Pharmacy

“..."

Yan Jue: “Elder brother, why didn’t Master come today?”

Before they had even stepped into the cave mansion, Yan Jue had already eagerly addressed that Heavenly Master Su Yang as her master.

That was her way of making her attitude clear from the start.

As a girl who had grown up in a village and never seen much of the world, she had always dreamed of becoming a little immortal attendant.

The dao child lifted his chin. “Master went out of the mountain on business. My abilities are already enough to slay demons and exorcise evil, so he sent me here to handle things for him.”

So the big monster wasn’t home.

Yan Jue: “Amazing.”

Luoyun Mountain was also considered a fairy mountain rich in spiritual energy, and it was full of monsters.

The donkey cart rocked along through the mist and ran into quite a few mountain spirits on the way. After the path curved around a bend, they finally reached their destination.

The mist gradually parted, revealing a round cave entrance.

Above the mouth of the cave hung a plaque with four large characters: “Suyang Immortal Mansion.”

Yan Jue’s nose twitched slightly; she could faintly smell smoke in the air.

And beneath it was an indescribable... bloody smell.

As soon as Yan Jue entered the cave mansion, someone came to greet them.

Two dao children in purple robes, their cheeks smeared with exaggerated rouge, walked over with blank expressions.

Yan Jue stared at their faces and couldn’t help getting goosebumps. The older of the two dao children tossed them each a shabby dao robe.

“Twenty-seven, twenty-eight. Go wait in the pharmacy.”

Yan Jue froze, faintly sensing that something was off.

The robes looked as if they had been worn before; they were old, oversized, and reeked of sweat. Putting them on was unbearably uncomfortable.

After the two of them changed, the older dao child pressed a hand to Yan Jue’s back with a blank expression and shoved her forward roughly.

The cave mansion twisted and turned. Soon they arrived at another small cave, with a plaque hanging above it: Storage Pharmacy.

The dao child: “Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, go inside!”

Before the words had even faded, Yan Jue was pushed in.

The door slammed shut behind her with a bang.

The light inside was dim, and everywhere was thick with the heavy scent of medicinal herbs.

Yan Jue saw many children sleeping on the ground.

The weather was cold, and quite a few of the children had bluish faces, curled up on the floor and shivering.

Yan Jue turned back to stare at Qi Xianqing and slowly raised an eyebrow. “Brother, is this what it means to be a little good-deed boy?”

Qi Xianqing pressed her lips together and said calmly, “Sister, don’t panic. I believe that once Master returns, he’ll definitely let us be little good-deed boys.”

Yan Jue: “..."

Then a voice sounded in Yan Jue’s mind: “These people are all medicinal ingredients.”

Yan Jue frowned slightly and took two steps forward.

At the end of the cave stood row after row of medicine cabinets, a little like the shelves in a modern Chinese herbal pharmacy; there were around two hundred of them.

Each cabinet had a restriction on it.

Yan Jue examined them one by one.

Heavenly Grass.

Dark Condensed Grass.

Dragon Scale Fruit.

Soul-Nourishing Wood.

Yan Jue’s pupils contracted slightly.

They were all top-grade, even supreme-grade herbs.

Yan Jue thought of her own poverty again. If she could take advantage of this mission to make a little windfall, wouldn’t that make her rich?

Suddenly, a burst of crying erupted behind her.

Yan Jue turned around and saw a girl sitting in the corner of the cave, wearing a wrinkled blue dao robe and crying very hard.

Yan Jue came over, crouched down beside her, and asked, “Little sister, how long have you all been here?”

When the girl saw Yan Jue, she was so frightened that she immediately pressed her lips tightly together. Yan Jue was speechless. The little girl was crying like that; she probably wouldn’t be able to ask anything useful anyway.

Yan Jue suddenly said, “I’ll do a magic trick for you.”

The child stopped crying at once and stared at her blankly, tears still clinging to her eyelashes.

Yan Jue brought her hands together, sat beside the little girl, and silently recited a spell. A faint frost gathered in her palms and slowly condensed into a pure white ice flower.

Of course, Yan Jue was very careful; she turned her palm inward to make sure no one could see.

Qi Xianqing looked over.

