Demoness, Stop! - Chapter 38 - Chapter 38 – Buy Them All

After Jiang Li left the Danding Peak, there was no news of her.

In the new month, Li Yu’s vacation ended as well.

Elder Han sent him another batch of medicinal herbs. It seemed the monthly task of making low-grade pills assigned to him was now completely handed over to Li Yu.

Li Yu had no complaints. He knew his cultivation talent couldn’t compare to the top geniuses. Rather than wasting time on cultivation, it was better to improve his pill refining skills, earn more spirit coins, and exchange them for Meridian Clearing Pills—only then could he establish his foundation sooner.

Over the past two months, Li Yu had refined pills for many people, handling countless herbs and firing countless cauldrons.

Practice made perfect. Now, refining these low-level pills had become almost instinctive.

After acquiring the five elemental spiritual veins, Li Yu became even more adept at pill refining: the Fire Vein controlled the temperature, the Wood Vein managed the medicinal properties, the Water Vein separated the liquid into pills with a thought, and the Metal Vein allowed him to constantly sense the state of the pill liquid inside the furnace…

Li Yu opened the pill furnace, and a fragrant aroma wafted out.

Ten perfectly round pills lay inside. Four of them had five pill markings, while the other six all had four markings on their surface—none had only three markings.

A 100% success rate, 100% superior quality rate, and 40% top quality rate.

And this was entirely from his own effort—no shortcuts, no tricks.

Li Yu could say without exaggeration that for refining low-level pills, he had surpassed all first-tier alchemists in the sect; even some second-tier alchemists might not reach this level.

Of course, this was limited to low-level pills.

The first batch was just to test his limits. For the subsequent batches, Li Yu didn’t try as hard—he even deliberately held back the quality: making the flame flicker slightly, splitting the liquid a little unevenly at the final stage…

Even so, the pills he produced were still mostly superior grade.

This was enough to satisfy Elder Han’s requirements.

Li Yu had just finished the last batch and returned to the courtyard when a sudden urgent knocking came from outside, followed by a familiar female voice: “Senior Brother Li, are you there?”

Li Yu’s expression brightened. He quickly went to the door and opened it. Looking at the girl standing there, he said, “Junior Sister Xu, has the new batch of Meridian Clearing Pills arrived?”

The girl nodded and said, “A batch just arrived at storage. They’re all high-grade Meridian Clearing Pills and haven’t been put on sale yet. As soon as I heard, I came to notify you. Let’s hurry over.”

As she spoke, she furtively glanced at Li Yu a few more times.

It turned out that the handsome, generous, and witty senior brother she often saw was Senior Sister Jiang’s childhood sweetheart…

Li Yu had no idea what the girl was thinking. With plenty of spirit tickets he couldn’t spend and only focused on Meridian Clearing Pills, he immediately followed her to the Zixiao Peak marketplace.

Since the news about the arrival of the Meridian Clearing Pills hadn’t been widely announced, not many disciples came to the Danxin Pavilion to buy pills. Junior Sister Xu gave Li Yu a look and said, “Senior Brother, I’m off duty today. You go to that counter over there; my good sister is there and will take care of you…”

Li Yu followed her directions and walked toward a counter.

There was only one other disciple in front of the counter.

Li Yu walked over and recognized him—it was none other than Chen Ming.

However, after more than two months apart, this Chen Ming looked slightly different from the one Li Yu knew.

Back then, Chen Ming wasn’t as handsome as Li Yu but had a decent appearance; otherwise, the Foundation Establishing female cultivator wouldn’t have been interested in him. But now, his face was pale, eye sockets sunken, hair dull, looking completely drained.

Still, despite looking miserable, his spiritual power was not weak; he had reached the second level of Qi Refinement.

Chen Ming wasn’t wearing a standard disciple robe, but thanks to Li Yu’s abnormally powerful soul force, he could clearly sense Chen Ming’s cultivation.

Before joining the sect, Chen Ming had barely opened a single acupoint, and his talent had been nothing special. To have opened eight acupoints and reached the second layer of Qi Refinement in just two months, he must have consumed a good number of Meridian Clearing Pills.

Looks like that Foundation Establishment senior really was true to her word—she hadn’t just taken advantage of him for nothing.

It seemed Chen Ming was trying to buy pills, but the young female disciple behind the counter was shaking her head apologetically. “I’m sorry, Senior Brother. This month’s batch of six-flavor Rehmannia Pills is already sold out. Could you come back in a few days?”

Chen Ming was disappointed that he couldn’t buy the pills he wanted. He thought about trying his luck at the stalls on Feilai Peak but worried about being scammed with fake pills.

His cultivation talent was poor; if some lunatic mixed a Qi Gathering Pill in, it would ruin his life.

