Chapter 140: The Bizarre Amethyst Vine

"What do you mean, we're rich?" Tang Wei asked, looking at Wan Wan's inexplicable joy. She was baffled. Could there be some kind of treasure in this valley? She turned her head and scanned the area with her spiritual sense once more, but still found nothing. There were no thousand-year-old ginseng roots, nor any other precious medicinal herbs of significant age. Aside from the scenery being quite pleasant, there was nothing that could be called a treasure. Upon closer inspection, the wood-attribute spiritual energy here was quite dense, but Wan Wan was not a cultivator; surely this energy couldn't be of any help to her? Tang Wei couldn't help but ask again, "Wan Wan, there's nothing good here. How have we become rich?"

Wan Wan looked at Tang Wei with an expression of utter disbelief. "Tang Wei, where on earth are you from? Can't you see that this whole valley is filled with treasures?"

"I'm from Mars, is that good enough for you?" Tang Wei retorted, using a popular internet slang term from back home. However, this only served to confirm Wan Wan's suspicions.

"So you really aren't from around here! Where is Mars? Is it different from our world? Are the people there all as powerful as you?..." Once Wan Wan had made up her mind about Tang Wei's origins, she unleashed her boundless curiosity, rattling off questions incessantly, as if she wouldn't be satisfied until she had interrogated every ancestor in Tang Wei's family tree.

Tang Wei now regretted her actions deeply. Why had she felt the sudden urge to try and be trendy? Now she knew what trouble felt like! But she couldn't tell Wan Wan the truth—that she was from Earth—as the problems back home were far from resolved. How could she divulge such information? Helpless, Tang Wei could only roll her eyes and try to turn herself into mere background scenery. When Wan Wan had finally exhausted all the questions in her head, Tang Wei added, "Are you done? Is there anything else you want to know, or should we get it all out at once?"

Only then did Wan Wan realize that Tang Wei had been mocking her the whole time. Indignant and embarrassed, she cried, "Tang Wei, you did that on purpose!" She had hoped to pry into Tang Wei's background, only to be played for a fool.

"What do you mean 'on purpose'? That bit about coming from Mars is just a common saying back where I'm from. Who told you to take it so seriously?" Tang Wei said with a laugh. Seeing that Wan Wan was still pouting, she softened her tone. "Alright, alright, let's stop talking about that. You said we're rich—what's that all about?"

At the mention of this, Wan Wan perked up immediately. With a radiant expression, she said, "Look! This whole valley is filled with Amethyst Vines. Tell me, aren't we rich?"

"You mean this entire expanse of green-and-purple vegetation is all Amethyst Vines?" Tang Wei asked, sounding quite excited, before a serious question suddenly struck her: "Wait, what exactly is an Amethyst Vine?" This follow-up question made Wan Wan want to faint. If you don't even know what an Amethyst Vine is, why were you so excited a moment ago?

Wan Wan regretted talking so much. After rolling her eyes at her, she turned away to confirm whether the plants were indeed Amethyst Vines.

Realizing she had been ignored, Tang Wei scratched the back of her head and approached with a cheeky grin. She nudged Wan Wan's back and said cautiously, "Come on, Wan Wan, don't be mad! Look, I really don't know what these vines are! You can't blame me for that; this is the first time I've ever heard of them!"

"I can't be bothered to be angry! If I got mad at you every time you did something like this, I'd be dead from frustration every few days!" Wan Wan was in a good mood, and the fact that she could joke around even after being so annoyed by Tang Wei proved she wasn't truly angry; she was just teasing her.

"You can't say that. My personality is actually quite good." Tang Wei refused to accept such a characterization and immediately retorted.

"Forget it, I'm too lazy to argue. Let me tell you about these Amethyst Vines." Wan Wan stopped bickering; if they kept this up, they would never finish. She knelt on the ground, brushed away the soil, and dug out an oval-shaped, root-like tuber. Holding the long vine in her left hand and pointing at the root with her right index finger, she said, "See this? This is the valuable part. As long as it's the size of a fist, it's worth at least five hundred taels of silver."

