As long as there was something to do, time flew by.
In the blink of an eye, a month had passed. Li Qiuchen had rebuilt a safe house, expanding its area to a full five times that of his previous shabby shack. In addition, he had opened up twelve medicinal plots around it and planted different varieties of herbs in each.
With the aid of the Apothecary’s Blessing, these herbs were growing well. Among them, the Calming Heart Grass and Soothing Spirit Flowers, which had been planted first, had already produced plants that could be harvested for medicine refining.
And it was not only these low-grade herbs. On the cliffside, he had even found a hundred-year-old nightshade tree.
Nightshade, commonly known as black star or black day, was a common roadside herbaceous plant that produced small black berries with a faint sweetness. In mountain villages where material conditions were harsh, it was practically the equivalent of fruit, and was deeply loved by children.
Nightshade itself was a medicinal herb. Nightshade over a hundred years old could grow to the size of a peach tree, and the fruits it bore were as large as pigeon eggs. It could already be considered a spiritual plant.
But the fruit was poisonous.
If one ate too much, it would produce effects similar to blue-staining boletes: hallucinations before the eyes, and even vomiting and diarrhea.
As the saying went, medicine and poison shared the same source. According to the records in Li Qiuchen’s family-inherited Collected Writings of the Insightful Eye, consuming hundred-year-old nightshade fruit while cultivating his family’s cultivation method could help enhance the power of the Yin-Yang Dharma Eye.
It allowed one to see things one should not see.
Li Qiuchen did not know whether his ancestor had been in his right mind when writing this prescription, or whether there had been some problem with his understanding of medicinal properties.
Many alchemists in the past had made this sort of mistake. For example, they mixed mercury into pills, and after eating them, mistook the effects of mercury poisoning as a sign that their cultivation had borne fruit.
But whatever else could be said, these hundred-year-old nightshade fruits really were delicious, sweet and tart, comparable to large blueberries.
With the mentality that it would not kill him anyway, so why not give it a try, Li Qiuchen followed the records his ancestor had left in the book and consumed the nightshade fruits during cultivation. As expected, he saw a bizarre scene of colorful little people holding hands and dancing.
The house was swaying, branches and leaves were growing out of his head, the nightshade tree was swinging and dancing, and the white crane with the broken beak took off its feather robe and turned into a peerless beauty bathing in the river…
Fortunately, the poison in the fruit was not strong. Before long, everything returned to normal.
After consuming nightshade fruits and cultivating for seven consecutive days, Li Qiuchen’s eyes developed a new ability.
Hallucination.
Not making himself hallucinate, but rather, whoever saw his eyes would fall into hallucination.
In order to master this ability, Li Qiuchen conducted many experiments.
Wild rabbits and squirrels would lose their vigilance under his gaze and foolishly run to his feet.
But if it was a wild wolf, it could only be maintained for a few breaths of time, making it walk a few steps toward him before it immediately regained clarity.
As for the white crane…
Li Qiuchen stared at it for a long time, only to receive a baffled sideways glance from the white crane.
The effect of the hallucination varied from individual to individual. The stronger the creature, the worse the effect. Of course, this was also because Li Qiuchen had only just entered the threshold and had not continued to cultivate this ability more deeply.
The nightshade tree was laden with fruit. Under the Apothecary’s Blessing, the fruits it produced were large and round. Even if Li Qiuchen ate them as meals every day, they would last him ten days to half a month.
Considering that he could not finish all of them in a short time, and that after ripening the fruits would fall and rot, which would be a real pity, Li Qiuchen decided to make jam.
Over the past days, he had collected some clay and made a simple stove, as well as some bowls and jars whose shapes were too tragic to look at directly.
He placed the picked nightshade fruits into a basin, added other wild fruits and clean water, set it on the stove, and slowly simmered it over a low flame. Before long, the air was filled with a sweet, cloying fruity fragrance.
The white crane crept closer furtively and flapped its wings twice.
Its meaning was very obvious.
“It’s poisonous.”
Li Qiuchen kindly reminded it, only to receive a disdainful look in return.
“Gaa—”
Meaning: feed me.
This bird had a very strange temperament. It could force itself to endure its craving and not steal Li Qiuchen’s peachwood core, yet it could also accept Li Qiuchen feeding it without the slightest psychological burden.
It was just like the young miss of some wealthy household, treating being fed as a servant’s service. Who knew how it had developed this rotten habit.
Li Qiuchen scooped up a spoonful of jam with both soup and fruit, blew it cool, and fed it into her mouth.
“Gaa—”
Meaning: more.
“Why don’t I just name you Gaga?”
Li Qiuchen’s instinctive cheap mouth earned him the white crane spreading its wings and delivering a shadowless kick.
The white crane refused to accept this humiliating form of address. Only it was allowed to cry gaa-gaa. If Li Qiuchen dared casually gaa-gaa in front of it, he would suffer its flying kick from midair.
The white crane ate half of a full pot of jam before it was finally satisfied.
Li Qiuchen silently counted to one hundred in his heart, and then saw it begin to spin in place as if drunk.
The white crane flapped its wings and flew into the sky, crying gaa-gaa as it dashed wildly all over the place, leaving trails of auspicious clouds in the air.
Auspicious clouds… hm?
Li Qiuchen looked at the long, strip-like streaks of auspicious clouds in the sky and fell into deep thought.
They were exactly the same as those ancient paintings he had seen in his previous life. The ancients truly did not deceive me.
