A Strange Journey to the Heavenly Palace Part 1

Since there were no acquaintances around, Lu Qiancha couldn’t be bothered to waste spiritual energy.
With a thought.

“Poof—” The faint light of the Myriad Phantoms Mirage Art around her body silently dissipated like a bubble.

Her deep blue, fluffy tail was once again exposed to the air of the Moon Palace, which was filled with clear light and stardust.
The true form of the little wolf girl was revealed without a doubt.

Lu Qiancha’s eyes shone brightly, precisely locking onto the uniquely colored, radiant, and spiritually rich heavenly treasures among the nearby hills and crystalline vegetation.

Many immortal herbs from mortal pharmacopoeias grew wantonly in this moonlit treasure land, as if they were worthless weeds.

Lu Qiancha’s heart surged.
She strode forward, her little paws itching to pick them.

“Rustle, rustle, rustle—!”

From a nearby thicket of crystalline vines, a sudden, violent shaking occurred.

An enormous, snow-white shadow abruptly emerged.

The shadow it cast almost instantly enveloped the small wolf girl completely.

It was a giant rabbit, snow-white all over, with long, fluffy fur, the tips of which seemed to be studded with moonlight.

It was at least two heads taller than Lu Qiancha after she had dropped her disguise, and on its back, it carried a huge basket that emitted a soft, bamboo fragrance.

“!!!”

Lu Qiancha’s pupils instantly contracted, her paw frozen in mid-air, the corner of her mouth twitching uncontrollably.
‘This rabbit, why is it so big?!’

“This is a medicine-picking Moon Rabbit, a fairly common resident in these palace gardens.” Xun Xue’s voice came, tinged with a familiar smile.
“Don’t be fooled by its astonishing size; it’s actually very docile.”

As she spoke, she had already walked forward and, with extreme naturalness, reached out to gently stroke the tip of the giant Moon Rabbit’s long ear, which was like a white cloud.
“Little Qiancha, come and touch it? The feel is even warmer and softer than top-grade cloud silk~”

Lu Qiancha hesitated for a moment, but ultimately couldn’t resist the temptation.

She extended her paw and carefully placed it on the Moon Rabbit’s back, which was as thick as a velvet blanket.

Sure enough, the fluffy, warm sensation went straight to the palm of her paw, as if she had reached into a freshly sun-dried quilt warmed by the sun.

But when Lu Qiancha pressed down, she felt the firm, tough contours of muscles beneath the fur, as if cast from fine iron.

“Tsk…” Lu Qiancha withdrew her paw and pouted, commenting inwardly: ‘It’s big, and it’s warm, that’s true, but it has too many muscles.
It’s hard and firm, not good for rua, bad review.’

“Jiji.”

The giant rabbit seemed completely unconcerned by their critique.
Its huge pink eyes glanced at Lu Qiancha, and then it went about its business, hopping away.
Each step landed with a dull echo.

It hopped to a nearby patch of fluorescent grass, bent down, and with its thick paws, nimbly and swiftly uprooted several perfectly-formed medicinal herbs.
It tossed them casually yet precisely backward—”Swish! Swish!” With a few light sounds, the herbs landed steadily in the large bamboo basket on its back.

When it got tired, it would lazily lie down on the spot, its giant teeth crunching off a few crystalline leaves with a “crack,” making a crisp sound like chewing on candy.

“…” Lu Qiancha watched with envy, pointing a paw at the radiant medicinal garden, and turned to look at Xun Xue.
“These… can I pick some?”

Lu Qiancha’s eyes were filled with longing.

“Go ahead and pick~” Xun Xue smiled warmly, waving the jade token in her hand.
“With the ‘Moon’ token, you are a guest of the Moon Palace.
These Moon Rabbits are lazy by nature.
As long as you don’t stop them from working or touch the treasures in their baskets… no one will bother us.”

“Mm!”

Hearing this, Lu Qiancha instantly cast aside any reservations.
Her small, deep blue figure darted into the patch of exotic herbs like a butterfly flitting through flowers.

