A master of both medicine and martial arts, he picked up a beautiful CEO as his wife.

Baicao Mountain is located in the southwest, 1,200 li away from Niepan Mountain.

They drove for a day and a night, and the last two hundred miles were all winding dirt roads. The off-road vehicle couldn't go any further than halfway up the mountain. The three of them got out of the car, and the rest of the way they had to walk.

On both sides of the mountain road are endless fields of medicinal herbs.

Layer upon layer, they spread up the mountainside, green, gray, and purple, each row neatly divided. When the wind blows, the fragrance of wild herbs wafts down, so strong it makes one's head throb.

"Good heavens." Shen Yu took a deep breath. "This hillside of Solomon's seal has been growing for at least thirty years."

"Thirty years is nothing." Ye Feng pointed to the gray slope higher up, "That's where snow lotus grows. It snows here for eight months of the year."

Lin Yuqing looked in the direction he was pointing and narrowed her eyes: "Can it grow?"

"They survived, that's why they're called Medicine King Valley." Ye Feng smiled. "There are two paths to reclusive medicine. One is like Nirvana Mountain, relying on inheritance and old prescriptions copied down one by one. The other is like them—relying on the land. This mountain is their lifeblood."

The mountain gate is a stone archway with four characters: "Plants and trees have roots." Beneath the archway are two long tables, behind which sit four servants in blue robes, examining the documents.

There were more than a dozen groups of people ahead of them. Some were three or five people, others were a large group of twenty or thirty, carrying boxes and loads. When it was a family's turn, they would announce their names:

"Jiangnan Wancaotang, forty-two people."

"The Xuanhu Sect has nineteen members."

"Qingnang Sect, twenty-four people."

It was Ye Feng's turn. There were three of them. One of the deacons looked up, glanced at them, and asked, pen tucked under his pen, "Which one?"

"Nirvana Mountain."

The pen stopped. The four deacons behind the desk all looked up. One of them, the older one, frowned: "Nirvana Mountain...which Nirvana Mountain?"

"The one in the north," Shen Yu said in a deep voice, "the one you sent out invitations to three years ago."

The older man put down his pen, his tone polite yet carrying an indescribable distance: "Sir, please forgive my bluntness. Half a year ago, news of the incident at Nirvana Mountain spread throughout the hidden world. Our Valley Master even sent someone north, only to find an empty mountain when they arrived at the mountain gate."

"The news they brought back was: the lineage of Nirvana Mountain has been severed."

"So Nirvana Mountain is not on this year's Dan conference roster," he said.

Shen Yu's face immediately turned red.

"It's not in the list. Who sent the invitation?" Ye Feng calmly took out the gold-flecked paper from his pocket and placed it on the table.

The deacon picked it up, turned it over, saw the line of small print, and his expression changed slightly.

"Mr. Han's calligraphy."

"It's good that you recognize it."

The steward held the invitation, pondered for a moment, and then shook his head: "Elder Han is a respected elder in our valley, of extremely high seniority, but the list of members of the Alchemy Association was finalized three months ago. Yours is... a private invitation."

How are private posts calculated?

"You can enter the mountain and attend the ceremony," the deacon said, handing the invitation back. "But you cannot participate."

Someone in the back of the line burst out laughing.

"Attend the ceremony?" a lazy voice came over. "Why bother climbing those two thousand steps? Isn't it the same to just listen to the noise from the bottom of the mountain?"

Ye Feng turned his head back.

The speaker was a young man in his late twenties, dressed in a black outfit with a gourd hanging from his waist. He was the one who was at the front of the group that had just signed up for the "Mysterious Pot Sect".

He was followed by a dozen or so people, all with their heads held high.

"Senior Brother Zeng," a junior disciple beside him whispered, "that one looks like...."

"I know who he is," the young man interrupted. "The legendary doctor Ye from Dongyang. He was all the rage a while ago—his medical skills were said to bring the dead back to life and he could single-handedly take down a whole room of people."

He looked Ye Feng up and down, then smiled and said, "My name is Zeng Yin." He clasped his hands in a proper fist salute, but his tone was light and casual. "I'm from the Xuanhu Sect. Mr. Ye, I do have a question I'd like to ask you."

"you say."

"The art of medicine in seclusion is all about the fundamentals." Zeng Yin stopped laughing. "My Xuanhu Sect has been established for three hundred years. I memorized the notes of the past sect leaders from the age of eight to twenty, a total of one hundred and eight books. Not to mention Medicine King Valley, the mountain beneath our feet has been cultivated for six hundred years."

"Your Nirvana Mountain had its gates smashed half a year ago, the master disappeared, and thirty-seven disciples died. Everyone in the secluded world knows this."

"I'm not laughing at you." He took a step forward. "I'm asking—what's left behind you as you stand here?"

There was a moment of silence at the foot of the mountain gate. The words were harsh, yet there was a hint of reason in them.

All the families in line glanced this way. Shen Yu's hands were already clenched into fists. Ye Feng raised his hand and pressed him down.

He took two steps forward, stood in front of Zeng Yin, and thought about it seriously for a while.

"There's nothing behind me," he said.

Zeng Yin was taken aback.

"I don't know where my master is, the plaque at the mountain gate is still broken, and the medicinal herbs in the alchemy room aren't enough to make a decent prescription," Ye Feng said calmly. "I came here without any attendants, without any gifts, and I'm not even on your list. You're right."

Zeng Yin's brows slowly furrowed. He had prepared a whole host of words, just waiting for the other party to stubbornly argue with him about the "foundation." He hadn't expected the other party to admit everything so readily.

"However, I'd like to ask you something," Ye Feng smiled. "You've memorized those 108 notebooks quite well. I have a question about one of them—'Three Yang Stabilizing Breath Pill,' what's the effect on someone with self-injured lung meridians taking it?"

Zeng Yin began to speak: "It will have an immediate effect and can extend one's life by three years—" His voice trailed off abruptly. He saw the person opposite him looking at him with a half-smile.

And then, with a sudden "boom," the back of his head went cold. He would die instantly from the ingestion.

Those four words were annotated in the middle of the eighty-second notebook with a tiny vermilion pen. He memorized them for twelve years, always regarding them as just a casual remark by a copyist.

"you……"

"Memorizing is a good thing." Ye Feng patted him on the shoulder. "Go back and read that sentence again."

He walked past Zeng Yin and headed straight into the mountain gate. After taking three steps, he stopped and turned back.

"Oh, right, there's one more thing."

"You're wrong about what's behind me."

"Behind me stand thirty-seven junior disciples."

"They're all dead, but their things are still with me."

He left after he finished speaking, without looking back. A long silence followed at the foot of the mountain gate.

The families at the back of the line all had strange expressions on their faces. Some whispered inquiries about what had happened at Nirvana Mountain, while others recognized the woman in the white shirt and couldn't take their eyes off her.

Zeng Yin stood there, his hand unconsciously reaching for the gourd at his waist. The young disciple behind him asked cautiously, "Senior brother, that note...it really exists?"

"Shut up," Zeng Yin hissed.

But he knew in his heart whether or not that sentence was true or not, he would have to go back and search for it tonight. If he found it, it meant that he hadn't memorized it in twelve years; if he didn't find it, that would be even worse—it would mean that the person opposite him could talk so much about the Xuanhu Sect's three hundred years of history that even he himself would believe it.

Neither of these two things is pleasant.

At the other end of the mountain gate, people were already asking: which family does that young man in the last row of the viewing area belong to?