Song Baiyu woke up from his meditation to find the stars twinkling outside the window. He looked at the time and found it was already past 8 o'clock in the evening, while he had only started meditating at a little past 1 o'clock in the afternoon.

  When Song Baiyu opened his phone, he found that there were several missed calls, all of which were made by Su Tingting, and the earliest call record was actually made an hour ago.

  "Oh no, I was so focused on my cultivation that I forgot Su Tingting was supposed to help me buy herbs today." Remembering Su Tingting's angry expression, Song Boyu had a feeling of impending doom.

  Song Baiyu's face revealed a bitter smile as he quickly dialed Su Tingting's phone number.

  "Song, what's going on? I've been calling you for half a day and no one picked up. Do you still want the medicine or not..." Su Tingting complained loudly as soon as the call connected.

  Because of losing the argument, Song Baiyu didn't dare to make a sound. What surprised him was that after Su Tingting complained for a few sentences, her voice suddenly became gentle and asked for Song Baiyu's home address before hanging up the phone.

  When Song Baiyu saw Su Tingting bring back a whole truckload of herbs with a large lorry, he was stunned. He had searched the entire main city with great difficulty and couldn't find two stalks of herbs, but she managed to bring back a whole truckload at once.

  Su Tingting was also stunned at this time, she had always been unaware of Song Boyu's address. Just now when Song Boyu mentioned the Dingxiang neighborhood on the phone, she didn't pay attention to it either. It wasn't until after she hung up the phone that she reacted and thought about it - Dingxiang neighborhood, isn't that a famous rich district in Jinyang City? How could Song Boyu, an outsider and small police officer, possibly live there? Not until someone drove the truck to the Dingxiang neighborhood and saw Song Boyu standing at the entrance of the neighborhood waiting for her did she confirm this was true. However, it set off a huge storm in her heart.

  "Shi Song, Jīn Máo Gǒu Jǐ, Cuì Yún Cǎo, Shuǐ Lóng Gǔ, Cū Jiāng Lín Máo Jiǎo……” Song Baiyu didn't notice the abnormal expression on Su Tingting's face. He muttered to himself, reciting the familiar names of medicinal herbs, and his smile grew thicker. After a long while, he excitedly put his arm around Su Tingting's shoulder and said loudly: "Tingting, great! How much money did you spend to fill up this whole truck with medicinal herbs? I'll give it all to you."

  "You haven't spent the 20,000 yuan I gave you yet, this is what's left." Before she could react, Song Boyu had already put his arm around her shoulder. Su Tingting was like a startled rabbit, quickly wriggling out of Song Boyu's arm and pulling out a stack of money from her pocket to hand over to him. Her face was burning with embarrassment, even the back of her neck was red.

  "Isn't it? This is a whole truckload of herbs, and it's only over 10,000 yuan?" Song Baiyu nodded at the 8,000 yuan handed to him by Su Tingting, looking at her suspiciously.

  "These herbs are all wild and grow on the mountain, they don't cost any money. The money spent was for labor costs, food and transportation." Seeing Song Baiyu not believing her, Su Tingting turned to a person beside her and called out: "Brother, tell him, are these herbs valuable?"

  Song Baiyu only then noticed that, apart from Su Tingting, there were five sturdy young men with dark skin, wearing simple clothes with many tears and bloodstains visible, but each of their faces wore a silly smile.

  The person called by Su Tingting was about 23 or 24 years old, wearing a thick coat, with a dark face. When Su Tingting asked him to speak, he scratched the back of his head and said awkwardly: "This boss is right, the medicinal herbs on the mountain can be dug up for free, we don't need any money. We mountain people usually dig some for our own use, occasionally sell some to the Chinese medicine shops in the county town. Today this boss gave each of us 300 yuan, which is enough for a month's living expenses, so today we dug all day and then helped send them over."

  When the mountain people spoke, several others nearby also chimed in, and even those who didn't speak up nodded vigorously when Song Baiyu's gaze swept over them.

  It wasn't until then that Song Baiyu completely believed Su Tingting's words and looked at Su Tingting's ability to handle things in a new light.

  "Tingting, you're amazing!" Song Boyu looked at Su Tingting with admiration and then said to the others, "Trouble you guys to help move all the herbs into the courtyard and plant them well. Consider this money as everyone's tobacco and wine expenses."

  Song Baiyu gave another 100 yuan bill to everyone who spoke up.

  Seeing that there was more money to be had, a cheer rose up from the crowd. The fatigue on their faces seemed to have lessened somewhat as they immediately became busy again.

  Song Baiyu's yard was very large, and after estimating the space that the full load of medicinal herbs would occupy, he had no choice but to move all the potted plants in the yard indoors to make room for the herbs.

  After being busy for nearly two hours, the full truck of herbs was finally moved into Song Baiyu's yard, and Song Baiyu's originally somewhat empty yard now looked crowded.

  After seeing those mountain people leave, Su Tingting couldn't hold back her curiosity and shock, and asked Song Boyu with a nervous mood: "Brother Song, is this house yours?"

  "Yes, it's beautiful. The decoration of this house was all designed by me personally." Song Baiyu's mind was completely focused on the medicinal herbs in the courtyard at this time, and he didn't notice Su Tingting's unusual expression at all.

