I was curious as to the reason she had decided to visit my clinic. In the first place I wasn’t sure how she’d figured out this was where I lived, given that its current fame among the citizens of Three River City was due to Xiao Cui’s stamina concoctions, rather than my own healing abilities.
Unfortunately for her, I had bigger priorities than seeking out a brothel mistress for entertainment. I’d narrowed down the myriad ingredients in the various remedies and pills I’d tested down to a few of the most potent and least toxic and planned to stock up on them in preparation for my tests.
The main obstacle to my goals was that most of the shops which stocked the ingredients I required would massively overcharge me for even a small quantity. Also, if they caught wind of me attempting to purchase larger quantities they might suspect me of being a new competitor.
I was a new competitor, but giving them advance warning wouldn’t be beneficial to my plans. I needed to figure out my recipe in secret and then flood the market overnight, catching the rest of the city’s alchemists and herbalists off guard.
My healing techniques were far superior to theirs, but as the saying goes even a dragon cannot suppress the local snake. I would be a fool to move so blatantly and let the competition know my every move.
Instead of attempting to purchase larger quantities, I enlisted little Cui and the village head to help me in buying small quantities of every ingredient from various shops around the city. We convened at the end of the day, so that I could figure out whether I would need to make another shopping trip or not.
For the majority of the ingredients on the list we’d acquired enough between the three of us that I could experiment for a month without running out—although that depended largely on how quickly my skills improved. While Granny Yu had avoided Rejuvenating Spirit Grass for her healing tonics, I decided to use it.
I believed her decision was due to the large quantity of impurities in the commonly found grass. However, I could avoid that problem with the near perfect efficiency of my stomach which removed most of the toxins and impurities during the refining process.
Alongside the grass, the basic ingredients I planned to use were Sparkcap Amanitas, Powdered Beast Cores, and Pulsing Hibiscus petals. They were all common ingredients present in many of the pills I’d tested and the ones that would synergise best.
However, there was a slight problem. Of all the ingredients I required, there was one particular ingredient which none of us had managed to acquire—ten year ash bark.
Plenty of the herbalists had regular ash bark, which they had tried to sell us with increasing levels of persuasion and frustration, but I specifically needed the potent spiritual energy contained within ten year ash bark for my recipe.
That unfortunately meant that I would need to make another detour outside the city before beginning my experiments. I could choose a substitute ingredient of course, but I had a feeling that would lead to a subpar final product.
I intended to produce the highest quality pill possible, in order to give the people of the city the greatest healing at the lowest possible cost. Besides, my own pride wouldn’t allow me to create something that wasn’t the absolute limit of my abilities.
Of course, without a real grounding in alchemy or assistance from a skilled master, I could be making poor decisions guided by arrogance. Unfortunately, lacking such a master I would have to stumble forwards and learn from my failures.
The best case scenario would be to succeed, learning little but benefiting greatly. An easy and prosperous life was the dream of any human, be they mortal or cultivator.
****
I’d feared a repeat of my brief journey to the Jagged Sword Mountains when going on a trip to acquire the ten year ash bark. A short detour that had turned into a chaotic battle and led to me almost losing my life multiple times.
That risk had brought an ample reward in the form of multiple breakthroughs and the rekindling of my friendship with Wang Ren. However, I did not have the luxury of time right now and couldn’t afford for another world shaking treasure like the Ten Ascensions Lily to appear.
Thankfully the place I was travelling was a lot less popular with local cultivators. Mostly it was herbalists and alchemists who came to Silent Wind Glade to gather ingredients.
I spotted a few as I made my way through the grassy knolls of Silent Wing Glade, harvesting various herbs and spiritual plants. A few nodded my way but we didn’t interact much. All of them had some level of cultivation, though it was restricted to the Body Tempering Realm.
I’d learned during my research that distinguishing spirit herbs which had reached milestones such as Ten-Year or Hundred-Year was rather simple once you knew what to look for. The spiritual energy was far more condensed, having gathered over a longer period or due to unusual circumstances.
While the phrases ten year or hundred year were used, or even thousand year in the case of exceptionally rare instances, it didn’t always take that length of time for a herb to accumulate enough spiritual energy. That was just how long it would take if only the natural energy of the world was absorbed by the plant.
Due to my talent at sensing different forms of energy, an ability I’d possessed since arriving in this world and had yet to make sense of, I didn’t believe this particular task would pose too much difficulty.
****
I sighed, sitting at the base of yet another ash tree that was more spiritually potent than its peers but hadn’t quite crossed the threshold into being a ten year specimen. My hubris had led me to believe this would be an easy search but thus far I was finding it frustratingly difficult.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
I glanced around, frowning at the rustling grass. Someone had been following me for the past hour or so as I went around Silent Wind Glade.
At first I had ignored their antics, as they were just a three-star Body Tempering practitioner and posed no threat to me. However, it was getting a little annoying having a stranger tail me.
“Stop hiding, you’re not very good at it,” I called out, chuckling as a startled man jumped out from the tall grass.
He was wearing robes that I’d seen before. One of the larger alchemy pavilions had a sort of uniform, all their alchemists wearing the same forest green robes with red trim as the man before me.
The Jade Cauldron Association wasn’t the richest group of alchemists in Three River City, nor did they have the most talented alchemists in their employ. They did however, have the greatest number of them.
Why one of their number was following me around as I searched for magic tree bark was a mystery. The worst case scenario was that they had somehow figured out my intentions or guessed at them through my shopping trips and had sent a spy to confirm them.
Given how startled he seemed at being noticed, I wondered if they even knew the extent of my cultivation. If they had, I doubted they would’ve tried to send such an obvious weakling to tail me.
