novelraw Chapter 54: Planting and Fertilizing
Chapter 54: Planting and Fertilizing
The following morning.
The air inside the alchemy chamber burned with heat.
Chen Huangpi sat cross-legged on the floor, eyes fixed on the furnace — he hadn't slept a wink all night.
He desperately wanted to sleep, but his body wasn't tired.
Moreover, the stretch from dawn until nightfall was the most critical phase of refining the Heaven Toxin Pill. The moment darkness fell and yin and yang exchanged, that was when the pill would be complete.
He could not afford a single mistake.
Otherwise — if something went wrong — mercury, white lead, and the rest of it were easy enough to replace;
the temple had plenty.
But a Hundred-Deaths-No-Rebirth Man? Where would he ever find another one?
He couldn't exactly make a trip to the God-Burying Mound and wander around the Yellow Springs and Yin Lands.
Beside him, the brass oil lamp yawned with tedious indifference.Whether the Heaven Toxin Pill succeeded or failed, it couldn't care less.
The thing wasn't for it to eat anyway.
If Chen Huangpi's one pill actually finished off Guanzhu and sent him to his grave — then at least they could leave the Hundred Thousand Mountains and explore the outside world.
Of course, the brass oil lamp knew better than to entertain that idea seriously.
The Heaven Toxin Pill could be poisonous enough to kill an immortal.
Guanzhu would still eat it like a piece of candy.
More likely, it would turn out just as Chen Huangpi hoped — fighting poison with poison, curing the madness.
Though honestly — whether Guanzhu was actually mad or not.
The brass oil lamp had never worked that out, and didn't dare dwell on it too long.
Because it had become absolutely certain that any thought spoken aloud about Guanzhu — any complaint, even whispered inside its own head — would be heard by Guanzhu in its entirety.
In fact.
The brass oil lamp had begun to suspect that every time they went out on mountain patrol, with Chen Huangpi bringing up his master in roughly every other sentence — Guanzhu might be watching wherever they went, every step of the way.
"That's terrifying!"
The brass oil lamp shuddered.
The thought that Guanzhu might be watching everything they did, silently, from the shadows — made its entire being crawl with discomfort.
Its eyes darted around the corners of the alchemy chamber.
As if searching for something.
"Huang Er, what are you looking at?"
"I'm looking for where Guanzhu might be hiding."
Chen Huangpi sighed. "Master isn't in any of the places you're looking."
"You don't understand!"
The brass oil lamp said nervously: "Even if you can cultivate now, your eyes aren't as sharp as mine. Even when you use my lamp oil to open the Heavenly Eye, I can still see things you can't."
"Such as?"
"Such as Guan — Master, you're here!"
The brass oil lamp's voice spiked upward in an instant, and a fawning grin spread across the surface of its body.
But Chen Huangpi's brow furrowed slightly.
He noticed a few withered dead leaves clinging to his master's robe, and several small twigs tangled in his white hair.
"Master, where have you been? You're filthy."
He walked over and began tidying the purple-robed Daoist priest's appearance.
The Daoist priest slurped, wiping drool from his chin, and said proudly: "Planting trees! This master went to plant trees — spent all night planting trees!"
"Planting trees?"
Chen Huangpi's eyes lit up. "Hawthorn trees?"
"No, no."
The purple-robed Daoist priest shook his head. "The hawthorn saplings haven't arrived yet — when they do, this master will plant those for you too. What I planted tonight is the Demon Tree from the Old Temple!"
"The Demon Tree?"
Chen Huangpi's eyes went wide. In his mind's eye rose the vision of that vast, sky-blotting canopy, and those countless crimson, terrifying demon eyes staring from within.
"Master, why are you planting that? Isn't it already dead?"
"It is — this master twisted its head right off."
The purple-robed Daoist priest said with pride: "But this master has ways to bring it back to life. Once it's alive again, I'll put it inside your Kidney Temple to contain that black smoke. Otherwise, if you grow too fast, the flesh will toughen and get stringy."
