The orange-red flame is dancing.
A medicine scent wafts from the Grade Two alchemy furnace on which the Kyuuki Beast is engraved. Lin Luoran’s one hand continually puts the fire Wakan into the furnace while the other hand makes the gesture of spells to lift the lid and put Butterflybush Flower in it.
What she is making is “Foundation-Laying Bolus”, the Grade Four middle-class bolus. It is not like making Grade One Fostering Qi Bolus, which only needs to put a certain quantity of medicinal materials together. Foundation-Laying Bolus takes dozens of medicinal materials, some basic remedies and some spirit herbs as support in total. Besides, their purifying degrees vary and should be put in the alchemy furnace by sequence. One false step will make a great difference. Lin Luoran has learned the lesson from the materials she has wasted.
You can’t know how many times you will fail before successfully making one bolus. The success rate just represents a general situation. When encountering special cases, you can do nothing but feel depressed.
Making Foundation-Laying Bolus is not like making Fostering Qi Bolus. It’s not the deal of putting tons of medicinal materials together and just waiting for solidifying. What Lin Luoran needs now is not Butterflybush Flower or Seven Stars Grass, but “Monkey Mushroom”.
When Lin Luoran got two Monkey Mushroom from the old monkey in the secret land, she tried to plant them in the space. It’s the first time that she realized there is something can’t be done in the space. Other mushrooms can be transplanted there. But the most important guiding drug of Foundation-Laying Bolus cannot live there.
So with the limited guiding drug, Lin Luoran makes Foundation-Laying Bolus very carefully. But she still fails many times.
Thinking that it’s the only remaining Monkey Mushroom, Lin Luoran is so nervous.
A black smoke erupts from the alchemy furnace. The smell of burning spirit medicine and spirit herb tells her that these valuable things have turned into ashes.
Tired and frustrated, Lin Luoran has no energy to clean the mess and just goes out. Lin’s backyard is very quiet and peaceful. Lin Luoran passes by the vegetable patch and unconsciously goes to the Huan island.
Shadows of bamboo are dancing in the breeze, with a small medicinal garden in it. Goldie notices that its owner is approaching, so it flies down directly.
Lin Luoran catches it with her arm. Goldie is lazy, feeling kind of droopy. So she puts an elixir in its mouth.
The moon is shining brightly. She wanders around with Goldie in the bamboo forest. And then she suddenly realizes she has been in front of the bamboo house.
Usually, there was a little fox nearby. It always hangs on to whoever passes by, putting on all kinds of coquettishness and arrogance and asking for food and spirit herbs. The whole Lin family all know its tricks.
But now, in a room full of moonlight, the small wooden bed, which Mr. Lin deliberately made for it, now is so empty. Where is the little fox?
It disappeared in Weifang, Shandong. It has been three months but no one knows where it is.
Cyan little fox showed its nine tails and made shikigami surrender. At that time, when the three of Lin Luoran hiding on the roof revealed their joy, a cyan light suddenly burst out on the hillside.
With a flash, everyone on the hillside, including the cyan little fox, disappeared.
Lin Luoran found that the leaking Reiki had been blocked. Without Reiki, Weifang can’t produce amazing radish any more. However, Lin Luoran doesn’t care about that very much. Even the fact that maybe cyan little fox opened the entrance to the Green Mountains and took Sakurako Asada with it… is not so important in Lin Luoran’s mind.
Lin Luoran doesn’t care about where the Green Mountains is. The only thing she concerns is that whether cyan little fox went to the Green Mountains on its own will, or was passively involved—If the answer is the former, will it still want to go back to the Lin’s? But if it is the latter, how can it come out?
Maybe, it thinks the mortal world is so annoying and complex and doesn’t want to return.
The three of them stayed in Weifang for more than a month. Lin Luodong and Huang Weijian were about to go back to school so they had to return home. Even when they were home, Lin Luoran often asked Goldie to take her to check the hill behind Weifang Vocational High School at night. It took a few hours to make a round trip but she was always worried that cyan little fox couldn’t find the way back to the Lin family… Unfortunately, there was no trace at all.
Lin Luoran thinks about it. She is just deceiving herself. Cyan little fox has found Weifang from two thousand kilometers away. How can it be possible for it to get lost?
She is just a weak Laying Foundation cultivator while it is a nine-tailed adult fox. Maybe she does not qualify enough to raise it…
Luo Luoran understands all these reasons, but she is still restless. So she has failed in making Foundation-laying Bolus for so many times.
But Goldie must be the one that cares most about cyan little fox’s missing.
It has no partners. It is a lonely alien in this world.
…
After two days, it’s weekends. Lin Luodong and Huang Weijian return home together. They are fresh students of the Fourth Secondary School of Rong City. Huang Weijian is not the local so he can live on campus. Lin Luodong also lives on campus. They only go home on weekends.
“Sister, Wei Xue was also admitted to our school.” Lin Luodong mentions his friend and is so happy. They stayed close to each other even when they were in different junior high schools. Fatty Ma is now also in No. 4 Middle School, at the cost of money. The small group finally has enough people to play Majiang together.
Lin Luodong says lots of things. The key idea is sometimes even friends can be reunited one day, so probably everything can be back… Lin Luoran finally realizes he is comforting her.
