Hermit in the Mountains

Perhaps it triggered Li Anlan's rebellious nature, because she unconsciously dialed back the number, intending to hang up as soon as Gu Changsheng answered.

"Beep beep beep—"

"Hello, the number you dialed is currently switched off."

The phone's shutdown tone blared, infuriating Li Anlan. She slammed the phone down on her desk with her right hand. "You, Gu Changsheng, you've got guts!"

Gu Changsheng, who was cultivating on the mountain, was unaware that someone had written his name down in a little notebook. If Gu Changsheng knew, he would only chuckle.

In the pitch-black night, the bedroom lights were off, yet Gu Changsheng shone like a firefly, his body emitting a faint white glow.

Upon closer inspection, one will discover that the white light is actually composed of tiny, slowly rotating specks of moonlight.

The sky above the Qinling Mountains was cloudless, and the bright moon hung high in the sky, its rays shining down on the earth.

The mountains were peaceful and serene, the animals were all asleep, only a gentle breeze blew, the branches swayed in the wind, and dappled moonlight filtered through the leaves and moved eastward across the ground.

Gu Changsheng's rooster gets up on time, flaps its wings and flies from the chicken coop to the roof of the wooden house next to it, and crows loudly with its head raised towards the east.

"Coo coo... Oh—"

"Coo coo coo........"

"oh--"

"oh---"

The moment the last loud rooster crowed, a touch of red appeared on the eastern horizon, and an invisible 'purple aura' flashed by and merged into the world.

Da Hong absorbed a trace of 'purple energy', comfortably shook its wings, glided steadily onto the wooden plank at the entrance of the chicken coop, and gracefully walked into the henhouse to sleep soundly.

After breaking through his cultivation level, Gu Changsheng's spiritual power increased significantly. He easily captured five strands of "purple energy" and pulled them into his sea of ​​consciousness to nourish the "withering and flourishing Dao Seed".

As the 'Purple Qi' was refined, this time the 'Decline and Flourishing Dao Seed' did not break out of its shell as it had in the past. Previously, it would break out of its shell the morning after absorbing the 'Purple Qi' the day after breaking through a realm.

Gu Changsheng knew the reason: the state of the 'Dao Seed' is a process of going from withering to flourishing, accumulating energy to prepare for breaking out of the shell. Only by absorbing enough energy in this stage can it burst forth with vitality, and the seed will sprout again, break through the hard shell, and be reborn.

From sprouting and budding to flowering and fruiting, everything symbolizes the "flourishing of glory." All the "power of glory" of the entire "Growth and Glory Tree" condenses into a "Dao Fruit." Finally, the flourishing gives rise to decay and eliminates impurities in the life force, leaving behind a pure life force waiting to be reborn.

The "Decline and Flourishing Dao Seed" undergoes transformation in each cycle of decay and flourishing, evolving into a higher-quality "Decline and Flourishing Dao Seed" and completing a leap in life level.

The moment the "Seed of Withering and Flourishing" completes its life leap will be the day Gu Changsheng steps into a higher realm.

After finishing his morning practice, Gu Changsheng fed his three pets, rode his blue ox around the mountain, and picked a lot of Chinese medicinal herbs from the ground.

I went back to the cabin, took a shower, and changed into loose brown training clothes.

A beautiful purple clay stove appeared next to the fireplace in the living room, and the small wooden table around it was filled with bottles and jars. Gu Changsheng planned to try making pills by hand.

The herbs were all freshly pulled from the ground, washed clean, and placed in a wooden tray, still damp, with a faint fragrance.

Apart from one ginseng root cultivated with spiritual liquid, the other Chinese medicinal herbs used in the prescription are all Chinese medicinal herbs that have been transplanted from the mountains for some years and irrigated several times with spiritual rain.

Gu Changsheng takes an unconventional approach, using the freshest Chinese herbs to make pills, aiming to preserve their most complete and potent state.

He used a steelyard to weigh all the Chinese herbs one by one and prepared the medicine according to the proportions he had guessed.

