Chapter 254: One Person Practicing Alchemy, One Person Embroidering a Handkerchief
“Ten qian each of aconite, atractylodes, angelica dahurica, snow lotus, Chinese goldthread, caterpillar fungus, and deer antler. Five qian each of Buddha’s palm and Angelica sinensis, ground into a coarse powder, mixed, fermented, and then combined with tiger bone, leopard bone, and bear gall. This is the ‘Dragon Tiger Pill’.”
The empty mountain was quiet after the rain, with only the sound of human voices.
Zhou Yan looked at the jade green pill in Huang Rong’s palm and asked, “Did you make this?”
After Zhang Wangyue and the others left, Zhou Yan and Huang Rong stayed at the Ten Thousand Beasts Manor.
In between his cultivation, he drank and discussed Dao and martial arts with the Shi Brothers, and also talked about Buddhist scriptures with Chan Master Ku Hui, living a life of freedom and ease.
Huang Rong, on the other hand, threw herself into the Pill Room of the Ten Thousand Beasts Manor, working day and night.
Huang Yaoshi was a renowned alchemist of his time, so Huang Rong was not an amateur. She had also learned considerable medical skills and the art of health preservation from Old Man Hundred Herbs in Hundred Herbs Valley.
If it were an ordinary place, it would not have sparked Huang Rong’s desire to refine pills.
But the Ten Thousand Beasts Manor was an exception.
The Shi Brothers hunted in the mountains and also gathered medicinal herbs. The manor stored quite a bit of rare medicinal herbs like caterpillar fungus, which tonifies yin and yang, replenishes essence, and benefits the lungs and kidneys, and is extremely difficult to find.
The key was that after the battle with the “Iron Hawks,” many tigers and leopards were lost, especially leopards.
Therefore, the manor had a sufficient quantity of tiger bone and leopard bone.
Huang Rong enjoyed dabbling in esoteric arts. She shut herself in the pill chamber and, after six days, refined the “Dragon Tiger Pill.”
When Zhou Yan asked, Huang Rong said with considerable pride, “The pill formula was found in the manor’s library. My alchemy skills were learned from my father, and my medicinal compounding methods were taught by Old Man Hundred Herbs. I failed many times, but thankfully, heaven rewards the persistent. I finally refined this one pill, and its effects should be no worse than several purple snake gallbladders.”
“Try it.”
Zhou Yan swallowed the “Dragon Tiger Pill.”
Moments later, the medicinal effects spread. Zhou Yan felt a surge of heat rise from his dantian, his energy permeated his body, and his insides boiled like a cauldron. His qi and blood surged, washing over his limbs and bones like a tide.
“How is it?” Huang Rong asked anxiously, looking at Zhou Yan’s reddening face.
“I need to go into seclusion for cultivation.”
Huang Rong felt that the breath Zhou Yan exhaled was scorching. She was secretly alarmed by the potency of the pill she had refined and quickly said, “Hurry and cultivate.”
Swish!
Zhou Yan retreated and landed in a waterside pavilion by the lake. He sat cross-legged, silently circulating the Yijin Forging Bone Chapter to cleanse and forge his bones.
He had achieved great success in the fourth stage of this cultivation technique on his way to Poyang Lake. For nearly several months, he had practiced diligently but had never been able to break through. With the “Dragon Tiger Pill,” Zhou Yan had a vague premonition of breaking through with the aid of its medicinal properties.
He used the medicinal effects of the “Dragon Tiger Pill” to cultivate, drinking the morning dew and eating the evening mist, sitting for four days as the stars shifted.
…
As the dawn light faintly appeared, Huang Rong, in a white dress, arrived at the waterside pavilion. Then, her delicate and flawless face instantly became vibrant and lively.
She saw that the divine light in Zhou Yan’s eyes was contained, and with each breath he exhaled, two streams of white breath, like dragons and snakes, emerged from his nostrils, entering his mouth. With each inhalation and exhalation, his clothes also expanded and contracted. When they contracted, his grey robe clung to his body, clearly revealing that within, it was as if hundreds of dragons and snakes were moving.
“What cultivation technique is this? Even my father’s practice was never like this,” Huang Rong said, circling behind Zhou Yan.
At first glance, it was even more astonishing. Zhou Yan’s back muscles and tendons trembled. On either side of his spine, it was as if schools of fish were flexibly and energetically moving around the great dragon of his spine.
Huang Rong did not know that Zhou Yan was cultivating the Nine Yin Manual technique, but she guessed that his practice was at a critical juncture. She dared not disturb him and silently withdrew.
Inside Zhou Yan’s body, the surging internal force flowed, emitting a faint rumble like hidden thunder. Then, fierce and unparalleled strength propelled the qi and blood inward to the viscera and outward to the limbs. After nearly an hour of this cycle, his body, which had been tempered and strengthened by the internal force penetrating deep into the bone marrow and solidifying the tendons from cultivating the Yijin Forging Bone Chapter, instantly began to crackle, like metal rubbing against metal. Tendons, bone marrow, viscera, and blood roared simultaneously.
Zhou Yan stretched his arms and broadened his back. Each bone emitted a cracking sound like bamboo growing. Bone marrow produced blood, and blood generated qi. The newly formed qi and blood were like a blazing furnace fire, and the viscera released surging vital essence. The fascia stretched, creating layers of tidal sounds. The bone marrow trembled, like a great bell being struck.
