Chapter 822

Lu Family Bookstore, second floor.

Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun held a handkerchief, covering his mouth and nose, weeping incessantly.

"Zhou Zhou Badou, you are a person of status in Puluo Continent. We agreed to a one-on-one fight. I take three of your moves, and the matter is settled. A scholar like Zhou Badou must keep his word, right? What kind of skill is it to bring Li Qi along?"

Shopkeeper Lu said nothing.

Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun looked at Li Li Banfeng and said, "Li Qi, you are supposed to be a hero of your generation. What kind of thing is this you've done? It's bad enough that you and Zhou Zhou Badou ganged up on me, but you even ambushed me from behind. Think about this yourself; don't you feel cold-hearted?"

Li Li Banfeng looked at the paper and pen on the table, also saying nothing.

Shopkeeper Lu sighed: "Brother Yang, it is a bit shameful to say, but given our friendship of so many years, I cannot bear to see you suffer so many grievances."

Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun wiped his tears and said, "You have seen how many grievances I have suffered. Let's not dwell on them. I will leave the Ink Fragrance Shop immediately, and everything before this will be wiped clean."

"I'm afraid it can't be wiped clean with a single stroke," Shopkeeper Lu looked at the prescription Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun had written, turned around, and picked up the iron rod. "You've been writing for two hours and only came up with three medicinal ingredients. You still want to leave? Isn't this an insult to refinement?"

Bang! Bang!

Under the brutal beating, Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun begged repeatedly: "Don't hit me, I've remembered it, I've remembered it. If you hit me again and make me forget, don't blame me—"

Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun finished writing the prescription. There were over seventy kinds of medicinal ingredients on it, many of which Li Li Banfeng had never even heard of.

After Shopkeeper Lu looked at the prescription, he asked Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun: "The materials are ready, and the manpower is complete. How long will you need to make the 'Blazing Delusion'?"

Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun wiped the ink off his hands: "About half a year should be enough."

Shopkeeper Lu and Li Qi picked up the iron rods and beat him for ten minutes. Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun held his head and shouted: "Half a day, half a day is enough."

"Brother Brother Qiye, you keep watch over Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun here. I will go and procure the medicinal ingredients."

Li Li Banfeng shook his head: "Leave the matter of the medicinal ingredients to me. I can run faster."

Shopkeeper Lu smiled: "I have other methods."

He indeed had methods. In Puluo Continent, Lu Family Bookstores were spread everywhere. In less than half a day, Shopkeeper Lu brought all the medicinal products.

Among them were traditional herbs and modern pharmaceutical agents. Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun mixed different products together, tested them repeatedly, and made several tubes of medicine, but he was not satisfied with any of them.

Li Li Banfeng asked Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun: "Your technique is so proficient; do you also have the foundation of a Medicine Cultivator?"

Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun gave a disdainful smile: "Brother Brother Qiye, you've got that backward, haven't you? Medicine Cultivators are of our children's generation; their foundation was all learned from us."

The founder of Medicine Cultivation was originally a Poison Cultivator, but because he lacked talent and couldn't learn the methods of the Daoist sects completely, he had no choice but to create Medicine Cultivation.

I'm not talking nonsense; if you don't believe me, ask Zhou Zhou Badou."

Shopkeeper Lu nodded and said: "Brother Yang's words are not false. The founder of Medicine Cultivation, Jiang Xuanhu, was indeed a Poison Cultivator by origin. Because he was not skilled in using poison, but instead extremely skilled in detoxifying, he established the sect of Medicine Cultivation."

"Brother Zhou, don't think that only Medicine Cultivators can detoxify. The true experts in detoxification are still among us Poison Cultivators. Medicine Cultivators are truly not worth mentioning in front of us." Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun brought over a few dried flower buds, crushed them with medicine, put the powder into a test tube, and boiled it for more than half an hour.

The medicine in the test tube changed from red to blue. Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun took the test tube off, let the medicine cool down, and said to Li Qi: "Bring a bug to test it."

Li Li Banfeng brought a Void Silkworm from the teapot. This thing was truly tough; it had been picked up by the teapot for so many days and was actually still alive.

Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun stared at the Void Silkworm for a moment: "This has been modified by a curse."

Li Li Banfeng said: "Is a Void Silkworm modified by a curse more powerful?"

"Not necessarily." Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun held a dropper and dripped a drop of medicine onto the Void Silkworm. The Void Silkworm struggled for a moment and then went stiff and motionless.

Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun looked at his pocket watch and probed the Void Silkworm with a probe.

