Chapter 361 (1/2)

A Treasure Indeed

Shao Xuan followed the old man, who was circling around the mountain. The old man plucked plants he needed whenever he saw them.

The old man cut off a section of some brown grass, peeled bark off a spiral-like tree and plucked several kinds of flowers Shao Xuan had never seen before.

“You are going to…” Shao Xuan looked at the old man and asked.

“Get rid of the rats!” The old man sounded with strong anger. He was determined to get the plant he suspected to be the “Thousand Grain Gold”. He would never let those wild rats eat the grains!

“By poisoning them?” Shao Xuan asked. It was a huge swarm. The amount of herbs needed to kill all of those wild rats would be huge, unless the old man was able to create a special medicine.

But it seemed like the old man didn’t want to poison them.

“No, leaving these wild rats in this deserted mountain would be very useful. We might need them to discover more “Thousand Grain Gold” in the future. That’s why we can’t poison and kill all of them, I just wanted to poison them slightly so they’ll faint.”

The mountain was quite barren and there weren’t many types of plants for the old man to pluck. However, because the old man was speedwalking to be on time and managed to recognize the places where the plants he needed might grow, his hands were full of herbs in just the blink of an eye.

“I’ll take it, you can continue.” Shao Xuan took the collected herbs over.

The old man did not hesitate and gave those herbs to Shao Xuan. He retorted, “Be careful, don’t touch the broken parts. Don’t touch nor smell the sap. If you faint in advance, I won’t be able to get rid of those wild rats by myself.

Both of them started to speed up when they heard noises from the wild rats. This meant that the grains on the mountaintop were ripening soon. They had to hurry up.

While following the old man, Shao Xuan also learned a lot but he didn’t manage to pluck herbs as fast as the old man. This was because they were in a hurry and the old man wouldn’t say much. Therefore, Shao Xuan could only look at it and try to memorize it as this might be helpful in the future.

There were many dwarf trees and weeds everywhere on the mountain. For people like the old man, Old Ju, it was as if treasure was everywhere. It was up to one to decide if it was trash or a treasure to him. Some plants might not have a huge impact on its own, but it would be different when all of them were combined together. The old man wanted to create a kind of medicine by combining multiple kinds of plants.

“Alright, just these will do.”

The old man sat down and started to make medicine with his tools.

A small copper tripod cauldron and a few oddly shaped knives were all he needed to create the medicine.

“Ok.” Shao Xuan didn’t say much. He knew which type of plant the old man was talking about as the old man had taught him during their journey.

Shao Xuan remembered, “One-lined sorrow” were plants that grew within the deepest part of the valley of two mountains. He had seen some of it along the way.

“One-lined sorrow” was a shrub that had a height lower than Shao Xuan’s waist. The name was coined by the old man himself.

While running down the mountain, Shao Xuan searched around him and finally found one “One-lined sorrow”.

“One-lined sorrow” was named because a line would appear on the fruit’s hard shell when the fruit of this shrub was about to turn ripe. Then, the fruit would split down the line. After days of exposure under the sun, the fruit would be dried and only a small core would be left. The moment it ripened, the cracked fruit would be fully opened and the kernel would then spray out.