Chapter 36: Using Mutton Soup to Seek Collection and Recommendation

  Li Wenjun was not really possessed by a demon, but his soul was touched by Xu Yidan's words.

  What moved him was not Xu Yidan's suggestion of directly injecting the medicine into the patient's blood vessels, but rather his mention of several alternative methods for treating the drug.

  Compared to other methods, making medicinal herbs into pills is undoubtedly the most complicated process. The difficulty of other methods is much lower. Especially decocting medicinal soups, this is something Li Wenjun is extremely familiar with.

  Who has never been ill? Who hasn't used a sand pot to decoct the medicine grabbed by Langzhong into medicinal soup?

  Making medicinal decoctions has another advantage, which is that it doesn't require a dan furnace, effectively avoiding Li Wenjun's biggest weakness. As long as you go to the pharmacy and buy a new sand pot, the problem can be solved. Like a dan furnace, even if he wants to buy one, there's nowhere to buy it.

  Of course, doing so also has its drawbacks.

  Li Wenjun had not experimented or compared, but his intuition told him that by changing the original pill-making method of Jiqi San to decocting it as a medicinal broth, there would definitely be significant losses. In some people's opinion, this might be a loss that outweighed the gain. However, Li Wenjun did not think so; if he insisted on mastering the correct refining method and buying a Dan furnace before refining Jiqi San again, who knew how much time it would take?

  Li Wenjun didn't care about money, didn't care about exerting himself, and was even willing to risk his life for that faint glimmer of hope. However, he wasn't someone who didn't care about anything; what he hated the most was wasting time. The earlier he succeeded in cultivating immortality, the more ways he would have to stay alive in this treacherous world.

  Li Wenjun was no longer interested in listening to Xu Yidan's lecture on alchemy, but he didn't leave either. He just sat there, his ears not hearing anything outside the window, and his mind focused solely on deducing how to improve the method of gathering energy and dispersing it during the refining process.

  When Li Wenjun had a clue, Xu Yidan happened to finish his studies. People got up one after another and rushed to Xu Yidan. Everyone wanted to get closer to Xu Yidan and exchange ideas, and also to make some connections.

  Li Wenjun stood up and didn't even glance at Xu Yidan again, turned around and hastily left the Meng Xue, exited the Zhang Fu, and rushed to his resting place.

  Returning to his residence, Li Wenjun saw Sun Baicao and Sun Jianing sitting in the courtyard with worried faces.

  "Uncle Sun, what's going on here?" Li Wenjun asked.

  Sun Baicao sighed and didn't speak. Instead, Sun Jianing explained: "Wen Jun, our family sells medicinal herbs to a fixed medicinal material merchant every year. We have an old relationship with him. His purchasing price is slightly higher than what others offer, and we originally planned to sell the medicinal herbs to him this year. However, after searching for two days, we couldn't find him. My father heard some bad news - that medicinal material merchant suddenly fell ill and passed away."

  "Alright," Li Wenjun comforted, "Uncle Sun, don't be too anxious. With so many medicinal material merchants in Fengshou Town, you might find an even more generous buyer than the original one, and make even more money."

  Sun Baicao smiled bitterly and said, "Wen Jun, don't worry about our matter anymore. I'll handle it well. If you have anything to do, just continue with your own business. If I need your help with anything, I'll let you know."

  Sun Baicao observed Li Wenjun's words and expressions, seeing that he had been rushing out the door for two consecutive days, so he knew Li Wenjun must have something on his mind. Therefore, he didn't want to disturb him either. For this young man, he always couldn't help but look up to him with admiration.

  Li Wenjun nodded and said: "Alright, I may not go out for the next few days. Uncle Sun, if you need me, just speak up."

  Back in the house, Li Wenjun took out "Changchun Gong" and the four treasures of the study, flipped to the page that recorded the gathering of Qi and dispersal, from beginning to end, carefully pondered. Once he thought of something, he would use a brush to write it down, lest he forget in a moment.

  It wasn't until the afternoon of the second day that Li Wenjun had read through the refining method of Jiqi San for over a hundred times, using up dozens of sheets of 32-open paper. He recorded all possible key points he could think of on the paper and formulated corresponding countermeasures.

  After that, Li Wenjun went out and found a pharmacy. He made an excuse of catching a cold and bought several doses of medicine, as well as two sandpots. Then he ran to the general store and bought two stoves, several bags of charcoal, plus a large bathtub and an iron pot.

  Some of these guys are used to decoct medicinal soups, and some are used for medicinal baths. The reason why medicinal baths are adopted instead of directly pouring the decocted medicinal soup into the belly is that Li Wenjun does not dare to guarantee that the medicinal soup he decocts must be usable. What if it's a failure? If there are too many impurities and toxins inside, pouring them into the belly will definitely be hopeless, while medicinal baths have some buffer.

  Everything was ready, Mr. Li Wenjun lit the stove, put the medicine for treating wind and cold into a large sand pot, added water to it, and then simmered it on the stove.

