Chapter 136 Requesting a Pill

"Still capable of the Golden Light Ground-A-Journey technique? Good thing I scared them off, or it would have been yet another major trouble."

Shen Zhongzhu slowly opened his eyes. The dynamic, blood-red heavenly eye on his forehead did not continue to expand; instead, it healed on its own, forming a crust of blood.

The dark clouds blanketing the night sky dispersed, and bright moonlight pierced through the thin mist, shining upon the bewildered, drifting souls.

The sound of the wind faded into the distance, and the mist gradually dissipated.

"Who are you?"

Having escaped her predicament, Fan Xuanyue flew over to Shen Zhongzhu's side riding her gourd, staring with slightly weary yet still curious eyes at Shen Zhongzhu, who was wrapped from head to toe in bandages.

"Never mind where I'm from; you should hurry and leave this place to return to Zhonghe Province," Shen Zhongzhu sighed, lifting his gaze to look at Fan Xuanyue perched on the gourd.

Fan Xuanyue akimboed her hands, glared at Shen Zhongzhu, and huffed, "If you don't tell me who you are, I'm not leaving!"

"Do you know Zhao Lingluo, the Grand Astrologer of the Bureau of Astronomy?"

Shen Zhongzhu's gaze swept past Fan Xuanyue and landed on the azure jade bracelet lying on the rooftop, his heart releasing a slight sigh of relief. Fortunately, that person had not taken his jade bracelet away.

With a stretch of his palm, the azure jade bracelet flew back into Shen Zhongzhu's hand.

"Brother Zhao? You're a friend of Brother Zhao! Then you must be from either the Demon-Subduing Division or the Spirit-Catching Division? How come I've never seen you in either of the two divisions?"

Upon hearing Shen Zhongzhu mention Zhao Lingluo, Fan Xuanyue's eyes lit up as she asked question after question.

Shen Zhongzhu slipped the azure jade bracelet onto his wrist, where the faint phantom of a carp flashed across it. The fiery aura leaking from the bandages on his body gradually subsided, yet the burn scars on his cheeks refused to heal.

"It seems Zhao Lingluo has quite a lot of leisure time at the Bureau of Astronomy, even having the spare energy to take in a younger sister."

Shen Zhongzhu stood up and reached out with an empty-handed grab toward Daoist Priest Lu, who had been knocked unconscious by his thunder technique and had yet to wake up. The priest's red pagoda Daoist robe instantly materialized on Shen Zhongzhu's own body.

Now that his business was finished, Shen Zhongzhu had no desire to linger here any longer.

His junior brother had helped him settle those two individuals back into the Heaven-Suppressing Army, and this time he had helped his junior brother save this pretty young maiden's life, so he and his junior brother were now even.

"Brother Zhao is not idle; he hasn't returned to the capital for a very long time," Fan Xuanyue muttered.

"The medicinal pills... what should we do?" Seeing that Shen Zhongzhu was about to leave, Cui Ya, who had been sitting silently behind Fan Xuanyue, could not help but speak up.

Cui Ya certainly had not forgotten that she had come here seeking medicinal pills. Under the current circumstances, it was clearly impossible to count on the Wind-Subduing Temple to refine pills anymore, yet she herself did not know how to refine them.

Fan Xuanyue's brow arched in sudden realization. "Oh, that's right! You still need medicinal pills! No worries, Brother Zhao knows how to refine pills, so his friend should know how to refine them too!"

Shen Zhongzhu, who was lazily and leisurely taking steps to leave, felt his eyelids twitch upon hearing these words. Just as he was about to cast his Daoist arts to depart, the hem of his Daoist robe was already firmly grasped by Fan Xuanyue.

"Hmm? The Primordial Azure Divine Light."

Naturally, Fan Xuanyue could not possibly hold back Shen Zhongzhu, who was utterly determined to leave, but sensing the Primordial Azure Divine Light emanating from this pretty maiden made Shen Zhongzhu pause for a moment.

"You even recognize that this protective azure light of mine is the Primordial Azure Divine Light? It was bestowed upon me by my teacher as a protective defense!" Fan Xuanyue looked at Shen Zhongzhu with some astonishment.

Shen Zhongzhu let out a breath, raised his eyes to glance at Fan Xuanyue, and said, "I thought it was an innate ability of yours. Gave me quite a scare."

"Do you know how to refine medicinal pills?" Fan Xuanyue stared at Shen Zhongzhu and asked.

Interrupted by Fan Xuanyue's Primordial Azure Divine Light, Shen Zhongzhu lost his immediate impulse to leave. He cast a glance at Cui Ya, who was cowering submissively behind Fan Xuanyue and not daring to raise her head.