Her little paws were as fast as lightning.
Those she recognized, those she hadn’t seen but were rich in spiritual energy, those that caught her eye—all were plucked!

Her storage pouch was like a glutton with a gaping mouth, greedily swallowing all kinds of radiant Moon Palace immortal herbs.

In a short while, the bag was stuffed to the brim.

A super huge harvest!

Seeing her daughter satisfied with her picking, Xun Xue finally spoke leisurely, “Let’s go~ I’ll take you to the master’s house up ahead for a cup of tea.
An old… um… friend of Mama’s lives there.”

“Okay~” Lu Qiancha’s mind was still busy counting her treasures.
She answered casually, but her feet followed without hesitation.

A clear, cold wind blew across the soft, fluorescent grass, bringing with it an unseasonable… “Croak, croak, croak…”

It was the sound of a few loud, rough, metallic frog croaks.

Lu Qiancha followed the sound with her eyes.

Not far away, in a calm, clear pool of water, three golden toads, as large as millstones and glittering with golden light, were floating.

Seeing these golden toads, Lu Qiancha finally understood why there were legends in the mortal world of golden toads bringing wealth…

Just as she was thinking, one of the golden toads seemed to be disturbed by a flying insect.
It unhurriedly twisted its millstone-sized body, and its gold-armored belly suddenly bulged.

“Pop!”

After a dull exhalation, a glittering, square-holed golden coin shot out with a sharp whistle that tore through the air!

“Splat!”

The pitiful little flying insect burst apart on impact.

Only then did the golden toad slowly, with the gait of an emperor inspecting his territory, move forward, its tongue flicking out to swallow the insect’s corpse.

Almost at the same time—

“Ding~”

With a pleasant, crisp sound, a fist-sized, translucent gemstone, with a purple nebula swirling inside, rolled off the golden toad and bounced onto the stardust-covered path.

“Heh~ Good luck.” Xun Xue smiled.
With a flick of her slender hand, she retrieved the object from a distance.
The purple-glowing gemstone landed steadily in her palm and was then stuffed into Lu Qiancha’s arms.
“Here, you’ve caught some ‘good fortune’.”

Lu Qiancha held the purple, glittering stone, turning it left and right under the starlight, and even injected some spiritual energy to inspect it.

After a long while, Lu Qiancha suddenly came to a conclusion: ‘Hmm… aside from being pretty and glowing… it seems… no different from a pretty pebble by the roadside? It can’t be used for refining artifacts or pills.’

“This thing doesn’t seem to be very useful.”

Lu Qiancha said with a frown.
This stone could probably only be exchanged for some gold and silver in the mortal world.

“Isn’t being pretty its greatest use?”

Xun Xue blinked, her tone perfectly justified.

“…I don’t really understand.”

The corner of Lu Qiancha’s mouth twitched.
With a flip of her hand, she put the purple gemstone, a purely “pretty” collector’s item, into her pouch.

‘When I get out, I’ll give it to junior sister as a Water Moon Festival gift.’

Bypassing the medicinal garden and grasslands, a new scene suddenly appeared before them.

Lu Qiancha saw a small Moon Rabbit, about half a person’s height, jade-colored all over, as if carved from ice marrow and cold jade.

It was standing upright on its hind legs, its two front paws tightly gripping a pestle that was a full two meters long, with a large, round, cyan jade ball the size of a basketball embedded at the end.

The Moon Rabbit was pounding vigorously in a large stone mortar in front of it with an extremely regular rhythm.

With each strike, the medicinal qi in the mortar, like clouds and mist, billowed up, bringing with it a chilly and dim, exotic fragrance.

Lu Qiancha: “…”

She looked at the rabbit’s paws, which were gripping the giant pestle as steady as a mountain, and then looked at her own paws…

A sense of frustration inexplicably rose in Lu Qiancha’s heart.
‘Why is this rabbit’s grip so strong? And my paws… they’re neither useful nor good-looking.’