The system notification rang, and Lisa looked at this old man with a young heart and rubbed her chin thoughtfully before agreeing to add him into her friend list.
After that, the two talked for a while and really hit it off, and Tang Wenbo thought that his girl was much better than that brat of his at home. "You're almost the same age as my grandson, so you can call me Grandpa Tang!"
"Grandpa Tang." Lisa obliged with a smile, making the old man chuckle in satisfaction, before asking, "Are you here to look for anything in particular?"
Lisa looked around at the shop's wares, but there wasn't anything that she wanted according to the system appraisal, and after thinking about it for a few moments, she replied, "I'm here to look for ancient pieces of jade, but it's been hard..."
Such a big shop didn't have what she wanted, after all, so the same could probably be said for the other shops and stalls on the street.
"Ancient Jade?" Tang Wenbo looked at the girl in surprise. "That's a hard one, but you might be able to find it if you look for it closely enough. Why don't I come with you, I don't have anything else to do today?"
Lisa agreed, and the duo went around the entire street, but didn't end up finding any pieces of jade. In the end, Lisa only bought two pieces of jade that were cut out on the spot.
"Well that's strange, there should at least be one piece..." Tang Wenbo looked at the time, before looking at Lisa. "How about you go home and come back tomorrow, I believe they're going to restock?"
"Thank you for your help, Grandpa Tang, I'll go do some more window shopping by myself, you go home okay?" Lisa raised her hand to cover her eyes, before putting them down again. She had a strong hunch that there was a piece of ancient jade there, but she only couldn't find it for the time being.
When she raised her hand, the jade bracelet that was on her wrist slid out into view, and Tang Wenbo was suddenly stunned as he looked at it for a long while.
"Grandpa Tang?" Lisa asked curiously. "Is everything alright?"
"...It's nothing." Tang Wenbo retracted his gaze. "Well, I should be making my way home now, goodbye."
Lisa looked at the old man leave before raising her hand again, thinking for a bit before giving up and focusing on her current task-To find that vexing piece of ancient jade.
"System, this piece of ancient jade is too good at hiding, do you have any way to sniff it out?" Lisa rubbed her head, feeling a headache coming on. She had already leveled up to Bone Refinement, and her mental power had grown much stronger too to the point where she could encompass the entire street with much to spare, but it was still impossible for her to find that piece of ancient jade.
Now that she had used up her mental power, it couldn't be used for a while longer.
[Loading...50 points are required to detect the location of the ancient jade!] The system quickly notified.
"Why is it so expensive?" Lisa asked in surprise. She thought that it would've been easy for the system to find the ancient jade just by scanning the street.
Hearing this, the system spirit replied: [Beauty Lisa, this piece of ancient jade is supernatural and has enough spiritual energy on it that it already learned how to disguise itself. The system would need to use up energy to find it, and the more energy it needs, the more points it'll cost!]
"...Fine, I'll bite." Lisa gritted her teeth slightly, before continuing,: "But you must find it!"
[Ding! 50 Points have been deducted successfully! Objective secured!]
A clear arrow appeared on the system interface, and Lisa quickly found a stall with all sorts of knick-knacks after following it.
A small bowl was placed in the most eye-catching position of the stall, and that piece of ancient jade that she was looking for was currently as black as coal, and was apparently being used as a coaster of sorts.
In the end, Lisa spent twenty thousand yuan to buy the bowl, and as if she didn't know how much the piece of black stone was worth, she weighed it in her palm for a bit before looking at the stall owner. "I'll take this back to put this bowl on it, is that okay?"
The stall owner was too preoccupied on finally managing to scam someone and was counting his money, and he didn't even raise his head as he said dismissively, "Take it, take it."
[Beauty Lisa, you've really gotten lucky with this!] The system spirit exclaimed with bright eyes. [Not only did you get this piece of ancient jade, this bowl is worth quite a lot too, right?]
"Yes it is. This is a piece of Guan Ware from the Qing Dynasty, but the signature marking on the bottom seemed to have been polished away by someone on purpose, so the stall owner didn't notice either. He probably spent around a dozen on it, so he's probably laughing at me for being stupid right now." Lisa took a taxi back to the mansion.
[Are you going to sell it? It's probably going to sell for around a million, yes?]
"No, I'm going to let Haha use it as a dog bowl." Lisa nonchalantly threw the bowl into her inventory, before taking out the piece of ancient jade and looking at it carefully.
The system spirit: [...]
'Is your pet dog made of gold?'
***
She bought the piece of ancient jade to make an array described on the old book that the system gave her, and this ancient array could be stored into a piece of jade.
The gift that Jihyun gave her was too heavy, and she never thought of how to repay her until the system spirit told her about this jade array that could facilitate good health, keep her youthful and pretty, and protect her life when she needed it. Even though that last function might not be used, but it was the greatest gift that she could give at the moment.