I did tell it they were poisonous.
Hallucinations were a symptom of poisoning. Projectile diarrhea was also a symptom of poisoning.
Considering that it was a bird that cared about face, Li Qiuchen decided to bury this scene in his heart, lest it fly into embarrassed rage, smash the pot now that it was cracked, completely tear off all pretense, and start having designs on his peachwood core.
Animals that had cultivated into spirits were all relatively hardy and tough. Earlier, it had clearly been starved thin as a rail, but after this month of rest and recovery, the white crane’s body had swelled back up like an inflating balloon.
This kind of large raptor stood taller than a person when upright, and it ate especially much.
The particular Gaga he was raising was especially gluttonous. Not only did it eat fish, it had no taboos toward crayfish, mud snails, toads, or crabs.
Today, retribution had finally come.
It did not have the Apothecary’s Blessing inside Li Qiuchen’s body, capable of absorbing and digesting the toxins in nightshade fruit. It tormented itself for an entire day, and only by nightfall was it completely drained of strength.
Who knew whether the toxins had been digested, or whether it had simply had diarrhea until it had no strength left.
Now that he had jam, Li Qiuchen began dreaming of bread at night.
Even without bread, steamed buns would do.
After fleeing the village, he had not eaten any wheat-based food until now.
Eating roasted fish and boiled wild vegetables every day, with no carbohydrates, made his stomach feel very uncomfortable.
There was foxtail grass everywhere in the wild. Supposedly, the stuff was the ancestor of millet. But as soon as he thought about planting it, then having to dry it, hull it, grind it into flour… Li Qiuchen lost any desire to try.
Too troublesome. Better to go out and steal some.
Considering that he had now learned a new skill, and a noble control skill at that, Li Qiuchen felt somewhat tempted.
He prepared to explore some distance downstream along the river and see if he could discover traces of human activity.
Once the thought arose, he acted on it.
The next morning, Li Qiuchen shouldered his pack, picked up his wooden staff, and brought along the white crane, which had recovered a little strength—actually, he did not want to bring it, but if he did not, this stupid bird that could not feed itself would starve itself to death alive.
After a month of cultivation, Li Qiuchen’s strength had increased quite a bit.
Children raised in the mountains were already tough to begin with. Back then, he and Hong Yang had both been able to run more than ten li of mountain roads in one breath. Now, Li Qiuchen felt that walking more than thirty li in a day along the riverbank would be no pressure at all.
As for the white crane, there was even less need to worry. Only its beak was broken, not its wings.
However, what was somewhat beyond Li Qiuchen’s expectations was that after he walked for three consecutive days, both banks were still utterly uninhabited wilderness.
Just how remote was Songlin Village, exactly?
The white crane flew a circle in the sky, landed, and cried gaa-gaa in excitement.
Li Qiuchen completely did not understand what it wanted to express, but he felt it must have found something.
After walking forward for another stretch, the view before him suddenly opened wide.
There was a lake here. Roughly estimating, its area had to be several thousand square meters. The lake surface was quiet and deep, without the slightest ripple. Lush green grass surrounded it, making it seem like a fairyland.
If placed in the world before his transmigration, it would at least count as a 4A-rated scenic attraction.
It was very suitable for a peerless expert to live here in seclusion.
Li Qiuchen did not yet have that confidence for the time being.
The lakeside was covered everywhere in wild beast tracks, and he could also see snares and traps left behind by hunters. With traces of human handiwork, it meant this place was already not far from a village.
Li Qiuchen looked at the sky and decided to stay here tonight, then continue forward tomorrow.
He had not yet mentally prepared himself to come into contact with outsiders. Who knew what tricks might be hidden in the mountain villages out here? If he ran into another old peach tree, that would be a great joke indeed.
He found a dry spot and prepared to begin his daily routine cultivation course. Just as Li Qiuchen was about to enter meditation, the corner of his eye suddenly caught sight of the white crane standing by the lake, seemingly observing something.
Most likely, it had seen something tasty again.
Li Qiuchen paid it no mind and entered cultivation on his own.
When the moon rose above the branches, Li Qiuchen was suddenly kicked awake by a claw. Opening his eyes, he saw the white crane leaning in front of him, desperately wiggling its brows and eyes, signaling for him to look toward the lake.
Li Qiuchen followed its gaze, and his eyes immediately widened.
Tonight, the moon was bright and the stars sparse; in the sky, starlight glittered brilliantly.
On the ground, starlight glittered just as brilliantly.
Along the lakeshore, tiny stars were flashing everywhere.
Li Qiuchen fixed his eyes and looked carefully, only then discovering that they were actually river mussels, each one the size of a palm, crawling ashore in the dead of night, opening their shells and silently absorbing moonlight essence.
Those flashing little stars were the reflections of pearls inside the mussel shells!
He was rich!
The first reaction in Li Qiuchen’s mind was: if he dug out all these pearls, found a channel, and sold them off, wouldn’t he achieve financial freedom? At that point, he could buy two bowls of soy milk, drink one bowl and pour out the other…
Just as he was joyfully indulging in his beautiful dreams of the future, the white crane grabbed a small stone from the ground and threw it at one of the large river mussels.
There was only a smack, and the starlight instantly went out.
Li Qiuchen watched just like that as the river mussel before his eyes turned into a lifeless rock.
He fell silent for two seconds, turned his head, and met the white crane’s gaze.
“So this is how your beak got clamped?”
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