1216 Spending Some Time

Alex stopped worrying about Pearl right this moment. He had plenty of time to worry about when there weren't so many people around him.

Instead, he enjoyed the time he had around him.

Scarlet and senior Luhei went around the farm to check it out, while Alex and Graham stayed behind talking with Ronron to get to know her better.

Time passed and night fell. Once it was night, the two old mortals went to sleep, while the rest were fine without it.

They all sat around talking to each other until the morning came. Once it was morning, the older couple woke up and everyone went to help with the farm.

After a while, Ronron decided to take everyone to see some new movie that was popular right now. She drove them to the city where they spent their time at the movies.

They went around the city before returning back home after a wonderful time. The next day passed in a similar way as well.

Except, instead of returning home at night, Ronron had a different idea.

"Father, I hear there is a festival going around outside of the city, do you want to go see it?" she asked.

"Festival?" Alex mused to himself. "Sure, do you have spare money?"

"I told you, I have the card," she said.

"Will the card work in a festival?" Alex asked.

"They have the ticket system now, so yes a card works, let's go," she said and got everyone to get on the truck immediately.

There were way too many people to fit in the truck, so people had to sit in the back too.

While Whisker could stay wherever he wanted to, Graham and Pearl weren't capable of such a thing at all. As such, they had to choose who got to sit where.

The Snake let Graham sit in the front with his Granddaughter, while the rest of them stayed in the back.

Scarlet wasn't very picky this time around, so she too stayed behind as well.

Pearl took up most of the space, however. Due to his lack of ability to change his size freely due to the lack of Qi, he could only stay as a large cat.

Once everyone was ready, Ronron started driving and soon they were all on their way outside the city where the festival was being held.

Ronron parked in an empty spot and quickly ran off to get some tickets. She came back with a massive roll on her hand, surprising everyone that was there.

"Just how many tickets did you get?" Alex asked with a confused look.

"300 dollars worth," she said. "Why?"

"300?" both Alex and Graham's eyes went wide. "Isn't that... a little excessive?"

"It's just 300," Ronron shrugged. "Oh right, you guys are still living in the past. It's been 40 years, the world has moved on a lot and money has become less valuable. Inflation they call it. Come quickly or we will miss it."

Alex sighed and said nothing else. He walked in with everyone else and started enjoying the festival as well.

The festival was a lot different from the ones he remembered, mostly because most things seemed to have been digitalized. There were screens everywhere, even if it was just to advertise things to the people that came here.

The people around them acted rather weirdly as they walked. Not only were they all dressed in weird clothes, but there was also a massive cat along with them, which they didn't know what to do about.

If it were actually any other beast, they might have been terrified, but Pearl looked like a giant kitten, so they found him more cute than terrifying. Still, they didn't approach him on the off chance.

"Ooh, father! Do you want to try that?" she asked while pointing at a stall that was running a game where you had to get rings onto a standing stick. The smaller the ring you used, the better the reward you got.

Alex looked at the people trying out the game and realized they were cultivators too. He found it funny that they were trying to cheat the system by using Qi manipulation, but they were failing to do so as any Qi that left their body usually went out of their control thanks to the intent in this place.

"Sure, let's try that," he said. He walked over once the two people left and Ronron paid for some tickets for them to play.

"Are you guys cultivators too?" the owner of the stall asked with an awkward look on his face.

"Yes," Alex said. "Why do you ask?"

"Um... can you guys not play this please?" he asked. "You people are too good at this game. I have been losing money running this stall for the last two days."

Alex couldn't help but chuckle when he heard that. "Don't worry, even if we win, we won't take anything," he said.

"Will you?" the man asked excitedly.

"What? No! Father, I want that huge bear," Ronron quickly interjected.

"Uhh... maybe 1 then," Alex turned towards the man.

The man could only put on a sad face as he couldn't reject a customer now that they had come. If words got out, his business would die faster than it already was.

"Here you go," the man gave them the rings and Alex started throwing.

He rarely did things without Qi, so he wasn't sure how accurate he was going to be. However, the years of experience pretty much cemented themselves into him so that even without Qi, he never missed a single thing.

Every single ring he threw went onto the same pole. Even the one that was only slightly larger than the diameter of the stick easily went in.

Ronron was surprised to see such a performance as she wasn't very used to seeing stuff like that at all. "Father, you are so good at this," she said excitedly.

"It's more so that every cultivator is just too good at normal tasks," Alex said.

The stall owner took out the teddy bear from the stalls and dejectedly handed it over to Alex.

"Here you go," Alex handed it over to Ronron. "This is my first gift as a father. I will make sure to give you many more."

"It's so cute," Ronron cried out. "Thank you, father."

"Hold on, let your grandpa get you something too," Graham said as he moved up front.

The stall owner nearly went pale from imagining how much money he was going to lose right here with the crowd.

"Father, why don't you get something from a different staff? Let the gentleman here keep his business running," Alex said.

"Sure, that's fine with me," he said. "But I still want to play even if I don't want anything."

He turned around to his granddaughter, "Ronron, pay some for me too, will you?"

"Okay, grandpa," Ronron quickly answered and paid the stall owner some tickets to let Graham play.

After that, she played herself as well, and senior Luhei wanted to play a bit. Even Scarlet got a few throws in with her beak, which surprised the stall owner to no end.

After they were all satisfied with the stall, they left without taking anything else from the stall owner despite winning it all and went on to enjoy the rest of the festival.