“What’s your name, my friend?”
Hu Huaichun came to Tang Hao and asked courteously.
In his eyes, the young man must have had a great physician as his master. That was why he had incredible skills of observation and a miraculous prescription.
“My name is Tang Hao!” Tang Hao said calmly.
“Your surname is Tang, you say!” Hu Huaichun furrowed his brows. He did not know any physician families whose surname was Tang.
“Divine Doctor Tang, about the bloodhemp grass…” Tang Hao said.
“Oh! I don’t need it anymore! You can take it!” Hu Huaichun said urgently. His face flushed red again.
He was humiliated in public because of that herb.
Tang Hao paid for the herbs, then left the market.
He rode on a minivan and headed west of Provincial City.
The minivan left the city limits. Another half an hour later, a mountain range came into view. Dirtclod Village was located somewhere in those mountains.
The minivan drove into the village. Tang Hao asked a villager for directions, then headed into the mountains.
Once he entered the mountains, he started running at superhuman speed.
The herb seller only gave him an estimated location. He said that all he had to do was go along the mountain path and cross several mountains. The area was unbelievably vast. Tang Hao was not sure if he was even on the right track.
A normal person would have given up. However, Tang Hao moved at an incredible speed. He could comb over the entire mountain with ease.
He finally found traces of the blue nandina more than two hours later.
He was already deep in the mountains. It was not only a few mountains away, but rather, tens of mountains away.
Tang Hao was silently cursing at the herb seller.
He calmed down and could sense that the qi flow was a lot stronger there.
It was good news for him. With a strong qi flow, there was a higher chance that the Flower of Youth was still surviving.
He walked forward while scanning his surroundings.
Suddenly, his gaze was fixed on a spot not too far in front. There was a plant about half his height. A few flowers bloomed amid the dense branches and leaves.
The flowers were in full bloom, and the petals were as red as blood.
That was the Flower of Youth.
According to the Scripture of the Divine Herbalist, the tree that bore the Flower of Youth could grow up to one zhang, an ancient Chinese unit of measurement a little more than three meters. When it was in season, hundreds of flowers would bloom at once, creating a dazzling sight.
The plant in front of Tang Hao was considered pathetic. It was half his height, and there were only five flowers.
“That’s not quite enough!” Tang Hao mumbled.
Pill-making carried the risk of failure. Even at his current proficiency, there was still a high chance of the furnace exploding. Five flowers meant that he had five attempts. There was no guarantee that he could succeed.
The Pill of Everlasting Beauty was a wondrous item. Any beauty cream or the Jade Bone Pill was trash compared to it.
Every woman wished that they could remain beautiful forever!
Making only one pill was definitely not enough.
Tang Hao started weighing his options.
He wanted to extract the plant and replant it in Dragonrock Village. However, it was incredibly troublesome for him to do so.
Furthermore, the plant looked sickly. The plant might die after he removed it from the soil, which would have been extremely unfortunate.
He thought for a long time and decided that the plant should remain where it was.
He did not feel very secure leaving the plant there, and so he took out jade talismans and set a maze formation around it.
After that, there was no worry that any human or beast would bring harm to the plant.
Then, he took out more jade talismans and laid down a leyline gathering formation.
Tang Hao clapped his hands satisfactorily after all that was done.
With the leyline gathering formation, he could channel more qi to the plant, which would make it thrive.
Then, he carefully plucked the five flowers and kept them in his pocket dimension.
The sky was almost dark when he came out of the mountains.
Tang Hao returned home and began the process of pill-making.
The most important, and also the rarest ingredient of the Pill of Everlasting Beauty was the Flower of Youth. There were several other rare herbs, but Tang Hao managed to find multiple portions of those.
He portioned the ingredients carefully. The ingredients were enough for four attempts.
Tang Hao’s expression was grim.
He needed to have at least one success in those four attempts. Otherwise, he did not know when he would have the complete set of ingredients again. Gathering the other ingredients was already difficult enough, and he did not know when the Flower of Youth would bloom again.
He retrieved his alchemical furnace and made preparations.
Then, he started the pill-making process.
He carefully controlled the intensity of the flames in the furnace, then added the ingredients one by one. The extreme heat transformed the ingredients into blobs of medicinal liquid.
After that was the distillation step. It was the most difficult step in the entire pill-making process. Nine out of ten times, the furnace would explode in that step.
Tang Hao had taken all precautions, but his first attempt ultimately failed.
Boom!
The furnace trembled and he heard a dull thud from within. The furnace had exploded.
“F*ck!” Tang Hao cursed. He felt incredibly sorry for the wasted ingredients, and his expression was grimmer than ever.
One failure. Three more attempts to go.
He did not immediately start on his next attempt. Instead, he rested for a while, and at the same time reviewing the steps he had taken earlier.
He started his second attempt when he felt prepared.
Once again, the furnace exploded in the distillation step. Tang Hao was becoming frustrated.
He rested again before he started the third attempt.
To Tang Hao’s surprise, the third attempt went very smoothly. The distillation process was completed without a hitch. Then, it was the refining step. An hour later, the furnace trembled and a beam of light shot out.
Tang Hao spread open his palm. The beam coalesced into a round alchemical pill that was as red as blood.
He could smell its amazing fragrance.
Tang Hao stretched his lips into a wide grin. He was unable to hold back his joy.
That pill was priceless!
He fiddled the pill in his hands for a while. Then, he stored it in a jade bottle.
He planned to give it to Sis Xiangyi. Her birthday was coming soon.
Then, Tang Hao started his fourth attempt. To no one’s surprise, he failed.
He slept soundly that night. Then, he woke up early the next day and went to class.
When he arrived at the main entrance of Z University, he could feel that the mood was not quite right.
The students were stealing glances at him while whispering among themselves.
“That’s him! I can’t be mistaken!”
Many people were looking at Tang Hao while looking at their phones.
“Where’s the justice? Beauty Queen Liu must be blind to fall for him!”
The boys were staring daggers at Tang Hao, while the girls were looking at him from head to toe and criticizing every inch of his body.
Tang Hao understood what was going on.
They thought that he was Liu Bingyao’s boyfriend.
He laughed helplessly.
He could not blame them though. That day, Liu Bingyao had dragged him from the female dormitory and across the cafeteria. That was enough fuel for rumors to spread.
He shook his head and went into the university.
