He bit his lip in thought then answered, “If we’d reached the vines before her, she could have stolen them or killed us for them.”

I nodded. That wasn't a bad analysis of the situation from the 7 or 8 year old. If we had managed to grab a vine and placed it directly into the space, while she wouldn't have been able to get them, she would have realized that we had a treasure when she searched us and didn't find it.

”She didn’t have to talk to us or give us a flower at all so...” he shrugged, ”I think she seemed nice.”

I glared. “She does seem nice. She’s very good at seeming nice.” The bitch certainly fooled me when she entered Bloodsword’s harem in my past life.

That’s right. I fucking ran into another of those braindead wives. Though, if any of them weren’t braindead, it would be Violet Pill Fairy.

She was the star alchemist of his harem, more brilliant than even he was at pill forging. The main character not being the best at alchemy was a bit unusual for a Xianxia... And now that I thought about how this world was unusual...

Our master? Way older than him. Fairy Effervescent Sea Pearl? Older than him. Violet Pill Fairy? Also, definitely older than him... His other wives? Oh yeah. They were also, all older than him.

While cultivators tended to not care too much about age, I wondered about our dear original dumbass author. Did he happen to have an appreciation for mature women? Considering other tropes that... existed... this normality of the author was actually quite refreshing for fucking once.

Of course, them all being older than him meant that they were already born and any interference from me changing the timeline wouldn’t result in their nonexistence... I could run into any of them at any time.

I suddenly had the urge to hit my head against the cliffside.

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“Is Violet Pill Fairy...” Little Spring’s words broke me from zoning out again. It was getting worse again. ”...not a nice person then? She didn't have to give us one for free so...”

I sighed. “Is she pure, unadulterated evil? No. But she is a consummate capitalist. That isn’t necessarily an evil thing....” I grabbed the flower and put it inside one of the small boxes I made out of the leftover white jade. I then shoved it deep inside my bag. “But she has no conscience when it comes to profit. She’d even risk lives if it meant she could make a few spirit stones.”

“But she didn't seem that—“

I glared and he shut up. “That’s not out of kindness. That’s like a drug dealer giving out a sample, knowing you’ll come back for more.”

“A what?”

Shit. He’s just a kid. I rubbed my temples.

My constant headache was also getting worse. Fuck. How much time did I have left before my Immortal Ascension stage divine sense overwhelmed my poor little Qi Condensation body? Four months at this point? Yeah. Four months. I’d made some bad life choices when I looked into those jade stones and in the subsequent fight.

I needed to heal myself so I could cultivate properly. Then I needed to cultivate to the peak of Qi Condensation so I didn't die.

”Her giving us a flower is like a merchant who knows that he has what you want and gives you a sample to earn goodwill and trust from you and others. It could also be like a bad person who does one really good thing to fool you into sharing that news and improving their image.” Those were the more accurate versions.

I peered down at the broken dirt that was all that was left of the vines I needed. That gold core had been pretty adept at grabbing them, but I knew something about them that I doubted these strippers (not that type) even gave a shit about.

I concentrated my divine sense on the area around where the roots had been and penetrated into the earth to find very small hard objects. And there were several of them.

I grinned. Vines were tenacious little bastards.

While most flowering plants tended to do the flowers-pollinated-to-become-seed-pod thing, this particular vine did not need pollinating. It absorbed spiritual energy through its flowers and used that to produce seeds at the end of its roots. Those seeds didn’t always stay in one place either. They had a tendency to move through the dirt as if it were water to find a better spot to root itself. This also made them a pain in the ass to plant in a specific location.

It was a real crazy vine but cool shit like this flourished in this dumbass author’s kinda badass setting.