102: Chapter 102 How much is this magic bottle?

Luo Xiling was currently holding a selfie stick, wandering around the camp.

She wasn't just wandering aimlessly; she was scouting for information.

From the whispered chatter of the citizens, she learned that the nearby mountain peaks had all been climbed, but not a single hair of an immortal had been seen.

She wasn't too surprised by this outcome.

If an immortal were that easy to see, would they still be an immortal?

At the same time, she felt a bit of secret joy. Most of the people in the camp were locals from Su City, people who had personally witnessed the Immortal's Tribulation.

Yet they had searched the mountains for several days with nothing to show for it. In contrast, she, an outsider who hadn't even believed in immortals, had encountered one on her very first day and even had close contact.

Thinking of this, Luo Xiling's expression suddenly turned solemn.

Could it be that she was a legendary cultivation genius?

Had the immortal been willing to talk to her that morning to test her character, intending to take her as a disciple after she passed?

It must be so!

Excitement welled up in her heart. She couldn't help herself; she said goodbye to the viewers in her livestream, ended the broadcast, and started pulling gear out of her backpack.

After rummaging for a while, she remembered she hadn't come prepared for mountain climbing and hadn't brought a single piece of equipment.

"Damn, I was careless!"

"Hey!" The tent flap beside her was pulled halfway open from the inside. A middle-aged woman poked her head out and warned in a lowered voice, "Keep it down, girl. Don't go startling the immortal."

Luo Xiling had made that story up, so she obviously knew it was fake, but she didn't speak up to refute it. She just nodded with an apologetic smile.

Then, she picked up her backpack, stood up, and hurried out of the mountains.

She wanted to get out of the mountains before dark to buy climbing equipment.

The middle-aged woman watched her back, her eyes filled with concern. It was getting dark; she hoped nothing would happen to this young girl walking alone in the mountains at night.

Thinking this, she prepared to go find the Government Personnel outside the camp to let them know.

Just as she braced herself against the wooden board beneath her to stand up, the light before her suddenly dimmed. She instinctively looked up and saw the young man she had chatted with a few hours ago looking at her with a smile.

"Oh, it's you. You don't have a place to sleep, do you?"

"Don't be shy, you can just make do for a night in my tent."

She scrambled up and headed out of the camp. "A young girl just left the mountains. I'm worried about her, so I'm going to tell the officials."

As her figure disappeared among the tents, Zhang Mu sat down inside and looked over the young man lying on the low bed.

After a while, the middle-aged woman lifted the flap and sat down beside him.

Zhang Mu turned to her and struck up a conversation. "You're quite kind-hearted, Auntie."

"Oh," she waved her hand. "What kind of kind-heartedness is that? It's just walking a few steps and saying a few words. It's no big deal."

Shifting his gaze back to the bed, Zhang Mu said with a light smile, "You're a good person, Auntie. It doesn't make sense for you to suffer like this."

"It's all fate," she said, crossing her legs and looking at her child. "I can honestly say that my boy's father and I haven't done a wicked thing in our lives."

"And yet, the boy ended up like this."

Her tone was a bit low, but she didn't cry or choke up. Zhang Mu felt that her tears must have run dry during those first few years after the child lost his mind.

After a moment of thought, Zhang Mu asked again, "Auntie, living in the mountains with your child, can your wallet handle it?"

"Food and lodging are manageable. It's actually a bit cheaper since we don't have to pay for utilities in the mountains."

"It's just that with me and the boy here, there's one less person to work at home."

"I told the boy's father I'd go back to work because he can't handle all that work alone, but he refused. He insists that an immortal can cure our boy."

As she spoke, she gave a somewhat carefree smile. "To be honest, I don't think an immortal will help cure my boy."

"Why is that?" Zhang Mu looked at her curiously.

"I see everyone else offering chickens, ducks, and fish." The middle-aged woman pointed outside the tent flap. "I came in a hurry and didn't prepare anything. I didn't even bring a statue of the Lord of the Soil."

"When I arrived and saw them all setting up offering tables, I got anxious. With no other choice, I ran into the woods and picked some wild fruit."

The tent was a bit cramped. She moved to the low cabinet by the head of the bed, put her hands together, and bowed toward a few unknown wild fruits and a finger-long crucian carp that seemed to have been caught from the river.

"Tell me, how can these things of mine compare to theirs?"

"Then why do you still pray, Auntie?"

"I suppose it's just to hold onto a bit of hope."

Zhang Mu said cheerfully, "If an immortal only favored those with superior offerings, then they wouldn't be an immortal."

"Hey!" The auntie quickly turned around, her voice filled with anxiety. "You mustn't speak ill of the immortal, or you'll face retribution!"

