Coming to a stop, Bai Yunfei turned his head to look towards the room’s entrance.
Three additional figures had already entered the room prior to when the speaker had even finished their sentence. There stood two elders and one young man. Bai Yunfei recognized two of them, but the third he did not. One of the elders—one dressed in green—was Tang Xinyun’s second uncle Tang Qianchi. The young person in golden robes was Tang Xinyun’s elder brother Tang Jing. The second elder in dark-green robes was an unfamiliar one, but Bai Yunfei knew he was a Soul King judging from his aura.
The looks on both Tang Qianchi and Tang Jing’s faces were thunderous. They glared vehemently at Bai Yunfei, but then when they realized who it was, they both blinked.
“Aren’t you…Bai Yunfei?!” Tang Jing cried out, “What are you doing here?!”
Zhao Mancha snapped wide awake at Tang Jing’s call, “Young master! Bai Yunfei only just arrived to cure the lady of her poison.”
“Cure?”
The three males looked even more confused.
“Youngster,” The second elder spoke with a strange look in his eyes, “have you a way to cure her poison?”
The confusion on Bai Yunfei’s face was equally noticeable to Zhao Mancha’s eyes as the elder’s confusion towards Bai Yunfei. “This is the traveling soul cultivator the first young master hired,” She whispered to him, “His name is Pan Zhaoqi and is an expert on poisons. He tried to cure the lady of her poison before but failed.”
Bai Yunfei nodded in understanding, “I don’t know what kind of poison auntie Xue was afflicted by, but I’ve a stalk of medicinal immortal grass. That should be enough to be of some use to her. I was in the middle of administering it to her.”
Both Tang Jing and Tang Qianchi reared back at the response, but it was Pan Zhaoqi that was the most astonished.
“What did you say?! You’ve medicinal immortal grass?!”
Bai Yunfei presented the stalk of grass to the elder, “This is indeed some medicinal immortal grass. Are there any more questions, senior?”
“Whoosh!”
There was a blur of light as Pan Zhaoqi reappeared in front of Bai Yunfei with his eyes glued to the medicine in front of him. “It’s true! This is a stalk of medicinal immortal grass! It’s been a millennium since their last spotting, I thought they were extinct by now!”
“Is there something special about this medicinal immortal grass, senior Pan?” Tang Jing asked, “Can it cure auntie Xue?”
Never even breaking eye contact with the grass, Pan Zhaoqi replied, “It’s a very very rare type of plant that can cure plenty of poisons. Legends say that the Alchemy School had a pill known as the Immortal’s Regenerating Pill could bring even the near-death back to life, and the medicinal immortal’s grass is its main component. This specific stalk of medicinal immortal grass has been growing for a thousand years, using it as it is should most definitely help with lady Tang’s health.”
“There’s no time to waste then, administer the medicinal immortal grass to her at once.”
“One moment!” Pan Zhaoqi interjected, “Dear friend, I’ve studied a small amount on the affliction of lady Xue. I’d recommend lending the medicinal immortal grass to me and I’ll use my elemental wood to refine them into a better form for the lady to take in.”
The elderly man looked as though he wanted to use the medicinal immortal grass himself. Bai Yunfei glanced over to Zhao Mancha, who nodded back in return. Having nothing else to say about the matter, Bai Yunfei handed the weeds over to the man. “Then, if you would please, senior.”
There was a small gleam in Bai Yunfei’s eyes as the medicinal immortal grass was passed onto Pan Zhaoqi’s hands. “Ah, senior, as an expert on medicines, I presume you’ve a generous amount of different herbs? Would senior by chance have any bluelake coral, fishtail mushroom, rainbow-lark flower, duskbell fruit, and venomous violet grass?”
Pan Zhaoqi quirked an eyebrow in stark surprise, “You know about those rare ingredients? What purpose have you for those?”
“According to what I know, those ingredients could be used to strengthen the medicinal immortal grass’s effects.”
“Is that true?!” Pan Zhaoqi gasped. “Bluelake coral, rainbow-lark flower, and duskbell fruit, I have those three, but as for the fishtail mushroom and venomous violet grass…”
“We have those two in our storehouse! I’ll have someone bring them right away!” Tang Jing replied at once.
It was a wonderful piece of news for both Bai Yunfei and Zhao Mancha. First gripping the hand of her master, Zhao Mancha then rose up to bow to Pan Zhaoqi. “Please, save lady Xue and this junior will be sure to repay senior handsomely!”
“The Tang invited me to come, so to do just that is what is required of me,” Pan Zhaoqi laughed. “But this young fellow here…Bai Yunfei was it? Could you be the very same Bai Yunfei from the Crafting School?!”
“I am he, senior.”
“Young you are,” Pan Zhaoqi murmured, “But strong as well. I’ve heard rumors that you’re the best the Crafting School has seen in a thousand years, but to know so much about medicinal herbs as well…how admirable…”
“I was only fortunate enough to come across an old medicinal manual regarding this topic, senior Pan praises this junior too much.”
