and emerged from the corner, saying to the angry Dou Dou, "Little girl, I’m not a bad person."

"Of course you’re not a bad person, you’re a bad ghost," Dou Dou said.

Meanwhile, she sized up the person in front of her, around forty years old, not very tall, about 1.6 meters, fair and chubby, wearing black-framed glasses, looking quite honest and simple.

Of course, Dou Dou couldn’t tell these things; she just thought the person looked unpleasant, yet seemed nice.

"Who are you, and why are you hiding here?" Xiao Yue asked as she arrived.

"I’m not hiding, nor am I a bad ghost, I just saw you all descend from the sky and got curious, so I came to have a look," the middle-aged man said.

"I see." Dou Dou squeezed her little chin and pretended to be deep in thought.

"Who... who are you?" the middle-aged man asked curiously.

"That’s a secret, can’t tell you," Dodo said, hiding behind Xiao Yue.

"Right, can’t tell you; who knows if you’re a big bad guy," Dou Dou immediately chimed in.

Hearing this, the middle-aged man smiled wryly and said, "In my current state, what bad could I possibly do?"

As he spoke, he waved his arm, as intangible and ethereal as a breeze.

"That’s true." Dou Dou said naively.

But the man didn’t press further, instead asking, "Are you here looking for Granny Cui?"

"How did you know?" Dou Dou was surprised.

"Dummy, of course, because we just came out of Granny Cui’s house," Dodo said.

"Oh, right." Dou Dou realized.

Listening to the two little ones, the middle-aged man felt amused, then thought of his daughter, his expression turning a bit complex.

"Do you know Granny Cui?" Xiao Yue asked from the side.

The middle-aged man nodded, "I lived here when I was young, so I not only know Granny Cui but also her daughter, though I haven’t seen them in many years."

"Can you tell us about Granny Cui’s family?" Xiao Yue seized the opportunity to ask.

Though the middle-aged man was curious why they wanted to know about Granny Cui, he didn’t immediately ask but instead said, "What do you want to know?"

"Everything," Xiao Yue replied.

"I don’t know much, and much of it is hearsay, but if you want to know, I can tell you what I know."

"Thank you," Xiao Yue said.

"You’re welcome; it’s nothing major."

The middle-aged man looked around and then pointed to a small cement path, "Let’s go over there to talk."

The three naturally had no objections, following the middle-aged man along the narrow cement road, eventually reaching the beach.

This beach didn’t have fine sand but rather many small pebbles, and stepping on them would definitely hurt.

And here on the beach, there were actually a few tall coconut trees.

Under the trees were some long benches for resting, but due to the exposure to the wind and sun, they appeared extremely worn out, even partially rotten.

The middle-aged man didn’t sit on the benches but walked to a coconut tree, touching the trunk with a deeply complex expression.

Dou Dou, seeing this, curiously reached out to touch the coconut trunk too.

The middle-aged man saw this and smiled.

"I just remembered some things from my childhood; we often played here back then," the middle-aged man said.

"At that time, this place was very poor, though it still is now. Despite being poor back then, life was somewhat happy. Now it’s not just poor but unhappy, with young people fleeing and only the elderly left..."

The middle-aged man rambled on, suddenly noticing the strange looks on their faces.

Somewhat embarrassed, he said, "Sorry, reminiscing about the past made me ramble. Let’s talk about Granny Cui instead."