26: Chapter 26 Refining the Qi-Nourishing Pill

Over the next day, Jiang Yan frequented various pharmacies in Yuzhou City in his disguised form.

He wore a dark gray short tunic, his face that of a young man in his early twenties with sallow skin and ordinary, decent features; no one paid him any special attention when he entered the pharmacies.

Tongrentang in the east of the city.

The shopkeeper was a round-faced Fat Shopkeeper whose eyes squinted into two slits when he smiled.

"What would you like, customer?"

"Fifty-year-old poria, astragalus, and angelica."

The Fat Shopkeeper's smile stiffened for a moment.

"Fifty-year-old? Customer, that won't be cheap."

He turned and took out three pieces of poria from the medicine cabinet, placing them on the counter on a sheet of oil paper.

Jiang Yan picked them up to examine—real goods, and the age was sufficient, but they hadn't been preserved well, and two or three tenths of their medicinal potency had dissipated.

"How much?"

The Fat Shopkeeper quoted a price.

Jiang Yan didn't haggle and paid the silver.

He also bought the astragalus here; it was sixty years old and of good quality.

He didn't manage to buy the angelica.

The Fat Shopkeeper scratched his head and pointed to the west.

"Jishitang in the west of the city is an old establishment. Their owner specializes in the angelica trade; you should go ask over there."

Jishitang was on an old street in the west of the city.

The shopkeeper was an old woman of about sixty, with graying hair held back by a silver hairpin.

She was sitting behind the counter sorting herbs, her fingers withered but dexterous as she separated the mixed herbs one by one.

Hearing footsteps, she looked up.

"Fifty-year-old angelica?" Her voice was crisp and direct, without a hint of business pleasantries.

"Yes. But it's expensive."

She pulled a small wooden box from under the counter, opened the lid, and inside were five or six angelica roots neatly stacked.

Jiang Yan picked one up and scanned it with his Divine Sense—about fifty-five years old, preserved extremely well, with almost no loss of medicinal potency.

"I'll take them all."

The old woman glanced at him, said nothing, and lowered her head to take the angelica out one by one, rewrapping them in oil paper and tying them tight with hemp twine.

"You're from out of town, aren't you, customer?"

Jiang Yan gave a grunt of acknowledgment.

The old woman's hands didn't stop.

"Ordinary people have no use for fifty-year-old angelica. Those who do have use for it don't care about this bit of silver."

She pushed the wrapped angelica over and quoted a price.

It was three times more expensive than the poria.

Jiang Yan paid the silver.

As he left, the old woman said "Take care, customer" from behind him, her voice just as crisp as before.

The auxiliary ingredients were all gathered.

Jiang Yan made another trip to the tanner's shop in the west of the city.

The old tanner was seventy-three this year, sitting on a low stool tanning a cowhide, his scraper cleaning away the remaining flesh thoroughly.

"Glauber's salt, alum."

The old tanner put down the scraper and stood up, his knees making a crisp popping sound.

He hissed, rubbed his knees for support, then turned to rummage through some stock on a wooden shelf in the corner.

"What kind of hide are you tanning?"

"Wolf skin."

The old tanner's eyebrows twitched.

"Wolf skin is hard to tan. The hide is thick, and it's very oily."

He picked up the package of Glauber's salt and weighed it in his hand.

"The proportion of the tanning solution depends on the thickness of the hide. The water temperature matters too—too hot and it damages the hide, too cold and it won't tan through."

He pushed the items over, gave a few more instructions, and sat back down on the low stool to pick up the scraper.

The sound of the scraper against the cowhide was a rustling, like an autumn wind blowing through withered leaves.

It was already dark when he returned to the inn.

Jiang Yan spent a day and a night processing the Three-Eyed Fire Wolf skin.

Tanning, rinsing, low-temperature drying—every step was monitored throughout by his Divine Sense.

The dried wolf skin was as soft as silk, and its fire-attribute Spiritual Qi was at least thirty percent richer than before processing.

He used his Spiritual Qi to condense a blade and cut the wolf skin along the grain of the fibers into thirty-two palm-sized talisman skins.

Each cut avoided the nodes of Spiritual Qi without being too far from them.

Of the thirty-two talisman papers, twenty-something were Low Grade Tier 1, and seven or eight reached Medium Grade Tier 1.

Jiang Yan wrapped the talisman papers in oil paper and placed them in his bundle.

The auxiliary ingredients were ready.

The talisman papers were made.

Next was Alchemy.

Jiang Yan sat cross-legged on the floor in the center of the room.

He took the Purple Gold Ginseng from the jade box.

The purple-gold ginseng body emitted a warm, gentle light in the dim room, its roots spread out, the breaks varying in age.

He took one portion of each of the three auxiliary ingredients and lined them up.

There was no Pill Furnace.

He closed his eyes.

His breathing slowed, and his heartbeat became so slow it was almost imperceptible.

He spread out his Divine Sense, lifting all four medicinal ingredients simultaneously.

The Purple Gold Ginseng hung in the center, with the poria, astragalus, and angelica circling around it.

Spiritual Qi fire surged from his palms, the pale cyan flames splitting into four strands, each wrapping around one of the four medicinal ingredients.

The heat intensity was different for each.

The Purple Gold Ginseng was warm in nature, so he simmered it slowly with a gentle fire.

The ginseng body gradually softened in the flames, and fine purple-gold liquid droplets seeped out from its surface.

poria was neutral in nature, requiring slightly stronger heat.

The pale yellow chunks cracked in the spiritual fire, crumbling into powder, their color shifting from pale yellow to deep yellow.

