“And if you remove the Nightshade Soulgrass, replacing it with three parts Sunfire Lotus Powder and two parts Frost Sand, refining it over White Spirit Fire for twenty-four hours—what would you get?”
Li Changshou hesitated for a moment this time.
Jiu Wu’s expression tensed, and he shot worried glances at Liu Feixian.
Liu Feixian subtly shook his head—warning Jiu Wu not to interrupt.
This elder… could poison them both with just a flick of his fingers!
Outside the hall, Wan Linjun’s gaze sharpened, his smile growing even colder.
Jiu Wu’s heart pounded—this was starting to look like Li Changshou was about to be… dissolved!
Then, Li Changshou answered,
“A useless pill.”
Jiu Wu’s eye twitched violently, about to step in and plead for mercy.
Elder Wan Linyun’s smile disappeared as he put on a serious expression and asked, “Why is it useless?”
“The medicinal properties cancel each other out,” Li Changshou said with a frown. “White Bright Fire is already mild and neutral, and in this formula, the hot and cold properties are balanced, causing the medicinal effects to neutralize…
While the pill can still be refined, it would be completely useless.”
“Oh?” Elder Wan Linyun took half a step forward, leaning on his cane.
Jiu Wu hurriedly stepped up, bowing respectfully. “Elder, this young disciple is highly valued by my master. If he has offended you in any way, I humbly ask for your forgiveness on my master’s behalf.”
Wan Linyun shot the short Daoist a glance but said nothing. Instead, he continued staring at Li Changshou and asked,
“You just mentioned ‘medicinal properties,’ but these are poisons.”
Li Changshou appeared slightly nervous but lowered his head and respectfully uttered the words he had prepared for decades—words deduced from this elder’s life and beliefs, words most likely to strike a chord with him:
“Poison is merely a branch of medicine;
Just as cooking has flavors of sour, sweet, bitter, and spicy, medicine has its spectrum as well.”
The room instantly fell into silence.
Liu Feixian turned his head to glare at Li Changshou, his expression showing urgency.
What kind of nonsense was this?
How could poison and medicine be lumped together?
Meanwhile, Jiu Wu felt an intense gaze land on him from above. He looked up—right into Wan Linyun’s narrow, piercing eyes and…
That eerily stiff, cold smile.
The elder spoke. “May I borrow him for a few days?”
“You… You may.”
“Mm.” Wan Linyun nodded, then turned to Li Changshou and said, “Follow me.”
Li Changshou lowered his head in acknowledgment, bowed to Jiu Wu and Liu Feixian, and slowly walked away, trailing behind the elder.
Before they had taken more than ten steps, Elder Wan Linyun suddenly turned and asked, “How do you refine the Jade Nether Pill?”
“I only know a partial formula,” Li Changshou replied. “The main ingredients are three portions of Netherworld Forgetting River Water and two Eagle Sorrow Orchid cores, aged no less than a thousand years and no more than three thousand years…”
“Why must the Eagle Sorrow Orchid be between one and three thousand years old?”
“Even if the medicinal properties don’t clash or cancel out, they still influence each other. If the age is too high, the potency becomes overwhelming, easily disrupting the pill’s internal balance.
I once read in a scripture that refining pills isn’t about using the oldest or most potent ingredients—it’s about using the most suitable ones.”
“Which scripture did you read that in?”
“The outer hall of the Dao Repository has several books on alchemy. I have carefully studied and contemplated many of them…
Could it be that some of those poison scriptures were written by you, Elder?”
“Heh… That’s right.”
With those words carried by the gentle breeze, the figures of the elder and the young man disappeared down a secluded path.
“Phew…”
Jiu Wu let out a long sigh of relief, wiping the cold sweat from his forehead.
Even though that celestial elder hadn’t exuded any pressure, just knowing the phrase “has poisoned a Celestial” was enough to make one’s hair stand on end…
Beside him, the slightly chubby immortal leaned in and whispered, “Who exactly is that junior? I have never seen our elder act so… amiably before.”
“You call that amiable?”
Jiu Wu shot Liu Feixian a glare. He was about to answer but then seemed to think better of it, shaking his head. “Don’t ask me—I can’t say a thing.”
Liu Feixian tilted his head, furrowing his brows in deep thought.
Half a month later, at dusk.
Li Changshou rode a cloud, his expression calm as he left Dan Ding Peak, heading back to his own Little Qiong Peak.
The journey was uneventful, and by the time he returned, Youqin Xuanya was already gone.
Back in his alchemy room, he retrieved a two-zhang-tall, pitch-black alchemy furnace from his storage treasure. His face remained emotionless.
After activating the surrounding formations and setting up a substitute paper effigy to stand guard, he slipped into his underground chamber, sat behind his desk, and…
Ran his left hand across the tabletop, lining it with jade slips and small jade bottles.
A faint smile spread across his face as emotions surged in his heart.
At last, he had squeezed every last drop of knowledge from this elder’s… poison scriptures!
And he had even obtained a vast supply of toxic and medicinal pills from him!
Of course, this also meant he now owed the elder a great favor—one that he would have to repay in the future to sever this karmic tie.
These poison scriptures were invaluable to him.
Even more crucial were the poisonous pills Wan Linyun had instructed him to take back “as references and study materials.”
Because they solved a major problem for Li Changshou—
If he ever needed to use a poison potent enough to kill a Celestial in the future, how would he explain where it came from?
Simple. He could just say it was a gift from Elder Wan Linyun.
After all, nothing in this world came for free—opportunities were merely the results of calculations spanning years or even decades.
That poisonous celestial elder…
As the image of Wan Linyun’s signature stiff, eerie smile surfaced in his mind, Li Changshou’s own smile deepened.
Honestly, the elder’s personality was quite endearing—wholly devoted to alchemy and poison, free from unnecessary schemes or distractions.
Then, all of a sudden, Li Changshou felt a peculiar itch…
Between his legs?
—Much like the strange tingling that had occasionally appeared in his armpits recently.
Hiss…
What the hell?
Li Changshou tilted his head, quickly clearing his mind of the elder’s image, and focused on his body’s condition. After a thorough examination, he confirmed that there was nothing wrong with his… personal preferences.
That had given him a scare—he almost thought that reading The Illustrated Tales of a Hundred Beauties in Their Later Years had somehow awakened a bizarre fetish in him.
Then, his brows furrowed deeply.
What was happening to him? His body had been acting strangely lately, with inexplicable changes he couldn’t quite explain.
Perhaps… his celestial foundation needed some serious reinforcement.
Meanwhile, at the Heavenly Court…
Inside the Hall of the Moon Elder.
wannaberecluse On SRTT Chapter 50.1