Ghost Immortal

Li Feng knew what the old man meant by "the last good medicine".

It's most likely some kind of catalyst, some kind of medicinal ingredient, used to activate all the medicinal properties that have accumulated in his body over the past seventeen years.

Once the medicine is put into the cauldron, Li Feng will become a living pill, a medicine man refined for seventeen years.

When the time comes, the bald old man will throw him into the medicine cauldron, cover it, and burn it for three days and three nights. When the cauldron lid is opened again, what will be left inside is a highly nourishing pill.

After the old man consumes the elixir, the festering sores on his body will completely disappear, his bald patches will regrow hair, his hunched back will straighten again, and he may even break through the bottleneck that has plagued him for decades, truly stepping into the threshold of cultivation.

These weren't things Li Feng guessed out of thin air; the old man himself let it slip.

About two months ago, one night, the old man drank a few more sips of his homemade medicinal wine, and leaned drunkenly against the base of the statue, picking at his toes and muttering to himself.

Li Feng pretended to be asleep, but listened intently. He heard the old man rambling on about things like "a grand plan for the next century," "the last batch," and "once this human pill is made, I can go and settle accounts with that bastard."

The most crucial sentence: "Seventeen years of refinement are needed; we can't wait any longer, or it will revert to its original state."

Rebirth.

Li Feng felt as if half of his blood had gone cold.

What is meant by "rebirth"? It means that once the heat has passed and the medicinal properties have peaked, they will begin to diminish.

Or perhaps the medicinal properties in his body, after accumulating to a certain extent, will produce some kind of resistance or dissipation?

Regardless of the interpretation, there's only one conclusion: the old man can't wait any longer; he's about to take action.

Sure enough, two months later, the old man was about to go out to buy the last good medicine.

Li Feng leaned against the wall, closed his eyes, and his mind began to race.

He has to do two things before the old man comes back.

First, we must enhance our strength as much as possible.

Second, prepare as many methods as possible to deal with the old man.

Iron Guard stood motionless on the stone steps, his empty eye sockets facing Li Feng's direction.

Li Feng lowered his head, pretending to tidy up the straw, but his heart was pounding in his chest.

He knew Iron Guard had no eyes, but the empty eye sockets were more oppressive to him than any eyes.

The fact that the bald old man dared to leave him here means that the Iron Guard has some kind of ability to sense living beings, which may even be more terrifying than his eyes.

Li Feng forced himself to calm down.

Survive first, then think about escaping. To survive, you have to become stronger.

His gaze fell on the medicine cauldron in the corner.

This cauldron was the old bald man's lifeline. It was cast in bronze, with three legs and two handles. Its surface was covered with green rust and black medicinal stains. Some blurry patterns could be vaguely seen on the cauldron, like some kind of ancient inscription.

Li Feng has been here for sixteen years. Since he was brought into this dilapidated temple at the age of six, he has been thrown into this cauldron to soak in medicine every few days.

The soup was scalding hot, and every time I soaked in it, it felt like my skin was being peeled off. After soaking, my whole body was burning hot.

He had always believed that this cauldron was meant to refine him.

It wasn't until three months ago that he discovered the cauldron might have been used incorrectly all along.

That day, the bald old man went to town and, as usual, locked Li Feng in the temple.

Li Feng was extremely bored, so he flipped through the tattered book that the old man had casually tossed behind the statue.

The book was bound with an unknown animal hide, the writing on the cover was already blurred, and the contents inside were a complete mess.

There are herbal illustrations, talisman drawing instructions, elixir recipes, and some rambling thoughts that resemble a diary.

One of the pages depicts a cauldron with three flames below its three legs and clouds floating above its mouth.

Next to it was a line of crooked characters, which turned out to be Chinese characters.

"The furnace and cauldron are tools for alchemy, but this cauldron is a sacrificial vessel. It is drawn by qi and tempered by fire, and can transform the mortal into the spiritual."

Li Feng was surprised to find that there were Chinese characters in the book and wanted to find an opportunity to verify it.

Since being born, Li Feng has been able to recognize Chinese characters since he was six years old and solved the mystery of his birth.

There's no need to dwell on the past; the important thing in this life is how to escape the tiger's jaws.

He had seen the bald old man cook before. The old man usually ate wild vegetables and coarse grains. Occasionally, he would go to town to buy some brown rice and cook it into porridge in a clay pot. One bowl of porridge could last him three days.

But the old man never used this cauldron to cook anything.

In the old man's eyes, this cauldron was an instrument used for alchemy, and it was sacred and inviolable.

