Chapter 339 - 297: Making Money
Chapter 339: Chapter 297: Making Money
Xiao Man explained to them that this wasn’t just a pile of scrap metal, but antiques that could be exchanged for a lot of money!
The truth was, Xiao Man didn’t know how to appraise antiques. She had simply been riding her bike along the flagstone paths of the countryside, releasing a bit of her Divine Sense to probe for sources of Spiritual Energy. When she was drawn closer to one, she too was struck dumb.
In front of a farmhouse, a bowl-shaped container, so caked in mud its true nature was obscured, lay haphazardly on the dirt ground. It was about the size of a soup tureen. The woman of the house dumped a pile of leftovers into it, and a dog immediately ran over to wolf it all down. The object emitting Spiritual Energy was clearly the family’s dog bowl!
Xiao Man stood there dumbfounded, watching the dog eat. The dog must have been starving, as it only remembered to bark at the stranger after finishing its meal. The farmer’s wife had already noticed Xiao Man. She shushed the dog and came out to ask who Xiao Man was looking for. Xiao Man said she was a student visiting the Zhuangyuan’s former residence and was just passing through. Then, she pointed to the dog bowl and told the woman plainly, "This thing looks pretty old. It might be an antique. If your family doesn’t need it, would you be willing to sell it to me?"
When the woman heard her dog bowl might actually be worth something, she quickly called her husband out. The couple conferred for a moment, then asked Xiao Man how much she would pay. Xiao Man pulled all the money out of her pockets, making it look like her entire fortune. It added up to just over 130 yuan. The couple was thrilled and sold her the dog bowl.
And just like that, Xiao Man had easily obtained a piece of bronze ware!
She didn’t care what era the bronze ware came from or whether it was valuable. She was just incredibly satisfied with the dense, pure Spiritual Energy it contained.
She carried the "dog bowl" to a small country stream to wash it. The aunts, grannies, wives, and young women washing clothes and vegetables by the stream saw it and came over, full of curiosity. Xiao Man decided to generously explain to them what an "antique" was, based on her own understanding. She wasn’t afraid of the couple going back on their deal. ’If they want it back, they can have it,’ she thought. ’A deal requires both parties to be willing. I’m not a barbarian.’
Of course, the sellers of the dog bowl didn’t go back on their word. Instead, it was the other women who enthusiastically invited Xiao Man to their homes to take a look. They had stone bowls and troughs for feeding pigs and dogs, too. If they could be exchanged for a bit of cash, she was welcome to take them!
Xiao Man was speechless.
Somehow, she had become a collector of dog and pig bowls!
After that, she truly fell in love with wandering through villages and hamlets. Over the course of a few Sundays, she managed to acquire over a hundred antiques, including jade, copper ware, porcelain, ironware, and stoneware. She even had the great fortune of finding a piece of Xuan Iron. It was said to have rolled down from the mountain on its own. Because it was too heavy for anyone to move, it just happened to end up by a family’s courtyard, where it was used as a fence post. Xiao Man bought it for three hundred yuan, and the villagers were overjoyed.
There were also wooden antiques: exquisitely carved dressing boxes, screens, door panels, Eight Immortals tables, and the like. Some were incomplete or damaged, but as long as they contained Spiritual Energy, Xiao Man bought them all.
The large, hard-to-move antiques were piled up in the Treasure Pearl Space, with only the smaller, lighter ones left outside. What Guan Ailan and Mo Linghui saw was this pile of "scrap metal" and "rotten wood."
Xiao Man first let her two self-righteous friends lecture her for a bit. Of course, she wouldn’t let herself be scolded for nothing, so she had them help her clean and organize everything. Only when Guan Ailan and Mo Linghui finally realized that this "junk" was anything but ordinary and started pestering her with questions did she explain everything in detail. When the two girls heard Xiao Man’s daydream-like talk of striking it rich, they couldn’t help but laugh. However, seeing her dead-serious expression and recalling that Xiao Man never made empty boasts, they began to take the matter seriously.
It was a good thing they took it seriously. After just over a month of working with Xiao Man for four or five Sundays, the returns they earned were not only enough to cover their future education expenses but also provided enough to give their parents money to renovate their homes.
Xiao Man had also been spurred on by the time she spent 150,000 yuan on a single piece of jade in Beijing. Her enthusiasm for money had reached an all-time high. Cultivators valued wealth, companions, dharma, and land, with wealth being first and foremost. It turned out there was a good reason for that.
’Any random item from the Treasure Pearl Space was priceless, wasn’t it? But that was the result of the previous owner’s accumulation over tens of thousands of years!’ The Black Mountain Spirit Lord had once said, "In today’s world, it’s normal to be looked down on if you have no money. But in the Cultivation World, without financial resources, you can forget about ever stepping onto the path of Immortal Cultivation, no matter how talented you are!" She hadn’t fully understood at the time, but now she finally got it. Cultivators were the biggest money pits in existence, bar none.
’Spiritual Energy on Earth is scarce, and future Cultivation will only consume more of it. Jade contains Spiritual Energy, and buying jade requires money. So, the path forward is clear. From now on, I have to make a ton of money, save up a fortune, and buy jade!’