The next morning.
Bubbling—
Jeokgeom and Seollan, who had stayed up all night, tilted their heads in confusion as they looked at the unidentified liquid boiling in the cauldron.
"Is this a spirit medicine...?"
"Fourth Martial Uncle, is this really a spirit medicine?"
The two harbored doubts.
It was understandable, as the water that had filled the cauldron had already evaporated, leaving almost nothing behind.
Instead, what remained in the cauldron was a yellowish-green liquid.
"That's strange?"
Cheonhui stared intently at the liquid.
‘I did it exactly the same way as when making the Kuangmo Zhentian Dan...’
Lost in thought, Cheonhui touched his chin.
‘Is it because I changed the Demonic Qi to Toxic Qi?’
The Kuangmo Zhentian Dan showed great efficacy in increasing internal energy the moment it was consumed, but it was a double-edged sword where Demonic Qi penetrated deep into the bone marrow.
If one was careless, it was both a spirit medicine and a poison that would cause Qi deviation and turn the consumer into a madman.
But Cheonhui twisted that.
Instead of Demonic Qi, Toxic Qi.
And he adjusted the mixture so that the Toxic Qi would be neutralized before it could penetrate the bone marrow.
‘I'm not sure. Let's just try eating it first.’
Puzzled, Cheonhui immediately dipped his finger into the liquid and put it in his mouth.
‘Hmm. It is indeed properly made.’
The moment he put it in his mouth, his nose cleared, and a small amount of qi entered his body.
However.
"It's a bit disappointing compared to what I expected."
He wasn't entirely satisfied.
"It'll probably be different once it's finished."
Cheonhui drew internal energy to his hands.
And with those two hands, he quickly kneaded the viscous liquid.
A moment later, the yellowish-green liquid gradually compressed into a small pill about the size of a child's fist.
Cheonhui scanned the pill.
The perfectly round pill was no longer yellowish-green, but now a complete green.
"So it became like this..."
"It looks like a spirit medicine, but..."
Jeokgeom and Seollan looked at the completed spirit medicine with amazed eyes, examining it from various angles.
Meanwhile, Cheonhui stared at the pill.
‘It went as I thought, but I'm not sure if it's correct. Even if I eat it, there won't be much effect...’
Having sufficiently absorbed the Yin Qi from Danmukrin a few days ago, his internal energy was already full.
He turned his head to look at Jeokgeom and Seollan.
‘I'll know if I feed it to them.’
Cheonhui looked at the two and asked.
"Do you want to try eating it?"
"Are you talking about the spirit medicine?"
"Is it safe?"
Jeokgeom and Seollan felt a sense of reluctance.
The time they had spent with Cheonhui so far was sending them a warning.
"What are you doing? Aren't you going to eat it? Are you going to miss the chance to increase your internal energy?"
Battered by Cheonhui's incessant temptation, the two wavered slightly.
"I'll eat it."
Eventually, Seollan gave in.
"Here."
Cheonhui immediately gave her half of the pill.
Seollan took it, hesitated for a moment, then squeezed her eyes shut and swallowed it.
"Martial Sister, are you okay?"
Seollan slowly opened her eyes.
"Huh? I'm fine."
"Really?"
"Then you eat it too."
Taking advantage of Jeokgeom's momentary carelessness, Cheonhui crumpled the remaining pill and stuffed it into his mouth.
"Argh! F-Fourth Martial Uncle!"
Jeokgeom shouted in panic.
But despite his resistance, the spirit medicine melted the moment it was put in.
Jeokgeom squeezed his eyes shut.
However, when no reaction came even as time passed, he let out a sigh of relief.
"Phew, thankfully it's a safe spirit medicine..."
"Ughhhh!"
Suddenly, Seollan groaned.
Her face turning pale at some point, Seollan fell to her knees and clutched her stomach.
"M-Martial Sister. Are you oka—ugh!"
Suddenly, his head throbbed and rang.
At the same time, pain tormented his head.
His vision suddenly blurred, and he found himself falling to his knees without realizing it.
M-My head hurts!
As expected! Taking a random spirit medicine...!
He clutched his head and looked up.
There were two figures in front of him.
No, it was an afterimage that was originally one, split into two by his dizziness.
"Was there a little Toxic Qi left?"
Hearing the voice clearly even amidst his headache, Jeokgeom felt a surge of frustration.
