A figure appeared out of the blue within a street southeast to a large mansion in Mo City.
This figure was Bai Yunfei. He straightened his back to look around and then straight ahead at the place in front of him. When he stepped forward, the grim expression on his face deepened.
In front of him stood a gigantic manor with its signboard having ‘Tang’ painted onto it. This was the home of Tang Xinyun and the place where one of the Five Great Families lived.
Today, the people walking out on the streets outside the manor were in a hurry; some of them even walking in and out from the manor with stern expressions.
“Who’s there?! Show yourself!”
Sensing Bai Yunfei’s approach, one of the guards responsible for the security of the door tensed up at once.
“This one is Bai Yunfei of the Crafting School. Please send a message of my visit.” Bai Yunfei clasped his hands.
“Crafting School? Bai Yunfei?!” The guards all stiffened at once. They gave each other a curious glance before one of the guards turned to enter the manor first.
He made it two steps into the manor before he came face-to-face with someone. “Ah, brother He Yang!” He smiled, “What a coincidence. There’s an outsider saying he’s Bai Yunfei from the Crafting School. We don’t know if he really is who he says he is, would you come take a look?”
“Bai Yunfei?!” He Yang cried out, “Bai Yunfei is here?! Take me to him at once!”
Another three steps later, the two were back outside. The moment when He Yang saw Bai Yunfei, his eyes lit up with excitement, “Master Bai! It really is you!”
This man looked familiar to Bai Yunfei. Thinking hard about it, he recalled seeing someone like him before, He Yang was his name, Bai Yunfei thought. “Are you He Yang? Happy to see that you recognize me, may I come in?”
Nodding enthusiastically, He Yang beckoned Bai Yunfei in. “Of course! Please, follow me, master Bai!”
Bai Yunfei could tell that the manor was in a right state with everyone rushing about. From the guards to servants to even soul cultivators, everyone was reporting to so-and-so before moving out to another part in the manor.
“Why is the manor in such a mess? Has something happened?” Bai Yunfei couldn’t help but ask after seeing the state of the manor.
“What? Master Bai, didn’t you come here because of the fourth miss?!” He Yang answered back with a question of his own.
“What was that?!” Bai Yunfei’s hand gripped at He Yang’s arm, “Did something happen to Xinyun?!”
The pain from having his arm grabbed and squeezed tightly saw to He Yang sucking in a deep breath. “The fourth miss, she…”
“Terrible news!! Lady Xue’s illness has worsened again! Please get the first young master here at once!”
A long-haired maid came bursting into the room from the right then, cutting off He Yang’s words with words of her own.
The panic Bai Yunfei was feeling before intensified. Realizing the problem, Bai Yunfei immediately turned towards where the maid was. He focused on her for one brief moment before disappearing into a blur the next moment.
“What?! Th…”
He Yang’s eyes flew wide open as soon as Bai Yunfei disappeared from sight.
In the northwest quadrant of the manor was a relatively small courtyard. Here, a middle-aged woman dressed in a coarse but purple robe could be seen pacing around the yard and wrangling her hands as she walked. Very clearly, she was at a loss for what to do.
Then all of a sudden, a single person appeared out from thin air. Startled, she took two steps back. Before she could say something, the figure spoke first.
“Aunty Zhao, what’s happened to auntie Xue?!”
The one who had been pacing around the courtyard was Zhao Mancha. Realizing who the person in front of her was, she cried out, “Bai Yunfei?! What are…what are you doing here?!”
“Aunty Zhao, we can talk later. Please tell me at once, what’s happening to aunty Xue?”
She snapped out from her confusion at the question. “My lady, she’s…she’s fallen very ill. The worse came to her half a month ago, but no one in the family knew what to do. They say that she’s been poisoned by a very rare toxin, but none of the medical experts we brought in seem to know how to treat her…”
“Is auntie Xue over there right now? Let me take a look!” Bai Yunfei’s head swung to the small room behind them.
He was already on the move with Zhao Mancha rushing after him, “There’s a poisonous mist ten meters within the room the lady is in. Commoners can’t even get close, so be careful!”
Bai Yunfei was already walking within the room though. Before he could even make sense of what was going on inside the room, the smell of something pungent assaulted his nose and a purple-red mist prevented him from seeing anything but a bed and the silhouette of a person on it.
Body flashing red, Bai Yunfei forced the poisonous miasma aside and strode closer to the bed. He gasped when he approached. “How did this happen!”
The first time he met auntie Xue, Bai Yunfei remembered her skin being a fair-white color and beautiful to anyone. But as she laid on the bed now, that fair-white skin was now an ashen color without blood almost. Her face was wrinkled like a woman fair older in age and equally unhealthy in color. Bai Yunfei could hardly believe this was auntie Xue he was looking at.
Both of her eyes were shut tight and her eyebrows knitted together. The corners of her lips were pursed tightly as if she was in an excruciating amount of pain. A faint sliver of purple light could be seen floating from her face at times.
From her left ear, Bai Yunfei noticed the Detoxifying Earring he gave her before. It was still flashing very faintly in light as before, but it seemed that even the earring wasn’t having much of an effect on her condition…
Realizing just how bad this situation was for auntie Xue, Bai Yunfei need better than to tarry. His right hand blurred briefly as he withdrew a faint-red earring from his space ring. Without any further considerations, he bent down and gently clipped it onto the right ear of the bedridden woman.
“Bai Yunfei, what are you doing?”
Zhao Mancha asked, confused by what he was doing.
“It’s a special soul armament that can cure poisons. It’ll help with auntie Xue’s illness.” Bai Yunfei replied concisely.
“Special soul armament? Pure poisons?!” Zhao Mancha’s eyes flew wide open.
Her mouth followed suit, “Eh?! It looks like it’s working!!”
The bedridden woman’s face softened up almost immediately after the second earring was clipped onto her ear. Clearly, that meant the earring was especially powerful beyond even what Bai Yunfei thought—much to his happiness.
“The poison this person has is a serious one. It’s a troublesome matter if we’re trying to cure her…” As Bai Yunfei was rejoicing to himself, Xiao Fang’s voice spoke into his mind. By using its soulsense, Xiao Fang was able to tell what was going on with the woman in front of it.
Xiao Fang grew pensive as it tried to think.
“Luckily, there’s a medicinal immortal grass in the garden. It’s helpful for poison, so she should see some benefit if you give it to her.”
“What? Really? There’s something like that in there?!” Bai Yunfei was surprised to hear Xiao Fang talk, and even more so at the information it was giving to him.
“Let’s bring it out then!” He was so overjoyed that he spoke aloud at that next bit.
Zhao Mancha was startled. She glanced over at him only to see his hand blur again before a few greenish-blue stalks of grass were brought out. There was still a few drops of dew on the blades and some dirt on the roots, seeming as if it had only just been pulled out from the ground.
“How do I use this?” Bai Yunfei asked Xiao Fang.
“The medicinal immortal grass is the main ingredient for the ‘Immortal’s Regenerating Pill’. It’d be stronger if you could make the pill or compound it with another ingredient, but since there’s no time and all the Alchemists are extinct, we’ll have to use it as is. Just let her eat it…”
Without needing to be told twice, Bai Yunfei used some soulforce to wipe the grass clean of dirt and other impurities before bending over to feed it into the woman’s mouth.
“Halt!! What person are you? What are you doing?!”
Just at that moment, a tremendous force of soulforce descended upon the room alongside a loud roar!