Chapter 26: My Extraordinary Pill Furnace
After peacefully attending the last lesson of the day, Song Shuhang stored his textbook then stood up and put his hand on his lower back as he stretched his back.
At his side, the female student who had great curves once again parted reluctantly from him. At the same time, the thought of confessing to Shuhang rose once again — at the very least, for the length of this summer, she wanted to be Song Shuhang’s girlfriend to enjoy his human air conditioner-like body.
Shuhang felt chills from this girl’s reluctant gaze, it was very awkward.
Then, with impeccable timing, Tubo and two more of Shuhang’s roommates walked over.
“Motherfucker, it’s so hot that I nearly shed another layer of skin.” Tubo used the textbook as a fan to keep himself cool. Beads of sweat continuously slid down his forehead. “Oh yeah, Shuhang, do you want to hang out this afternoon?”
“You still have the mood to go out and play in this sweltering heat?” Shuhang joked. The sun was unforgiving today, and it definitely wasn’t the kind of weather that was suitable for one to go out to have fun.
“Hehe, this fella Yangde recently developed a computer program and sold it for a decent sum of money. So he wanted to rent a 3-room flat close to the school so that no one could disturb him.
We’re trying to help him a good place, and if we do find it, it could possibly become our second base of operations and at the same time, we could freeload off of him tonight.” Tubo laughed.
Shuhang raised his thumb up towards his dark and skinny roommate, “Yangde, you really have good prospects, you’re both good at tinkering with things, but you’re much stronger than Tubo. You’re able to earn money, while Tubo only knows how to spend money!”
Tubo: “…”
Yangde laughed, exposing his two white rows of teeth. Despite his young age, he already had the stoic temperament of a programmer, and wasn’t very good at talking. This was due to the fact that programmers often used keyboards to communicate more frequently than they used their mouths to speak.
“I’m busy this afternoon because I got to deal with the two boxes that I received today. Call me when you find a flat, and I’ll come over immediately!” Song Shuhang replied quickly. It was perfect that his roommates were planning to go out, this would allow him to try concocting in peace.
“You brat, you don’t want to contribute yet you want freeload huh!” Tubo coldly accused him. “I’m telling you, there’s no way for that to happen! However, there’s a window, introduce your beautiful sister to us!”
“Get lost.” Song Shuhang said. “There’s no way for that to happen! However, there’s room for negotiation, treat me to supper tonight then!”
Song Shuhang didn’t have much, but he did have a few beautiful sisters. As for the woman named Soft Feather that Tubo was thinking of, unfortunately, she wasn’t his sister.
Tubo’s eyes immediately glittered as he showed an expression of making a profitable trade, “Deal!”
Do we actually know Shuhang’s beautiful sister? Yangde felt suspicious about this. There was a “sister” who we met called Zhao Yaya when she sent Shuhang to Jiangnan University. Could it be that Tubo wants to pursue Shuhang’s older female cousin?
The difficulty seemed to be pretty high as Elder Sister Zhao’s Ballbusting Kick looked like one that would leave him infertile.
He thought of that day, the day when Elder Sister Zhao had sent Shuhang to school and encountered a few delinquent youths who didn’t know better.
Besides Tubo, Yangde and company all witnessed how strong Elder Sister Zhao was. Her two long legs casually kicked, each hit struck the family jewels. Elder Sister Zhao had definitely had that practiced. Moreover the skill Ballbusting Kick was surely put to use often. The few delinquents quickly fell to the ground, crying out loud while covering their balls. As witnesses, they felt as if their balls would hurt just from spectating the scene.
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After lunch, the three roommates left the dorm to go out, leaving Song Shuhang alone.
“Hu.” He took a deep breath and the pearl hanging around his neck calmed him down. This was a good situation to begin his project.
Opening one of the small cases containing the herbs, Song Shuhang referred to the recipe of the ‘Tempering Body Pill’ that was created by the Medicine Master.
Inside the case there were four layers, each layer containing over ten kinds of herbs.
“Ginseng, Goji Berry, Actinolite, Ladies’ Fragrance….” Shuhang managed to identify over thirty herbs that could be found on the internet.