The Void Silkworm was indeed dead, and it had only taken a little over six seconds.

But Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun was not too satisfied: "The Void Silkworm is famous for being tough, but the Void Silkworm modified by a curse has a much worse physique. You'd better bring a bug that hasn't been modified to test it."

Shopkeeper Lu returned to the bookstore in Green Water City, found Yu Yu Yaoming, asked for a few Void Silkworms that hadn't been modified, and brought them to the bookstore in the Ink Fragrance Shop.

Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun held the dropper, dripped the poison onto the bug, opened his pocket watch, and recorded the time. After more than fifty seconds, the Void Silkworm lay on its back, stiff, and finally stopped moving.

Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun closed his pocket watch, let out a long breath, and said: "It's okay, this poison still works."

Shopkeeper Lu was a bit worried: "It took nearly a minute to die after being poisoned. The power of this poison is hard to believe."

Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun looked up at Shopkeeper Lu: "Brother Zhou, you must speak with a conscience. If I were to kill termites in your bookstore,

one dose of medicine would definitely kill them all clean in half a minute.

But this is a Void Silkworm, not a termite. If you feed ordinary poison to their mouths, they can treat it as a meal. Being able to kill them in a minute is already a skill."

As soon as he finished speaking, the Void Silkworm lying on its back on the table kicked its legs, flipped over, and started crawling around again.

This thing was alive again.

Li Li Banfeng asked Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun: "How do you explain this?"

Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun said: "This, this prescription isn't lost, is it? I, I must have forgotten something. Perhaps I missed an ingredient..."

Bang! Bang!

Shopkeeper Lu grabbed the iron rod, pinned Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun down, and continued to beat him.

After beating him for a while, Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun started bleeding. I don't know if he suddenly remembered or if he had been deliberately hiding it before, but he just held his head and shouted: "Need blood, must have blood."

"What blood?"

"The blood of a cultivator, the higher the level, the better—"

"Easy!"

Shopkeeper Lu took a knife and came to Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun. Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun looked at the blade and shook his head repeatedly: "It doesn't have to be my blood, as long as it's a cultivator!"

Shopkeeper Lu pinned Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun down and made a cut on his finger.

Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun was so angry he wept: "Zhou Zhou Badou, I plotted against you this one time and didn't even succeed. Is it necessary to retaliate against me like this? Are you refined people all so petty?"

He dripped the blood into the medicine, shook it evenly, and sprinkled it on the Void Silkworm.

The Void Silkworm's body twitched, and then it stopped breathing.

Shopkeeper Lu probed it several times with the probe, but the Void Silkworm didn't recover. This time it was dead for sure.

He tested it again with a few other intact Void Silkworms, and all of them died within a second.

Li Li Banfeng nodded and praised: "This poison is indeed good."

Shopkeeper Lu felt something was wrong. He took the dropper, sucked up some of the medicine, returned to the bookstore in Green Water City, and conducted an experiment.

He suspected that Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun might have used other methods, and what killed the Void Silkworm might not have been the poison in the dropper.

After a short while, Shopkeeper Lu returned: "Brother Yang, your medicine doesn't work. I tried it in another place, and it still couldn't kill the Void Silkworm."

Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun licked the wound on his finger and looked at Zhou Zhou Wencheng with a smile: "Brother, I'm not around, so the medicine definitely won't work. If every medicine worked, people would just buy medicine from me in the future; why would they need to invite me to do things?"

Shopkeeper Lu looked at Li Li Banfeng: "Brother Brother Qiye, it seems you have to handle this matter with him."

Li Li Banfeng looked at Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun: "Looking at him like this, he doesn't seem like a person who can get things done."

Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun was worried about being silenced, so he could only bite the bullet and agree: "You tell me what the matter is first. As long as it's within my power, it wouldn't hurt to help you out."

Li Li Banfeng nodded slightly at Shopkeeper Lu. Shopkeeper Lu took a magazine and said to Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun: "Please come into the book to talk."

Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun gave a dry laugh, a bit flustered: "Brother Zhou, why do you want me to go into your book? I've done everything you asked me to do, and our grievances can be considered settled. You keep refusing to leave me a way out; this is a bit unkind."

Shopkeeper Lu pointed to the illustration in the book: "There are medicinal ingredients and equipment inside. You just need to go in and focus on making the medicine."

Li Li Banfeng returned to the Leaving Suishenju. The lady had already drawn the map: "Husband, originally we followed Meng Xiao Qian and ran,

running for a whole day before reaching the Curse Gu Ruins, but if you run at full speed, I estimate two or three hours would be enough."