"I certainly know how to refine pills, but why should I help her refine them?" Shen Zhongzhu withdrew his gaze, looked at Fan Xuanyue, and chuckled lightly, "I saved you because my junior brother instructed me to, which is why I rescued you. What on earth does she have to do with me?"

Shen Zhongzhu's question caused Fan Xuanyue to furrow her brow. She rubbed her temples, racking her brain to think of any reason that could persuade this fair-skinned man to help them refine pills.

"She doesn't have much to do with you either, does she? If my eyes don't deceive me, the knife wound on your waist was inflicted by her." Shen Zhongzhu lowered his gaze to look at Fan Xuanyue's waist and abdomen.

Even though the knife wound on Fan Zhongzhu's waist and abdomen was now nothing more than a faint scar, Shen Zhongzhu could tell that the injury had been inflicted very recently, and the weapon matching the blade's trace happened to be the double-edged short blades that Fan Xuanyue carried reversed in her left hand.

Shen Zhongzhu did not believe Fan Xuanyue would be bored enough to stab herself, nor would such a commonplace weapon be something Fan Xuanyue herself would use.

Thus, the only possibility was that she had been stabbed by the woman standing behind her.

"She was controlled by a puppet talisman," Fan Xuanyue defended Cui Ya. "She is my good friend, a very, very good friend."

"The Black Lotus Soul Lamp shows that you only arrived in Southern Wasteland Province ten days ago. In ten days, you became very good friends with her?"

Shen Zhongzhu flicked the fingers of his right hand, and an oil lamp shaped like a black lotus materialized in his palm, emitting a faint indigo glow. Fan Xuanyue's soul phantom drifted out from the lamp wick and fell back into her Niwan Palace.

"So that was why Brother Zhao asked me for a wisp of my soul." The fatigue in the depths of Fan Xuanyue's eyes dissipated slightly as a look of realization dawned on her face.

"Hurry back to Zhonghe Province. Next time you run into something like this, I might not be able to rush here right away," Shen Zhongzhu said, shaking his head.

"Then give her a divination! If the hexagram is favorable, you'll help her refine the pills; if the hexagram is unfavorable, then forget it!" Fan Xuanyue grasped the hem of Shen Zhongzhu's Daoist robe, refusing to let go.

Helpless, Shen Zhongzhu raised his head, sighed softly, and said, "Then let us leave it to the will of Heaven."

Flipping his left hand, three copper coins—round on the outside and square on the inside—appeared in his palm. He tossed them casually onto the roof tiles.

Hmm?

Shen Zhongzhu glanced at the hexagram. Whether this coin divination turned out auspicious or inauspicious mattered little to him; refining medicinal pills was something he could easily do on a whim. It was just that Shen Zhongzhu preferred not to entangle himself in too many karmic ties.

What could be avoided should be avoided.

Yet this hexagram appeared as an impenetrable fog.

This kind of situation only occurred when Shen Zhongzhu had once tested an unknown prisoner in the碧落 Dungeon (Azure Nether Dungeon) on Mulberry Elm Island. No matter what method of divination Shen Zhongzhu used, anything related to that prisoner invariably manifested as a thick fog.

Surely it couldn't be such a coincidence, could it?

Shen Zhongzhu frowned as he stared at Cui Ya behind Fan Xuanyue. This woman was indeed someone he was seeing for the first time, and there was no trace of her on Mulberry Elm Island. Why on earth would her divination results also turn out to be uncalculatable?

"I can refine the pills for you, but I must personally accompany you to deliver them," Shen Zhongzhu slowly stated.

Cui Ya hurriedly dropped to her knees, intending to kowtow in gratitude, when she suddenly discovered she could not lower her head, while a gentle resistance surged from her knees, lifting her back up.

"Kneel to Heaven, kneel to Earth, kneel to your parents. There's no need to kneel to me. I'm helping you refine these pills simply to clear away a knot in my own heart," Shen Zhongzhu said calmly.

Following that, his figure transformed into a streak of green light, shooting straight toward the alchemy chamber of the Wind-Subduing Temple.

"Does he even know what kind of pills you want to refine?" Fan Xuanyue turned her head to look at Cui Ya and asked.

Cui Ya shook her head blankly, holding onto a sliver of desperate hope as she said, "Perhaps that senior expert already knows?"

"He's not an immortal!" Fan Xuanyue pulled Cui Ya onto the gourd, and the magical gourd carried them both soaring toward the Wind-Subduing Temple's alchemy chamber as well.