Chapter 25

Chapter 25: Poison Dao: Corpse Scatterer

When these words fell into Xu Qing’s ears, his eyes suddenly widened.

His breathing hastened, and he felt his mind rumbling. Being allowed to enter the tent and openly attend lectures had been a dream of his for a while now. He excitedly took a deep breath and bowed deeply toward the tent.

"Many thanks, Grandmaster!"

Xu Qing said these words very seriously.

A long while later, he stood up and left.

Today, when he turned his head back, he didn’t see Grandmaster Bai looking back at him. Instead, he heard the doctor’s voice criticizing the young man and woman inside the tent.

Xu Qing didn’t mind. He was already full of intense excitement.

When he returned to his residence, he immediately told Captain Thunder about what had just happened. Captain Thunder was pleasantly surprised, and seeing Xu Qing’s happy face, he smiled even wider, feeling his heart stir with emotion.

Although the child in front of him never talked about the reason he continuously went to the forbidden area recently, Captain Thunder knew that the boy was looking for the Destiny Flower for him.

In this cold and ruthless world, how could he not cherish such a good child who had even saved his life? He couldn’t bear to see Xu Qing’s exhaustion after returning from the forbidden area every time.

Seeing Xu Qing’s happiness right now, Captain Thunder was also very happy. That day, Captain Thunder cooked an extravagant dinner for Xu Qing. As they ate, Captain Thunder kept reminding Xu Qing that he had to respect his teacher, always listen to Grandmaster Bai, and so on. Xu Qing carefully kept these words in his heart.

After eating, Xu Qing returned to his room, still full of excitement.

Thinking about how he would be able to enter the tent and sit it on the lecture tomorrow, Xu Qing tossed and turned in his bed, full of anticipation.

As he worried about how to gain Grandmaster Bai’s favor, he suddenly thought about when he and the other children in the slums greeted their teacher for the first time.

He opened his leather bag and sorted his belongings, finally taking out a newer bag and putting in half of his spirit coins along with many of his White Pills.

In Xu Qing’s opinion, knowledge was priceless, and it was no big deal even if he handed over all of his savings.

But he had to consider Captain Thunder, so he still kept half of his belongings.

After doing this, he breathed out a sigh of relief. Xu Qing closed his eyes and silently began cultivating while waiting for dawn to arrive.

To Xu Qing, the night felt longer than usual.

Finally, when the morning sun reared its head, Xu Qing changed into a fresh set of clothes, washed his hands, and walked out of the room.

When he was about to leave, he was stopped by Captain Thunder, who had woken up unusually early.

Under Captain Thunder’s exhortations, Xu Qing nodded constantly and listened attentively. Finally, Captain Thunder helped tidy Xu Qing’s clothes and handed him a leather bag.

“Since you’re entering the tent to listen to his lectures, you can’t just go empty-handed.”

"I already have something." Xu Qing said softly.

Captain Thunder stared at him. Seeing the insistence in Xu Qing’s eyes, he put away the leather bag, went back to his room, and brought out a jug of wine.

“I know that Grandmaster Bai likes to drink. Take this with you.”

This time, Xu Qing didn’t refuse. After taking the jug, he left the courtyard and walked a few steps away. He turned his head, waved at Captain Thunder, and ran straight to Grandmaster Bai’s tent.

Looking at Xu Qing's back, Captain Thunder smiled.

“This brat wasn’t this happy when we distributed the seven-leaf grass.”

With both happiness and nervousness, Xu Qing came to the spot where he had stood outside the tent for over a month. He took a deep breath and knocked on the tent’s flap.

“Come in.”

When he heard Grandmaster Bai’s voice, Xu Qing lowered his head to check his clothes. He tugged at the front of the clothes to make them look neater, then slowly opened the flap. Aside from the guards, he saw Grandmaster Bai and his pair of disciples sitting in the tent.

Xu Qing looked at the two disciples, and they also looked at Xu Qing.

Compared with Grandmaster Bai’s calm face, the boy and girl had much richer expressions. The boy, Chen Feiyuan, appeared unconvinced, and the girl, Tingyu, seemed more curious.

Xu Qing withdrew his gaze and bowed deeply to Grandmaster Bai. He took out the leather bag and jug of wine and stretched both his hands out, imitating what he did back in the slums.

Xu Qing didn’t lift his head, so he didn’t see that Grandmaster Bai’s gaze softened slightly.

Grandmaster Bai didn’t accept the leather bag. He picked up the jug of wine and took a sip in front of Xu Qing, as if it was some sort of ritual.

“Let’s start class.” Putting down the wine jug, Grandmaster Bai spoke slowly.

The first part of class was still a review quiz. This time, Tingyu and Chen Feiyuan seemed to be on par with Xu Qing. It was clear that they had studied hard last night, and their answers were very straightforward. After answering, they immediately looked at Xu Qing.