  Li Wenjun had never refined the Qi Gathering Pill, nor had he decocted the Qi Gathering Decoction. He had previously decocted medicine for his parents and knew that when decocting medicine, a strong medicinal fragrance would usually be emitted. Through these fragrances, someone who understood the art might be able to distinguish which herbs were inside.

  Li Wenjun used several precious herbs, especially the nearly two-hundred-year-old Wild Mountain Essence, which was a rare treasure. It was something he had secretly obtained from Wu Xue Mei's hands. If someone were to pass by the courtyard while he was decocting the medicine and caught a whiff of the Wild Mountain Essence's scent, it would be trouble.

  Although the town of Fengshou is now filled with medicinal herbs, and the streets are all fragrant with medicine, it's not necessarily true that someone will discover the wild mountain spirit. Being cautious can always avoid some trouble. What Li Wenjun fears most now is trouble, he just wants to be able to smoothly brew the medicinal soup, successfully cultivate early, as long as he crosses the threshold, the number of people who can threaten him will decrease greatly.

  While the fire was heating up the medicine for his injury, Li Wenjun took out the package of stored goods and retrieved the Wangyueyancao and other herbs that were inside.

  These herbs have all been simply processed and, according to the Cong Qi San formula, the Wang Yue Ya Cao etc. are divided one by one, each wrapped in a dozen or so paper bags. After all the herbs were divided up, there were still a few kinds of herbs left over, but not many.

  Li Wenjun took a piece, poured it into the sand pot, and then took out the wild mountain essence, carefully cutting off a small piece and putting it into the sand pot as a medicine guide. Afterwards, Li Wenjun added water to the sand pot.

  When the sand pot containing typhoid medicine started to boil and the strong smell of the medicine wafted out, Li Wenjun lit another stove and began to decoct the Qi-gathering powder.

  Li Wenjun didn't know that he had inadvertently taken the right path. Immortal cultivators using medicinal baths have been around since ancient times. This method is usually suitable for low-level immortal cultivators, but once they reach mid-to-high levels, hardly anyone uses it anymore. It's not that this method doesn't work, but rather that the herbs and other heavenly treasures needed for medicinal baths suited to mid-to-high level immortal cultivators are simply too difficult to find.

  Of course, taking medicinal baths and using medicinal pellets are also highly specialized things that require guidance. This includes the preparation of medicinal baths, how to decoct them, etc., which all involve a lot of learning and cannot be done by simply picking some herbs, putting them in a sand pot, adding water, lighting a fire and then decocting a medicinal broth suitable for human use.

  Fortunately, Jiqi San is a very low-level pill, and the herbs required can be collected by Li Wenjun, an ordinary person, in the secular mountains. It's easy to imagine how low-level it is. Low-level herbs have a characteristic: they are easy to handle and do not require high demands on the refiner. This is like the poor being cheap to raise, no matter how you toss them, they can be made.

  Li Wenjun had been pondering for so long, which was also beneficial to him. He didn't know how to decoct the Qi-gathering dispersing medicinal soup either, and he basically followed the refining method recorded in "Changchun Gong" to decoct the Qi-gathering dispersing medicinal soup. When to use gentle fire, when to use fierce fire, etc., strictly according to the method.

  Almost an hour later, he extinguished the fire and looked at the medicinal broth in the sand pot, which was neither black nor gray nor brown. He had no idea what it was. He took a ceramic bowl and poured out the medicinal broth from the sand pot, setting it aside. Then Li Wenjun put the iron pot back on the stove, fetched water with a bucket, poured it into the iron pot, and boiled the water.

  About half an incense stick later, a pot of water was boiling. Li Wenjun poured the water into the bathtub and added cold water to adjust it to a temperature suitable for him to take a bath. Then he poured the medicinal broth he had cooked into the bathtub.

  The medicine entered the water and spread out like ink dripping into water, dispersing in a cloudy manner. After a moment, more than half of the bathtub's water had changed color.

  Li Wenjun stared blankly at the reddish-brown water, having finally managed to mix the bath concoction with great difficulty. However, just as he was about to get in, he hesitated. No one could tell him if his entire preparation process was correct, and if there were any mistakes, jumping into the bathtub recklessly might lead to trouble.

  Still need to be more cautious!

  Li Wenjun hastily ran outside, bought a lamb, and returned home. He scooped some bath water from the bathtub into a copper basin for washing his face, then put the bleating lamb into the copper basin.

  After waiting for a long time, the lamb was still jumping around and nothing happened.

  Li Wenjun let out a sigh of relief, but new doubts emerged in his mind. Had the bath he had prepared not had any effect at all? Otherwise, why was the lamb completely unharmed? Could it be that this lamb was more suitable for cultivation than he was?

  Thought for half a day, without any clue.

  Li Wenjun shook his head. Idle thinking was useless. Whether the bath water was useful or not, he still needed to jump in and try it out for himself.