Martial Arts: My talent multiplier increased

Manager Qian felt as if he had been granted a pardon, and with his abacus in hand, he shrank back behind the counter.

Liu Ruyan's gaze was still fixed on the medicine cabinet. Fang Yuan could feel her feet moving on the ground—she wanted to go over and rummage through the cabinet, but she held on to the last thread and didn't move.

"You can look at the medicine cabinet," Fang Yuan said. "Don't mess it up."

The moment he finished speaking, Liu Ruyan took a step forward. She was faster than when she had chased Fang Yuan when she was running away.

Fang Yuan leaned against a pillar in the courtyard. He watched as Liu Ruyan opened the first drawer of the medicine cabinet, taking out each herb one by one, smelling it, breaking it, examining its cross-section, and putting it back. Her movements were extremely skillful; each herb remained in her hands for no more than three breaths.

Her hands were very steady.

It was much steadyer than when she was walking.

Fang Yuan, with his doubled comprehension, caught a detail while observing her inspecting the medicinal herbs.

Her technique for handling the herbs—taking them with her right hand, supporting them with her left, and maintaining a constant angle between her thumb and forefinger—was precise. When she put them back, the herbs were placed in the exact same position and orientation as before.

Muscle memory. Muscle memory is formed only after thousands of repetitive actions.

This woman's familiarity with medicinal herbs was ingrained in her very being.

Fang Yuan's fingers touched the edge of the dark gold fragment in his pocket. Constant temperature.

On the system panel, his comprehension talent is doubled. If it's boosted again, becoming quadrupled—his understanding of pharmacology will double.

But Liu Ruyan doesn't have a system.

She reached this level purely through talent and hard work.

Fang Yuan mentally reassessed her value.

Assessment result – High. Extremely high.

It's taller than half of Shen Youlan's map.

Shen Youlan's intelligence is a consumable resource. Once it's used up, it's gone. Liu Ruyan's pharmacological talent, on the other hand, is a productive force. It's inexhaustible.

If Bai Cao Tang's medicines could be upgraded to another level with Liu Ruyan's help—

Fang Yuan removed his fingers from the dark gold fragment.

Tie Meng came in through the back door, carrying two oil paper packages. He had bought steamed buns from a roadside vendor.

"Are you hungry?" Tie Meng handed Fang Yuan a package of oil paper.

Fang Yuan took it. He tore off a piece of the pancake and stuffed it into his mouth.

Tie Meng leaned closer, his voice extremely low.

"Is that girl reliable?"

Fang Yuan chewed on a steamed bun, his gaze falling on Liu Ruyan's back as she rummaged through the medicine cabinet.

"I believe about 80% of what she said about Green Medicine Valley."

"Which 20% don't believe it?"

"Her master's strength." Fang Yuan swallowed the steamed bun. "A martial artist at the early stage of the Dirty Refinement Realm facing more than a dozen red-robed men would choose to let his disciples run while he covers the rear—that's reasonable. But if an early stage Dirty Refinement Realm martial artist faces only one opponent of the same level, she doesn't need to let her disciples run. She could easily retreat with her disciples."

Tie Meng's brows furrowed.

"you mean--"

"The enemy has at least two Refining Realm experts. Or perhaps one higher." Fang Yuan's voice was soft. "The Qingyao Valley stronghold is larger than the one in the city."

Tie Meng's fingers rubbed against the iron arm guard. Fang Yuan had seen that gesture many times before. It was a habit Tie Meng had when he was nervous.

Fang Yuan didn't comfort him. Comfort wouldn't solve the problem.

He stuffed the rest of the flatbread into his mouth. Chewed it. Swallowed it.

"Let's continue to the west side of the city tonight."

Tie Meng opened his mouth.

"An abandoned mill." Fang Yuan's voice was so low that only Tie Meng could hear it. "I'm going down to take a look."

Tie Meng's fingers stopped on the iron arm guard.

Fang Yuan straightened up from the pillar. When he reached the center of the courtyard, Liu Ruyan suddenly turned around from the medicine cabinet.

"Your Qi and Blood Pill." Her face was covered in medicinal powder that had risen from the medicine cabinet drawer, and there was a smear of yellow on the tip of her nose. "I've roughly figured out the formula."

Fang Yuan stopped.