She also wanted to gift Jungkook a similar array, but since his level of ancient martial arts was too high, a regular seal and array wouldn't be useful to him, and along with the level of array it would need the corresponding quality of ancient jade.
There was a layer of patina enveloping the piece of ancient jade, and since Lisa was too lazy to send it to be cleaned by a professional, she used 5 points to buy a mysterious solution that had the same effect from the system.
As the outer layer of the ancient jade was washed off, it showed a round piece of white jade that was a somewhat translucent and the color of ivory, and there was a lifelike motif of a dragon carved onto it, and just by looking at it, one could feel that it had quite the history.
"System, I want to buy a Heavenly Talisman." Lisa looked at the beautiful piece of ancient jade appreciatively before speaking, feeling the warm ebbs of energy from the piece of jade flow into her through her palm.
[Ding! 1500 points have been deducted, transaction complete!]
Suddenly, a bunch of seals flashed through her mind, and Lisa closed her eyes to practice these seals in the void multiple times before opening her eyes when she was ready.
The ancient jade floated in front of her, and Lisa started to make seals with her hands as pulses of natural energy flowed into the piece of jade as if it were drawn by some sort of supernatural force into the piece of jade.
As her movements became quicker and quicker, beads of sweat started appearing on her forehead, and along with a final movement, the piece of jade spun in midair like a top before stopping!
At the same time, Jungkook that was fighting with an old taoist priest on the outskirts of town looked over to the direction of the city, where a funnel of spiritual and natural energy had formed in the sky. He was quite surprised by this, and because his thought were preoccupied, he didn't hold back even in the slightest, making the old taoist priest cough up black blood.
Jungkook looked back at him coldly, and he waved his hand again as he saw the wisps of black energy surrounding the old taoist priest in front of him.
The next moment, the old taoist priest turned into ashes, and disappeared along with the wind.
Then, he stood there as he looked at the giant whirlpool of energy, unknown emotions flashing through his eyes as he muttered, "Even Grandfather would probably not be able to make such a commotion, which hidden master did this?"
After the whirlpool dissipated, he retracted his gaze and made a mental note to check on it later, before he disappeared with a flash.
Lisa held the piece of ancient jade in her hands, the natural energy around her so thick that it already materialized into mist as she looked at the piece of jade that had become even more stunning after the array had been embedded into it.
[Beauty Lisa, the most precious part of this piece of jade isn't its chi-converging properties, but that it can protect the user from all harm, essentially another life! Jeon Jungkook better be worth 1500 points!] The system spirit spoke with a somewhat jealous tone. Those points could have been used to upgrade it!
"You've only just been upgraded, so wait for a while okay? I promise I'll upgrade you again soon!" Lisa smiled as she knew what the system spirit was thinking of, the natural chi around her illuminating her with an ethereal glow.
[You're really the prettiest person in the world Beauty Lisa!]
This piece of jade was already perfect in the first place, so Lisa didn't make any modifications to it. She kept it in her inventory, before taking out the two other pieces of jade that she bought earlier.
A normal-tiered array would already be more than enough for Jihyun and Minho, so Lisa used 100 points each to embed said arrays into their pieces of jade. This time around, nothing special happened except for the air rippling slightly.
These pieces of jade were still unsculpted after all, so Lisa made the system polish and refine them because she was already too tired to do it.
The system used up 1 point each to sculpt them into a pair of earrings and a thumb ring.
The system was good at its job, of course, and the pair of earrings looked like two teardrops that had intricate designs on them when looked at closely, and it had an ethereal glow to it. This wasn't an effect caused by the jade and the natural energy in it, but the masterful craftsmanship of the system in sculpting it so that it could refract light in a myriad of ways when light was shone on them.
These two earrings seemed like a work of art from the heavens itself that couldn't be designed by the most experienced designers in the world, and even Lisa was amazed by their beauty.
After getting done with everything, her mental power reserves had already reached rock bottom, and her mind felt if it was going to explode. Under such pain, however, she still looked as calm and collected as ever.
Lisa had already gone to bed when Jungkook got home, and he hastily finished the meal that Mrs. Zhang had prepared for him before going into his study.
The window to the study was open, and the curtains flapped in the breeze. Jungkook switched on the lights before he took out a random old book from the shelves and sat onto his chair comfortably. This was his habit, no matter how busy he was.
The pages of the book he was reading were already yellowed with age, and the words on the paper was ancient small seal script. He was extremely focused as he read it, and he seemed even more handsome as his face was illuminated by the dim lights.
He had barely flipped two pages before his eyebrows furrowed slightly, and a glint of astonishment flashed through his cold orbs.
Jungkook set down the book and walked over to the sandalwood table, and placed on it was a piece of perfect white jade with an old-looking design and enough spiritual energy that it seemed to be pouring out into the room, and this was the first time that an expression of shock made its way onto the man's face in a long while.