‘Why is there Toxic Qi in a spirit medicine!’
Indignation welled up.
Who would ever imagine that there would be Toxic Qi in a spirit medicine?
It was then.
[Wake up.]
Jeokgeom's face, which had been suffering from dizziness, contorted at the telepathic voice transmitted directly into his head amidst the throbbing headache.
[Hurry and circulate your qi.]
Jeokgeom gritted his teeth and struggled to assume a lotus position.
Then, he suddenly snapped to his senses.
‘Huh? Could this be the qi of the spirit medicine?’
There was an unfamiliar qi within his body.
It wasn't a large amount, but it was so pure and clean that it made him salivate.
‘Is this the qi of the spirit medicine? Ugh, if I don't regulate my qi right now, it will scatter!’
Jeokgeom was still dizzy from the pain, but he gathered his strength and circulated the Plum Blossom Qi Gong.
Meanwhile, Cheonhui looked at the two who had fallen into regulating their qi with pale faces.
"Did I get the mixture wrong?"
He was highly dissatisfied.
Fortunately, he had expelled a significant portion of the Toxic Qi, so even if they were poisoned, it wouldn't be enough to kill them.
But the problem was something else.
"The accumulated internal energy is too small."
Even if the ingredients weren't great, it was too little qi to be called a spirit medicine.
"Then I'll have to try a different method."
Just as Cheonhui was about to recall the other method written in the Spirit Pill Concoction Method.
"Hah, hah."
Jeokgeom, who had finished regulating his qi, panted heavily and opened his eyes with difficulty.
"M-Martial Brother."
Turning his head to the side, he saw Seollan looking equally pale.
The two said nothing.
But that alone was enough for them to feel a sense of shared suffering, and they quietly nodded to each other.
At that moment, a shadow fell over them.
When they both looked up at the same time, Cheonhui was looking down at them.
"How is it?"
"There is an effect."
When Seollan spoke with an exhausted expression, Jeokgeom urgently added.
"But the poison is too strong."
"So?"
Cheonhui spoke with an expression that asked what they were trying to say.
"It's not enough to kill you, is it."
"……."
"……."
Speechless, Jeokgeom and Seollan squeezed their eyes shut.
They had forgotten, but the person they were dealing with was Cheonhui.
The one who threw them among beasts in the middle of the night and put them through absurd training.
How many times had they almost died?
Just as the two were about to resign themselves and accept it.
"Then Jeokgeom, light the fire again, and Seollan, bring water for the cauldron."
A horrifying remark reached their ears.
"What are you doing? We have to make it again."
At Cheonhui's words, the two were aghast.
They had to do that again?
"Are you making that poison, n-no. That spirit medicine?"
"Are you making that again?"
"Why ask about the obvious."
Cheonhui spoke as if it was a ridiculous question.
"We need to make a better spirit medicine than this, don't we?"
Jeokgeom and Seollan's lips twitched.
They wanted to ask what nonsense that was.
But they kept their mouths tightly shut.
Because they could clearly see what kind of ordeal they would go through if they said that.
In the end, what the two chose was.
"B-But we're still poisoned..."
"We still have stomachaches and headaches..."
An appeal close to pleading.
But Cheonhui was not one to yield easily.
"That much is bearable, isn't it."
True to his words, it was bearable.
But it was only bearable; pain was still pain.
"I feel like I'm going to die."
"Just let us rest a little..."
"Want me to make you move somehow?"
Jeokgeom and Seollan jumped up in terror.
If it was Cheonhui, he would really do that.
"What are you doing? Hurry up and bring them."
At the continued urging, Jeokgeom and Seollan endured the pain and moved.
Just as Cheonhui was moving to make the spirit medicine again.
Thud— Thud—
There were people approaching step by step.
It was Shen Yi and Princess Sohui's group.
Shen Yi, who was walking ahead, glared at Princess Sohui's group tagging along behind him.
"Why are you lot coming?"
Shen Yi spoke with a scowl, but.
"We came to see Young Hero Cheonhui."
Princess Sohui answered calmly.
At those words, Shen Yi glared at Princess Sohui, then snapped his head away.
"I'll have to spend time to get close to him."
Princess Sohui muttered softly.
"Will it be alright?"
Sim Wijin asked with a worried expression.
"I have no choice."