His face was pale and while I was lost in thought he tried to make his escape. I instantly crossed the distance between us, appearing in front of him as he fell on his backside in shock.
“Don’t even try it. Who sent you?” I demanded.
Of all the responses I was expecting, from the man cracking and spilling his secrets all the way to outright denial, what he actually did hadn’t even made the list. Before I could stop him, crunched something between his teeth and his eyes rolled back into his head.
I leapt forward and shoved my fingers into his mouth to try and fish out whatever he’d swallowed, but it was futile. As his mouth started foaming and his body convulsed I turned to my healing technique.
However, I was too late. My technique was ridiculously powerful, able to heal almost any injury or affliction.
What it couldn’t do was revive the dead. Not yet, anyway. I cursed at the sky, angry and confused at the senseless loss of life.
The confusion dominated the anger. Getting caught wasn’t a great look for the Jade Cauldron Association, but it shouldn’t have warranted such a severe reaction.
For the man to kill himself to avoid questioning…? I suspected that the person who sent him was either working to their own purposes from within the Jade Cauldron Association or simply using the alchemy group as a cover.
When I returned to the city I would investigate, but as I had come all the way out here I wasn’t going to return without finding what I sought. First, I approached the man’s corpse and searched through his belongings.
Looting the dead was distasteful, but I wasn’t above taking the possessions of someone who’d been collecting information about me for undoubtedly nefarious purposes. Throwing away dessert when it falls from the sky is the act of a fool.
Unfortunately he seemed to have been well prepared for his untimely demise. There was very little of value stored on his body. Six silver coins and three coppers, which wasn’t a bad haul, but aside from the meagre wealth there was only a plain jade and some distasteful pills.
After collecting everything, I stored the man’s body in my storage bag. The bag didn’t stop the effects of time entirely, but I noticed it reduced it to a negligible crawl while objects were stored inside. Once that was sorted, I resumed my search with renewed vigour.
****
Yu Chun stared at the rune inscribed jade in her hands with simmering rage in her eyes as the nasal voice of her employer scratched at her ears. At that moment she wanted nothing more than to crush the piece of magic rock worth more than her entire parlour, but she had no doubts about the grisly fate that her employer would bring about if she dared defy him.
“My patience wears thin, whore. I don’t care what you need to do to keep him occupied, just ensure it is done. You have until the end of the week to get Zhao alone or I will find another rotten tofu seller to carry out my orders. There is no shortage of desperate bitches in this city. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you are unique, Yu Chun,” Councillor Gao snarled as the glowing inscriptions faded from the air and sank into the now inert jade.
She almost smashed her desk in fury as the communication ended. However, Yu Chun knew herself to be better than Gao Deng Luo, at least when it came to comporting oneself with dignity.
In that regard, the snivelling rat was no better than a common street thug. “If not for the influence of his clan…” she sighed.
A knock at the door broke her from her daydreams and she moved to unlock it after ensuring the hidden drawer in her desk was once more hidden from sight. Opening it, she found a scowling Du Wen waiting outside.
“I am rather busy and not in the most pleasant of moods, Du Wen. What is it this time?” she demanded, rubbing her temple as she returned to her padded chair.
“Everyone is complaining about losing money. I can’t imagine that as the proprietress the situation is much better for you. Now, we’ve known each other since the day we slid out of our mother’s wombs into the stinking gutters of this rotten city, so I know that you wouldn’t do this without a compelling reason,” he began, gently closing the door behind him and taking a seat opposite her.
“The rest of them don’t know that. There’s been talk of ousting you. Feng Li Mei has been spreading rumours and gathering support. She has enough to make a move,” he slid a hand across the cherry wood desk, grimacing at the dust that gathered at the tips of his fingers. “You aren’t usually this messy. I need to know why.”
Yu Chun let out a deep sigh, sinking into the chair as she allowed Du Wen to see a side of herself that no one else in the city was allowed a glimpse at. “I can’t tell you much, unless you want to put yourself in danger.”
“Life for a man like me is dangerous by nature. Powerful men with that kind of secret don’t enjoy having it walking around. Tell me, Yu Chun,” Du Wen chuckled, his tone whimsical but his eyes painting the sorrowful truth.
“Gao,” she replied, meeting his gaze with an equally pained stare.
He sighed. “How did you get yourself tangled up in this nonsense again, little Chun? I thought we left that life behind when you managed to scrape together the money for this place.”
Du Wen never called her that unless he was burning with the fury of the heavens. The last time he had called her little Chun had been the night Long Bao had… She opened her mouth to explain but he raised a hand to cut her off.
“Don’t say anything else. I know their filthy fingers are shoved into every dark crevice of the city, but I prefer to live in ignorant bliss. I will handle Feng Li Mei, but I won’t be able to delay her long. A week at most,” he conceded, standing up and walking to the door.
“Thank you, Wen. A past like ours is not easy to escape. As you know, heaven’s net is wide and its mesh inescapable. In this city, the Gao Clan are the heavens beyond the heavens. All we can do is struggle and pray we aren’t devoured first.”
Du Wen scoffed, shaking his head as he walked out the door. “You aren’t as profound as your ego would have you believe, Yu Chun. Leave that to the old hag.”
The lock of the door clicked shut behind him. She turned her gaze to the ceiling, sinking into the comfortable padding of her chair.
“I suppose I shall have to pay that man another visit. Avoiding that infuriating little girl will be difficult, though I have to commend her enterprising nature. A stamina boosting concoction of all things…” she muttered, a grin forming on her face. “She reminds me of myself when I was that age.”