"The main ingredient is Crimson Blood Grass, with wild ginseng roots as a guide, supplemented with three-year-old Rehmannia glutinosa and fresh Ophiopogon japonicus." Liu Ruyan gestured with her fingers in the air, as if she were working out an equation. "But there's one thing I don't understand—your temperature control precision is too high. Normal alchemy furnaces can't reach this level. You either need a special furnace, or—"

Her gaze fell on Fang Yuan's hands.

"Either your hands themselves are the furnace."

Fang Yuan's expression remained unchanged.

But his double understanding completed an assessment in that instant.

Using a Qi and Blood Pill and the time it took to rummage through half a medicine cabinet, Liu Ruyan deduced his alchemy process. Only the final step remained—the precise control of hand strength and temperature through the Eightfold Stance Training.

She's already reached the threshold.

Fang Yuan did not answer her question.

His gaze shifted from the tuft of yellow powder on Liu Ruyan's nose to the wall next to the medicine cabinet.

A shipping order from Baicaotang was nailed to the wall.

The bottom line of the shipping order reads: Total sales of Qi Xue Dan this month: 427 bottles.

Fang Yuan's gaze lingered on that number for a moment.

Four hundred and twenty-seven bottles. Based on the current profit margin, the monthly dividend will be approximately two thousand four hundred taels. Adding this to the existing savings of four thousand seventy-seven taels, the total is approximately six thousand four hundred and seventy-seven taels.

There are still 3,523 taels short of the 10,000 tael threshold.

If Liu Ruyan could help him optimize the formula, improve the efficacy, and increase the selling price—

Fang Yuan looked away.

"Stay at Baicaotang for a few days. Help me check the quality of all the medicinal herbs."

Liu Ruyan frowned slightly. "I'm not your employee."

"Meals and lodging included. Feel free to browse the medicine cabinet."

Liu Ruyan's lips moved slightly. Fang Yuan could tell that her refusal was on the verge of coming. But the words "Feel free to rummage through the medicine cabinet" forcefully blocked that refusal back down.

Her gaze darted back and forth between the medicine cabinet and Fang Yuan twice.

"...Three days. I have to leave in three days. I need to go find my master."

Three days is enough.

Fang Yuan turned and walked towards the back gate.

When he reached the threshold, he paused for a moment.

It wasn't because of Liu Ruyan.

His doubled spiritual perception instantly detected a blood and qi signal twelve feet outside the backyard wall.

A familiar pattern of Qi and blood fluctuations.

The middle-aged man who stared at him from behind the stall at the alley entrance during the day.

Peak of the Flesh Refining Realm.

Fang Yuan did not turn around. He stepped over the threshold, passed through the front hall of Baicaotang, and walked to the main entrance.

People were coming and going on the street.

The middle-aged man stood in front of the wonton stall across the street, holding a bowl of wontons and chewing. His gaze was downcast, and he seemed completely unconcerned about the direction of Baicaotang.

As Fang Yuan's gaze swept over him, the steam from the bowl of wontons wafted across the man's face.

Steam blurred his features into a blur. But Fang Yuan's eight-fold standing meditation technique had already etched every feature of this face into his mind during his previous observations. Square face. Thick eyebrows. The left cheekbone was half an inch higher than the right. There were two deep lines on either side of the nose.

Fang Yuan's fingers touched the blood-red token in his pocket.

The token pulses once per breath.

That extremely slight deflection reappeared. Less than a degree. Towards the wonton stall.

Fang Yuan withdrew his finger.

He stepped out of the Baicaotang restaurant and walked in the opposite direction from the wonton stall.

Twelve feet behind him. A wonton stall. The middle-aged man put down his bowl.

His right hand flipped under the table. He spread his five fingers, then clenched them.

A gesture.

Something moved in the shadows at the alleyway opposite the wonton stall.

Fang Yuan's spiritual senses detected that movement.

Another signal of blood and qi.

Early stage of Bone Refining Realm. Cold.

The same kind of coldness he had sensed in the cold signal he had tracked down in the west of the city the previous two nights.

Fang Yuan's back was not tense. His stride remained unchanged. His breathing rate remained unchanged.

But his fingers, inside his pocket, slowly clenched around the bat totem on the blood-red token.

In broad daylight.

At the entrance of Baicaotang.

They've stopped hiding.

The sunlight at the street corner shone on the iron badge of the patrol captain at Fang Yuan's waist, causing the metal surface to reflect light. That light swept across the table of the wonton stall, leaving a line on the back of the middle-aged man's hand holding the bowl.

The man's fingers trembled slightly. A drop of wonton soup spilled from the bowl, landing on the table and slowly spreading.