Su Qingran coughed lightly twice before she finally couldn’t help asking, “Auntie, are you sure these seedlings can actually survive if they’re planted?”
The woman looked embarrassed.
If they planted them themselves, there was no way these seedlings would survive.
But this young lady had insisted on finding rice seedlings, and she just happened to have some that looked particularly poor.
“Oh my, young lady,” the woman said helplessly, “last year’s rice harvest wasn’t very good. Where would we get high-quality seedlings from? How about this—you buy some millet and wheat seedlings from me, and I’ll give you all these rice seedlings for free.”
No one knew what was happening this year. The drought had become terribly severe. Not a single drop of rain had fallen, and many places could no longer farm because of the lack of water.
As a result, they had plenty of leftover seedlings.
Free?
Su Qingran was currently poor as dirt. Free things were exactly what she liked.
“Sure. How much are these millet and wheat seedlings? I only have fifty copper coins left. How much can that buy?” she asked.
The moment the woman heard that, she immediately handed over two bamboo baskets of millet and wheat seedlings and said with a smile,
“Fifty copper coins for these two baskets of millet and wheat seedlings, plus half a basket of rice seedlings. What do you think, young lady?”
Su Qingran hadn’t expected fifty copper coins to buy so much.
She nodded, took out the smallest piece of broken silver from her pouch, and asked,
“Will there be change?”
The woman’s eyes lit up when she saw the silver.
“Yes, yes, of course!”
“And these baskets come with it too, right?” Su Qingran asked again.
The woman hurriedly nodded.
“Yes, they’re included.”
Carrying the seedlings she had bought, Su Qingran left the stall completely satisfied.
What she didn’t know was that a young woman wandering alone was the easiest target for street thugs.
As she walked, she deliberately headed toward increasingly deserted areas.
She planned to sneak into her dimensional space through an alley. She was already eager to see whether the seedlings could be planted in her spiritual farmland.
After all, the seedlings looked half-dead already. The sooner she got them into the space, the better.
When she entered the alley, Su Qingran instinctively glanced behind her.
Well, well.
Two little tails had followed her.
In truth, she had noticed them a long time ago.
She had merely been looking for a secluded place to deal with them.
“Heh, little beauty, finally noticed us, huh?”
One of the men revealed a lewd grin as he slowly approached her.
Su Qingran looked ahead.
The other man had somehow circled around to the opposite end of the alley and was now closing in on her step by step.
“Tsk.”
She clicked her tongue impatiently.
She had been wondering whether the combat skills she’d used to punch zombies apart in the apocalypse were still intact.
Not killing people?
Under normal circumstances, where she might easily be discovered, Su Qingran naturally avoided killing.
But if these two idiots delivered themselves to her doorstep seeking death, then she couldn’t be blamed.
Suddenly, both men rushed toward her from the front and back.
Just as they were about to reach her, Su Qingran leaped into the air and locked one man’s head between her legs.
At the same time, she placed a hand on the other man’s head.
Then her hands and legs worked together.
She twisted her body in midair.
Crack! Crack!
Two sharp sounds rang out.
The men collapsed to the ground without understanding what had happened, their necks twisted at unnatural angles.
“I thought you’d be harder to kill. You died that quickly?”
Su Qingran muttered to herself.
Then she crouched down and began searching their bodies for valuables.
The two were penniless loafers who spent their days idling around.
Otherwise, they wouldn’t have targeted her for both money and beauty.
After searching for a long time, she found only a little over twenty copper coins between them.
“Bah. Poor bastards.”
Could these paupers stop bothering her next time?
Making her take action and getting nothing in return was seriously annoying.
Seeing there was truly nothing left to take, Su Qingran cursed under her breath and left.
What she didn’t know was that the moment she departed, someone appeared beside the two corpses.
“Master, should we report this to the authorities?”
The guard looked at his master and couldn’t help asking.
Standing nearby was a man who seemed completely out of place in the filthy alley.
He was as elegant as an immortal cast down from the heavens.
His features were cold and restrained, his white robes immaculate, and his bearing extraordinarily noble, like a bright moon hanging high in the sky, forever beyond reach.
His deep, crystal-clear eyes seemed capable of drawing people into their depths, trapping them there forever.
Even the gloomy, damp alley appeared less dark because of his presence.
The man gazed in the direction Su Qingran had left, his handsome brows furrowing slightly.
“Su Qingran?”
His voice was pleasant and clear, like a spring flowing through winter snow.
“Huh?”
The guard looked at his master in confusion.
Now that he thought about it, that young woman did seem somewhat familiar.
But the way she was dressed didn’t resemble Miss Su at all.
Every time Miss Su went out, she dressed in elaborate finery.
She would never wear coarse homespun clothing like that.
Indeed, because Su Qingran found ancient clothing troublesome, she had intentionally chosen the ugliest outfit in her wardrobe before leaving home.
The clothes had originally been made for mourning her grandfather, and the original owner of the body had disliked them immensely.
Besides, if she dressed too well while shopping, wouldn’t merchants try to cheat her?
To verify whether that woman had truly been Su Qingran, Gu Qingyan’s figure vanished from the spot like a phantom.
Yet after searching all around, he still couldn’t find any trace of her.
Standing atop a high place, Gu Qingyan overlooked the surrounding alleys.
The woman had genuinely disappeared.
According to what he knew, Su Qingran didn’t know martial arts.
So how had she so easily killed two grown men?
And more importantly, she had vanished from under his nose only moments ago.
How had she escaped the alley without him noticing?
Everything about the situation felt bizarre and completely unreasonable.
“Let’s go. Dispose of the bodies.”
In the end, out of consideration for his friendship with the Pingyang Marquis, Gu Qingyan decided to clean up the aftermath for Su Qingran.
Naturally, Su Qingran knew nothing about any of this.
Because at that moment, she had already entered her dimensional space.
The first thing she did upon entering was drink several mouthfuls of spiritual spring water.
Each sip made her feel noticeably stronger.
She wondered whether drinking it continuously for a month would make this body even more powerful.
Too weak.
Still far too weak.
The men who had come after her today were nothing more than ordinary street thugs with no martial arts training.
According to the original owner’s memories, people in this world practiced martial arts.
As for how strong those martial artists were, Su Qingran had no idea.
Her space contained countless biochemical weapons, firearms, and explosives.
Unless absolutely necessary, she had no intention of taking any of them out.
She didn’t want to become the target of pursuit or greed because of such things.
In this world, all Su Qingran wanted was to reclaim her dowry and the Marquis Manor’s wealth, then spend the rest of her life comfortably doing nothing.
After only a few mouthfuls of spring water, she already felt full and stopped drinking.
This body’s capacity for spiritual spring water was limited.
If she drank too much, her body wouldn’t be able to absorb it all at once and might literally burst apart.
Next, she scooped up some spring water with her hand and sprinkled it over the seedlings she had purchased.
Immediately, the half-dead seedlings underwent a dramatic transformation.