Chapter 152

Chapter 152: Rong Shu Determined to Grow Tall

The next day.

Little Hamster finally woke up. As he rolled over and rubbed his eyes with his paws, he turned his head and met Rong Shu’s gaze; the corners of her mouth carried a meaningful smile: “Yan Yan, you’re awake.”

Rong Shu gently nudged Little Hamster with her hand and helped him stand: “Up you go.”

Little Hamster froze for a beat, then as his mind finally turned and he remembered yesterday’s contract, he whooshed back under the tiny quilt.

Because he moved too hastily, the quilt only covered his upper half, leaving his little tail sticking out.

Rong Shu reached out and gave the tail a gentle tug: “Yan Yan, come out and explain; don’t pretend you didn’t hear me.”

Little Hamster shivered, sat up, and rescued his tail from Rong Shu’s clutches.

No sooner had he freed his tail than Rong Shu pinched him up and set him in her palm.

The Little Hamster blurted out in a panic: “Gu-gu!”

Rong Shu tapped his forehead with a bent finger: “Not going to talk? Still going gu-gu?”

Little Hamster covered his sore forehead with both paws and looked up pitifully: “Gu~.”

Rong Shu, her fingertip idly stroking the Flame Mark at his brow, asked with some curiosity: “In the soul-space you can talk, right? You can even take the form of a small child. Can you do that now? And what exactly is that contract?”

Little Hamster waved his tiny paws, trying to explain: “Gu~.”

Rong Shu could not understand a bit of it, so she fixed him with a steady gaze and said: “Just speak properly.”

Little Hamster wilted at once. Twisting his two little paws together, he looked back at Rong Shu with grievance; then, turning around and mustering himself, he drooped his head and, not daring to face her, spoke in a soft, halting voice: “I… I didn’t… mean to… trick Shu Shu…”

His words stumbled like a babbling youngling, painfully inarticulate, and he curled himself into a small ball of fluff, his paws tucked into his belly: “The contract… I-I don’t really know… it just suddenly… came to mind…”

Rong Shu’s eyes deepened for a heartbeat, then she reached over and gently rubbed his head: “We need to get moving.”

Little Hamster blinked, having expected Rong Shu would keep asking about the contract.

Seeing him look so dazed, Rong Shu smiled and pressed her lips together: “I know Yan Yan is my Little Hamster, right?”

Little Hamster bobbed his head rapidly: [Yes, he belonged to Shu Shu.]

Rong Shu went on in a warm voice: “Then Yan Yan will always listen to me, won’t he?”

Little Hamster nodded again.

Rong Shu scratched his soft little belly with a fingertip, making him shrink away ticklishly: “Then that’s enough.”

Everyone has secrets; Rong Shu would not force Little Hamster to tell her all of his. She only needed him to be loyal to her and never betray her.

Rong Shu set Little Hamster on her shoulder, then put his nest away into her Storage Pouch.

Only then did Little Hamster notice that everything else in the cave residence had already disappeared.

Before stepping out, Rong Shu stood by the cave’s threshold and measured her current height with her hand: “I think I’m fourteen now…”

Compared to the slight, delicate frame she had when she first entered Heaven’s Evolution Sect, she’d grown quite a bit and now stood around one meter fifty-five. Rising up on tiptoe, she made herself look even “taller” and muttered to herself as she clenched her fists to cheer herself on: “I’ll reach one sixty sooner or later! No! I want one sixty-five! Better yet, one seventy!”

Hearing her grand ambitions at such close range, Little Hamster chimed in encouragement: “Shu… Shu Shu, you can do it!”

Rong Shu added a reminder in a low voice: “By the way, Yan Yan, don’t reveal that you can talk in front of anyone except me, all right?”

Little Hamster nodded: “O-okay.”

Thinking of the five-year-old Yan Yan she’d seen in the soul-space, who spoke smoothly at that age while the Yan Yan before her could not, Rong Shu added another instruction: “But when it’s just me, talk more and practice.”

Little Hamster answered crisply: “Mm!”

After they left the cave, Rong Shu changed her face to the one she’d used when buying the dwelling, while Little Hamster was temporarily tucked into a cloth pouch and hung at her waist.

She made a trip to Unity Pavilion to resell the cave dwelling. Too lazy to wait for a buyer, she sold directly to Unity Pavilion for a closing price of two hundred and sixty thousand Spirit Stones. She had paid three hundred thousand when she bought it, and now recovered two hundred and sixty thousand; a loss of only forty thousand Spirit Stones. It looked like a lot, but after living there for half a year, if she had rented from the start, the Spirit Stones spent would have been more than double those forty thousand.

With the cave business settled, Rong Shu found an empty spot and altered her appearance again, this time becoming a teenage young man with soft, fair skin and an air of innocence.

In the blink of an eye, Rong Shu was standing before a restaurant called “Spring Breeze.” A greeter at the door bowed and said: “Honored guest, please come in.”

She had asked around; this was a restaurant that catered specifically to cultivators. Although cultivators could forgo food or take a Fasting Pill, they sometimes still wanted to eat. Ordinary food contained too many impurities and, taken in excess, did more harm than good. By contrast, dishes made from vegetables and fruit nourished by spirit springs, spirit soil, and spirit fertilizer, as well as from spirit herbs and spirit beasts or demon beasts, lacked those coarse impurities; eaten regularly, they could even aid the absorption of spiritual energy and strengthen the body.

Upon entering, she saw the place was filled almost entirely with cultivators: there were those at the Qi Refining Stage, Foundation Establishment Stage, and even the Golden Core Stage. As for whether anyone of higher cultivation was present, Rong Shu could not tell; when a high-level cultivator deliberately suppressed their aura, those at lower levels usually could not sense them.

Rong Shu chose a quiet table and sat. Soon a server came over to ask what she would like; she answered: “Just bring two of your house specialties.” The server replied cheerily: “Very well, honored guest, please wait a moment.”

After the server left, Rong Shu set Little Hamster from her shoulder onto the table. His originally orange back had been dyed a snowy white before they left, and from a distance he looked exactly like a puff of snow. It was a simple disguise.

From a nearby table, voices drifted over: “Have you heard? The secret realm over by the Scorchfire Wasteland has opened.” “I didn’t expect that after two hundred years, the Scorchfire Secret Realm would open again.”

Rong Shu’s eyes flickered as she glanced toward the table where the cultivators were talking.