After each use, the old man would carefully wipe the cauldron clean, fumigate it with a special herb, and then cover it with the wooden lid.

A thought suddenly popped into Li Feng's mind.

The old man with the bald head who has used the cauldron for over ten years probably isn't using it correctly at all.

The offerings for the sacrifice consisted of meat, rice, and noodles, not any elixirs.

But he dared not make any rash moves, because the cauldron was the old man's most prized possession, and if the old man discovered that he had touched the cauldron, the consequences would be unimaginable.

Now that the old man has left, he won't be back for three months, giving him plenty of time to verify his guesses.

Li Feng stood up and walked towards the medicine cauldron.

Iron Guard's head turned with him, his empty eye sockets following his direction, but his feet didn't move.

Li Feng walked to the edge of the cauldron and reached out to touch its belly.

The bronze was cold and rough, and the cauldron was covered with a thick layer of black medicinal residue that had accumulated over more than a decade and could not be scraped off.

He went around to the other side of the cauldron and squatted down to look at the three legs under the belly of the cauldron.

Each of the three legs has a groove at the bottom, in which is embedded some dark red stuff, like dried paint.

Li Feng recalled the "three flames" drawn on that page of the book and seemed to be deep in thought.

He then looked inside the cauldron.

The inner wall was also covered with a thick layer of medicinal residue, but through the gaps in the residue, one could vaguely see some uneven patterns on the inner wall, which felt like some kind of symbol to the touch.

Li Feng looked at it for a long time but couldn't figure it out. He stood up, walked to the corner of the wall, and took out a handful of dried herbs from the bamboo basket.

These herbs were what the bald old man usually used to make medicinal soup. Li Feng had been soaking them for more than ten years, and he remembered the characteristics of each herb very clearly.

He picked out a few of the most common plants: plantain, mugwort, and dandelion. These are used to dispel dampness and detoxify, and they are not very toxic or have strong medicinal properties.

He found another earthenware jar in the corner, with a little less than half a jar of brown rice left inside, which was the old man's food ration before he left.

The old man was extremely strict with Li Feng's diet, forbidding him from eating meat or greasy food. His daily meals consisted of brown rice porridge with wild vegetables.

Li Feng poured the brown rice into the cauldron, added water, and then threw in the herbs as well.

Then he squatted down and looked at the three legs under the belly of the cauldron.

The three flames drawn in the book should refer to the fire to be lit under the legs of the tripod, but this is completely different from the alchemy methods he has seen before.

When the old man was refining elixirs, he lit a fire above the belly of the cauldron to heat it, causing the medicinal soup inside to boil and churn.

Does this mean the fire is going to burn the legs of the tripod?

Li Feng hesitated for a moment, then took a bundle of dry firewood from the woodpile, piled a small pile under each of the three legs of the cauldron, and lit it with a flint.

Flames rose along the legs of the tripod, and blue smoke billowed up.

There was no reaction from inside the cauldron.

After Li Feng and the others had been waiting for half an hour, the water in the cauldron was still cold, and the brown rice remained completely still.

He frowned and thought for a moment, then picked up the tattered book again, turned to the page with the picture of a tripod, and looked at it carefully.

In addition to the three flames below the three legs, clouds are also painted above the mouth of the cauldron.

The clouds are rising, indicating that the contents of the cauldron undergo some kind of change after being heated.

But now the flames are burning the legs of the tripod, while the temperature inside the tripod remains unchanged.

Li Feng suddenly thought of a possibility.

He squatted down again and examined the groove at the bottom of the tripod legs more closely.

The dark red substance in the groove seemed to emit an extremely faint glow under the heat of the flames, shooting upwards from the legs of the tripod.

He reached out and touched the belly of the cauldron; it was very cold.

But the water in the cauldron was trembling slightly, as if it were being stirred by an unseen force.

Fine ripples spread across the water's surface as the brown rice tumbled and rolled within, its movement a constant pull.

Li Feng stared at the changes inside the cauldron, his heart pounding faster.

After about the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, the water suddenly calmed down.

Then, a wisp of white vapor rose from the water's surface, like a thin mist in the early morning, rising gently from the mouth of the cauldron and slowly dispersing in the air, somewhat like smoke.

The wisp of white vapor entered my nostrils, carrying a delicate fragrance that made every pore on my body feel relaxed.

The moment the white vapor entered his body, he felt a warm current flow from his nasal cavity, down his throat, through his chest, and into his dantian.

Wherever the warm current passes, it's like pouring a clear spring into a dry riverbed, and every cell greedily drinks it in.