Poison Genius Consort

ents.
She could only activate the detox system to measure the quantity of snow wine he was using.

Boiling the medicine, filtering it out, boiling it again, filtering it again, pounding the ingredients to pulp, rubbing it between one’s fingers, examining its color, smelling its scent, tasting its flavor…the repeated steps grew smoother with each cycle as Pill Furnace Master worked nonstop for an hour.
Although his morals were disdainful, his medicine making skills were still worth prostrating before him.

After the hour, a portion of medicinal paste and a dense, creamy soup were presented before Han Yunxi.
It wasn’t easy to cultivate a dan pellet, or else Han Yunxi and Gu Qishao could’ve done it themselves with the prescription in their hands.
The paste and soup were only base ingredients for the pill itself, whose creation process had yet to begin.

Pill Furnace Master was already afraid of Gu Qishao’s tormenting and immediately opened up the second and third level doors of the pill furnace to place the ingredients inside.
But it was then that Gu Qishao cried out, “Hold it!”

We’ve already gotten so far, so what does that annoying guy want? What else could he demand from me?

“What?” Pill Furnace Master asked with resentment.

Gu Qishao only chuckled and said, “Old man, just how many Returning Dragon Pills are you planning to make with this much paste and juice?”

Everyone present was intelligent enough to understand his question.
Angry, Pill Furnace Master replied, “You guys just wanted one, so what’s it to you how many this old man makes?!”

“Nonono,” Gu Qishao waved his hand.
“Old man, I’m asking you how many Returning Dragon Pills you can make after using up so much of our snow wine? My Pill Fiend Valley has plenty of the other 18 ingredients, so I can give you a few cartfuls if you like, but this snow wine is extremely rare.
It can’t be given casually!”

In other words, he wanted them to take all the Returning Dragon Pills from this batch!

“You!” Pill Furnace Master was about to explode! He had never been so oppressed in this lifetime.
His gloomy face wished he could tell them all to scram, but he held himself back! 

“Five pills! All for you guys!” Pill Furnace Master shouted before tossing the ingredients into the furnace and slamming the doors shut.

Five pills…

Han Yunxi’s heart filled with gratitude.
If Gu Qishao hadn’t reminded them, she wouldn’t have noticed this issue.
It’d be strange if he wasn’t really Pill Furnace Master’s disciple, because he understood the old man too well.
Five Returning Dragon Pills! What did that mean? That after they cured Gu Beiyue, they would still have four left to save experts who’d lost their internal martial arts! How could they hand over something so good to the Pill Furnace Master for free?

If Pill Furnace Master had kept his word, Han Yunxi might have considering sharing the spoils.
Everyone had did their part to search for the ingredients.
But his actions beforehand reassured Han Yunxi that she was justified in taking the other four too. Just count it as his payment for trying to trick us!

Seeing the furnace doors shut tight, Han Yunxi muttered, “Use this chance to see how this furnace cultivates the dan pellets.” Last time her group had already been curious.
The furnace itself was as tall as a three-storey building and contains nine separate levels.
Every level had six doors but no fire inside.
Only darkness greeted their eyes, making it impossible to see the interior.
The mystery of the furnace laid in the fact that it lacked flame and yet radiated heat.
If it wasn’t for winter, Gu Qishao might have been cooked from his perch by now. 

Cultivating dan pellets differed from making regular pills.
The latter only needed to combine ingredients until they melded, sometimes taking two to three days if the components were complicated.
Cultivating dan pellets needed a very long time.
The briefer exchanges required two to three months, while longer time stretched into two to three years. From what Han Yunxi understood, Pill Furnace Master’s furnace had great capabilities not because it created miracle pills, but that it drastically cut down on completion times.
What took two to three years in other furnaces only needed two to three months here.
Thus, many patients in desperate need of pills would try their luck at the Medicine Requesting Cave. 

Before, Han Yunxi had read in Pill Furnace Master’s letters that it’d take two months max to create the Returning Dragon Pill once all of the ingredients were complete.
If that was the case, then faster times could yield them the pill within one and a half month.
It wasn’t a bad idea to stay here and keep an eye on Pill Furnace Master while investigating the whereabouts of Fire of Ten-Thousand Poisons and Northern Li’s civil war.
At the very least, no one in the world would guess where they were.
And like Han Yunxi, Long Feiye was curious about the workings of the pill furnace too.

Pill Furnace Master should announce its secrets this time, right? Yet he simply glanced wordlessly at Gu Qishao before grabbing at air.
The next second, a ball of flame appeared in his palm.
Han Yunxi and Long Feiye had seen this before, so they didn’t react, but Gu Qishao’s gaze grew complicated at the sight.
He almost looked like he wanted to jump off the furnace, but held himself back.

He’d been here for so long that he naturally understood what Pill Furnace Master was up to…

1.
This is such an obvious setup for a drunk Gu Beiyue in the future I just–yeah, we’ll see what happens then I guess, hahaha~