TTPC Ch. 5: By Accident, The Tonics Have Been Taken In Vain

Obviously, he wasn’t able to see like this before, yet now he suddenly could. Lin Yi guessed that the cause was the bowl of supplemental soup.

The stewed supplemental soup had ingredients that contained spiritual energy. After he ate it, he felt a warm current spread from his abdomen and the rest of his limbs before it flowed to his dantian, and then a part was absorbed by the Pharmacopoeia. If he guessed correctly, the warm current was spiritual power contained in the supplemental soup.

But he hadn’t awakened his primordial soul, so why could he absorb spiritual power?

He had doubts in his heart, but unfortunately, although he could interact with the Pharmacopoeia in his mind, the same couldn’t be done for his dantian. Otherwise, he’d be able to inspect his dantian to see how it was now.

……

Lin Yi stayed in the Green Bamboo Courtyard for three days. During those three days, he drank supplemental soup that was mostly to supplement energy and blood. However, one of the medicinal materials always available each day was the Yin Nourishing Grass. Lin Yi felt puzzled because although Yin Nourishing Grass supplemented energy and blood, it was most often used by women. After all, as the name suggested, Yin Nourishing Grass was an herb that nourished yin in addition to energy and blood.

He was a man, so why was he supplemented with the Yin Nourishing Grass every day?

Did the Lin Family not have any other tonics?

Half ridiculing and half doubting, he finished the supplemental soup in front of him. After resting for a moment, he felt the familiar warm current from his abdomen rush to spread into his limbs, then to his dantian, and then from the dantian, an extremely thin but pure spiritual power rose and was finally absorbed by the Pharmacopoeia.

Every time the Pharmacopoeia absorbed spiritual power, it would shake gently, seeming as if it were very happy and excited.

In return, Lin Yi was able to see shadows of people from dozens of meters away, free from being obscured by walls and other objects. At the same time, his body had already recovered and gradually became lighter, making it so that he wasn’t so weak that he’d be out of breath just from walking a few steps.

With more and more spiritual power being absorbed by the Pharmacopoeia, Lin Yi decided to try and unlock the Pharamacopoeia’s ability to list prescriptions. Concentrating on his mind, he used his consciousness to call upon the Pharmacopoeia and issued an instruction to have the Pharmacopoeia list a prescription that would be able to cure his eyes.

After he gave out this instruction, the Pharamacopoeia glowed with a grand splendor and soon after, a prescription of pale blue light appeared in front of it.

Lin Yi was delighted! He really succeeded!

But before he could see the contents of the prescription clearly, it rapidly became dim. In fact, not only did the prescription become dim, but the radiance of the Pharamacopoeia also dimmed much more. Immediately, he felt his mind violently jolt and a mouthful of blood flowed from his mouth.

“Pu!”

Fishy red blood came from his mouth full of the taste of rust. His throat was hot and painful, and his head and dantian ached, his body trembling weakly.

Not good, it was too forced.

In the split second the prescription appeared, a lot of information flashed through his mind.

The higher the grade of the prescription in the Pharmacopoeia, the greater the need for tremendous spiritual power and profound cultivation to unlock it. Trying to forcibly unlock it would only cause the whole body’s spiritual power to dry up and for the mind to collapse, altogether suffering severe backlash.

The Pharmacopoeia’s prescriptions were divided into six grades. The primary grade was for common prescriptions aimed at ordinary people and was the color gray.

Prescriptions graded one through five were aimed toward treating cultivators. Among these, first-grade prescriptions were green, second-grade prescriptions were blue, third-grade prescriptions were purple, fourth-grade prescriptions were red, and fifth-grade prescriptions were gold.

With the current capability of the Pharamacopoia, he was able to unlock common prescriptions and was also able to barely unlock first-grade prescriptions, but doing so would use up all the spiritual power absorbed from the past few days. However, the blue prescription the Pharmacopoeia provided him just then not only exhausted his spiritual power from the past few days but also shook his mind. His five viscera and six internal organs suffered backlash and made him cough up a mouthful of blood. Without exception, all the tonics he’d taken these past few days were taken in vain.