Looking at the wound on her forehead that was still seeping a bit of blood, Zhang Mu shifted forward. He held his right hand out with fingers spread, and a white porcelain bottle with a round mouth and a wide base—like the ones used for immortal pills in TV dramas—appeared out of thin air in his palm.

While the auntie stared blankly, before she could react, Zhang Mu pulled out the cork and poured the contents directly into the young man's mouth.

"Wha—what is this?" Concerned for her child, she ignored the magical scene that had just occurred and asked hurriedly.

Zhang Mu discarded the porcelain bottle and smiled without saying a word.

The auntie grew frantic and moved to support the young man on the bed. "Boy, you can't eat that! Spit it out, quickly..."

"Mom?"

Hearing that address, which she hadn't heard for a very, very long time, left her in a daze, as if she had returned to over ten years ago before the boy's brain was fried by a fever.

Am I dreaming?

She looked into her child's eyes.

The gaze that had been vacant for over a decade was now actually clear.

Although there was some innocence and childishness in them, this was what was normal.

The tears Zhang Mu thought she had run out of now rolled out of her eyes, sliding down her dark-skinned cheeks and dripping onto the young man's nose.

"Mom? Why... are you... crying, cry..." The young man spoke with great effort, his expression a bit dazed, as if he were wondering whose this unfamiliar voice was.

"My boy, you're awake! You're awake!" The sobs in her throat could no longer be suppressed, turning into loud wailing.

After crying for a bit, she suddenly remembered the young man.

He wasn't just some young man; the immortal had taken pity on her and helped cure her boy!

She supported her child while looking for Zhang Mu. "Boy, hurry up and kowtow to the immortal..."

Turning around, her voice instinctively faltered.

The immortal who had been right behind her just a moment ago had vanished without a trace. In the cramped tent, only the white porcelain bottle rolling on the wooden boards confirmed that the immortal had indeed been there.

"Kind-hearted immortal!"

Not knowing how to express her gratitude, she picked up the white porcelain bottle, helped the young man out of the tent, and they both knelt on the pebble beach, kowtowing.

The commotion was quite loud, and nearby citizens came running over, their faces showing displeasure.

Everyone was speaking in hushed tones, yet here she was shouting and screaming. What if she scared the immortal away?

But when they saw the young man's eyes, which clearly had life in them now, their attempts to stop her all came to an involuntary halt.

Having stayed in the camp for a few days, they had chatted out of boredom and knew about the auntie's situation.

They had also seen the "foolish child"; his eyes had been like they were carved out of wood, without a single spark of light.

Hearing the auntie, who was kowtowing incessantly, shouting "kind-hearted immortal," how could they not understand what had happened?

"Big sister," a citizen approached and asked in a low voice, "What did the immortal actually look like?"

He had seen the "Immortal's Tribulation," but the immortal had flown so high that day that even with his phone camera's zoom at its maximum, he could only see an ethereal back.

Now that he knew someone had been in a tent with the immortal, his curiosity was unbearable.

"He was incredibly good-looking!"

The auntie helped the young man up with one hand, while the hand holding the white porcelain bottle waved wildly in front of her. She wanted to describe the immortal's appearance to the citizens who had gathered around, waiting eagerly for her answer.

But after waving her hand for a long time, her meager vocabulary left her not knowing how to describe him, so she could only keep repeating, "He was incredibly good-looking!"

The ambiguous answer left the surrounding citizens scratching their heads in frustration. Just as they were getting anxious, someone spotted the white porcelain bottle in her hand and was instantly shocked.

A bottle for "immortal pills"? Wasn't that an Immortal Bottle?

I didn't get any immortal pills, but I can't miss out on an Immortal Bottle.

This person's mind raced, thinking he must not let others notice. He quietly approached the auntie. "Big sister, come over here. I have something to tell you."

As he spoke, he grabbed the auntie's arm and started walking toward a corner of the camp, but he was stopped after only a few steps.

"Well now, trying to swindle the big sister out of her Immortal Bottle?"

His face turned red. "What are you talking about? I'm going to buy it with money!"

"You think it's your turn to buy it?" The person who stopped him waved a hand. "One hundred thousand, I'll take it."

"One hundred thousand? Who are you trying to insult? Is that even enough for one hand of my watch?"

"Big sister, I bought this watch for over a million. I'll trade it with you for the Immortal Bottle."

"Who are you trying to fool? There are no appraisal experts here; who knows if the watch is real or fake?"

"Big sister, don't believe him. Sell it to me. I'll have someone bring the money—one million in cash!"

"I was clearly here first!" the first person shouted, but the people nearby didn't care about who came first. They all clamored to outbid each other for the Immortal Bottle.

The camp in the mountains was made so noisy by them that it seemed like an auction for some rare treasure.

Only the auntie and the young man stood to the side, looking completely bewildered as they heard the figures of hundreds of thousands being tossed around—amounts for which they didn't even have a concrete concept in their minds.