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

The meeting was held on a platform halfway up Baicao Mountain.

The platform was enormous, with a three-tiered stone platform in the center and concentric viewing stands built around it according to the mountain's contours. Each family was seated according to their ranking. The first three seats were for Wancaotang, Xuanhupai, and Qingnangmen; behind them, the seats were arranged in concentric circles, accommodating up to two thousand people.

Ye Feng and his two companions were positioned in the very last row of the outermost circle.

"The viewing area." Shen Yu plopped down, sneering, "At least they gave us a spot where we can see."

"As long as I can see it, that's fine." Ye Feng leaned back and stretched out his legs.

Lin Yuqing sat down next to him, draping a coat over her shoulders. Her complexion had improved these past two days, but the pure yin energy had been restless ever since that night—she could feel the medicinal aura of the entire mountain gradually clinging to her.

"Are you feeling unwell?" Ye Feng immediately turned his head to the side.

"It's not uncomfortable." She shook her head. "It's just... a bit like when I was a kid and after getting caught in the rain, I came home and drank a bowl of ginger soup."

Ye Feng smiled: "The soil here is very nourishing. Staying here for a few more days will be better than staying in the mountains." On the stage, the bell rang three times.

The first round: identifying medicinal herbs.

The rules are simple: Medicine King Valley takes one hundred kinds of medicinal herbs, peels and removes the roots, slices them, mixes them together, and each family sends one person to the stage. Within the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, they categorize the herbs, announce their names, years, places of origin, and methods of processing.

One wrong ingredient, one point deducted. All the pharmacists brought up were elderly, white-haired doctors. Halfway through the incense stick's burning, some on the stage were already drenched in sweat.

"There's something fishy about this pile," Shen Yu said in a low voice, staring at the stage. "I see at least three different preparations of the same herb. Raw, stir-fried, and roasted, all mixed together. You can't tell them apart just by looking at them."

"That's not all," Ye Feng said. "That small bunch on the left is counterfeit."

"A counterfeit?"

"They use other drugs to dye and steam it, creating a fake appearance." Ye Feng pointed, "There are also unscrupulous merchants in the hidden world."

The incense stick burned out. The results were announced: the highest score was 94 points for Wancaotang; 91 for Xuanhupai; and 87 for Qingnangmen.

Applause erupted over the first three seats. The woman in white sat in the main seat.

She was twenty-six or twenty-seven years old, slender, with long hair tied up with a wooden hairpin, and her face was expressionless. She sat there, never clapping once, only keeping her head down, writing something in a notebook.

"The young master of Medicine King Valley is Ji Qingyao." Some of the spectators whispered among themselves, "I heard that she could recite the 'Compendium of Materia Medica' backwards when she was nineteen, and at twenty-three, she cured a patient who had been paralyzed for eight years at the Alchemy Conference. She is in charge of this year's Alchemy Conference."

On stage, the host cleared his throat.

"The identification of medicinal herbs is now complete. As is customary, if anyone in the audience wishes to leave the stage—"

He paused.

As is customary, this statement was merely a formality. Those seated in the audience were mostly unaffiliated practitioners and junior practitioners who had come out of admiration; in every previous alchemy conference, no one had ever actually stood up.

But this time, someone stood up. In the outermost circle, in the very last row, a young man wearing a gray-blue Taoist robe with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows slowly raised his hand.

Two thousand pairs of eyes swept over in unison.

"Who is this?"

"Never heard of it."

"The one in the last row... I remember him, he exchanged a few words with Zeng Yin when we entered the mountain gate."

On the side of the first three seats, Zeng Yin's face immediately darkened. The presiding steward was somewhat embarrassed and was about to speak when the white-clad woman in the main seat, who had been keeping her head down taking notes, suddenly raised her head.

"Let him off the field."

The voice was soft, cool and aloof. The steward was taken aback: "Young Master, he's not on the list—"

"The herb identification round is over. If he wants to continue, we'll do a second round." Ji Qingyao closed the booklet. "Mix all one hundred herbs again. Also—"

She looked at the young man who was walking down from the stands. There was no contempt or curiosity in his eyes, only a kind of harsh, pure scrutiny.

"Give him one hundred and twenty kinds of food."

A buzz of excitement erupted from the audience. One hundred and twenty dishes. Twenty more dishes than the main course.

"Young Master, what's wrong...?"

"I think we should teach that guy a lesson."

"No wonder. People jumping out from the stands to steal the spotlight—rules are rules."

When Ye Feng stepped onto the stone platform, the 120 kinds of medicines were already mixed together in a large pile on the bluestone table. Various kinds of medicine pills, broken roots, dried flowers, and insect shells were mixed up in a mess.

Ye Feng stood in front of the table, not in a hurry to start. He first bent down, brought his nose close to the pile of medicine, and took a deep breath.

Then he straightened up and rolled up his sleeves again.

"A stick of incense?"

"One stick of incense," the steward replied.

"No need for that." Ye Feng casually picked up a handful of pills, cracked them between his fingers, and said, "I'll save you some incense."

This phrase, "Save some incense," completely ignited the last remaining murmurs in the audience.

"Arrogant." Among the first three seats, an old man shook his head. "The medicine identification contest relies on the four skills of sight, smell, taste, and touch. One hundred and twenty kinds of medicines—it took me eight years to learn them in Medicine King Valley, and it still took me the full time of an incense stick burning. Young man, you're just eager to make a name for yourself."

"You have to have the ability to make a name for yourself." Another person chimed in, "If you make a mistake later, it won't just be a loss of face for one person—it will be the last bit of dignity that Nirvana Mountain has left on this stage."

Shen Yu was furious listening from the stands and was about to explode when Lin Yuqing held his hand down.

"He never brags," she said.

"What?"

"I've known him for over half a year," Lin Yuqing said, looking at the gray-blue figure on the stage. "He's bragged a lot, but never once about his medical skills."

On stage, Ye Feng began to announce his name.

"Angelica sinensis, from Minxian County, Gansu Province, aged for five years, roasted in wine."

"Windproof, Northeast, three years, raw use."

"This is Sichuan lovage, not angelica. The taste is similar, but the yellow spots on the cross-section are not found in angelica."

"Smell it up close. The fragrance of angelica is mellow, while its fragrance is pungent."

"This is a fake. It's made with the root of a bellflower, dyed with Coptis chinensis water, and steamed twice—the craftsmanship is good, but unfortunately the bitterness of the Coptis chinensis is only on the surface, while the bitterness of the real product seeps out from the inside."

He spoke as he divided the food. He grabbed with his left hand and put it down with his right, piling it into small heaps, his movements as fast as if he were chopping vegetables.

The murmurs from the audience gradually subsided. By the fiftieth ingredient, the entire hall was silent. By the eightieth ingredient, the white-haired old pharmacists in the first three seats all stood up.

When he reached the 110th flavor—Ye Feng's hand stopped. He pinched a small, grayish-white object, almost shapeless, brought it to his eyes, and then smelled it under his nose.

Then he raised his head and looked at Ji Qingyao in the main seat.

"This ingredient," he said, "is not medicine."

The entire room fell silent. Ji Qingyao's eyes narrowed slightly.

"This is human bone." Ye Feng placed the piece back on the table, his voice not loud, but clearly reaching everyone's ears. "It's been burned, then soaked in medicinal broth to age it. I mixed it with 120 other ingredients to see if anyone dared to say that."

He patted the powdered medicine off his hands.

"I told you."

"Who's next?"