He hadn't detected this piece of jade in the slightest when he entered the room... Did this piece of jade already birth its own intelligence?
Even though he had read that spirits could be birthed from jade, this was the first time that he saw such a piece of jade in person.
As he held the piece of jade in his hand, he felt a familiar presence from it and smiled. "This kid..."
But then again, he had already guessed that Lisa was the one that gave him this piece of ancient jade. As he exclaimed internally on the value of this gift, a tender smile made its way onto his face as he got a red string and used it to hang the piece of ancient jade on his neck.
As he sat back onto his chair, he couldn't focus anymore, continuing to unconsciously rub the piece of jade on his neck with his fingers. While he knew that it was a special piece of jade, as soon as it was hung onto him, he realized that the natural chi was flowing in his direction many times quicker than before. If it continued like this, he would probably be able to level up again quite quickly, wouldn't he?
Jungkook sighed softly as he put down the book again and walked over to the window, letting the cool breeze soothe his nerves before he walked out of the room, switching off the lights behind him. As he walked by Lisa's room, his steps stopped for a moment in front of a certain girl's door, and he stood there for a while, listening to the calm and steady breaths of someone that was asleep before walking away.
The next morning, Lisa came back to the mansion right as Jungkook walked downstairs.
He was wearing a white shirt, and from the single button at the top that wasn't buttoned, one could see a thin, red thread.
Lisa looked at it in surprise for a few moments. She knew that Jungkook didn't like wearing too many accessories on his person to the point where he was too lazy to even wear a watch, so she didn't bother to thread it with a string, only expecting him to bring it around in his pocket at most.
But he threaded it up by himself?
She hadn't pinned him for someone that liked these sorts of antiques, and she trailed over to the table as she started eating breakfast.
Then, she remembered a question that she had forgotten to ask earlier. "Hey, Brother Jungkook, did you really pick the color for my car?"
"You mean the one that Taehyung gifted you, right?" Jungkook raised an eyebrow as he looked over at her. "Yes, is there a problem with it?"
Normally, one would choose the color pink for a girl because it was a widely accepted girlish color, but in Jungkook's eyes, all colors had their own meaning in correspondence to the natural laws of the world. While Lisa's fate had been starting to shift as of late, and she had heavenly merit and luck on her side, there had always been a presence of Yin-Chi attached to her soul.
Within all of the colors that brought luck and prosperity, pink was the only one that suited her the most.
"Not really." Lisa downed the bowl of soup in one go, before looking back at the tall and aloof man that was in front of her. "Can I interview you on why you chose this color for me, Mr. Jeon?"
Jungkook knew that she was half-joking at the moment, so he put down his bowl and wiped his hands with a napkin. "It depends on the person I'm choosing for. It would be another color if it were another person."
Lisa didn't quite believe this explanation of his, but she only nodded and replied: "...As long as you're happy."
"Quite. Are you going outside today?" Jungkook got up from his seat and asked.
As she held a boiled egg in one hand, she scrolled on her phone with the other and replied, "Naeun is going to have chemotherapy today, and her nurse is on leave, and Uncle Jinhee is still out on a business trip, so I'll go look after her."
Jungkook grabbed his keys, and while he didn't know why Lisa was so concerned about that child, he didn't ask any further. "The city hospital, right? Want me to give you a ride?"
"Give me a second!" Lisa scarfed down the egg and quickly downed her cup of milk, before calling out to Mrs. Zhang that was in the kitchen, "Aunt Zhang, I won't be back for lunch!"
"Aren't you going to change your clothes?" Jungkook glanced at her sports attire before asking.
What kind of girl didn't take a shower nor change her clothes after coming back from a morning jog?
Lisa scrunched her nose and sniffed at the air, before replying, "It's fine, I didn't sweat a lot today."
Jungkook smiled and nodded, then drove her to the city hospital. The girl got down from the car and waved at him in goodbye, and only stepped into the hospital after the car disappeared from her line of sight.
She had come to the hospital before, so she knew where Naeun's ward was, and she went to the sixth floor where the hematology patients were hospitalized, and there were many other patients that had similarly severe sicknesses as Naeun did, so the air itself was filled with despair.
The eldest patient in there seemed to not even be over thirty years old, and all of their lives had to be cut short because of their sickness.
Lisa stood there in the hallway for a while, before she made a decision to herself.
Naeun stayed in a double-ward with another boy that had been transferred there recently, and from the looks of it he was only around the age of a middle-schooler. When Lisa walked in, the two children were sitting there on a bed and watching television. Naeun was getting an IV drip, and the gaze of the boy beside her kept alternating between the screen and the medicine drip vigilantly, as if he were her nurse.
"Naeun." Lisa stepped into the ward and glanced at the screen of the television that was broadcasting news, and from the looks of it, it was about her.