Lin Luoran always has very deep feelings for people or things that she spends a lot of time together. She does not know whether it is good or bad for her cultivation of personal ability.
When Luodong starts to find ways to comfort her, she realizes that she had to face up to this problem.
She can’t get stuck in it. She still has a lot of other things to do.
Zeng Tian shows her the latest financial statements of Lins’ Pharmaceutical Factory. Aside from the initial investment, Lins’ Typhoid Pill alone has made so much money. Lin Luoran frowns when she sees the long numbers. “Will we be fined for tax evasion?”
Zeng Tian blushes: “Grandmaster, I am an honest businessman.”
Xuan Ye returns from the planting base in Mount Qingcheng. He pats his junior fellow apprentice on the shoulder. “How is your practice of the Immanence of Spring going?”
“Immanence of Spring” sounds gorgeous, but it is actually a spell of the Water for large area watering—Zeng Tian darkens. He has no talent in spell, and he is always teased by Xuan Ye.
Lin Luoran puts down the document, “Well, maybe it’s time to carry out the next plan. Just recruit a professional team to do it, or set up a subsidiary to take charge. You guys still have to focus on your own cultivation. ”
Yuan Ye and Zeng Tian both agree. Zeng Tian thinks about it and asks if there will be another specific medicine.
Lin Luoran thinks for a while and then shakes her head. “Just wait for another two years. If we monopolize the market, other pharmaceutical factories will not survive. As a result, ordinary workers will lose their jobs… Don’t be too ruthless.”
Zeng Tian thinks for a while and is dragged out of there by Yuan Ye.
Being interrupted by these trifles, Lin Luoran is kind of relaxed. She spent the weekend with Lin Luodong. When he and Huang Weijian go back to school, she goes back to the basement.
The Monkey Mushroom has been sliced and separated. There are millennium Luminous Sands, millennium Butterflybush Flower, Jade Grass that can be used in many cases… Lots of spirit herbs are classified into different types such as dry ones, fresh ones and so on. Lin Luoran checks the sequence again and puts Luminous Sands first in the furnace.
Millennium Luminous Sands are some white milky crystals. Every crystal is twice as large as white sugar and is slightly yellowing because of its age.
The fire Wakan is absorbed by the alchemy furnace. The wall of the furnace warms up. And the Luminous Sands gradually melt in it, like sugar with special aromatic scents of millennium spirit medicine.
Lin Luoran estimates that it’s about time so she adds Butterflybush Flower. A little spirit herb can contain amazing Reiki. It occupies the position of Luminous Sands liquid as soon as it turns into the medicinal liquid.
Different spirit medicine can’t always be merged with other medicine easily. Making elixir is about purifying the repellent and maintaining useful things. Combining them all together, elixirs of various uses are born.
Butterflybush Flower, Jade Grass… Lin Luoran’s forehead is sweating. The alchemy furnace is amazingly hot. She can stand the cold and hot weather but such high temperature is still too much for her.
Time passes by. Her parents are still traveling around the world. Lin Luodong is staying at school. Her two disciples are busy investigating whether the Tao’s Village is suitable to be a medicine base. There is only Lin Luoran herself and Goldie in such a big villa.
She watches the boiling medicine liquid in the furnace. She can even hear the occasional frog sounds in the pond outside the basement.
It’s autumn. The Lin’s villa is surrounded by the huge circle so she can’t feel it’s getting cold. Li Xi’er’ flowers, Mrs. Lin’s vegetables, cyan little fox’s spirit herbs, Lin Luoran’s own fruit trees….all kinds of plants are in a different situation. Some are yielding fruit while some are just blossoming.
The summer is over and the pepper is out of the market. But in Lin’s garden, the pepper is still blooming.
Canna indica just grows leaves where night dew rolls. The cherry tree can only follow the rule of season. Its leaves curl up like balls which are so ugly that you can’t even connect them with crystal and lovely cherries.
Fruit hangs on the ginkgo tree. This year is still a big harvest of gingko-nuts.
Lin Luoran’s spiritual mind can clearly identify all plants in the court.
When Lin Luoran regains her mind, she feels a perfect combination of Reiki in the alchemy furnace. It’s much clearer than before. She follows it and puts the “Monkey Mushroom” as a guiding drug in it.
Two pieces of Monkey Mushroom melt as soon as they are put in the furnace. They become a bond to merge all separated medicinal liquid together.
Lin Luoran senses something and she begins to solidify it. Using Reiki to help, the thick and paste-like liquid rotates along with the platform of the alchemy furnace.
For the first turn, it’s shaping.
For the second turn, it becomes an egg shape of big top and small bottom.
For the third turn, the edges and corners are gradually smoothed. It becomes more round.
For the fourth turn, it becomes more and more round and solid. But suddenly, it splits into two parts.
…Does it fail?
After a while, Lin Luoran opens the door of the basement. The moon is full and the weather is really good tonight. The gentle night breeze, like a lover’s care, quietly touches Lin Luoran’s hair.
There are two purple elixirs in the jade box. The Reiki is extraordinary. They are Foundation-laying Boluses, indispensable for cultivation.
She also does not expect that it would divide into two parts. She gets two Foundation-Laying Boluses at the last moment.
—Is it because of her state of mind when she was making the elixir?
