Wearing a silky white nightgown taken out from her garment chest downstairs, Xiao Lan walked back into the room.

  What welcomed her return was the absurd sight of a boy lost in his own blissful world.

  Wearing a silly smile that made his face all the more disturbing, he was plucking items from the blue pouch in a frenzy and sending them away to heaven knows where.

  The serious demeanor was long gone. All that was left was a man long gone on the road of greed.

  Xiao Lan pursed her lips.

  Walking over to the bedside with a frosty face, she pnted the basin of water down, loud enough to alert the drunk driver and bring him back down to earth.

  Looking over just to see his facial paralysis waifu wringing a rag as if it had a grudge with her, Bubai’s euphoria faded like a fme smothered by a sudden chilling gust of winter.

  One man’s gain was another woman’s loss. It wasn’t something to be happy about.

  Stowing away his giddiness, he awkwardly cajoled, "Xiao Lan, I'll take you out to buy a new sword ter. And if you need spirit stones or anything else, just let me know."

  Xiao Lan coolly threw him a look. “Let the wind and rain pass first. I can wait.”

  Bubai couldn’t resist letting a warm smile spread across his face.

  "I must have saved a world in a past life to meet someone as considerate as you."

  Tenderly cupping Xiao Lan’s face, Bubai pnted a kiss on her forehead.

  As, his show of affection earned him nothing but an impassive look and a simple, “Clean.”

  “Haha…” Chuckling softly, Bubai backed away, wagging the pouch in his hand. "Let me put the rest of these away in cold storage. Won’t take long."

  Xiao Lan left him to his own device, bending over to scrub at a stubborn stain on the bed sides.

  Thanks to her robe’s silky gauze doing little to hide the light of spring, she was a very, very attractive distraction.

  But after admiring the hard-at-work beauty for a moment, Bubai tore his eyes away to focus on more important matters—pocketing his newfound wealth.

  The stretchy mouth of the pouch was opened wide...

  Item after item, Bubai transferred stuff out from Long Batian’s pouch…

  Either tossing them into his cramped spatial storage, stuffing them into his own coarse storage pouch, or sorting them into one of the temporary piles on the ground.

  Almost akin to a machine, Bubai let the wealth flow into his pockets, all the while letting his overactive brain specute their origins, mentally cataloging the few he recognized while sorting much more into the unknown pile for ter identification.

  Indeed, his time at the Book Pavilion and with the book fairy had earned him a lot of esoteric knowledge.

  He didn’t want to boast, but his knowledge, accumuted in this short span of months, probably far surpassed that of the average disciple!

  As… he was still just a frog at the bottom of the well.

  The world was vast and the wonders of nature were boundless.

  He wasn’t omnipotent nor was his cheat an appraisal system or some grandpa in a ring who can perform info dumping whenever given the chance.

  So, there was no way Bubai could identify everything with a single gnce.

  Heck, even for items he recognized, he couldn’t be certain regarding their specific age, whether they were damaged or had defects, and even their authenticity.

  Oh, the woes of not having a deep foundation.

  But a deep foundation wasn’t needed to clean out a storage pouch. He only needs a fast hand!

  There was no problemo here because his hands had... a lot of practice. Ahem.

  So, the storage pouch quickly emptied, leaving behind a barren, six-cubic-meter space.

  Bubai looked down at the stretchy pouch being deformed in his hands. Is this something he could keep?

  Obviously not.

  It was too easy for anyone, who actually uses their brain, to infer a link between the disappearance of Long Batian and his unannounced ownership of this pouch.

  While there was an option to alter its appearance to avoid recognition, it wasn't as simple as a dye job or masking its scent.

  The most critical issue y in its origins—a traceable history in the sect’s records!

  If caught with the pouch, it wouldn't withstand scrutiny or investigation without some serious whitewashing.

  After all, a mid-grade pouch like this didn't just fall from the sky.

  If Bubai could freely leave the sect, he could cim he “picked it up”, and cking evidence of the “friendship” between cultivators, others might turn a blind eye.

  As… he was no more than a caged bird.

  Trapped in the sect, there was no way he could pusibly find such a valuable magic tool except through the Exchange Pavilion or from a sponsor.

  The Exchange Pavilion undoubtedly keeps a record.

  On the other hand, a sponsor, like the granny, could speak out for him, but… was it worth it?

  Though Granny Shu was indeed kind to him, she wasn’t his real grandmother nor was he her closed-door disciple or adopted family member.

  For a semi-outsider like him, this umbrel had its limits.

  While the death of outer disciples might not matter much in her books, the circumstances would change for an inner disciple under another elder's wing.

  That could be enough to cast the die out of her favor.

  Even if Granny Shu was willing to cover him for Shu Ling’s sake, a fake record would always have a fw.

  Seriously, it would probably be cheaper for her to just get him a brand new pouch than to cover all the loopholes left by a fabricated history.

  Given these circumstances, keeping the pouch would only prove more trouble than good and would most likely come back to bite him in the future.

  Since this was the case, destroying all evidence was the manly way.

  Unfortunately, destroying a mid-grade storage pouch, especially its core, wasn't something easily accomplished without a self-destruction formation preinstalled.

