The torrential rain lashed at Lu Qingyang, making it difficult for him to open his eyes. He clutched at the newly formed icicles in the rock crevices to climb upward, his coarse linen clothes already torn into shreds by the mountain wind.
The purple-bearded ginseng he had just dug up in his medicine basket was covered in mud and water, its roots curled into a ball, much like the Old Drunkard's hunched back when he coughed up blood.
“If I can’t gather the Blood Ganoderma Lucidum…” He gritted his back teeth and wrapped the rope twice more around his wrist. The dark red patch on the cliff top was particularly dazzling under the lightning.
Three days ago, the barefoot doctor in town pried open the Old Drunkard's eyelids and spat a thick wad of phlegm onto the ground: “His lung meridians are withered like old vines dried for three years, unless he can be saved by a thousand-year-old Blood Ganoderma Lucidum.”
The icicle suddenly broke, and Lu Qingyang fell headlong downward. The moment his lower back hit a protruding rock, he instinctively flung out his medicine shovel and hooked it onto a withered vine.
Rotten leaves mixed with ice shards rustled down. By the light of the thunder, he saw a few points of faint blue phosphorescence in a rock cave three zhang away—precisely the sign of mature Blood Ganoderma Lucidum.
“The scent of Iron-backed Azure Wolf feces.” Lu Qingyang smeared a handful of mud on his face and held his breath as he crept towards the cave.
Three years ago, he and the Old Drunkard had hunted this type of Yao Beast and knew that they hated the sour smell of rotten bone flower the most. Dried rotten bone flower petals were hidden at the bottom of his medicine basket, and at this moment, a pungent juice was seeping from them.
Inside the cave, the foul smell was nauseating, and five Blood Ganoderma Lucidum glowed with an eerie red light deep within the wolf's den.
As Lu Qingyang's fingertips touched the cap, a young wolf's whimper suddenly sounded behind him. The mother wolf's glowing green eyes emerged from the darkness, and half a Cultivator's jade belt still hung from her fangs.
“I'm sorry!” The young man suddenly overturned his medicine basket, spilling rotten bone flower juice all over the wall.
The mother wolf was choked and sneezed repeatedly. He took the opportunity to snatch the Blood Ganoderma Lucidum and rushed towards the cave entrance. The torrential rain sizzled on his hot wounds, but the mushroom cap in his arms gradually exuded warmth, and in a trance, it felt as if he was holding the Old Drunkard's dying heartbeat.
A dark figure suddenly appeared around the mountain path's bend. Lu Qingyang braked abruptly, almost falling into the ditch.
Black Heart Tiger stood in the middle of the road, leaning on his Nine-Ringed Dao Blade, a scar splitting his face from his brow bone to the corner of his mouth: “The little brat is quite filial. This Blood Ganoderma Lucidum is just right for me to soak in wine.”
“Tiger Lord is joking,” Lu Qingyang retreated two steps, secretly crushing a few dried snake berries with his boot heel. “This thing is contaminated with the saliva of the Iron-backed Azure Wolf. Look, the gills are already black.”
He deliberately spread out the Blood Ganoderma Lucidum, and dark red juice dripped from between his fingers, spreading black threads in the accumulated water.
Black Heart Tiger indeed hesitated for half a breath. Lu Qingyang raised his hand and flung out poison vine powder mixed with rainwater, then turned and plunged into the thorny bushes.
Angry curses came from behind him, and an old pine tree, cleaved by the Nine-Ringed Dao Blade, crashed down, just barely blocking the pursuers' path.
In the column of rain leaking from the broken tiles of the dilapidated temple, the Old Drunkard's face was the ashen gray of a dead person.
Lu Qingyang trembled as he chewed the Blood Ganoderma Lucidum into pieces and fed it into his mouth, but he heard the gurgling sound of a broken bellows from his throat.
The offering table was suddenly stained red with the blood foam he coughed up. The old man actually struggled to reach into his crotch—from a hidden pocket in his crotch, he pulled out half of a rusty bronze compass.
“Taiyi Pavilion… cough cough… stolen…” The Old Drunkard's cloudy pupils began to dilate, and his fingernails dug deeply into Lu Qingyang's wrist. “The Azure Wood… Spirit Pearl is in…”
He died before finishing his sentence, but the compass needle suddenly spun wildly, pointing directly at the bleeding cloth bag at his apprentice's waist.
Lu Qingyang then felt a stinging pain in his palm. Earlier, while fleeing, he had grabbed a handful of rotten bone flower, and now the thorns embedded in his palm lines were emitting a faint glow like fireflies.
The temple's beams suddenly creaked, and the Three Pure Ones statue on the offering table slowly turned, revealing a peeled-off wall behind it with a gatha: “Where green dust seeks the Dao, the Spirit Pearl illuminates eternal life.”
The Blood Ganoderma Lucidum powder in the cloth bag rustled down, replaced by a bronze bead covered in green rust.
As Lu Qingyang leaned in to observe, a drop of blood seeping from his wound happened to fall onto the rust. The bronze rust wriggled and receded like a living thing, revealing the jade-like, lustrous texture within. Faintly visible inside the bead was an acre of medicine field, with spiritual plants sprouting and flowering at a visible speed.
Scattered footsteps came from outside the temple. Lu Qingyang hastily stuffed the bronze bead into his crotch.
Three Cultivators wearing bamboo hats kicked open the door. The compass in the hand of the leader was identical to the Old Drunkard's relic: “Hand over the Azure Wood…”
He suddenly stopped mid-sentence. All three stared at the still-wet bloodstain on the offering table—the puddle of blood was moving along the strokes of the gatha, gradually forming the emblem of Taiyi Pavilion.
