Primordial Era: I've become a cheat code by taking Yang Jian as my disciple?

Old Xu's voice wasn't loud, but it was as certain as if he were reciting a judgment.

"Your spiral approach works fine during the fusion, but the ending is too rushed. The medicinal properties of the Soul-Stabilizing Flower dissipate slowly. By raising the temperature and concentrating it at the last moment, you force the flower's properties to disperse. After the pill is formed, the surface is stable, but in reality, the flower's properties only adhere to the outer layer and do not truly penetrate into the core of the pill."

Yang Chan opened her mouth, her mind racing.

She recalled her previous experience refining pills in the Ten Thousand Mountains—the reason why the Rejuvenation Pill gradually improved in appearance was because she added a warming step in the final stage.

But what Old Xu meant was that her warming technique was correct, but the timing of the warming was the problem.

"Then... how should we collect it?"

"No, we won't accept it."

"what?"

"Let it cool down on its own." Old Xu squatted down, his withered fingers pointing to a spot on the outer wall of the iron furnace. "When it reaches this temperature, extinguish the fire completely. Don't worry about it. The natural cooling process of the medicinal liquid is the best way to finish it off. The essence of the flower will passively sink into the heart during the cooling process. What's the rush? The more you rush the medicine, the more it will resist you."

Yang Chan blinked.

She looked down at the bubbling medicinal liquid in the furnace, then did something she had never done before in her alchemy career—

Extinguish the fire!

She extinguished the flames, and the medicinal liquid in the iron furnace, having lost its source of heat, began to cool down naturally.

Quiet.

Only the soft bubbling of the medicine remained in the back room, as if someone were talking quietly.

Yang Chan squatted beside the stove, watching the dark purple liquid gradually condense, sink to the bottom, and gather together—

"despair."

A pill separated from the medicinal liquid and fell to the bottom of the furnace.

Beneath its smooth, translucent, dark purple surface, a faint wisp of blue light shines through—that is the true medicinal properties of the Soul-Stabilizing Flower permeating Danxin.

Yang Chan took the pill out and placed it in her palm, looking at it again and again.

"It's better than anything I've made before!"

Old Xu reached out and took the pill, smelled it, and then listened to it—Yang Chan didn't know what was so interesting about the pill, but Old Xu's actions were so smooth and natural, it was clear that he had done it countless times.

"A barely passing grade, only about 60% complete."

Yang Chan's lips drooped slightly.

"Sixty percent, sixty percent..." she muttered, but while collecting the pills, she noticed a problem. "Hey, Grandpa Xu, your surname is Xu, what's your name? I can't keep calling you 'Grandpa Xu'."

"My surname is Xu, and my given name is Fu."

Yang Chan nodded and carefully put the pill away.

"Xu Fu, what a nice-sounding name."

When these four words entered the perception range of the Chaos Bell, Zhong Lingyun's consciousness paused for a moment in the bell's inner space.

Xu Fu!

In my past life memories, these two words were associated with a very famous story.

Qin Shi Huang sent the alchemist Xu Fu eastward across the sea to seek the elixir of immortality—if we convert this to the timeline of the prehistoric world, the Qin Dynasty was tens of thousands of years away from this point.

"coincide!"

Zhong Lingyun made a judgment.

A quasi-saint level cultivator wouldn't be expected to take orders from a human emperor!

"It's just that they have the same name."

Zhong Lingyun put the matter aside for the time being.

However, he still glanced at Xu Fu one more time.

Is it really just a coincidence?

The gaunt old man was squatting on the ground, picking up the scattered medicinal herbs for Yang Chan one by one, saying things like, "Don't throw away the roots of the Soul-Stabilizing Flower, they can be dried and used in medicine."

Zhong Lingyun withdrew his gaze.

……

On the tenth day of his stay in Yan Kingdom, Yang Jian was finally able to sit in the tavern for two full hours.

It wasn't because he learned to live peacefully with humans, but because he found a trick—to sit in the corner, against the wall, facing the door, with no one allowed within an arm's length to his left.

The tavern owner was initially annoyed by Yang Jian's behavior—what kind of customer would move their own stool and cower in a corner? But Yang Jian paid promptly, drank quietly, and didn't cause trouble or disrupt the business, so the owner let him be.

Something went wrong on the eleventh day.

That afternoon, Yang Jian was sitting in the corner drinking alone as usual when a father and son entered the tavern.

My father was in his forties, drunk, and smelled foul.

The son, seven or eight years old, was so thin that you could see his ribs. He followed behind his father, holding a broken bowl in his hands.

"Give me another pot!" the drunkard slammed his fist on the table.

"Dad...we're out of money." The child's voice was very low.

"Slap!" The drunkard slapped the child on the forehead. "Did I tell you to speak?"

The child's head was slapped forward, and the broken bowl crashed to the ground, shattering into two pieces.

The tavern fell silent for a moment, then everyone continued drinking as if nothing had happened.

Including the boss.

Yang Jian's fingers, gripping the wine glass, turned white.

He heard the force of that slap clearly—a full-force blow from an adult man, hitting a seven or eight-year-old child on the head… If it were a demon beast, that slap would be enough to shatter the skull of a little demon.

The child didn't cry.

As he squatted down to pick up the broken bowl, his finger cut a shard, and blood beaded out. He put his finger in his mouth and sucked on it before continuing to pick up the pieces.

That movement was too practiced.

So skilled that it made Yang Jian's stomach churn.

"Yang Jian." Zhong Lingyun's voice rang out at the right time.

Yang Jian did not move.

"What do you want to do now?"

I want to hit him.

"and then?"

"Then..." Yang Jian's gaze shifted from the drunkard to the child.

After picking up the broken bowl, the child stood up, wiped the blood off his hands with his sleeve, and stepped back half a step behind the drunkard.

That position is the distance from which you can dodge a second hit the fastest after being hit.

"If you hit his father, who will his father hit when he gets home?"

Yang Jian loosened his grip on the wine cup.

He did not get up.

From beginning to end, he just sat there, watching the father and son finish their drinks and stagger out.

The child followed behind, always keeping an arm and a half's length distance.

The tavern curtains fell, shutting out the noise from the street.

Yang Jian looked down at the wine glass on the table.

Five fingerprints appeared on the wine glass.

That night, Yang Jian returned to the inn and did not cultivate.

He sat by the window, watching the light in the house across the alley go out and come on again and again—probably someone sleeping was woken up by something, or someone was having trouble sleeping in the middle of the night.

"teacher."

"explain."

"After taking revenge, the Heavenly Court changed its emperor. Did that mean the people below stopped beating children?"

Zhong Lingyun did not answer.

This question doesn't need an answer.

When Yang Jian asked the question, he already knew the answer.

Outside the window, soldiers on the city wall of the Yan Kingdom were changing shifts.

In the distance, fishing lights flickered on the sea, their reflections in the night like stars fallen from the sky.

……

The State of Yan faces the sea to the east, and the street by the sea is called Yuliang Street.

Despite its elegant name, it was actually just a fishy-smelling dock market.

Every morning, fishermen would pour their freshly caught fish and shrimp onto the stone slabs to sell, the fish scales mixed with crushed ice, making it slippery to walk on.

Yang Jian first went to Yuliang Street because Zhong Lingyun asked him to go see the sea.

"What are you looking at?"

"Look at the big picture."

Yang Jian stood on the rocks at the end of the pier, gazing at the boundless sea before him.