The map not only drew the landmarks for every place but also arranged some emergency strategies for Li Li Banfeng. If a part of the landmarks changed, Li Li Banfeng could still distinguish the direction within a certain range, at least not enough to be trapped in the dream.

There was no problem with the route. The next thing to think about was the action after arriving at the Curse Gu Ruins.

"Husband, use your residential cultivation skills so that others won't recognize you. Once you've planted the poison, come back quickly. Try not to fight with the Curse Cultivators."

Xiang Xiang Hongying said from the side: "Brother Qilang, you must listen to Zhao Xiaowan on this matter. These Curse Cultivators are truly disgusting. Sometimes you can't even notice them on the battlefield. After you go home, you don't know why you've been cursed by them."

Li Li Banfeng took Xiang Xiang Hongying and the lady to the Ninth Room and let Hua Jiuer watch from the side.

"Xue Yingying, take off your clothes."

Xiang Xiang Hongying's cheeks grew hot: "Brother Qilang, when we two are doing this, let's not go to Hua Jiuer's room. You even let Zhao Xiaowan follow along—"

Zhao Zhao Xiaowan was not very happy: "What if I follow? Are you shy?"

Li Li Banfeng said to Zhao Zhao Xiaowan: "Lady, you take off your clothes too."

Zhao Zhao Xiaowan was stunned, and she was even angrier now: "Good for you, you crazy man, you want us sisters to serve you together? Who did you learn this from? You're playing too fancy."

Li Li Banfeng looked at Hua Jiuer.

Hua Jiuer's cheeks flushed: "I listen to my husband. Whatever my husband says is what it is—"

Li Li Banfeng said to Zhao Zhao Xiaowan: "Lady, you and Xue Yingying have both fought against Hen Hen Wuyou. Xue Yingying must have been cursed by Hen Hen Wuyou's 'Calamity'. Whenever she mentions fighting Hen Hen Wuyou, she can't even hold her spear steady."

Xiang Xiang Hongying gritted her teeth in anger upon hearing this: "I was wondering why I wouldn't be afraid of that bitch. So it was her plot."

Zhao Zhao Xiaowan was not surprised at all. After learning that the Blood Tooth Monster was Hen Hen Wuyou, she had long suspected that she had been cursed.

Li Li Banfeng said: "Lady, whether we can see where the 'Calamity' is depends on our eyesight."

Zhao Zhao Xiaowan didn't hold much hope: "Husband, relying solely on the 'Golden Eye and Jinjing Qiuhao', I'm afraid we won't be able to find Hen Hen Wuyou's 'Calamity'."

Sure enough, the couple looked at Xiang Xiang Hongying for a long time but didn't find the 'Calamity'.

Li Li Banfeng sighed: "It seems we still have to ask A-Yu for this matter. It was also relying on her help before that I was able to take out the 'Calamity'." Xiang Xiang Hongying felt that things were not that easy: "Is she such an easy person to talk to? To ask her to do something, I don't know how much it will cost."

Li Li Banfeng said: "She didn't mention the cost, just that she wanted to sit in our house and bring the Heavenly Girl along."

Xiang Xiang Hongying shook her head: "That won't do. Last time she came, she almost tore our house down. If she really misses me, I'll go to her house to see her."

Hua Jiuer looked at Li Li Banfeng: "Husband, I'll go persuade my mother. Even if she's unwilling to help in person, it would be good if you could borrow her techniques using the 'Deep Mansion and Large Courtyard'."

Li Li Banfeng planned the same: "Let's clean up Hen Hen Wuyou's lair first, then clean up the 'Calamity' she planted, and then catch her off guard!"

After resting for half a day, Li Li Banfeng took the magazine Shopkeeper Lu gave him and glanced at it.

On the first page of the magazine, two women were wearing bright red cotton-padded jackets, holding a pair of spring couplets, shaking them gently. Li Li Banfeng then discovered that this magazine was a New Year special issue.

The second page of the magazine was an advertisement. A woman was applying vanishing cream in front of a mirror. Her originally dry and dull skin immediately became oily and delicate.

Li Li Banfeng had only seen this kind of moving magazine in the Lu Family Bookstore. Not only did he find it novel, but even the projector found it incredible: "The art left on paper can actually be dynamic. Is this a literary cultivation technique, or a secret art of light and shadow?"

The third page was Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun. He was grinding medicinal ingredients in the book, looking at the bottles and jars around him. He had already made quite a lot of medicine.