  It didn’t take a seer to know that Bubai was incapable of destroying the pouch, especially since he can’t even give basic corpses the special “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” treatment.

  Bubai predicted the storage pouch would be a stumbling block beforehand, but he still dared to commit to sying the dragon because he already had pns in pce.

  The most cliché and common trick was to find a secluded spot to bury the pouch ten feet under.

  But this was a st resort. In fact, Bubai had another higher-priority pn...

  There was a hypothesis he had long wished to test.

  Bubai had always wanted to find a way to expand his spatial storage.

  For a while now, the only clue he had was left during his foundation establishment promotion, where his storage stretched and breathed for the first time ever.

  Initially, Bubai attributed this expansion to the sprouting of his mysterious seed.

  However, when he ter discovered both his storage pouches had been destroyed after that event, a haunting thought took root in his mind… what if he did the intuitive?

  As, it was a conjecture left untested, for there was never enough experimental material to even commence the research.

  He did have a low-grade pouch, but he simply couldn’t afford to destroy a magic tool worth 200 hard-earned contribution points just for an uncertain experiment.

  Even if he was sure it would work, he can’t proceed because he still needed that pouch for his other objectives. Sacrificing it would leave no time to earn enough points for a repcement.

  But now... he got his hands on a spare bag, one he had to dispose of anyway.

  With this pie from the sky, there was no harm in giving the green light to the experiment!

  Without further ado, Bubai’s divine sense bubbled forth, encasing the experimental subject in his hand.

  The tunnel to his own storage space was opened… the suction force brewed on his hand… the inertia acted the bag...

  Immediately, Bubai felt the familiar resistance, akin to pulling a firmly lodged boulder.

  To the naked eye, nothing seemed to be happening, much like when he tried to draw living creatures into his storage space.

  But under his innate senses attuned to the spatial tunnel leading to his spatial storage, Bubai actually vaguely sensed particles of unknown energy flowing into the tunnel!

  When this force was absorbed by his storage space, mystical changes were born!

  Kicking off this change were the tremors of his storage space, stronger than ever before.

  More and more particles melted into his little space...

  It wasn’t long before his consciousness detected the boundaries of his storage space slowly creeping outward!

  The signs couldn’t have been clearer—his storage was expanding!

  “Merlin! It’s... it’s actually working…” Breathless with excitement, Bubai directed his focus to the blue pouch quivering in his hand.

  In contrast to his smoothly expanding boundaries of his storage space...

  Cracks were appearing in the once stable space of the pouch, spider-webbing across the inner space’s boundaries like fragile ice sheet under pressure.

  All over the internal structure, fissures grew more and more until—Crunch!

  The pouch's space shattered like gss, splintering into countless shards that rained down like gss panes!

  All these shards were almost instantly sucked away by his spatial channel as if it was a vacuum sucking up dust!

  Absorbing the spatial force broken down from these shards, his own storage space exploded in proportions, eventually stopping just shy of six cubic meters.

  His cubic space now stood as tall as a two-story building from his past life and was spacious enough to fit four queen-size mattresses with plenty of room to spare!

  However, there was a noticeable discrepancy.

  Three cubic meters plus a block size exceeding six cubic meters had combined to give him just under six cubic meters. The math didn’t quite add up.

  It seemed some storage space was lost in transmission...

  But overall, the experimental results were good, to say the least.

  Looking at his expansive storage space, empty save for the mound of stuff sitting at its center, Bubai was washed by the pleasurable satisfaction of enjoying a hearty meal.

  Well… Nothing was more gratifying than seeing a bigger space to hide his stolen- ahem... his business acquisitions.

  Now, with so much more room in his secret storage, it felt a strangely... empty. So…

  Bubai surveyed the heaps of treasures strewn across the ground next to the bed. “Well, can’t just let them sit here. Time to fill’er up.”

  Deying no longer, Bubai scurried about, quickly stuffing the rest of the loot back into his newly expanded storage space.

  By the time he finished, the four previously-empty cardinal directions of his storage space were lined with heaps and crates!

  Satisfied, Bubai stuffed the blue cloth pouch into his sleeves, letting it join its green embroidered companion safely chilling in a box within his storage.

  Dusting off his hands, Bubai proudly looked over to his companion for praise over his hard work, only to see the cold-faced Xiao Lan wringing a bloody rag and shooting him a look that screamed, “Quit wasting time.”

  Why was she staring at him like that? Bubai’s agile mind quickly deduced the reason...

  Uh... to her, it probably just looked like he was moving stuff in and out of the storage pouches for seemingly no apparent reason.

  If he goes down this rabbit hole, he ultimately finds himself in scker wondernd...

  Innocently blinking back at her, Bubai grabbed a rag. "Okay, okay. I'm ready to help..."

  As… before Bubai could double down on his cleaning duties, the ominous rumbling of the tower entrance downstairs heralded the arrival of an unwelcome guest.

  Likewise, Xiao Lan didn’t miss the announcement and the couple exchanged a gnce.

  Dropping his rag next to Xiao Lan, Bubai hopped off the bed, quietly leaving a voice transmission behind.

  “Do your best to hide and tidy up. I’ll go stall.”