"So is it alive again now?"
"Not sure."
The purple-robed Daoist priest scratched his head. "This master moved it to a new spot and gave it a good batch of fertilizer. I'll water it again tonight — it'll definitely come back."
At that, the purple-robed Daoist priest tilted his head slightly and stared at the furnace for a moment.
"Little Huangpi, you've learned how to make pills?"
"Since when did you learn that?"
"This master doesn't recall ever teaching you."
Hearing this, Chen Huangpi's face broke into an expression of smug pride that almost perfectly mirrored his master's. He said with complete confidence: "Master, you never taught me how to make pills — but I learned how to make me."
"I've learned every single one of your alchemy techniques!"
"What?"
The purple-robed Daoist priest's expression crumbled, and he sputtered: "T-t-this… this… this…"
What a disaster.
Second Master had always been looking for a moment of inattention to devour little Huangpi whole.
And now little Huangpi had learned the master's very own alchemy methods.
Which meant — wasn't Huangpi going to refine himself into a pill?
"No! Absolutely not!"
The purple-robed Daoist priest muttered to himself: "This Daoist priest painstakingly raised little Huangpi all these years — he absolutely cannot be allowed to pick himself off before anyone else gets the chance!"
"Master!"
Chen Huangpi sighed. "I am not going to refine myself into a pill."
"And why not?"
"Because there's no recipe."
The Heaven Toxin Pill used the Hundred-Deaths-No-Rebirth Man as its primary ingredient, combined with various medicinal herbs, minerals, and metals, refined at a precise time to create the Heaven Pill and the Poison Pill, which then merged through the yin-yang exchange to become a true pill.
Chen Huangpi had mused that the Hundred-Deaths-No-Rebirth Man was a person, and he was also a person.
So there was surely some recipe out there that used himself as the primary ingredient.
Only — what the steps would be, which herbs to mix in, whether to add mercury or white lead, which hour to begin the refining — with his current level of alchemy experience, he hadn't yet figured it out.
That thought fresh in his mind, Chen Huangpi casually dropped a remark: "Master, you've put me through the furnace so many times — you wouldn't happen to have a recipe for refining me, would you?"
"No! Nothing of the sort!"
The purple-robed Daoist priest's eyes darted to the side as he protested: "This master has no such recipe — and even if I did, I wouldn't hide it — and even if I hid it, I'd still tell you about it — and even if I didn't tell you, I'd certainly teach it to you!"
"You are my own dear apprentice!"
"It's not as though I'm your Second Master — how could I ever deceive you?"
"Isn't that right?"
"Yes!"
Chen Huangpi nodded.
But in his heart he thought: 'When Master is lying, he always lets his eyes wander.'
The purple-robed Daoist priest immediately tilted his head back to stare at the alchemy chamber's ceiling.
'And he likes to look up at the sky.'
The purple-robed Daoist priest looked down at his feet.
'And since going mad, he developed a new bad habit of staring at the ground.'
The purple-robed Daoist priest closed his eyes.
Chen Huangpi stared at him, genuinely astonished.
So there really was a recipe for refining him!
The purple-robed Daoist priest shook his head furiously with his eyes still shut, then bolted, and within a blink of an eye had dashed clean out of the alchemy chamber.
Once he was gone, the brass oil lamp said flatly: "Chen Huangpi — do you think Guanzhu really has a recipe for refining you?"
Chen Huangpi let out a cold laugh. "What do you think?"
"Then you…"
The brass oil lamp struggled with itself and screwed its eyes shut in agony.
Chen Huangpi was its best friend.
Also its companion since childhood.
They had been through countless trials, large and small, together.
But it was created by Guanzhu.
In other words, Guanzhu had given it life.