Just before they were about to char, Jiang Yan reined in the heat, and the powder took on a perfect golden yellow color.

astragalus was warm in nature, similar to the Purple Gold Ginseng.

The slices curled and melted in the spiritual fire, turning into a viscous, yellow-white medicinal liquid.

His Divine Sense filtered through them like a sieve, removing Impurities one by one.

angelica was pungent in nature, requiring the weakest heat.

In the low-temperature flames, a dark brown oily liquid seeped out from the roots, drop by drop, like squeezed resin.

The four medicinal liquids floated, wrapped in his Divine Sense.

The purple-gold ginseng liquid was in the very center, viscous as honey.

The golden yellow poria powder circled around it.

The yellow-white astragalus liquid was clear and transparent.

The dark brown angelica oil was heavy and viscous.

Jiang Yan's hands slowly closed together.

The Divine Sense wrapped around the four medicinal liquids and began the Fusion.

The purple-gold ginseng liquid served as the base, accepting the poria powder first.

The golden yellow blended into the purple-gold, like salt dissolving into water.

Then came the astragalus liquid.

The purple-gold and yellow-white fused, turning into a deeper purple—like the color reflected by fine rosewood in the sunlight.

Finally, the angelica oil.

The dark brown oily liquid dripped into the purple medicinal liquid.

The moment of Fusion, the four medicinal properties collided within the wrap of his Divine Sense.

The warmth of the Purple Gold Ginseng, the neutrality of the poria, the warmth of the astragalus, and the pungency of the angelica—four rivers with different currents were poured into the same channel, rolling, clashing, and repelling each other within the constraints of his Divine Sense, yet forced together by it.

Jiang Yan's brows furrowed slightly.

His temples began to throb.

The consumption of Divine Sense was much greater than he had anticipated—controlling four medicinal properties simultaneously, maintaining four spiritual fires simultaneously, all while suppressing the conflict between the medicinal properties.

His fingers tightened slightly, his knuckles turning white.

The medicinal liquid churned within his Divine Sense.

The color shifted from deep purple to purple-black, then back from purple-black to deep purple.

Each change was a conflict—being suppressed, then clashing again, then being suppressed again.

A medicinal fragrance diffused from between his palms.

It wasn't the scent of herbs in ordinary pharmacies.

It was a crisp, refreshing fragrance that seeped into the heart and spleen.

Like the morning mist in deep forests, like dew on pine needles.

Taking a breath, the flow of Spiritual Qi in his Meridians quickened by a fraction.

The medicinal liquid began to shrink and condense.

Shrinking from the size of a fist to the size of an egg.

From the size of an egg to the size of a pigeon egg.

Jiang Yan's breathing stopped.

His Divine Sense was entirely focused on the mass of medicinal liquid forming between his palms.

The medicinal liquid kept shrinking under the pressure, its surface beginning to solidify, forming a thin Medicinal Pill membrane.

Beneath the pill membrane, the medicinal liquid slowly rotated; with every revolution, its volume shrank by a fraction.

The first Medicinal Pill formed.

The purple-black pill separated from the medicinal liquid, its surface smooth as a mirror, with faint pill patterns flowing across it.

The second one formed immediately after.

The third.

The fourth was only half-formed when Jiang Yan's Divine Sense jolted violently.

That half-formed pill disintegrated within his Divine Sense, the medicinal liquid splattering and instantly burned to ashes by the spiritual fire.

The spiritual fire extinguished.

Three Medicinal Pills landed in Jiang Yan's palm.

He opened his eyes.

Beads of sweat rolled down from his hairline on his forehead, streaming down his temples.

The clothes on his back were soaked through with sweat, clinging to his skin, ice-cold.

His Dantian was empty, his Spiritual Qi almost bottomed out.

His temples were still throbbing, and with every throb, a needle-like stinging pain shot through the back of his head.

Three Medicinal Pills lay in his palm.

Purple-black, the size of a longan.

The surface was smooth as a mirror, and the pill patterns flowed with an extremely faint luster in the dim room.

The medicinal fragrance was restrained; only when bringing it close to his nose could he smell a wisp of crisp fragrance—richer than before the pill had formed, like the moment an old jar of wine is opened after being sealed for many years.

peiyuan pill, Low Grade Tier 1.

Three of them.

Jiang Yan took an empty small white jade bottle from his bosom, placed the three peiyuan pills into the bottle one by one, and plugged the stopper tight.

He held the jade bottle in his palm.

Through the bottle wall, he could feel the lingering, slight warmth of the Medicinal Pills.

Outside the window, the bare branches of that crooked jujube tree swayed gently in the twilight.

A withered leaf detached from the branch, spinning as it fell to the ground in the backyard.

A door-opening sound came from the next room.

Someone walked out, their footsteps heavy, making the wooden floorboards of the corridor creak.

The footsteps gradually faded away, disappearing at the top of the stairs.

Jiang Yan tucked the jade bottle into his bosom, stood up, and walked to the window.

In the twilight, Yuzhou City stretched out with layers upon layers of blue-tiled roofs extending into the distance.

Cooking smoke rose from the chimneys of every household, dispersed by the evening breeze, and melted into the gray-blue sky.

Pedestrians on the street hurried along with their necks hunched, occasionally someone would look up at the sky, then lower their heads and quicken their pace.

His fingers touched the jade bottle in his bosom.

Three peiyuan pills.

Enough for him to break through the Middle Stage of Qi Refining Stage 1, step into the Late Stage, or even Perfection.

But still not enough for him to step into Qi Refining Stage 2.