[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-nothing-is-taboo":3,"chapter-nothing-is-taboo-nothing-is-taboo-chapter-20":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Nothing Is Taboo",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2310405,4514,"Chapter 20: Gunpowder","nothing-is-taboo-chapter-20",20,"\u003Cp>The ghost fire had gone out; Xu Yuan took a breath, a numbness spreading from the wound on his back. He grabbed the cage containing Qiao Master’s corpse and fled swiftly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This place was still too close to Old Locust’s territory.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After moving another dozen li away, Xu Yuan found a sunlit slope, sat down, and pulled off his shirt to expose his back to the sunlight.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He didn’t know if it would help.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then he dragged Qiao Master’s corpse over and patted his body for anything else.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Hidden in the corpse’s clothing were several calligraphy sheets; Xu Yuan unfolded them—each bore characters like “Riding the Clouds” and “Riding the Wind,” the ink still fresh, newly written by Qiao Master.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Xu Yuan didn’t know that Qiao Master never used such sheets in daily life—he always traveled by carriage.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But the day before, he had entered the mountains to gather intelligence.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The targets of Qiao Master’s intelligence-gathering were, of course, the powerful and eerie entities within Ghost Witch Mountain.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet what those eerie beings wanted from Qiao Master was nothing but blood offerings.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Qiao Master had rushed out unprepared and hadn’t brought enough blood offerings; to obtain information, he had left his page, coachman, and draft horse to the entities.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The coachman had served the Qiao household for twelve years; the page had followed him for five.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Without his horse and coachman, Qiao Master couldn’t pull the carriage back himself—so when Xu Yuan encountered him on the official road the day before, Qiao Master was walking, with calligraphy reading “Riding the Clouds” and “Riding the Wind” pasted on his legs.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Beneath the stack of calligraphy sheets lay a few pages of paper, written in tiny script detailing the cultivation and use of a certain “Dao Art.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Dao Art was called “Entering the Body’s Trap”; Xu Yuan skimmed it and recognized it immediately—it was Chang Xunbei’s technique.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“All good things for me,” Xu Yuan hurriedly tucked them away and continued searching the corpse.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The pouch held a few taels of loose silver, one ten-tael gold ingot, and two silver notes worth two hundred taels each!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Xu Yuan’s breath quickened—he had never in his life seen so much money!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The most valuable asset the Xu family owned was the old opera house in River Works Alley, plus a few rooms in the connected backyard.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Together, they weren’t worth more than one hundred and fifty taels.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Cultivators were still human—they had to wear clothes, eat meals, receive guests, and maintain social ties.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And their expenses were far greater than those of ordinary people.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As Xu Yuan stuffed the money into his chest, he muttered: “Qiao Master shouldn’t have carried so much cash on him.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Normally, Qiao Master carried only loose silver and gold ingots—he wouldn’t have these two silver notes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Qiao Master’s “Yifangting” inn also functioned as a money exchange in town; traveling merchants often came to him to break large silver notes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>These two notes were recently exchanged; Qiao Master planned to take them back to the city.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After striking this sudden fortune, Xu Yuan felt refreshed, even as the numbness in his back seemed to lessen slightly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He continued searching downward, reaching Qiao Master’s waist, where his hand brushed against something hard.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He pulled it out and gasped: “If he had this treasure, why didn’t he use it?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was a short-barreled three-barreled musket, clearly stamped with “Nan Du Jiang Zao” and “Chen Wutong.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Nan Du Jiang Zao” meant it was produced by the Ministry of Works’ artisan workshop in Nan Du.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Chen Wutong” was the maker’s name.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This device was commonly called a “three-barreled cannon,” especially when made by official workshops.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And Qiao Master’s was no ordinary one—it was an Artisan-Cultivator artifact!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>One shot from this thing would blow Xu Yuan’s head apart.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>No wonder Qiao Master dominated the entire Qihe Tai town—he wasn’t just relying on his ninth-rank literary cultivator strength.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This treasure could kill a seventh-rank cultivator!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>—But why hadn’t he used it in that life-or-death moment?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Xu Yuan checked and realized: “It’s broken.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Some internal component had failed; it was unusable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Xu Yuan felt a wave of disappointment.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The musket was stored in a leather pouch, which also held a small gourd filled with gunpowder.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This gunpowder was said to be different from the firecracker powder used during New Year’s—it was many times more powerful.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Take it back and see if my stepmother can fix it.” If repaired, it might prove immensely useful.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As Xu Yuan was about to stuff the musket and gunpowder gourd back into the pouch, he froze, staring strangely at the gourd.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I have a bold idea!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Could this gunpowder… be used as an Elixir Base?!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His first thought was to refine the gunpowder into an external elixir—but refining required internal fire.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gunpowder exposed to fire… his belly would explode on the spot.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But then he reconsidered: elixir ingestion was also a cultivation method.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For Elixir Cultivators, it wasn’t merely a way to gather ingredients for refining.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His own Elixir Cultivation was currently ninth-rank; he could ascend to eighth-rank by condensing an internal elixir.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For Elixir Cultivators, the internal elixir was the “Great Medicine,” the very foundation of their cultivation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Before condensing an internal elixir, one first needed to find a precious substance as the “Embryo Medicine.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It could be a thousand-year medicinal herb, a celestial treasure, a spirit essence, and so on.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Xu Yuan remembered his father once telling him about the most peculiar Elixir Cultivator, who used a mysterious Artisan-Cultivator artifact as his Embryo Medicine!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But using gunpowder as an Embryo Medicine…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Isn’t that too bold?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet Xu Yuan couldn’t help but feel immense anticipation for the kind of internal elixir such a base might produce.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The disadvantage of being alone became clear—he had no one to advise him. If he were home, his stepmother could have helped him weigh the options.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But after only a moment’s hesitation, Xu Yuan pulled the stopper from the gourd and poured the gunpowder into his mouth.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Qiao Master was dead, but the Holy Maiden still waited—falling into her hands meant death too.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the short term, Xu Yuan couldn’t find a better Embryo Medicine; he had no choice. If there was a chance to strengthen himself, he couldn’t afford hesitation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>To his surprise, the gunpowder was far easier to “digest” than celestial treasures—within less than half an hour, he condensed a dull gray internal elixir.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>About the size of a soybean.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This tiny thing meant Xu Yuan’s Elixir Cultivation had risen from ninth-rank to eighth-rank.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Xu Yuan silently acknowledged: Elixir Cultivators truly were among the strongest in early stages.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And this small gunpowder-based internal elixir… truly brought unique benefits!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>An eighth-rank Elixir Cultivator could infuse certain “properties” of the internal elixir into external elixirs.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“After returning to the city, I must secretly ransack Qiao Master’s mansion.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“His house must still hold more gunpowder.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Xu Yuan packed his things and tossed the corpse into a nearby ravine.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The corpse scraped through the wild grass and tumbled into the dark depths below, followed immediately by tearing and chewing sounds.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Xu Yuan shuddered and fled quickly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After running a dozen li, a faint odor drifted on the mountain wind; suddenly, some primal instinct within him surged uncontrollably—he rolled onto the ground, eyes glazed and vacant, wriggling like a grub toward some distant direction!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>(End of Chapter)\u003C\u002Fp>",1229,"2026-06-20T12:07:23.516Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","66de99426b0d1064391b25c39a3c3cb18cfa193df1829bbe4af997ba405c6a41","nothing-is-taboo-chapter-21","nothing-is-taboo-chapter-19",413,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fnothing-is-taboo-cover.jpg"]