For the sake of prudence, Li Li Banfeng slept in the Leaving Suishenju for a few hours, firstly to save some fortune for himself, and secondly to leave some time for Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun to ensure that the poison was sufficient.

After waking up, Li Li Banfeng took the map given by the lady and arrived at Black Stone Slope.

The last time he went to the Curse Gu Ruins, he set off from the abandoned station on the edge of the New Land because he could find Meng Xiao Qian there.

This time, according to the lady's judgment, their route included a main street in Black Stone Slope. Li Li Banfeng chose to set off directly on the street. As long as he bypassed the platform, he could avoid Meng Xiao Qian.

Without Meng Xiao Qian's suppression, Meng De's ability was displayed. She first let Li Li Banfeng enter a dream, and then held the map in the dream to remind Li Li Banfeng where to go.

After walking for more than an hour, Li Li Banfeng walked to Outside Xiaoyao Wu. Ma Wu had set up a banquet, Qin Qin Xiaopang poured the wine, and the brothers were about to have a drink when they suddenly heard Meng De urge: "Brother Brother Qiye, it's time to wake up."

This is where this road is hard to walk.

If it were all a dream, Meng De could follow the route and take Li Li Banfeng all the way there.

If it were all a real road, Li Li Banfeng could also walk there relying on the talent of a traveling cultivator.

But half of this road is a dream, and the other half is reality.

On the road in the dream, you can't walk out using real means.

On the road in reality, people in the dream will lose their way.

Zhao Zhao Xiaowan marked every detail on the road. After Li Li Banfeng was woken up by Meng De, he found that there was no Outside Xiaoyao Wu in front of him, only a swamp.

Crossing the swamp, he arrived at an ancient city of old earth. Li Li Banfeng entered the dream again. There was a man in the ancient city who kept singing "Night Fragrance". Li Li Banfeng locked the direction relying on the man's singing.

After alternating between dream and reality more than a dozen times, Li Li Banfeng was completely awake.

He arrived at a large snowfield.

The Curse Gu Ruins had arrived. This was the place where they parted ways with Li Li Yuping, but it was still far from the village. Li Li Banfeng only remembered that the village was in the southwest direction.

Thanks to him being a traveling cultivator of Cloud Six, if it were an ordinary person, they wouldn't be able to distinguish the direction on this snowfield at all.

Li Li Banfeng walked dozens of miles to the southwest and soon saw the sentries of the Curse Cultivators. First, there were patrols of dozens of people, then there were tower sentries in groups of three, and patrols in groups of ten.

He didn't disturb these sentries. Following the changing sentries, Li Li Banfeng soon walked to the village.

A scent of rice wine came in the wind. Li Li Banfeng looked up and saw stilt houses hanging on the cliff one after another. From time to time, women were going in and out of the houses.

There were stone stairs beside the cliff, steep and slippery. The women climbing the stone stairs to go home were very careful because they couldn't fly.

Since they couldn't fly, why did they build their residences so dangerously?

Li Li Banfeng flew slowly along the cliff, wanting to see the arrangement pattern of these corner towers.

Walking to the center of the cliff, Li Li Banfeng saw a special place.

In the center of the cliff, a string of corner towers connected up and down, forming a ten-story building. The corridors, walkways, walls, window sashes, and roofs were all log-colored. Placed on the earthy yellow cliff, they were very inconspicuous.

On each floor, there were a few women wearing winter clothes, carrying leather whips, walking back and forth.

There was also a group of women in ragged clothes, with baskets, jars, and boxes on their heads, going in and out of the corner towers on each floor.

This should be the place where they raised bugs.

Li Li Banfeng didn't rush to go upstairs. According to Li Li Yuping, the people responsible for raising bugs here had five hours of sleep time every day. It wouldn't be too late to act after they fell asleep.

He circled around the village a few times and found that there were eight such high-rise buildings for raising bugs, five of which were hanging on the cliff, and the other three were built in the mountain stream.

To poison all the bugs in these eight buildings was really not an easy thing. Whether the poison was enough was a very serious problem.

At twelve o'clock midnight, a group of women lined up and left the high-rise building. It was time to sleep.

Some sounds of washing and chatting were still there. Li Li Banfeng waited until after one o'clock, until the village was completely quiet, and then flew silently to the high-rise building.

There were three rooms on the first floor, and there were Curse Cultivator guards guarding the door of each room.

