Chapter 45: The Distinction Between Master and Servant Must Be Clear

Upon hearing Mo Ying’s feeble counter-question, Feng Xue immediately realized he had guessed right and nodded promptly.

"It is true. I do have quite a few textbooks on various painting techniques here. As long as you are willing to cooperate with me in using your spells, I can provide them to you."

Feng Xue was not making an empty promise. For his transmigration, he had stored a massive amount of textual data on his memory card—ranging from the Twenty-Four Histories to the Barefoot Doctor’s Manual, from master calligraphies to simplified manufacturing methods for demolition equipment. You could say he had everything covered, even the Four Books and Five Classics, and various treatises on military strategy. Basically, any content he could think of had been copied. After all, these voluminous works, even with translations and commentaries included, were not particularly large; several hundred books combined might not even take up the storage space of a single high-definition video.

From basic tutorials to advanced schools, and even simplified editions for toddlers and children, giving them to a phantom ghost who struggled with clipping through objects as an introductory guide should not be a problem at all.

"..." Meeting Feng Xue's resolute gaze, Mo Ying peered suspiciously from behind the rock. After locking eyes with him for a moment, she finally sighed as if she had resigned herself to her fate.

"I have to listen to you whether I cooperate or not anyway. Fine, fine, I'll send you out now..."

"No rush!" Feng Xue extended a hand and took a step forward, resting one foot on the large boulder, leaning one hand against his knee with the demeanor of a hoodlum looking for trouble. "Speaking of which, you seemed to have told me to scram earlier..."

"Ah, well, who told you..." Mo Ying began to stutter instantly, but Feng Xue did not give her a chance to explain. He leaned forward again, wrapped an arm around the female ghost's slender waist, and, giving her no room to struggle, laid her light body across his knees, laughing heartily.

"Ever since you kicked me out last time, I made up my mind. Once I learned the Ghost-Taming Incantation, I was going to thoroughly spank your backside!"

"Wahhhhhh! Let me out! Out! Let me out!"

Feng Xue originally thought he would be ejected, but after a long while, nothing happened. He suddenly realized that without his permission, Mo Ying couldn't even sever the connection, and a ferocious grin immediately spread across his face.

"Oh? Growing some spine, are you? Once wasn't enough, so you had to go for a second time?"

"Ah, it was my fault, my fault! Don't hit me! Wahhhh! Why does a ghost still feel pain?!"

...

"Phew..." In the early morning, Feng Xue woke from a hazy slumber. Feeling the lingering vital energy around him, he couldn't help but recall the dream from the previous night.

Looking back now, it was difficult to distinguish which part had been a mental interaction and which part was the dream that followed, but it was undeniable that the heat stirred up by Liu Yunxi over the past few days had finally dissipated somewhat.

Though it hadn't been as intense as when he bathed the two fox-spirit sisters back then, Mo Ying put up such a feeble front while trying to act detached and ethereal that forcing her boundaries all at once would have been rather boring. Progressing step by step allowed for a complete experience of the entire interactive process.

Compared to a technician encountered in the wilderness, it was much better to slowly savor one's own private land.

Feng Xue certainly knew that pulling a stunt like this right after Mo Ying's attitude had softened would inevitably make their relationship stiffen up again. However, ghosts and humans were ultimately different; without the interference of bodily hormones, they were prone to extreme emotional fluctuations.

Although Feng Xue had temporarily reached a truce with her through "lucrative enticements," this behavior would also cause the phantom ghost to naturally treat their interactions as a transaction, which was extremely detrimental to establishing a master-servant dynamic.

Rather than letting this phantom ghost think he was easy to negotiate with and having to bargain every time he needed her help, it was better to first administer a severe deterrent to make her understand who the master was. That way, any benefits bestowed would transform from a "fee for services rendered" into a "reward for a job well done." Although things were given in both cases, the significance was entirely different.

"Achoo!" Sensing that Feng Xue had woken up, Liu Yunxi felt a sympathetic sensation and let out a tiny sneeze, but she immediately adjusted her composure and knocked on the door.

"Breakfast is ready."

"Oh, coming right now!" Feng Xue replied, reaching out to grab the scroll from the bedside table.

"Handle the remaining vital energy; don't waste it!"

"Mm..." A voice as faint as a mosquito's buzzing echoed in Feng Xue's mind. Feng Xue smiled inwardly, but knowing he needed to offer a sweet treat to restore some favorability, he took out his phone, found a document on preschool traditional Chinese painting initiation, set it to automatic page-turning, and spoke to the scroll:

"Here are the textbooks I promised you. I've set it to turn pages automatically, about one page every ten breaths. Just watch for now, and let me know later if it's too fast or too slow!"

...

Leaving the bedroom, Feng Xue saw that Liu Yunxi, dressed in her maid outfit, had already served breakfast on the table. Enjoying Liu Yunxi's increasingly exquisite culinary skills, Feng Xue ate while pulling out *Decoding Jade* to study.

By now, he had already farmed all kinds of basic-level entries, but many spells could not be completed with just the basics. Modular spells were like seals; as long as they were stamped onto paper, they could leave complex and delicate patterns, but placing them in the exact right spot still required Feng Xue's own micromanagement.

If Feng Xue locking down the [Spirit Attachment] trait was akin to "hand-in-hand" learning that generated "muscle memory" and enhanced his sense of precise magic power control, then *Decoding Jade* was about truly putting that feeling into practice once it was acquired, blending various properties of magic power through execution.

After a hastily eaten meal, Feng Xue casually fished out a palm-length, nearly two-centimeter-thick scrap piece from a sack, shaped like an hourglass with its narrowest point being only the width of a willow leaf.

This item was clearly the leftover piece left between the positions of two bracelets when cutting them. Feng Xue produced a water-based pen, mapped out and segmented it according to the cutting plan described in *Decoding Jade*, and extracted two prototype jade pieces slightly larger than copper coins. The remaining debris and fragments would not go to waste either. Apart from serving as ritual catalysts, as his Jade-Nourishing technique progressed, these materials could also be used to absorb jade essence and replace flaws. Eventually, when the Jade-Nourishing technique reached a certain realm, molding a pile of jade powder back into a complete piece of jade might not even be out of the question.

Normal profound practitioners would not waste precious magic power on such things, but Feng Xue's magic power was inexhaustible.

Thinking of this, Feng Xue glanced sideways at Liu Yunxi, who had already finished clearing the plates, and immediately beckoned to her.

"Yunxi, help me sort the materials in the sack by size and completeness! Don't worry about quality, just follow this standard!"

"Eh? Oh!" Liu Yunxi, still somewhat unaccustomed to being called by her name, froze for a moment before walking over. Looking at the page of fragment grading from *Decoding Jade* that Feng Xue showed her, she nodded, though she remained slightly bewildered.

Well, repaying a debt—what difference did it make how she did it!