He didn’t dare take that risk, sighed, and could only leave for now.

At that moment, he suddenly felt someone pat his shoulder.

Turning around, he was startled at first, then happily exclaimed, “Li Yu!”

Among tens of thousands of Kunlun disciples, meeting an old acquaintance here was truly a joyful thing.

Li Yu tossed him a jade bottle and said, “Superior-grade Six-Flavor Rehmannia Pills. One of these is worth three of the regular kind.”

Chen Ming instinctively caught the bottle, opened it to check inside—and sure enough, it was full of pills. He quickly said, “How many spirit coins for this bottle? I’ll pay you…”

Li Yu waved it off. “They’re just low level pills. I’m giving them to you. When you run out, come find me at Danding Peak—I’ll make more for you.”

Running into a familiar face in Kunlun made Li Yu feel pretty good too. He said to Chen Ming, “Wait for me a moment. I need to buy some pills first. We’ll catch up in a bit.”

Chen Ming nodded and left the counter. Li Yu stepped forward, about to speak, when a figure approached from behind and loudly said to the female disciple behind the counter, “Give me ten Meridian Clearing Pills…”

The girl looked at Li Yu, then said to the man, “Sorry, this senior brother came first. Please queue behind.”

The chubby young man dressed in fancy robes gave Li Yu a sideways glance, casually tossed a few spirit coins in his direction, and said, “I’m buying your spot. Get to the back.”

The coins landed on the paved ground, ringing crisply.

Li Yu didn’t even look at him. He just turned to the girl at the counter and said calmly, “I’d like some Meridian Clearing Pills as well.”

Seeing this new disciple so rude, the fat man got angry, wanting to cause trouble. But thinking this was the Danxin Pavilion, he wouldn’t get away with it, so he reluctantly stood behind Li Yu, glaring fiercely.

The girl behind the counter smiled slightly at Li Yu and asked, “Senior Brother, how many Meridian Clearing Pills do you want?”

Li Yu thought for a moment and asked, “How many do you have now?”

The girl said, “Thirty just arrived in storage today. All high-grade.”

Li Yu said, “I’ll take them all.”

“Ah?”

The girl was slightly stunned, thinking she must have heard wrong.

Thirty high-grade Meridian Clearing Pills cost a full 30,000 spirit coins. Most Foundation Establishing elders in the sect couldn’t even come up with 30,000 at once. That was enough money to save up for several years.

The fat man behind Li Yu laughed scornfully and couldn’t help but say, “Haha, this is hilarious. What are you pretending for? Taking them all? If you can actually pay 30,000 spirit coins today, I’ll call you grandpa…”

Smack!

Li Yu’s right index finger flickered with a slight gleam from his spatial ring, and a thick stack of spirit tickets were slapped down onto the white jade counter.

The fat man’s laughter immediately stopped.

He stared at the ring on Li Yu’s finger in disbelief, “A spatial ring!”

He had seen spatial rings before, but only on the Golden Core grandmaster. How could this guy in the new disciple uniform have one? That thick stack of spirit tickets on the counter dazzled his eyes.

At that moment, countless gazes in the hall were drawn to Li Yu, and everyone was murmuring.

“Who is this guy? So rich, buying thirty Meridian Clearing Pills at once?”
“The real point is the spatial ring. Thirty thousand spirit coins isn’t even enough to buy one…”
“Could he be a disciple or descendant of one of the sect’s founders?”
“I just heard someone call him Li Yu.”
“Li Yu? Isn’t he Senior Sister Jiang’s childhood sweetheart? I heard she gave him a lot of good stuff.”
“Well, that explains it…”

…

Behind the counter, the girl finally recovered and, after verifying Li Yu’s spirit coins, blankly took out all thirty Meridian Clearing Pills he requested. Li Yu scanned them with his spiritual sense, and the thirty high-grade pills were immediately stored into his spatial ring.

He turned and looked at the fat man in fine clothes.

The fat man’s face went pale; he didn’t dare to glance at Li Yu. Under the mocking eyes of the crowd, he quickly turned and left.

Standing nearby, Chen Ming looked at the spatial ring on Li Yu’s hand with envy. “Jiang Li really treats you well, huh…”

Li Yu explained, “Not Jiang Li, it’s Elder Sun…”

Chen Ming gave him a knowing look and said, “Hey, no need to explain. We’re all the same. I get it, I get it…”

The look in his eyes made it very clear that he was thinking the wrong thing.

We’re all the same? Please—Chen Ming was a lady’s little lover, sure, but as for Li Yu…

He lowered his gaze to the spatial ring on his hand and recalled all the herbs and spirit medicines he’d received…

Oh, Li Yu was the same too.