……
The three herbs Pan Zhaoqi had were quickly taken out from his space ring shortly afterward. With the remaining two herbs brought to him, the elder was quick to combine all six of the items with a bubble of elemental wood. Gradually dissolved into a liquid condensate, he had the hazy mixture dropped into a small cauldron. With another push of soulforce, he had the mixture quickly processed into a more refined state without the impurities.
With Zhao Panqi’s elemental wood constantly refining the six herb mixture in the cauldron to become even purer. It truly did seem like he was trying to use alchemy to create a new medicine as the tincture was constantly changing in shape, size, and color before finally condensing into a pill form.
It wasn’t a pill made with the authentic style of the Alchemy School, but as far as purifying and concentrating medicines go, this pill was far more effective than simply ingesting the ingredients as is.
The light of elemental wood slowly abated away from Pan Zhaoqi’s figure as he finished the process. Left in his hand was a greenish pill the size of a quail egg. With a wave of his hand, the half-liquid, half-solid pill was placed into the mouth of the woman.
“It’s working! It’s really working! How wonderful!”
Roughly ten seconds after the pill was ingested, the first person to react was Zhao Mancha. Even Bai Yunfei could tell that the pill was indeed doing its job. Chu Qingxue’s face was looking far more vibrant than before. Her eyebrows were slowly unfurling, and her breathing was even stabilizing upon itself. Clearly, her body was slowly winning against the poison in her body.
It was a result of not just the pill, but also the Purification Earring. Both were doing their part in alleviating the poison’s effects and helping Chu Qingxue recover.
“Whew…”
Exhaling, Bai Yunfei released the breath that had been held in his mouth for so long. He had done all that he could for Tang Xinyun’s mother. All that was left to do was hope for the older woman to make a recovery.
Leaving Zhao Mancha to look after Chu Qingxue, Bai Yunfei turned to walk to Tang Qianchi and Tang Jing. “Uncle Tang, brother Tang.” He clasped his hands together.
“Bai Yunfei,” Tang Jing nodded in kind, “I didn’t expect you to come by so quickly. Did you already hear about the matter with my sister?!”
For the second time that day, Bai Yunfei’s heart skipped a beat. “Oh! Brother Tang, where is Xinyun? What’s happened to her?!”
“You don’t know?” Tang Jing blinked. “My sister, she’s…she’s been missing since yesterday!”
“Missing?!” Bai Yunfei exclaimed, “What’s going on?! How could she have gone missing?”
“We’re not sure, but we believe it to be a kidnapping. Our last sighting of her was when she went to Orchid Town. We came across signs of battle on Mt. Orchid, so it’s very likely she was kidnapped there. We’ve yet to find out who could be the culprit, their goals, or even where they went. We haven’t found any clues yet either…every single able-bodied person we sent to find her has come up with nothing so far.”
“So something did happen at Mt. Orchid!!” Bai Yunfei was unsettled by this. Listening to Tang Xinyun’s disappearance was as abrupt as a bolt of lightning out of the clear blue sky.
There wasn’t a point on thinking about the possible reasons on why Tang Xinyun might’ve been kidnapped. The most pressing issue was the fact that Tang Xinyun was kidnapped, and that he had to find and save her…
“I’ll bring Tang Xinyun back!!”
He’d have to rely on himself if the Tang hadn’t any clues. Sparing just a single second to think and announce his intentions, Bai Yunfei disappeared into a blur right in front of everyone’s eyes.
“Teleportation?!”
Tang Jing gasped. “Was that teleportation?! Has…has Bai Yunfei become a Soul King?! Impossible!”
……
Thanks to the powers of the Core Stone, Bai Yunfei reappeared on top of a tall mountain peak a moment later. Furious beyond belief, Bai Yunfei started to scan the surrounding area with the help of the visibility provided to him by his vantage point.
Bai Yunfei had a key advantage over the Tang in finding Tang Xinyun. His soul compatibility with the Yun’s Soul Ring—which was on Tang Xinyun’s person—was around 50%. This milestone allowed for Bai Yunfei to just barely sense its presence from within a half-kilometer of distance. This would be the compass Bai Yunfei would use to find her.
He hadn’t a reaction back in Tang Manor, meaning that the ring—and her—wasn’t within five hundred meters of the place.
He just had to guess a possible direction from there. By using the Core Stone’s ability to teleport, he could travel from range to range to find her.
Dedicated entirely to his task, Bai Yunfei tried his best to feel for the Yun’s Soul Ring. When he found nothing, he’d teleport again…
If nothing was to be felt after several repetitions, Bai Yunfei would alter directions and continue looking…
Finally, when Bai Yunfei’s reserves were at half of what they used to be, his eyes brightened with joy when his senses caught hold of something.
“Found it!!”