Li Li Banfeng used "Seeking Good Fortune and Avoiding Calamity" to select a room, and then used "Unobstructed Passage" to walk directly through the wall. There were many mechanisms on the wall, but these mechanisms were not of a high enough level to perceive Li Li Banfeng at all.

Inside the room, Li Li Banfeng saw a small dirt mountain. The soil was loose and piled up from the floor to the ceiling. There were many footprints on the dirt mountain. Usually, many people walked up and down. Was this dirt pile for raising bugs?

Li Li Banfeng turned on the "Golden Eye and Jinjing Qiuhao" and scanned it. There were indeed many black worms shuttling through the dirt pile. Some were digging holes and drilling into the dirt, while others were probing their bodies and crawling slowly.

Such a large mountain, how to poison it?

Li Li Banfeng took out the magazine and called Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun out.

Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun looked at the dirt mountain in the room and exclaimed: "What is this place?"

Li Li Banfeng covered Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun's mouth: "This is the Curse Gu Ruins."

Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun swung his slender and weak fist and punched Li Li Banfeng: "Why did you bring me here?"

"Brought you here to kill bugs!" Li Li Banfeng looked at the dirt pile.

Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun scanned the dirt pile and rolled his eyes at Li Li Banfeng: "Are you crazy? Coming to the Curse Cultivators' lair to kill their bugs?"

Li Li Banfeng also felt that things were not easy to handle: "There are too many bugs, our poison might not be enough."

"Who said the poison isn't enough? You don't even look at whose medicine this is? Do you know how toxic my medicine is? If I use this small bottle of medicine, all the bugs on this dirt mountain will die!"

After speaking, Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun took out a small porcelain bottle, pricked his fingertip, opened the bottle cap, sprinkled a drop of blood into the bottle, poured the medicine into his mouth, and swallowed it.

Li Li Banfeng was horrified: "Brother Yang, how can you drink the poison? Didn't I tell you that our poison might not be enough!"

Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun took a small bottle of medicine and gave it to Li Li Banfeng: "You sprinkle a drop of blood too and drink it. This medicine only poisons the Void Silkworms and won't hurt people."

Li Li Banfeng held the medicine bottle and said: "Then what's the use of me drinking this?"

"Kill the 'Calamity'!" Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun smiled slightly triumphantly. "Otherwise, why do you think I made a poison that specifically kills Void Silkworms? Is it because I find these bugs unpleasant?"

Li Li Banfeng looked at the medicine bottle and said: "You mean, 'Ashes of Delusion' can restrain Curse Cultivators?"

Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun nodded: "'Ashes of Delusion' specifically kills Void Silkworms and has a restraining effect on high-level Curse Cultivators and Gu Cultivators. I was beaten by these two Daoist sects so much that I was afraid, so I specifically made 'Ashes of Delusion'. You hurry up and drink the medicine. If you haven't been cursed by the 'Calamity', it can prevent it. If you have been cursed by the 'Calamity', it can also kill the bugs."

"This is good medicine!" Li Li Banfeng looked at Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun, and there was some admiration in his eyes for him. "Such good medicine,

how could you let it be lost?"

Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun sighed: "At first, I relied on 'Ashes of Delusion' to defeat I don't know how many Curse Cultivators and Gu Cultivators. People from these two Daoist sects had to walk around me when they saw me.

But later, every time I took 'Ashes of Delusion', I would feel some guilt in my heart. Over time, I couldn't bear the torture of guilt, so I destroyed the prescription."

"What are you guilty about?" Li Li Banfeng opened the bottle cap, dripped blood, and prepared to take the medicine.

Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun looked sorrowful: "I feel guilty for myself, and I feel it's not worth it for myself. Why was I born a man? This has missed so many beautiful and charming things."

Pfft!

Li Li Banfeng spat out the medicine in his mouth and took the wine gourd to rinse his mouth.

Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun smiled slightly: "Now you know why I tore up the prescription?"

Li Li Banfeng pointed to the bug mountain: "Hurry up and kill the bugs, get down to business."

Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun held the small porcelain bottle and sprinkled a bottle of 'Ashes of Delusion' in a corner of the bug mountain. The bugs on the whole mountain immediately became excited and crawled toward this corner one after another.

"Brother, if you have plenty of time, wait here. If you are in a hurry, let's go to the next place!" Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun pulled a cloth bag from his clothes. There were hundreds of bottles in the cloth bag, all filled with medicine.

PS: Yang Xiao Qian Xiangjun is still quite reliable when doing things.

My high fever still hasn't gone down, this chapter is slightly shorter, please forgive me, dear readers.