  "Song, it's late tonight, I'll head back first." Seeing Song Baiyu staring at the medicinal herbs in the courtyard with a distracted expression, Su Tingting's heart felt like it was being cut by a knife as she bid farewell.

  "Ah, wait, take this money and buy yourself two new sets of clothes." Hearing that Su Tingting was about to leave, Song Boyu hesitated for a moment. He pulled out a stack of cash from his pocket, which was exactly the amount Su Tingting had returned to him earlier.

  "No... never mind, I was just joking with you last night, my family has a lot of clothes." Su Tingting's eyes were filled with tears, and her eyes became red and swollen.

  "Tingting, what's wrong with you? Are you feeling unwell?" Song Boyu only then discovered Su Tingting's abnormality and asked with concern. Unfortunately, he who didn't understand the emotions between men and women couldn't guess the little girl's complicated thoughts at all.

  "It's nothing, I just dug in the mountains all day and got dust in my eyes. Song Dage, I'll go first." Su Tingting rubbed her eyes and turned to walk towards the door.

  "It's been a tiring day, I should head back and rest early. Another day, Brother Song will treat you to dinner again, thank you so much." Only then did Song Baiyu notice that Su Tingting, who was usually dressed neatly, had a dirty body today, and her face looked very tired.

  Su Tingting softly said "en", didn't dare look back again, and hastily left Song Boyu's home.

  After hearing the "bang" of the door closing behind her, Su Tingting's tears could no longer be held back, flowing down her cheeks as her frail shoulders shook helplessly.

  "It turns out that some things can't be achieved just by working hard, Song Dage isn't the small policeman I imagined, we're from two completely different worlds." Ten minutes later, Su Tingting wiped away her tears and muttered a sentence to herself before quickly leaving Dingxiang Community.

  Song Baiyu did not know what was happening outside his door, and he was standing in his yard with a look of excitement on his face.

  Looking at the dense and uneven medicinal herbs, Song Baiyu's mind quickly turned to his previous experience in the True Cultivation Sect's medicine garden. Now that he had this small courtyard, wasn't it just a small medicine garden? If it was a medicine garden, then it should have the appearance of one; it couldn't be treated like ordinary ornamental plants.

  As he thought of this, Song Baiyu's body moved quickly. Only to see the medicinal herbs flying around under his movements, falling onto specific positions.

  Half an hour later, Song Baiyu stopped his movements, and fine sweat beads also appeared on his forehead. His hands and body were covered with mud, but he forgot to wipe them off, instead standing there with a smile, looking at a peculiar pattern made up of various medicinal herbs.

  The medicinal herbs in the courtyard are no longer randomly placed, but are arranged in a specific pattern to form an array - the Spirit Gathering Array. Many cultivation sects can create Spirit Gathering Arrays, but if made with the same materials, the arrays created by Song Baiyu's sect gather spiritual energy several times thicker than those of other sects.

  The Spirit Gathering Formation, as the name suggests, is a formation that can gather the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. It actively gathers the free-floating spiritual energy between heaven and earth through the nodes of the formation, causing the concentration of spiritual energy within the formation to reach a relatively high level, thereby achieving specific purposes.

  Song Baiyu's previous life's cultivation sect had a super luxurious Spirit Gathering Array in the medicine garden. At first, Song Baiyu didn't understand why they would put such an array in the medicine garden instead of the training grounds. After multiple observations and comparisons, he finally discovered that the sect's method was absolutely correct.

  Because under the same soil, climate and management methods, the medicinal herbs covered by the Spirit Array not only grow and develop quickly, but also contain a much higher amount of spiritual energy from heaven and earth. Moreover, they will never suffer from diseases or pests. For an alchemy-based sect, what could be more important than medicinal herbs?

  Although the spiritual gathering array in front of me is simple, it's because of the limitations of materials and power that I can only do this for now. I'll improve it later when I have the chance. Besides, they're just some ordinary herbs, there's no need to invest too much financially.

  Seeing the Spirit Gathering Array of the Cultivation Realm reappear in his hands, Song Baiyu eagerly entered the courtyard and soon entered a state of quiet meditation.

  As the Spring and Autumn Decision began to operate within Song Baiyu's body, the heavenly spiritual energy surrounding his body also underwent a transformation. Thin strands of green light emanated from various medicinal herbs, weaving together in mid-air into a thin veil as delicate as a cicada's wing. Song Baiyu's body was like a massive magnet, drawing this green veil towards him. Before long, this veil, condensed from the heavenly spiritual energy, covered his body and surged into his internal organs through the Spiritual Platform, finally being transformed by Song Baiyu's Heart Method into his own innate Inner Breath.

  As time passed, Song Baiyu's body began to undergo a strange transformation. A layer of dark, oily grime seeped out through his skin and onto the surface of his body, and a seductive medicinal fragrance slowly wafted up around him, but this fragrance only condensed around Song Baiyu's body and did not disperse with the wind.

  Song Baiyu woke up from his meditation to find that he had reached the peak of the initial stage of Qi refinement, and was on the verge of a breakthrough. The originally egg-sized inner energy sphere had expanded by a full circle, comparable in size to an infant's fist.

  "This Spirit Gathering Array has really helped me out, I must thank Su Tingting properly when I get back." Thinking of Su Tingting's delicate and charming face, a smile appeared on Song Boyu's face.

  Um, asking for two recommendation votes!