Chapter 1007: No chance VS. seeking death (1/2)

Though they’d succeeded in gaining the Metal of Ten-Thousand Poisons earlier than expected, it was still impossible to rescue Mu Linger and the rest in the middle of winter. For the sake of keeping Jun Yixie in the dark, they could only wait. Moreover, the Ning Clan troops had the important task of training those 30,000 battle horses!

Long Feiye never asked about the horses, but Han Yunxi had enough power to inquire herself. She had sent two queries back since leaving Three-Way Black Market. By now, Deputy General Xue had more or less taken care of the horse trainers sent back by Jun Yixie and would soon start breaking in the stallions.

Their other important task was to deal with Bai Yanqing. Although no news was good news, this didn’t apply to their enemy. They couldn’t be sure he wasn’t taking action even if they heard nothing about him. Han Yunxi and Long Feiye were currently speculating on his goals and motives. If he wanted to sow discord between East and West Qin like the past, why was he keeping silent now? And why did Bai Yanqing hate the two dynasties so much in the first place? That man had too many suspicious points, just like the mysterious figure in the Poison Sect’s forbidden grounds. Long Feiye and Han Yunxi couldn’t make heads or tails of it all, but neither could they cast the problem aside.

Since they couldn’t puzzle through Bai Yanqing, they could only try to find the Fire of Ten-Thousand Poisons as soon as possible! With Gu Qishao by their side, Long Feiye didn’t mind luring out Bai Yanqing for a good bout as soon as they found the last poison!

“Alright, then we’ll wait a while longer,” Han Yunxi agreed with Long Feiye’s plan.

Gu Qishao seemed distracted because he didn’t chime in. It wasn’t until Long Feiye looked at him that he recovered enough to say, “Sure, no problem.” Actually, he’d just agreed without thinking, because he hadn’t heard Long Feiye’s words at all.

“Have you gotten any intel on the Fire of Ten-Thousand Poisons recently?” Long Feiye asked.

“Not a single bit,” Gu Qishao had started searching as long as a year ago, but hadn’t made any progress. Actually, if he hadn’t heard about the Qi Sha dagger before, they might have missed this time’s clues, too. Long Feiye had sent out his own shadow guards to investigate but also came up empty-handed.

“Is Fire of Ten-Thousand Poisons an actual flame? Or other sources of heat?” Han Yunxi wondered what form it would take. In the five elements, “fire” could refer to both the flame or similar sources of thermal power.

Gu Qishao shook his head. Though he had ideas about the other four elements, he was stuck when it came to fire. Was it a flame of the earth or the skies? Perhaps even one from a stove? Was it a fire that burned eternally, or one that had yet to be lit? When it came to eternal flames, those were easy enough to track down. If it was the latter, or perhaps a fire that wasn’t burning at all, then searching would be difficult.

“Let’s rest a few days to think it over,” Gu Qishao was rarely so focused.

“Alright,” Han Yunxi agreed.

Just like that, Han Yunxi’s group settled down in Qingzhou Water City while searching for clues, keeping an eye on Northern Li’s civil war, and trying to find Bai Yanqing’s whereabouts. One day, Han Yunxi suddenly received a letter from the medical cottage of Pill King. After reading its contents, she ran excitedly into the courtyard.

“Long Feiye, good news! I have good news!” She was so happy that it seemed like she’d discovered the Fire of Ten-Thousand Poisons.

Before Long Feiye could ask her for details, Gu Qishao had already jumped off the roof with a grin. “Poison lass, what’s gotten you so happy?”

“Our Doctor Gu can be saved!” Han Yunxi was truly joyful, even happier than any news of the Fire of Ten-Thousand Poisons.

“Really? Where’s the news from?” Long Feiye grew delighted as well. He had sent so many people to look for the Returning Dragon Pill needed for Gu Beiyue’s recovery that he couldn’t guess who wrote back with updates.

“Who found the pill? They’re even faster than me, so they must be pretty skilled!” Gu Qishao chuckled.

But Han Yunxi’s next words froze him in place.

“It’s the old pill furnace master at the Medicine Requesting Cave.[1] He didn’t find Returning Dragon Pill, but he did get a prescription for it. Moreover, he’s already collected all of the ingredients but one, so we need to hurry up and deliver it!”

Gu Qishao’s smile stiffened on his face, while Long Feiye asked urgently, “What’s missing?”

‘Wine! To make Returning Dragon Pill, one needs mellow snow wine aged for 100 years.” Han Yunxi grinned. “Something like that...Ning Cheng will have for sure!”

The so-called snow wine was wine brewed from water melted from snow. Accumulated snow over ten years old was filtered of impurities and turned into clean water to ferment alcohol. That version yielded ordinary snow wine, but hundred-year snow wine required both snow that had accumulated for 100 years as well as a fermentation period of one century. Many of the 100-year snow wines for sale in the markets were all sham. Even finding a normal 100-year old wine was difficult, to say nothing of snow wine.

To drink fine teas, one found Long Feiye; to eat fine pills, one found Gu Qishao; to drink fine wines, Ning Cheng was top pick!

“Xu Donglin, write a letter to ask Myriad Merchant Hall,” Long Feiye ordered. It was rare for him to be so impulsive unless Han Yunxi was involved.

By now, Han Yunxi was already looking forward to seeing Gu Beiyue’s shadow arts once again. The white-robed gentleman of the past was going to make his comeback! If Lil Thing knew the news, it would definitely be happy as well!