The girl with bright eyes and white teeth was crouched beside the little girl, her brows and eyes curved in a smile.

Yan Jue was very patient and seemed good at coaxing children. She was turning her head to talk to the little girl, who had already broken into smiles through her tears.

After much effort, Yan Jue finally got the little girl to lower her guard.

The girl: “My name is Jia Ni..."

“I don’t know how long I’ve been here. I only know... I’ve already lost five teeth.”

Yan Jue fell into thought. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the little girl was still staring at her, so she asked, “Are you hungry?”

The girl was skin and bones, her face sallow and yellow; she must have been hungry for a long time.

She nodded.

Yan Jue took a paper packet from her sleeve and carefully opened it.

It was honey candy she had made herself a few days ago, using flower nectar from the Valley of a Hundred Flowers.

The little girl pursed her lips and reached out with her dirty hand to take the candy.

Qi Xianqing vaguely caught a flash of pale yellow inside the paper packet and guessed that it was probably honey candy.

Watching the little girl suck on the candy with relish, she suddenly seemed to remember something, her eyes narrowing slightly as a trace of confusion flickered through them.

Yan Jue stood up while the little girl was eating, wanting to look around for something useful.

Then she suddenly noticed someone.

Tucked against the wall was a little girl with an expressionless face.

Her skin was fair, and she wore a dark blue dao robe. She sat cross-legged in the corner with her eyes closed, seemingly resting her mind.

Sensing Yan Jue’s gaze, the girl suddenly opened her eyes.

Yan Jue froze, a chill rising for no reason.

That girl’s eyes were actually blue, and there was a thick, murderous look in those pupils.

Yan Jue looked at the little girl and vaguely felt that something was strange.

There were many children here. Every child was either cowering in a corner, sleeping, or crying.

This little girl... was far too calm.

And the way she looked at her was as if she wanted to kill her.

“..."

Maybe she had stayed in this place too long and had gotten a little resentful too.

Yan Jue still wanted to ask around for more information when she suddenly heard the boy over there say, “Sister, come over. It’s time to sleep.”

Qi Xianqing was calling her back.

Qi Xianqing often went on missions, so she was definitely more experienced than Yan Jue and would know when to gather information and when to sleep.

Yan Jue had no objections.

She turned back and saw Qi Xianqing sitting on a clean large boulder, her expression quiet and composed.

She lifted those clear peach-blossom eyes to look at her, lightly patting the spot beside her palm, signaling for her to come over.

Yan Jue absentmindedly walked over and sat down on Qi Xianqing’s lap.

“...?"

Yan Jue immediately sprang up. “What are you doing?”

Qi Xianqing looked at her strangely. “I was about to ask you that. What are you doing?”

Their conversation was all carried through telepathy, so no one else could hear.

Ahhhhhhh.

Yan Jue glared at Qi Xianqing furiously and could have died on the spot...

When she had been a little fox, Qi Xianqing had always liked to pat the space beside her to signal for Yan Jue to come over, and Yan Jue would happily run over and sit in her lap every time.

She had already developed a reflex for it.

Why on earth was Qi Xianqing suddenly doing that now?

The air around them fell into a bizarre silence.

Yan Jue moved two steps away from Qi Xianqing and sat down on a large boulder. She turned her head aside and hugged herself tightly. Just as she closed her eyes, she suddenly heard an extremely strange fluttering sound in the air.

Yan Jue opened her eyes and looked up, only to be startled by the sight of several mosquitoes.

They were slowly flying out from the crack in the rocks over there.

“..."

Those mosquitoes were as big as fists, with clearly visible patterns on their bodies, and the sound of their wings made her scalp prickle.

Mosquitoes that size...

Mosquito demons!

Yan Jue’s gaze instinctively darted toward Qi Xianqing. The latter was sitting cross-legged, faintly frowning; clearly she had also heard that distinct wing-beating sound.

Perhaps because they had caught the sweet scent of the Immortal Spirit Physique, even more mosquito demons soon appeared above the cave.

The giant mosquitoes drifted overhead; a few of them could no longer resist and had already started descending.

The dark mass of mosquitoes pressed closer and closer; all around them was the sound of wings flapping.

Yan Jue subconsciously glanced at Qi Xianqing.