The sound of Lin Yi coughing up blood was loud enough that the servant guarding him was startled and immediately went to inform the Lin Family Patriarch.

Hearing this, Lin Yi felt dire, anxious that the Lin Family Patriarch might make out his abnormality. But right at that moment, the Pharmacopoeia in his mind disappeared, stunning him.

The Lin Family Patriarch came quickly and was dissatisfied after discovering Lin Yi’s situation, “How did this happen?”

The servant knelt down in fear with a thump, “This little one doesn’t know, he just suddenly coughed up blood for no reason.”

After inspecting Lin Yi’s condition, the Lin Family Patriarch found that Lin Yi’s internal organs had been injured like a cultivator suffering from some kind of backlash. However, there was no spiritual power in Lin Yi’s body and his dantian was muddled. It was impossible for him to be a cultivator. Moreover, this person had been under the supervision of the Lin Family the entire time. Even if he wanted to secretly cultivate, he still needed to awaken his primordial soul. It was impossible for him to deceive everyone’s eyes and ears.

“What happened to you?” The Lin Family Patarich pressed Lin Yi.

“This grandson doesn’t know. After grandson drank the supplement, he suddenly felt uncomfortable and couldn’t help coughing up blood.” Lin Yi said weakly. He was already injured, so it was harmless to pretend a bit.

The Lin Family Patariach checked the soup but found no problem, yet Lin Yi still inevitability received inexplicable backlash and coughed up blood.

“Take this medicine.” The Lin Family Patriarch placed a pill in Lin Yi’s hand.

Lin Yi didn’t want to eat it, afraid of any issues, but if he didn’t eat it now, he would immediately become suspicious. After bracing himself, he had no choice but to eat it. After eating it, he found that a very mild medicinal force quickly cured his internal organs.

It seemed that it was indeed a healing medicine. The Lin Family Patriarch didn’t seem to have any intention of doing anything to him.

The Lin Family Patriarch ordered the servants to take care of Lin Yi and turned to leave, but before he left, he told the servants that they must not stew Lin Yi any more supplemental soup.

“Patriarch, there has been no problem with the soup.”

“His condition seems to be that his body cannot withstand the spiritual power, but giving him the Yin Nourishing Grass cannot stop. There’s no need to stew it into soup, just boil it in water for him.”

“Understood.”

Lin Yi: “…”

Damn, his supplemental soup was gone!

Even though the Yin Nourishing Grass had spiritual energy, it certainly wouldn’t be as rich as in the supplemental soup.

However, since the Lin Family Patariach speculated that he coughed up blood because he was unable to bear the spiritual power, why would he stop him from taking everything else but let him continue to eat the Yin Nourishing Grass?

He already previously thought it was strange that there was always Yin Nourishing Grass in the supplemental soup thinking that the Lin Family had no other tonics, but now it seemed that the Yin Nourishing Grass was the key and the other ingredients stewed with the Yin Nourishing Grass were merely seasonings.

But he really couldn’t understand why he had to eat Yin Nourishing Grass as if they were giving a supplement to a woman?

In the lightning flash of thought, Lin Yi felt as if he’d caught something, but the main thread slipped through his fingers.

……

Somewhere in the Lin Family.

“Mother, that Lin Yi is staying in the Green Bamboo Courtyard and the Patriarch sent someone to guard him! I can’t do anything anymore, please help me!”

“I won’t help you! What’s good about that Pei Xuanqing, a cripple who can’t cultivate?! You are the daughter of a pharmacist and there are so many handsome talents you can find! Why must you marry him?!”

The Lin Family Patariarch’s eldest granddaughter-in-law, who is also Lin Jintian’s elder sister-in-law, Shao-shi1, looked at her daughter in anger and dissatisfaction.

“Even though he can’t walk, he’s intelligent and capable. He’s responsible for all the businesses of the Pei Family now, and he once saved me. I don’t want anyone else, I will marry him.” The maiden grabbed Shao-shi’s knee and knelt on the ground, imploring bitterly. 

“You shut up! What ‘saved you’?! Just a pull of the hand as a child, that’s what ‘saved you’?! A cripple cannot cultivate, even if he has some skill in business, compared to a cultivator, he is just a mole cricket or an ant that anyone could step on to death! If you marry him, you will only be looked down upon by others!” Shao-shi anger was unyielding.