Ginseng, Poria cocos, licorice, angelica, eucommia, astragalus, aconite, etc.

Weigh all the Chinese herbs and use tools such as a herb cutter, a herb grinder, a mortar and pestle to chop, grind, and pound them into a fine powder.

Gu Changsheng possessed a strength of five thousand jin, and his hands transformed into Qilin arms, making his medicine-pounding efficiency comparable to that of a machine.

All the herbs were crushed and ground into powder, then placed in a dry wooden tray, mixed well, and set aside.

With the medicinal powder prepared, Gu Changsheng placed the purple clay pot containing wild honey on the purple clay stove to heat it, and placed the purple clay teapot containing his condensed spiritual water on the stove on the left to heat it.

Gu Changsheng's idea was to infuse the pills with spiritual energy as much as possible to enhance their efficacy.

As the wild honey boils and bubbles appear, lift the clay pot out and place it on a wooden table, then pour in the medicinal powder and stir well.

He stirred the medicinal powder with his right hand and poured in boiling spiritual water with his left.

The house was filled with a strong smell of Chinese herbal medicine. As the smell wafted outside, the three pets, like something delicious, appeared at the door.

The blue ox was too big and could only lie outside the door, staring at the wooden tray from afar;

"Moo—" (Master, don't forget me.)

Big Yellow came into the house and squatted down next to the wooden table. It was panting and its tail was wagging wildly on the floor.

"Woof woof woof............" (Master, Master, what delicious food are you making?)

Big Red stood on the other side, head held high, chest out, neck outstretched, eyes fixed on the spinning wooden plate.

"Coo coo coo..." (Master, Xiang, Xiang is confused.)

Ignoring the three pets, Gu Changsheng noticed that the water level was about right. He put down the kettle and chopsticks and began to knead the medicinal paste repeatedly to make it more even and to ensure that the various medicinal effects were fully integrated.

Gu Changsheng rolled a lump of medicinal paste into a stick of uniform thickness and length, and then used a jade piece to cut it into small pieces of medicinal paste in proportion.

The final step was to roll the pills with both hands. Gu Changsheng rolled out a total of thirty-six pills the size of glass marbles.

He took out the wooden shells he had prepared beforehand, sealed the pills one by one in the shells, and left them for a few days to see if the pills contained any spiritual energy.

The pills, each encased in a wooden shell, were neatly arranged in the wooden box.

Gu Changsheng glanced at the three eagerly waiting pets, then smiled and picked up a piece of wood shell, waving it in front of Big Yellow's nose. "Big Yellow, do you want some?"

The big yellow dog nodded frantically up and down, "Woof woof..." (Master, I want to eat, I want to eat.)

Gu Changsheng slid his right hand towards the right side in front of Da Hong's eyes. "Da Hong, do you want to eat?"

Big Red made rapid "coo coo coo" sounds to express its desire.

Gu Changsheng placed the wooden casing containing the pills back into the wooden box, closed the lid, and waved his hand, "I'll give them to you in a few days; don't even think about it now."

"Go do what you're supposed to do." After saying that, he leaned back, supporting himself on the floor with his left hand and placing the wooden box into the cabinet behind him with his right.

As Dahuang and Dahong walked towards the door, the dog and the chicken kept glancing back at Gu Changsheng's every move.

Da Huang stared at the wooden box cabinet that Gu Changsheng had placed for a few seconds, as if trying to remember its location. As he turned to leave, his eyes darted around a few times.

The dog, chicken, and cow, for reasons unknown, obediently left the cabin.

However, after they left, Gu Changsheng smiled mysteriously, took out a wooden box from the cabinet, got up and went into the bedroom, locking the wooden box containing the pills in a cabinet.

Upon closer inspection, the bedside table and several drawers were all locked, containing ginseng seeds and bottles of spiritual liquid.

Gu Changsheng was keeping a close watch on Dahuang. He had found a bottle missing when he returned from the mountains, and ever since then, he has locked all the drawers containing valuables.