He waved, and one of the servants behind him immediately handed over a white, plump steamed bun wrapped in oiled paper.
“Here.”
As expected, the little girl’s eyes lit up at once.
“Thank you~”
This time, she held it herself as she ate. Her two small, fair hands wrapped around the large, white, plump bun. This shop certainly did not skimp on the ingredients—the bun was so big that it looked almost as large as her face.
Xiaobao took a big bite. Her snow-white, soft cheeks puffed up roundly, making her entire little person look like a soft, squishy rice cake. She ate with such seriousness and happiness.
Even Lin Zhengqing could not help glancing at her. Was the bun really that delicious?
They could not linger here for too long. Once Su Xiaobao had finished eating, Lin Zhengqing planned to take her away.
But when they were about to leave, Su Xiaobao tugged at his clothes and asked carefully, “Can I buy a few things? Xiaobao will only need a little bit of time.”
Lin Zhengqing crouched down and rubbed her fluffy hair. Her now-dry hair had been combed by the maid into an adorable bun, making her look even more like a little immortal child who had descended to the mortal world.
“Of course. The Little Princess can do whatever she wants.”
Xiaobao immediately smiled until her brows and eyes curved like the most beautiful, lustrous little crescent moon. Even the strands of her hair seemed to radiate happiness.
She really was very easy to satisfy.
“Then wait for me for just a little bit, okay?”
Very carefully, she took a tiny, old coin purse out of her worn clothes. The copper coins inside clinked together.
She poured out all the coins and counted them one by one.
There were exactly fifty copper coins, and every single one was clean.
These were all her worldly possessions, every one of them left to her by Pretty Mommy.
Holding up the fifty copper coins, the pretty little girl said in a soft voice, “I… I want to buy some seeds.”
Su Xiaobao had a secret. Before she became her mother’s child, she had actually been a little plant spirit who was just about to cultivate into human form. She had been so close—just a tiny bit away. It was very easy for plant spirits to pass through their tribulation lightning, because the Heavenly Dao favored little spirits like them. It only needed to strike them symbolically once.
But she had terrible luck. Absolutely terrible luck!
During the final tribulation, she happened to encounter a black flood dragon that was also undergoing its tribulation. That black flood dragon’s tribulation lightning was incredibly fierce, and she had been disastrously caught up in it. One strike had caused her to lose consciousness immediately.
When she woke up again, she had become a newborn human child.
She had successfully transformed and obtained a physical body, but all her spiritual power was gone!
Just thinking about it made her angry!
Fortunately, this world also had spiritual power, and it was even more abundant than the spiritual power in the world she had lived in before. After slowly gathering it within her body, she had managed to accumulate a little spiritual power—but she had used all of it on Pretty Mommy.
Unfortunately, Mommy’s body had been far too weak. Xiaobao’s spiritual power had only been a tiny amount, and even after using it all, she had still been unable to save her.
Thinking of that, Xiaobao grew a little sad.
When she had been a little plant spirit, Su Xiaobao’s favorite thing had been collecting all kinds of seeds, then finding places to plant them and watching them grow.
Even now, she occasionally went up into the mountains to collect seeds, but they were all seeds for flowers and plants.
Now that she was human, she could no longer survive by eating only flower nectar and dew. She had to eat grain.
After experiencing hunger before, Xiaobao now wanted to buy more food seeds. She did not know whether she would be able to grow them after arriving at her new home.
It was a pity about all the seeds she had collected in the past. She had spent such a long time collecting them.
Looking at the pitiful fifty copper coins in the little girl’s arms, Lin Zhengqing felt even more sorry for her.
The only Little Princess in all of Great Xia was living far too pitifully.
Lin Zhengqing said, “All right. Little Princess, go ahead and buy whatever you want. You can buy as much as you like.”
Su Xiaobao immediately smiled, her brows and eyes curving sweetly.
The seeds truly were not expensive at all. With the fifty copper coins in her hands, she could choose quite a lot.
Xiaobao carefully selected ten of each kind of vegetable seed, choosing the plumpest and most viable ones.
If she carried them with her and nurtured them a little, they could become even better seeds!
“Are these the only seeds you have?”
Looking at the pitifully small variety of seeds, Su Xiaobao missed the seeds she had collected in the past even more.
“This…” The shop assistant scratched his head. “These are the vegetable seeds everyone usually plants.”
Immediately afterward, he seemed to remember something and slapped his hands together.
“Oh, right! Some foreign merchant caravans passed through our town a while ago and brought some strange things with them. The shopkeeper bought some unfamiliar seeds, planning to sell them and see how they did, but no one bought them. In the end, the shopkeeper put them away. Wait here—I’ll go get them.”
With that, the shop assistant quickly ran into the back room and told the shopkeeper. Shortly afterward, a middle-aged man came over carrying some seeds, an astute smile on his face.
“These are the seeds I bought from those foreigners some time ago. Take a look and see whether there’s anything you need.”
As he spoke, the shopkeeper handed the seeds to Lin Zhengqing, because among this group of people, it was obvious that Lin Zhengqing looked like the one in charge.
Standing on tiptoe, Su Xiaobao craned her neck and stared eagerly at what was in the shopkeeper’s hands.
Her small, snow-white figure looked rather pitiful.
“Let her look.”
Lin Zhengqing indicated that the little girl should be allowed to see them.
The shopkeeper was an astute man as well. He quickly handed the seeds to Su Xiaobao with a beaming smile and let her choose.
At a glance, Su Xiaobao saw that several of them were fruit seeds.
The ones that delighted her most were the watermelon seeds. They were small, black, and shriveled, looking as though they could not possibly grow.
“I want all of these seeds. How much are they?”
The shopkeeper’s smile grew even broader.
“They were transported here from a place in the foreign lands very far away, so I spent quite a lot of money when I bought them. But I can’t sell these things here anyway, so I’ll give them to you at a cheap price. All the seeds together will be one hundred copper coins.”
The moment he finished speaking, the smile vanished from Su Xiaobao’s exquisite little face.
Together with the seeds she had chosen earlier, they would cost more than one hundred copper coins!
She lowered her head and looked at the pitiful fifty copper coins she had left, instantly feeling the weight of her poverty.
The little one sighed.
“Then I’ll…” buy just a little bit.
Before Su Xiaobao could finish, Lin Zhengqing’s steady voice came from above her head.
“Pack them all up.”
He also handed over a small piece of silver.
Su Xiaobao: “!!!”
Silver! He was so rich!
“All right!”
The shopkeeper very nimbly accepted the silver and packed up all the seeds. He looked as though he was afraid that if he moved even a moment more slowly, they would change their minds and not want them anymore.
The exquisite little girl, as beautiful as white jade, raised her pretty face with an expression full of gratitude.
“Thank you, Uncle Lin. Once Xiaobao has money, I’ll pay you back.”
Pretty Mommy had said that when you borrowed something from someone else, you had to return it. Otherwise, you were a bad child.
Looking at the well-mannered little girl, Lin Zhengqing felt only tenderness and affection toward her. His family had children too, but they were excessively mischievous and impossible to control—so unruly that they could climb onto the roof and tear off the tiles.
That was why he had such a favorable impression of a polite child like Su Xiaobao. Besides, she was that person’s child.