Chapter 2: Herb Mountain (1/2)

Chapter 2: Herb Mountain

Ling Family’s Herb Mountain was an expanded branch of the Arctic Mountain Range, and was classified as the outermost region of the Arctic Mountain Range.

Compared to those huge, extremely tall ice mountains, Herb Mountain was extremely unremarkable; its spirit energy was also not considered rich.

Ling Town was exactly at the edge of the Arctic Mountain Range, beneath Herb Mountain.

Even though Herb Mountain’s spirit energy didn’t stand out, the mountain wasn’t quite as cold since it was far enough from the center of the Arctic Mountain Range, thus making it suitable for growing spirit plants.

The spirit plants on Herb Mountain were precisely the main source of income for the Ling Family. The annual offerings Ling Family made to Nebula Pavilion were also mostly spirit plants from Herb Mountain. In these couple of years, Ling Chengzhi was in charge of the planting and picking of spirit plants. Du Jiaolan tried to get a share of the Herb Mountain pie several times, but every one of her plans were destroyed by the Ling Family brothers.

Like chunks of tofu, there were blocks and blocks of medicinal gardens on Herb Mountain. Planted within the medicinal gardens were mostly spirit plants and herbs below Common Grade Three. Even though they weren’t worth much, there were still lots of them.

The Common Grade Three spirit plants among them included the Jade Hand Flower, Cold Containing Grass, and the Serpent Crown Flower, and they were the most important spirit plants grown in the medicinal gardens. These three spirit plants were basic ingredients in refining Spirit Recovering Pills, which Nebula Pavilion greatly demanded every year.

At this moment, Ling Chengye and Ling Chengzhi stood in front of a Jade Hand Flower medicinal garden.

When in full bloom, it looked like a young girl spreading open her palm. Its five slender leaves were like five slim fingers, which was why it was called the Jade Hand Flower. The period between planting and picking the Jade Hand Flower was only around half a year, and it wasn’t really affected by changes in the weather. This made it one of the easiest spirit plants to cultivate.

However, in this current Jade Hand Flower medicinal garden, each and every Jade Hand Flower had yet to bloom; instead, each and every one of them were wilted, causing Ling Chengye’s expression to turn extremely ugly.

“Is it only the Jade Hand Flowers that are like this?” Ling Chengye asked with some hope.

Ling Chengzhi smiled wryly, “The Jade Hand Flowers can be considered good. The Cold Containing Grass and the Serpent Crown Flower medicinal gardens are even more unsightly, they’re even more intensely dried up. I’m afraid that it will be hard for us to gather this year’s payment of medicinal herbs to Nebula Pavilion…”

Ling Chengye’s expression changed, he shouted in an overcast tone of voice: “How exactly did this happen? Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?!”

“I don’t know how this happened.” Pain spread across Ling Chengzhi’s face as his heart also filled with confusion, “Since Qin Shan died two years ago, the garden’s medicinal herbs yielded less and less crops every season. Though each return was bringing in less and less, it was still enough to supply Nebula Pavilion. This is also my fault, I was too busy trying to break through that I didn’t seriously pay attention to it.”

“Once I was aware of this dire situation, I believed that I could still control this. I spent most of my time cultivating and conditioning the spirit herbs, hoping that I could reverse this situation. However, what I didn’t expect was that since three months ago, the medicinal herbs gradually looked more and more wilted by the day. Before I had time to react, large expanses of medicinal herbs inside the medicinal garden had already withered…”

Ling Chengzhi hung his head in dismay, appearing as though he wanted to hit something and cry, but he didn’t dare to avoid his responsibilities.

Ling Chengye’s face collapsed. He was silent for a good while, then suddenly said: “What does the drying up of the herbs in the medicinal garden have to do with Qin Lie? He’s usually deep inside Herb Mountain’s mines, and ought to never have come to the gardens before. He’s able to affect these herbs? Old Three, why do you suspect Qin Lie?”

To him, Qin Lie was only a fool. For a person without a soul, it was absolutely impossible that he could influence Herb Mountain’s yield.

“Since their grandfather-grandson pair entered Herb Mountain’s mines five years ago, I’ve been secretly observing them. Over the past five years, there were very few changes in Herb Mountain, but there was an extremely strange phenomenon…” Ling Chengzhi creased his brows as he pondered while speaking.

“What kind of strange phenomenon?” Ling Chengye was stunned.

“Every time it thunderstormed, the lightning above Herb Mountain’s skies would be extremely condensed. Each lightning strike would hit Herb Mountain’s summit, and that lightning would sometimes come here, even causing me to watch in fear. However, before their grandfather-grandson pair came, no matter how vile the weather, there wouldn’t be that much lightning assembled above Herb Mountain’s skies, nor the phenomenon of lightning directly striking down here!” Ling Chengzhi said with certainty.

“This lightning… has something to do with their grandfather-grandson pair?” Ling Chengye shook his head, feeling as though his younger brother’s speculation didn’t have much of a foundation.

“Big Brother, let me finish.” Ling Chengzhi’s expression gradually turned solemn, “After Qin Shan passed away, this phenomenon became even more apparent! In these past two years, every time there was a thunderstorm, there was even more lightning gathered above Herb Mountain, and it struck Herb Mountain more frequently! Sometimes, I could faintly feel those powerful lightning strikes skirt into the mountain’s cavity…”

Upon hearing this, Ling Chengye finally faced up, and solemnly said: “Continue!”

“I have been guarding Herb Mountain all these years, and every time lightning struck, I was always mindful of the mine caves. I’ve seen Qin Lie walk out from those caves several times with his hair and skin a bit burnt black. I can say with total certainty that it was definitely caused by a lightning strike!” Ling Chengzhi shouted softly, “Due to all the abnormalities in Herb Mountain these past years, I am within reason to suspect that this has something to do with Qin Lie! Big Brother, the medicinal herbs would not wither without cause. I believe that something must have changed within Herb Mountain’s interior to have lead to the withering of the medicinal herbs!”