Morning Dew Mysterious Grass, and following that is the Fresh Overlord Branch, the Nine-Yang Scarlet Flame Bamboo and other items couldn’t be found on the internet. Even if he did find something, it was either an equipment or a material in a game.
One of the good traits about Soft Feather was her attentiveness to detail. Shuhang realized that the small cases already had everything arranged neatly in a sequence following the recipe, herbs in the recipe from start to end were placed in the order of left to right.
Even the dosage for each herb had been meticulously measured.
“An attentive and gentle lady is definitely the best.” Shuhang heaved a sigh of relief. “With this, I don’t need to consult the Nine Province (1) Group.”
The herbs for refining the ‘Body Tempering Pill’ required one to follow the recipe and periodically insert the herbs in a specific sequence into the cauldron. If the order is messed up, it would fail immediately. If Soft Feather had not arranged the herbs and left it all a mess, Song Shuhang would have a headache.
“Follow the proportion of the recipe and put them one by one into the pill furnace, boil it for approximately five minutes, insert the next herb, then boil for approximately five minutes, insert next herb and repeat. Pay attention to the fire’s temperature! By using this process, the medicinal liquid would turn into a paste. A successfully completed Body Tempering Liquid should be black in colour, transparent, and with a strong smell.” These were Medicine Master’s original words.
Reading the instructions, this seemed really simple, and sounded like if one was really careful, anybody could do this.
That was true. The Body Tempering Liquid was merely the lowest of lowest-grade pills, it couldn’t even be considered as pill medicine or dregs of a concoction. Refined pills did not require the consumption of true qi, spiritual qi. It also did not need special Earth Flames, Heavenly Flames or Pill Flames.
Even an ordinary person would be able to refine this pill if they paid close attention!
However, it wouldn’t be that easy to succeed at concocting.
There was heat control, and the words ‘approximately five minutes’, which meant that the time may not necessarily be fixed five minutes. It was partially dependent on the refiner’s experience and adjustment according to the type of herb.
Furthermore, the Body Tempering Liquid required forty-five types of herbs, which meant that it would take almost four hours, required a lot of concentration, and one couldn’t even relax for a moment. If an ordinary person wanted to refine this ‘Body Tempering Liquid’, they would require an incredible amount of willpower and experience.
Song Shuhang opened the hot pot and inserted the slices of ginseng.
“Come to think of it, the pill recipe didn’t mention whether water needed to be added…” Song Shuhang scratched his head.
I have to add it, right? If I don’t add it, within 5 minutes, there will be no need to mention the ginseng slices, even the bottom of the pot would be scorched… right?
But how much water do I need to add?
“Should I enter the chat group to ask?” Song Shuhang whipped out his phone, but put it down after calmly thinking it through.
This was his first time refining the Body Tempering Pill, so he was bound to have many problems in the process. But he couldn’t possibly go and ask the chat group every time he encountered a problem, right?
The cultivators in the chat group weren’t online all the time, if he went to the chat group to ask for help every time he encountered a problem, and ended up taking over 5 minutes for an issue, the concoction would end up in a failure. Looking at it this way, even the 32 sets of herbs he had wouldn’t be enough for him to waste.
So he decided embrace the mentality of definite failure and follow the Medicine Master’s recipe once. If there were any issues in the concoction process he would make a list of them all, and ask them in the chat group in one go.
“Let’s add a ladle of water then.” He scooped a ladle of water and added it into the cauldron, and turned on the induction cooker.
Using the induction cooker… was also because he had no other choice.
Because the school’s dormitory didn’t have a fire alarm installed, to prevent the risk of fire, all sources of fire were prohibited. Having an induction cooker could already be considered pretty good.
Besides, it just needed to be boiled, boiling using fire and boiling using electricity shouldn’t make a difference, right?
Then, he pressed the function for stewing soup. The induction cooker provided by the dormitory had four preset functions, there was fry, roast, stew, and sauté. There was also the function to manually adjust the heat.
If cultivating really existed, then I would definitely be the first person to use a induction cooker to refine pills. Song Shuhang thought as he mocked himself.