“But he still has the Pei Family. The Pei Family Patriarch is his own grandfather, a Spiritual King, and both his parents are cultivators. Even if he cannot cultivate, who would dare touch him?”

The maiden didn’t think Pei Xuanqing’s inability to cultivate was a disadvantage. She once went to the Pei Family with her father and met Pei Xuanqing who was rumored to be like a demonic Rakshasa. She found that not only was he not demonic, but he was handsome and brilliant, and her affections fell on him.

After learning that her family intended to connect to the Pei Family through marriage, she almost went mad with joy. As a result, before she could recommend herself, this good thing fell on the blind waste from the third branch!

She pushed him into the pond, going so far as to try and drown him!

Thick jealousy and hatred flooded the maiden’s eyes.

“In any case, I won’t help you and you’re not allowed to touch Lin Yi! Marrying Lin Yi to Pei Xuanqing is the intention of the Patriarch and is not as simple as you think! You can’t act recklessly anymore! If it weren’t for me covering up for you this time, you’d have already been discovered by the Patriarch! If you want to seek death, don’t implicate me and your father!”

“Mother, I’m your daughter! Why won’t you help me?!”

“I could help you if it wasn’t detrimental to you!” Shao-shi remained unmoved.

“You helping me marry Pei Xuanqing wouldn’t be detrimental, it would be helping me! Mother, please help me, I beg you! Mother, if I can’t marry Pei Xuanqing, I would rather drop dead!”

“You idiot, do you know that Lin Yi is being sent to marry Pei Xuanqing to be… Anyway, you cannot marry Pei Xuanqing! Pei Xuanqing is not as good as you think!”

Shao-shi was furious and almost revealed the secret of the Pei and Lin marriage, but at the last minute managed to stop herself in time.

“Mother, what were you going say?” The maiden’s ears were sharp, and she immediately and firmly held onto Shao-shi’s legs, insistent on Shao-shi telling her why the Lin Family wanted to marry Lin Yi to Pei Xuanqing.

Shao-shi saw that she was unrepentant and thought in her heart that she wanted to simply seek death, so gritting her teeth, she told her, “A furnace2. The Patriarch is sending Lin Yi into the Pei Family to use him to heal Pei Xuanqing’s legs.”

The maiden was shocked and took a long moment to say, “How is that possible?! Lin Yi is a man!”

“So what if he is a man? He was born with a yin physique. You’ve seen his appearance growing up, looking so effeminate. Anyway, he is blind and useless to the family. It’s better to use that waste and give him to Pei Xuanqing. And in name, the Pei and Lin Families would be regarded as in-laws which is also helpful to our family.” Shao-shi said.

“B-but, haven’t Pei Xuanqing’s legs always been incurable? How could a furnace be able to cure his legs?” The maiden still didn’t believe it.

“Half a month ago, the Pharmacists Hall obtained an ancient prescription brought from some historical ruins which recorded a method of using Dual Cultivation3 to cure Pei Xuanqing’s illness. It’s just that the person under the Dual Cultivation must take a certain type of medicine every day and use their body as a medicine container to nurture Pei Xuanqing. This kind of method takes a long time and after being used as a medicine container for so long, the person under the Dual Cultivation won’t be able to live long.” Shao-shi explained in detail in order to make her daughter lose heart.

“Now you know why it would be bad luck to marry Pei Xuanqing. What kind of good person do you think he is?”

Footnotes

1, shi, is not Shao-shi‘s given name, it basically states that Shao is her maiden name.

2, Furnace, Dinglu (鼎炉), in normal circumstances it’s a cauldron furnace (normally used to make medical pills or whatever). But in this case, it generally refers to female cultivators who are used by powerful male cultivators to collect yin and replenish yang, and such female cultivators usually have a low status, and their existence is only used for male cultivators to absorb yin and improve their skills.

3, Dual Cultivation, in most cases, and in this case, is cultivation via sex that, depending on the method, benefits both or only one of the cultivators. If you want a more detailed run down, feel free to look it up yourself.