“Hoo!”
Zhou Yan exhaled a stream of scorching white breath, and the essence light in his eyes quickly subsided.
The fifth stage of the “Yijin Forging Bone Chapter” from the Nine Yin Manual was successfully completed.
Zhou Yan did not show joy. He sensed the qi with his intent and felt that the internal qi in his meridians was almost condensed into substance. This increased the quantity and quality of the internal qi circulating in his meridians by nearly 20%, meaning his cultivation had also increased by about 20%.
Zhou Yan concluded this, leading the qi with his intent. The vast internal qi, like a great river, surged towards the Foot Jueyin Liver Meridian.
Half an hour later, the internal force in the fourteen major acupoints of this main meridian, which governed the five senses, gushed out like a hot spring. With a snap, it was tempered and unblocked.
The Foot Jueyin Liver Meridian connected to the ears and eyes. With the forging of tendons and bones, the ears became more sensitive and the eyes clearer. Zhou Yan’s consciousness sank, and he felt as if a clear stream was flowing through his mind, his perception gradually broadening.
The complex information pouring in from the outside world was clearly perceived.
The wind whistling through the overhanging eaves, the swallows flying over the calm lake, all entered his ears one by one, resonating with his consciousness.
“Big brother, Brother Zhou has been like a rock for almost five days.”
“What’s the hurry? It’s normal for someone to be in seclusion for fifty days.”
“But he has to eat something.”
“That makes sense. Third brother, your internal energy is the most profound, tell us what this is about.”
The third Shi brother said uncertainly, “Brother Zhou’s realm far exceeds my understanding, so I dare not guess.”
“Why don’t we ask Miss Huang?” suggested the second Shi brother.
A smile appeared on Zhou Yan’s face, and he slowly opened his eyes, his vision clear.
“Never again will a scene occur where Hong Qigong or Huang Yaoshi approach me without me knowing,” Zhou Yan muttered to himself. He stood up and leaped into the mountain forest. He used his spinal column as a bow and his waist as a string. With a stomp of his left foot, he stepped forward like a dragon or tiger leaping, unleashing the “Shocking a Hundred Miles” palm strike. His palms shot out like arrows, and with a “bang” sound, accompanied by a “crack,” a thick tree was sent flying horizontally.
Zhou Yan was quite satisfied and suddenly said, “You’re here?”
“Eh, how boring,” Huang Rong emerged from behind a large tree behind Zhou Yan. “When I play with my father, he always detects me before I even get close.”
Zhou Yan smiled slightly, “That’s why you need to practice martial arts diligently.”
“Don’t lecture me like my father.”
“Do what you love.”
“That’s more like it,” Huang Rong smiled charmingly. “Let’s go to the manor. The Shi brothers have been getting impatient these past few days.”
“How many days have I been cultivating?”
“Today is the fifth day.”
Zhou Yan was stunned. It felt like only a blink of an eye, and he had gone five days without eating or drinking. The “Dragon Tiger Pill” was no trivial matter.
As he thought this, his hunger increased greatly.
“Let’s go back to the manor.”
The two walked shoulder to shoulder. He asked, “How are Master Ku Hui and the others?”
“The ‘Black Jade Continuing Bone Paste’ is indeed remarkably effective. The old abbot has already rejoined his bones and should recover in about a hundred days. Tianlong and Chan Master Tianxiang have recovered seventy to eighty percent of their injuries, and the rest of the monks, both elder and younger, are mostly the same.”
“Excellent. We’ll set off tomorrow.”
“Alright. We’ll bring Little Leopard along then.”
“Can you tame beasts?”
“I know a little. Teaching Little Leopard won’t be a problem,” Huang Rong chuckled. “When Little Leopard grows up, we’ll go fight the great eagle in the suburbs of Xiangyang and see who’s stronger.”
Zhou Yan let out a laugh. Huang Rong, now back in her women’s attire, was increasingly resembling “Rong’er” from Legend of the Condor Heroes.
…
White clouds look back and merge, green mist enters and is unseen. The division of Zhongnan Mountain changes, and the heavens and earth are different in all valleys.
The sunlight of Zhongnan Mountain filtered through the gaps in the trees, falling on Li Mochou, who was sitting by a river stone.
She wore a green dress, and her waterfall-like hair was tied up with a red ribbon adorned with plum blossoms, interspersed with a hairpin decorated with several pearls.
“Her delicate fingers held the embroidery frame, and the embroidery gradually revealed itself.” Li Mochou was completely focused, her needle flying up and down, gradually outlining a man of extraordinary handsomeness and ethereal, transcendent beauty on the silk.
The man was seen drawing a bow and arrow, and the hazy light further accentuated a hint of unrestrained heroism about him.
Li Mochou’s embroidery needle stopped. She looked at it for a long time, and a satisfied smile gradually appeared on her face. “This is it, lifelike.”
She was so engrossed that she did not hear the maid Lin Chaoying approaching from behind her.
A stern, unsmiling face slowly appeared from behind Li Mochou, and a deep, stern voice asked, “What are you embroidering?”
“Ah!” Li Mochou jumped up and hastily hid the embroidery cloth behind her back.
“Give it here!”
“Master!”
“Give it here.”
Li Mochou’s fingers trembled as she handed over the embroidery frame.