"If the imperial family summons him, even someone like Shen Yi would..."
"Are you saying that seriously?"
Princess Sohui glared at Sim Wijin.
"Shen Yi is a free man. No matter how much my father summons him, I can't tell him to come or go."
It was Shen Yi who had ignored the Emperor's royal physician offer and left.
And he would follow a royal decree?
She shook her head.
"And I can't take Elder Shen Yi away right now either."
Princess Sohui's eyes, which had been watching Shen Yi's back, emitted a cold light.
"Because the assassins will be waiting for us to leave the Huashan Sect. We have to stay here until we find the culprit."
Princess Sohui bit her lip.
Her escape from Qinghai City was a top-secret matter even within Qinghai City.
Yet she was discovered in just a few days.
‘...The culprit is someone close.’
Pausing her thoughts for a moment, Princess Sohui stopped thinking about it.
Doubting any further was dangerous.
Each and every one of them was a close aide to the imperial family.
If she guessed wrong, she wouldn't be able to handle the consequences.
‘Don't doubt them.’
She shook her head.
Dwelling too deeply into it was dangerous.
‘I just need to do what I have to do.’
Princess Sohui's goal was simple.
To get close to Shen Yi so that she could leave at any time once the culprit was revealed.
‘If I seduce that Daoist named Cheonhui, whom Shen Yi is interested in, the chances are high.’
The only way to draw Shen Yi in right now was the existence of Cheonhui.
‘But how do I get close to him?’
Princess Sohui's sword-like eyebrows twitched.
She had visited Cheonhui several times.
But what she received were indifferent reactions bordering on being turned away and sheer apathy.
"Is there a way to get close?"
As she bowed her head and murmured.
Suddenly.
Shen Yi suddenly stopped walking.
"Elder, what's wrong?"
Princess Sohui, who was about to speak upon seeing Shen Yi blocking the way, flinched when she belatedly looked ahead.
"What in the world..."
It was a pandemonium.
A vicious smoke was thickly settled around the cauldron, and beside it were a man and a woman with haggard appearances.
"P-Please stop..."
"I-I feel like I'm going to die."
Seollan stirring the cauldron and Jeokgeom continuously fanning the fire.
They looked up at Cheonhui sitting on the rock and pleaded desperately for him to save them, but.
"That won't kill you."
Cheonhui answered coldly.
"You're here."
Then he casually turned his head.
His two eyes, devoid of any light, took in Shen Yi and Princess Sohui's group.
The same gaze as usual.
However, perhaps because of the sight before her, goosebumps rose on Princess Sohui's back.
Shen Yi frowned and ran over.
He then approached Jeokgeom and Seollan and examined their bodies.
"Are you alright?"
Jeokgeom and Seollan, who belatedly realized Shen Yi had arrived, teared up.
"Elder..."
"Elder Shen Yi."
At the two's hoarse voices, Shen Yi frowned and looked at Cheonhui.
"What are you doing?"
"Making a spirit medicine."
"A spirit medicine...?"
Shen Yi's furious eyebrows shot up.
"With these kids?"
"Yes."
"They are poisoned right now."
Shen Yi's voice grew agitated.
"That's right."
In contrast, Cheonhui was nonchalant.
He then lightly jumped down from the rock and tasted a bit of the orange liquid melted in the cauldron.
"It's better than before."
He then kneaded the liquid.
Cheonhui, drawing a Taiji with near-divine hand movements, soon created a small pill and cleanly split it in half.
"Here."
Just as Jeokgeom and Seollan caught the thrown pill and were about to swallow it with expressions of resignation.
"Stop."
Shen Yi stopped Jeokgeom and Seollan.
And snatching the pill, he said.
"Are you trying to feed them this now?"
Cheonhui furrowed his brow.
What now? Time is already lacking as it is.
He was trying to make the spirit medicine as quickly as possible, and Shen Yi's interference was highly displeasing.
"Yes."
"Why are you trying to feed them a toxic pill?"
"It's a spirit medicine."
"How is this a spirit medi—huh?"
Shen Yi, who was glaring at the pill, was taken aback.
From the spirit pill filled with Toxic Qi, an unknown spirit qi was flowing out.
"Why is there spirit qi from a toxic pill?"
"What toxic pill?"
Cheonhui scowled.
"I told you, that's a spirit medicine."