Ze Tian Ji (Way of Choices)

Chapter 749 – Blood Coral

The Tang Seventeenth Master was naturally speaking of the Cinnabar Pill.

The other people in the room were somewhat confused. The Cinnabar Pill could save the dying and regrow bones, could cure injuries no matter how severe, so it was naturally the equivalent of one life. Why had the Tang Seventeenth Master said that it was two lives? If it was because many people had died for something as important as the Cinnabar Pill, then he should have said that it was worth the lives of many people.

“This pill can save one person’s life, and in order to obtain this pill, my Tang clan also had to exchange a life for it.”

The Seventeenth Master thought of that corpse that had already been burned into ashes and his face grew even gloomier.

The deceased had been an insider that the Tang clan had raised up in the Great Zhou Army for many years and had enormous potential. At the time, he had already become a rather well-known deputy general of the Black Mountain Army headquarters. If the Tang clan continued to help him develop, there was even a chance he could become a Divine General in a few decades, but now he had died for the sake of this pill.

It had already been a whole nine months since the Tang clan had taken the power to distribute the Cinnabar Pill from the Hall of Illustrious Persons, and the Tang clan had found it impossible to further suppress their natural greed. They wanted to obtain even greater profits from this pill and wished to clarify the composition of the pill. In order to hide this plan from the enigmatic supplier, they had acted with the utmost of caution.

After extremely careful calculations, the Tang clan had determined that the deputy general had the right to receive a Cinnabar Pill, so they had him suffer severe injuries on the battlefield.

Just as expected, one of the Cinnabar Pills allotted to the Black Mountain Army headquarters was given to the deputy general. According to the rules, the pill was sent to the deputy general without delay. Under the watch of many people, he took the pill, and yet…he was unable to survive, because his luck was truly awful.

The instant the Cinnabar Pill entered his throat, he died.

Many people who saw this felt a great pity. The minority pitied the deputy general’s luck, but the vast majority pitied the fact that since the deputy general had died, a Cinnabar Pill had been wasted. Everyone knew that the Cinnabar Pill would melt upon contact with water, losing all of its potency. Now that it had entered the deputy general’s stomach, it would be impossible to recover.

It was precisely because they were so sure of this point that everyone present ruefully sighed, even cursed, but thought little else.

Only the Wenshui Tangs knew that the deputy general’s body had long been implanted with that bag made from mysterious materials. Moreover, whether or not that deputy general was willing to die after taking the Cinnabar Pill, his death was assured. This was because two old Guardians of the Tang clan had been standing at his bedside, watching him.

The deputy general was buried according to the customs of his home county, but on the very night of his burial, the new grave was excavated.

Today, his corpse had delivered the Cinnabar Pill to the Mount Song Army headquarters before the eyes of the Tang Seventeenth Master.

The Tang Seventeenth Master spoke no more, but everyone else could feel his mood, and their faces turned grave.

The Guardian from the Pavilion of Heavenly Secrets took out a silver spoon and pulverized the dark red pill in a porcelain dish. After slowly grinding it into powder, he divided it into five portions.

Each master doctor took a portion and then began using the techniques, skills, and oddly-shaped tools that they would normally never show in front of others to begin their research.

Grinding up the medicine and determining its ingredients was a required course of action in trying to reproduce the recipe. It was extremely monotonous and thus seemed extremely time-consuming.

The Seventeenth Master remained in the secret room the entire time, not even taking one step out.

After some time, red light seeped in from the western air vent. It was already dusk. The task was finally completed, and the doctors raised their heads, either dripping herbal water into their bloodshot eyes or constantly rubbing their necks and relaxing their aching bodies.

But this seemingly relaxed and calm environment was still tinged with an air of tension. From beginning to end, nobody had spoken.

The Tang Seventeenth Master turned even gloomier, just like the gloom of the wall which could not receive the dusky light coming from the west.

In the end, this situation could not persist for too long.

The physician from Wenshui gave a few tired coughs and then wrote the ingredients he had found on a sheet of paper.

The other master doctors also recorded their conclusions.

The Tang Seventeenth Master continued to crease his brow, but his expression relaxed somewhat. He could tell that the ingredients and portions written down were basically the same.

“It truly is an unprecedented remedy. Absolutely extraordinary. It looks simple and clumsy, but it actually conceals a great wisdom. If used to staunch blood or purify oneself, it will probably be incredibly effective.”

Then the old physician from Wenshui shook his head. “But…it certainly can’t do what it’s rumored to do.”

The Tang Seventeenth Master did not speak, as he knew that there was undoubtedly a follow-up, at the very least an explanation.

“There was one scent that this old and useless thing analyzed for a long time but was still unable to identify.”

Doctor Yang glanced at the Guardian from the Pavilion of Heavenly Secrets and the two doctors from Fengyang County and said, “I think that everyone else here experienced the same.”

The three doctors all nodded, their expressions somewhat at a loss.

Doctor Yang continued, “There exists no medicinal ingredient in the world that even the four of us cannot identify…which can only mean that this is not a medicinal ingredient, at least not before that person used it to make the Cinnabar Pill. In my view, the wondrous effects of the Cinnabar Pill…probably rest on that substance.”

The Tang Seventeenth Master stepped forward, took the magnifying lens offered by the Guardian from the Pavilion of Heavenly Secrets, and carefully examined the small dish on the table.

In the small dish were the remnants of the pill. With the analysis done, it had been dissolved in water and then boiled. If one just used one’s eyes to look at it, one would only see a normal medicinal broth. Even with the eyes of a cultivating expert like the Tang Seventeenth Master, he could only see some powder. But under the magnifying lens produced by the Pavilion of Heavenly Secrets, the true appearance of the powder was finally revealed.

The vast desert was scattered about with stones, as well as a few shards of red crystal. Compared to the vast barrens that were the rest of the medicinal concoction, they were extremely sparse.

By examining even more carefully, one could make out that these red shards of crystal were formed from countless threads of colored glass, but externally, they seemed extremely tough and impossible to tear apart. If one stared at the red crystals for even longer, one might even be able to feel the terrifying power held within the light of the crystals.

These red crystal shards were the reason for the dark red color of the Cinnabar Pill, and also the answer to the question that the master doctors had racked their brains over.

After some time, the Tang Seventeenth Master raised his head to the doctors and asked, “What is this? Or…what could it be?”

The cleric, who had been silent this entire time, finally spoke.

“It looks rather like…blood coral.”

Upon hearing the words ‘blood coral’, the master doctors all revealed expressions of astonishment, and then they fell into deep thought.

The Seventeenth Master was also very shocked. After a few moments, he firmly declared, “Impossible!”

This cleric was once a bishop of the Hall of Illustrious Persons. He had luckily managed to keep his life during the purge led by Mao Qiuyu and Linghai Zhiwang, but he was driven from the Li Palace. In the Hall of Illustrious Persons, he was in charge of refining pills, and he had once interacted with the Cinnabar Pill. Thus, logically speaking, his conclusion should have been very trustworthy, yet he was unable to convince the Tang Seventeenth Master.

This was because the Tang Seventeenth Master happened to know that the only piece of blood coral in existence currently rested within the old mansion of the Tang clan.