Qi Xianqing had her eyes closed and made no move. She couldn’t set up a protective barrier in a place like this either; if her spiritual energy fluctuated, it was extremely likely to trigger the restrictions here!

These cave mosquitoes had probably been trapped for too long. Now that they smelled the Immortal Spirit Physique, they had gone especially mad.

But Qi Xianqing didn’t seem afraid. She could endure it. If she ended up bitten all over by mosquito demons, that would only further dispel the suspicions of the people in this cave mansion.

Still, she unconsciously clenched her sleeve tightly.

The sound of wings grew closer and closer...

But the expected pain never came.

A very soft series of popping sounds suddenly rang out by her ear, and Qi Xianqing opened her eyes, slightly startled.

At some point, Yan Jue had leaned over beside her. She bent forward slightly, bracing one hand against the wall, her body arched to shield Qi Xianqing completely.

Just as the dense swarm of mosquitoes was about to surge over, Yan Jue closed her eyes and sent a trace of true qi into the mosquito-repelling jade tube Duan Luxi had given her.

The pale yellow jade tube lit up with a faint glow, and tiny dust-like grains of mosquito-repelling powder began to drift out.

This simple device wouldn’t release any spiritual energy fluctuations. Layer after layer of powder spilled from the jade tube, gradually surrounding Qi Xianqing.

Qi Xianqing froze. “This is...”

Yan Jue: “It’s a mosquito-repelling... jade tube. This should drive the mosquito demons away!”

Even so.

This was only a simple device, after all; it couldn’t truly deal with this swarm of mosquito demons.

The mosquito demons might never have smelled the scent of the Immortal Spirit Physique in their entire lives, and now they had gone wild all over again.

But with Yan Jue standing in front, they couldn’t break through, so one by one they clung to Yan Jue instead.

By mosquito logic, if they sucked dry the person in front, they could then drink the blood of the person behind.

That ended up benefiting Yan Jue. The moment the mosquito demons latched onto her skin, she slapped them dead.

Smack——

The sound rang especially sharply in the quiet cave. Fortunately, the children around them were all lost in their own worlds; the cave was noisy and chaotic, and no one noticed them.

Yan Jue felt a prickly, itchy sensation on her arm. It seemed like a mosquito demon had brushed past it, but it was too dark to see clearly, so she hurriedly reached out to grab it and suddenly touched something soft.

Yan Jue froze; her mind went blank. Her wrist seemed to be blocked for a moment, followed by another crisp smack.

Qi Xianqing reached out and killed the mosquito demon that had come close.

The mosquito demon’s corpse fell to the ground and stopped moving.

The mosquito-repelling jade tube kept working, pale green powder filling the air around them; many mosquito demons couldn’t hold on and flew back into the rock wall.

Yan Jue: “..."

But a buzzing sound filled Yan Jue’s ears.

That soft sensation just now.

All manner of immortal arts and transformations could make someone look like an eight-year-old boy, but that was only an illusion.

It was too dark here, and she hadn’t seen it. What if just now it had been...

Yan Jue forcefully shoved that thought out of her head and handed the jade tube to Qi Xianqing. “I wanted to give this to you before, but I forgot because there were too many things going on. There are a lot of mosquitoes here, so use it slowly.”

She had refined quite a lot of mosquito-repelling balm for Duan Luxi.

Yan Jue estimated that, barring accidents, this jade tube could last half a month.

Qi Xianqing looked at her for a long while, then softly said, “Thank you.”

In the darkness, their fingertips briefly brushed. Yan Jue felt the girl’s fingers were cool, and the instant they touched, it was as if she had been shocked.

If the light were a little brighter, Yan Jue would have seen Qi Xianqing frowning slightly, her ears already red, her expression somewhat unnatural.

Qi Xianqing said flatly, “A mere mosquito bite; it’s nothing.”

All right then.

Qi Xianqing meant she had mistaken her for a delicate flower that needed protecting.

Actually, she didn’t need anyone to protect her.

Not far away, that little girl sitting cross-legged with a stern expression silently observed the two newcomers who were neither servile nor overbearing.

Her brows furrowed, and she suddenly asked, “Betrothed since childhood?”

Yan Jue’s face heated up at once. “We’re sisters! Sisters!”