Though admittedly he hadn't been very fair about it — when he made Huang Yi he'd used a whole piece of Ten-Direction Shadowless Gold, but when he made Huang Er, he'd used nothing but scraps and leftover Shoshan Copper, thrown together carelessly.
Still — the name Huang Er had been given by Guanzhu.
If Guanzhu had given that name to Huang Yi instead — then Huang Er would be the one groveling and scraping before it.
And in turn, the one called Huang Yi would bow its head at Huang Er's mercy, while Huang Er magnanimously occasionally taught it a technique or two, and let it call it Big Brother with joy.
The thought made the brass oil lamp snap its eyes open, as if it had just made up its mind.
"Never mind — let's rebel!"
"Rebel against what?"
Chen Huangpi blinked in confusion. "What — once the Heaven Toxin Pill is done, do you want to come with me to steal the recipe Master's been hiding?"
"Steal the recipe?"
The brass oil lamp was baffled. "What? Why do you want to steal a recipe?"
"You don't understand!"
Chen Huangpi said as a matter of course: "Once Master is a hundred years gone, the Pure Immortal Temple will be mine. But as he gets older, he's started hoarding his knowledge — trying to hold things back. I can't let him get away with that."
"I'm definitely going to take on apprentices someday!"
"If I don't know the recipe for refining myself, how am I supposed to put my own apprentices through the furnace?"
"Don't you think, Huang Er?"
"Yes."
The brass oil lamp said calmly: "So hurry up and finish that Heaven Toxin Pill. I want the first bite."
……
On the other side of the temple.
Song Qiuyue and the others had fallen into deep, gnawing dread.
"How is this possible!"
"The deities — where are the deities?"
"Where have they all gone?"
Song Qiuyue stood in the room, staring at the small wooden shrine floating before her, her face drained of every drop of color.
Zhao Hai and the other cultivators stood to one side, equally at a loss.
When dawn first broke, Song Qiuyue had tried to communicate with the deities out of habit.
But received no response.
Once might be normal. But again, and again, and again — that was not right at all.
The deities' incense power had been bleeding away all along.
Song Qiuyue had assumed the deities had simply fallen into dormancy when their incense ran too low.
But what she found missing wasn't the incense.
It was the deities themselves.
All sixty of them — vanished in a single night.
Not even a handful of ash left behind.
"It's daytime now. Without the deities, how do we contact Xu Province city?"
Song Qiuyue's teeth pressed tight together. "Without the deities, if that old Daoist priest moves against us — how do we protect ourselves?"
"Can anyone tell me what happened last night?"
"You — Zhao Hai — do you know?"
"And you — and you — and you — why have you all gone silent?"
"Say something!"
Song Qiuyue's chest was a storm of shock and fury. Her questions to these cultivators were the same questions she was asking herself.
To speak plainly — sixty deities had been right there beside her at all times, and they had vanished in such a grotesque and uncanny manner without her detecting so much as a tremor. Even a dog would have done better. At least a dog could guard the house and bark a warning.
Zhao Hai and the others looked at each other, then one by one lowered their heads in helplessness.
"Miss, please don't distress yourself — Xu Province will certainly send someone to rescue us."
"It won't matter."
Song Qiuyue forced herself to be calm.
Sixty deities — reduced to nothing overnight, not even ashes remaining. The only being capable of this was that strange old Daoist priest.
Looking at it now, the old priest wasn't merely a Disaster-class entity.
He was a Calamity.
A divine Calamity.
Before such a being, even if her uncle came personally bearing the Governor's golden seal, there was nothing to do but run as far and as fast as possible.
City Gods, mountain gods, river gods — no number of them would help.
Perhaps there was only one way to survive.
"All of you — leave."
"Miss?"
"Out!"
Song Qiuyue's face was ice as she watched Zhao Hai and the other cultivators file out of the room one by one, the door pulling shut behind them.
Once they were gone, she settled herself with quiet deliberateness, took out her grooming kit, and began painting her brows in the bronze mirror.