Xu Qing didn’t look back at them, instead looking at Grandmaster Bai and answering the doctor’s questions one by one. After this comprehensive review, Grandmaster Bai nodded and started the lecture proper.

The whole time, Xu Qing listened very carefully. He cherished this opportunity to enter the tent, so he absolutely refused to be distracted.

Even Chen Feiyuan and Tingyu were paying more attention than usual, making Grandmaster Bai feel a little amused.

Just like that, Xu Qing entered the tent for lectures for more than ten days. His earnestness didn’t diminish at all during this whole time, and the knowledge he gained became increasingly abundant.

In comparison, Chen Feiyuan went back to normal after a few days, but Tingyu was still very serious as she competed with Xu Qing.

However, after class, she talked with Xu Qing a lot. Well, mostly it was Tingyu asking about life in the camp. Xu Qing didn’t speak much and only answered with a few short sentences.

As for Chen Feiyuan, he had never been convinced by Xu Qing from the very start, so he didn’t say much.

Xu Qing didn't care about Chen Feiyuan’s attitude. He wasn’t good at socializing to begin with, so as soon as class ended, he would rush straight to the forbidden area. Now, Xu Qing had another reason for going to the forbidden area every day – namely, it had a wide variety of plants.

Before he had learned from Grandmaster Bai, the flowers, plants, and trees in the forbidden area were all the same to his eyes. Now, everything was different.

Xu Qing could often find some herbs that he knew, and seeing them in real life gave him a deeper understanding of plants and vegetation.

However, he also gradually discovered that most of the plants in the forbidden area were yin-aligned and evil – in other words, poisonous herbs. There weren’t many yang-aligned medicinal herbs.

Therefore, his research on medicinal herbs was focused on poisons from the very beginning.

As Xu Qing harvested poisonous plants, he also built a simple house in the valley of seven-leaf grass. He used this house as a laboratory to study these poisonous plants.

And since his body could neutralize poison, Xu Qing was very bold in his research of poisonous plants. After trying out various combinations, he finally created an original, unknown poison.

This poison was concocted by mixing nine different substances – eight kinds of poisonous plants along with some snake venom.

Xu Qing tested it out, and the poison contained a strong corrosive property. The mutated beast corpse he had used for experimentation melted into blood within five breaths after a single drop of the poison had been applied.

Unfortunately, for some reason, it was only so fast for corpses. If he used it on a living thing, the time it took to turn to blood would increase by a lot.

Even so, Xu Qing was already very satisfied with this, the first poison he had created in his life.

He dried it into powder and named it corpse-scattering powder.

Also, despite a general lack of yang-aligned medicinal herbs, Xu Qing still concocted a few half-finished medicinal liquids according to the yin-yang dual extremes method.

And he even created a mixture with the seven-leaf grass that had the effect of suppressing heterogeneity. Xu Qing asked Grandmaster Bai if it could synergize with the medicine Captain Thunder was already taking and improve the old man’s condition.

Grandmaster Bai told him that apart from the Destiny Flower, everything else was useless. Even his own prescription would eventually expire.

Reality showed this to be true. Even though Captain Thunder took his medicine on time every day, the weakness of his body was visible to the naked eye. Xu Qing was silent when he saw this.

One day, when Xu Qing and Captain Thunder were eating dinner, Captain Thunder seemed to hesitate before opening his mouth to speak. He told Xu Qing that he felt the scavenger camp was unsuitable for him, and he planned to buy a house in a nearby city soon.

"Kid, I know that your journey will never stop at this small scavenger camp. Your future path will undoubtedly bring you farther, so I won’t ask you to watch over me in my old age.”

When Xu Qing heard this, he stopped eating. After lowering his head and remaining silent for a while, he asked softly.

"Will you come back?"

“Of course, I’ll come back occasionally.” Captain Thunder smiled as he raised his hand to touch Xu Qing’s head for the first time. In his heart, he felt that he didn’t want Xu Qing to keep risking his life in the forbidden area for his sake.

Xu Qing instinctively wanted to reject the hand reaching for his head, but he glanced at Captain Thunder and didn’t move. Captain Thunder’s hand smoothly landed on Xu Qing’s head, gently stroking his hair as the old man smiled.

"Besides, you can come and see me anytime."

Xu Qing nodded heavily upon hearing this.

That night, Xu Qing continuously opened his eyes while cultivating to look towards Captain Thunder's house.

After a few days, Xu Qing buried this feeling in his heart. Besides attending Grandmaster Bai’s lectures, he spent more time in the forbidden area every day, trying his best to find the Destiny Flower.

But just as Grandmaster Bai had said, this flower wasn’t easy to come across.

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