After leaving the antique shop on the outskirts of the city, with a large enough jade vase in her possession to allow her to craft all nine flowers needed to create the Jade Flowers Formation, along with a set of tools for jade processing that would greatly ease her work, Liu Fengying decided to head towards a nearby market to buy the plants necessary for creating the ink for drawing the formation.
The main characteristic of the plants Liu Fengying needed wasn't to look very good or to be very fresh, but to be grown in as natural conditions as possible. So, once at the market, Liu Fengying went through the stands owned by some old people, whose products were either grown in their own yards or collected from the forests.
Since the prices the old people asked for their goods seemed fair enough to Liu Fengying, she didn't waste time haggling with them. Thus, in an hour and a half, she managed to buy everything she needed, the amount spent being less than 1000 ruans.
Although she wanted to buy enough food to last her for a week, the fact that she had four full bags with her prompted Liu Fengying to take a taxi back to her apartment to deposit everything she bought. Once back home, she put all the plants she had bought in the fridge, and after resting for about a quarter of an hour, she left the apartment again, heading to the nearest supermarket.
Glancing at the shelves full of food, Liu Fengying couldn't help but swallow dryly, noticing that she was much hungrier that day than usual.
'I don't know why I'm so hungry since I regained memories from my previous life. Is it because in most of those memories, I no longer felt the need to eat due to my advanced cultivation? Or maybe the reason is that my body is a bit undernourished...,' Liu Fengying wondered in her mind, beginning to put in the cart she was pushing all the things she craved.
"Liu Fengying, is that you? Why aren't you at school at this hour?", Liu Fengying heard a voice behind her as she compared two flavors of ice cream, turning her head to spot a middle-aged, somewhat plump woman.
"Yes, hello... I'm on sick leave...", Liu Fengying replied without enthusiasm, not wanting to waste time engaging in conversation with someone who always tested her patience whenever they met.
"Huh, you're sick? Why didn't you contact me to tell me? I would have immediately sent Chenchen to help you. Just a second. I'll call him right away...", the middle-aged woman said, immediately starting to search for her phone in her purse.
"No need to call your son. As far as I remember, he's not a doctor, so I don't see how he could help me...", Liu Fengying said, eventually putting a box of each flavor of ice cream in the cart because she couldn't decide which one to choose. Then, she moved on, completely ignoring the woman who had begun to praise her son as if he were the tenth reincarnation of Buddha.
"Liu Fengying, where are you going? I have something else to tell you...", the woman began to shout after Liu Fengying, then started to walk quickly after her, seemingly unable to understand that Liu Fengying wasn't in the mood for conversation.
'Heh, you can't escape from people like these with just kind words...', Liu Fengying thought, remembering how many times the woman following her had kept her engaged in conversation for tens of minutes trying to convince her how wonderful her son was.
"If it's still about your son, I want to inform you that I'm not interested. How can I put it without offending you? Hmmm..., let's say that every time I remember him, I feel sick to my stomach...", Liu Fengying said bluntly, who had stopped in front of a cookie display case and started to analyze the prices of the varieties that interested her.
"You, you... How can you say such a thing? After everything I've done for you?", the middle-aged woman shouted, her face turning red with anger at Liu Fengying's words, attracting the attention of everyone around.
"Huh, what have you done? Do you think I should be grateful that you paid me less than the minimum wage for the hours I worked at your restaurant?", Liu Fengying asked in turn, unaffected by the stares of those present and having no intention of calming the woman down.
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"You, you... you're truly shameless... And to think I agreed for you to be with my son. I must have been truly blind...", the middle-aged woman continued to shout, completely infuriated by Liu Fengying's indifferent attitude, who was treating her as if she were just a stray dog in her eyes.
"Yes, I think so too. Plus, I suspect that the fact that you found out my family is very wealthy contributed the most to your blindness...", Liu Fengying added, and, no longer willing to engage in conversation, she put three plates of cookies she believed contained the tastiest varieties into the cart and walked away, completely ignoring the middle-aged woman who began to tell the people gathered as if it were a spectacle that Liu Fengying is a vixen who seduced her son and a white-eyed wolf who doesn't know how to be grateful to those who helped her in hard times.
'It's probably my fault for ending up in this situation. I shouldn't have gotten involved with such a person from the beginning...', Liu Fengying thought, recalling how unpleasant her days had been while working part-time at the restaurant owned by the woman she had just encountered.
Because the woman believed in the first few days when Liu Fengying worked for her that she belonged to a poor family, she was not at all pleased when she saw that her 20-year-old son was trying to get close to her, so she started to reproach Liu Fengying every day, both about her material situation and about the fact that she walked with a limp and that her face was destroyed. Although Liu Fengying was bothered by these comments, she tried to ignore them because, with her attitude, the woman prevented her son from bothering her all the time while she was at work, so she continued to work in the woman's restaurant for a total of two months until one day she noticed that the woman's attitude had completely changed, as she began to treat her as a future daughter-in-law and to encourage her son to contact her more often.
Suspecting that the woman had found out something about her true identity and that she had started making all sorts of plans to bring her together with her son, Liu Fengying resigned without much thought, using as a pretext the fact that she had fallen behind in her studies. However, the fact that Liu Fengying no longer worked in her restaurant didn't seem to discourage the woman at all, who began to regularly appear in the areas frequented most by Liu Fengying to engage her in endless discussions about how good her son was and how lucky she should consider herself because her son cared so much about her.
Although all the unpleasant memories brought to the surface by the encounter with the middle-aged woman had somewhat diminished her good mood, Liu Fengying didn't intend to interrupt her shopping session without buying all the things she wanted, so she spent another quarter of an hour among the shelves until she managed to fill the cart she was pushing, having to pay about 1500 ruans for all her purchases.
'Ughh, my body is way too weak... Maybe I should dedicate a couple of hours every day to body training...', Liu Fengying said to herself, barely lifting the five bags of groceries she had just paid for and already feeling her hands tearing up from the shoulders.
Although her apartment was less than 300 meters from the supermarket she had visited, it took Liu Fengying almost a quarter of an hour to return with her purchases, being so sweaty that it looked like she had walked the whole way in the rain.
'Well, I guess I've had enough training for today carrying these bags...', Liu Fengying thought after placing the five full bags of groceries in the middle of the kitchen and drinking a large glass of water, intending to take a shower immediately after putting everything she bought in its proper place.
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After about an hour, Liu Fengying, who had just come out of the shower, sat down at the table, with enough food in the three plates in front of her to satisfy two construction workers.
'Hmm, it looks quite good. Maybe it would have been cheaper and healthier if instead of ready-made meals I had bought just the ingredients and cooked myself, but I can't waste time in the kitchen when I have so many things to do...'
Because she wanted to start training the next day to get her body back in shape as quickly as possible, Liu Fengying ordered several sports items online while eating, including a fairly complete set of dumbbells, a workout mat, and a striking dummy, as she planned not only to work on her muscle mass but to start practicing some hand-to-hand combat techniques as well.
'Although my mind is full of various fighting techniques, it will take some time for my body to be able to execute them correctly, so I think I should start with some simple movements, like punching and kicking...', Liu Fengying thought, aware that for a martial artist one of the most important things was the connection between mind and body, the improvement of which starts with mastering the basics.
After finishing eating everything on the plates, Liu Fengying also served herself a large bowl of ice cream, which she enjoyed quietly, then she took the jade vase and the jade processing tools and started carving the nine flowers she needed to create the Jade Flowers Formation, hoping to finish this task as well as the preparation of the ink for drawing the formation by evening.