"No way, is it really that valuable? Is it made of gold?" Tang Wei asked, still skeptical, but as the value sank in, her eyes began to sparkle. She mumbled to herself, "Wow! Rich, we're rich! We're really rich now! We can trade these for so much silver!" Wan Wan watched her and giggled. The two of them stood before the vast field of Amethyst Vines, lost in their daydreams, as if the silver were already raining down upon them.

As Tang Wei stared at the vine, she suddenly felt a sense of familiarity. It was as if she had seen it somewhere before! No, she must have seen it! But where? She frowned, racking her brain to recall any information related to it.

Seeing her expression change, Wan Wan asked curiously, "Tang Wei, what's wrong? Why do you look so troubled?"

"I feel like I've seen this before!" Tang Wei whispered, still puzzled by the sudden spark of recognition that wouldn't quite catch fire.

"You're so slow! Of course you've seen it! This is a specialty of Qingyuan Mountain. The apothecaries use it to refine medicine; how could you not have seen it? It's just that there have been too many people digging for herbs here lately, so it's almost extinct outside," Wan Wan said as if it were obvious.

"Used for medicine? Could it be that five-tael-a-piece herb they talk about? That's the only one I've heard of." Tang Wei recalled that when she first arrived, Sang Xiong had mentioned a type of medicinal herb, but that one cost five taels. Wan Wan, however, claimed these were worth five hundred. She wasn't sure if they were talking about the same thing, but if they were, the price discrepancy was massive.

"Five taels? That's impossible! Amethyst Vines are a miraculous beauty treatment! If you take ten of them consecutively, your complexion will remain unchanged for an entire year. As long as you take them every year at the same time, your youthful appearance will be preserved. The only downside is that ten only lasts a year; taking more is useless, and taking less is even worse. It must be taken annually, or your appearance will slowly age. But it doesn't matter—as long as you keep taking it, you can maintain the appearance you had when you first started until the day you die. Who wouldn't want to stay forever young, man or woman? And with so many wealthy people around, the demand for Amethyst Vines far exceeds the supply, making them more and more expensive. Nowadays, a single tuber can sell for two or three thousand taels!" Wan Wan rattled off everything she knew in one go, growing more and more excited. By the time she mentioned the two or three thousand taels, her voice had risen significantly, and her heart seemed to be soaring with the thought.

"Wow, eternal youth! Come, come, let's try one!" Upon hearing that it could preserve one's appearance, Tang Wei didn't hesitate. She grabbed an Amethyst Vine from Wan Wan's hand, intending to eat one on the spot. Although with Tang Wei's current cultivation level, staying youthful was easy, no woman could be judged by common sense when it came to beauty. Any method that promised to make them look better was an irresistible temptation. Everyone should understand that, right?

Wan Wan was equally enthusiastic. They were of one mind. She quickly pulled another one from the ground, and they began to work together—one retrieved water from a storage space, and the other washed the dirt off the roots. Once the dirt was cleared away, Tang Wei felt even more familiar with the plant, but she was too impatient to think about it now; she just wanted to eat it.

After washing them, Wan Wan handed one to Tang Wei and began to gnaw on her own rootless vine without a shred of decorum.

"We just eat it like this?" Tang Wei hesitated. This was a bit... unrefined.

Wan Wan, mouth full, mumbled, "Eat it or don't, it's up to you. I heard the best way to consume it is either refined into a pill or eaten raw."

"Oh! I see!" Beauty prevailed over reason, and Tang Wei followed suit, holding the tuber and taking a bite. The moment she took the first bite, she froze. This tasted exactly like a sweet potato from Earth! She forgot to chew, staring blankly at the Amethyst Vine, ignoring Wan Wan as she called out to her.

Once the purple skin of the root was bitten through, it revealed a pale, crystalline, purple-tinted interior. While it didn't look exactly like a sweet potato, one look at the leaves—which were only slightly tinged with purple—confirmed it: they were identical to the sweet potatoes of Earth. And the taste was exactly the same.

Tang Wei had grown up in the mountains and practically lived on sweet potatoes; she couldn't possibly mistake this staple food. She had only been confused by the color at first, but now everything made sense. No wonder she felt so familiar with the vegetation! It was just a sweet potato, likely mutated in some way that allowed it to store a trace of dense wood-attribute spiritual energy.