Chapter 60: High Winds Blow on Towering Trees

Zhang Bingnan drove Zhou Chen back to the apartment building of Beijing University.

It was already nighttime now.

The exotic insect squad that had originally gone to hunt down the evil cultivator youth had already returned.

The soul-devouring insects and life-devouring insects had eaten their bellies round and flown back into the insect nest space.

For Zhou Chen's exotic insects, a Qi-gathering realm ninth-layer cultivator was a grand feast.

However, the dying counterattack of that evil cultivator youth also caused the exotic insect squad to lose four soul-devouring larvae.

Adding the five soul-devouring larvae lost initially while protecting Cai Yameng, the casualties of the soul-devouring insect tribe were somewhat heavy.

Fortunately, they were all level-zero soul-devouring larvae. As long as the soul-devouring queen refined the soul of the evil cultivator youth, she would reach level four and breed more soul-devouring larvae.

The higher the level of the queen insect, the faster the growth rate of the larvae.

Zhou Chen was in no hurry to refine the energy fed back by the exotic insects to himself; instead, he picked up the storage bag on the bed.

The exotic insect squad not only killed that evil cultivator youth but also brought back his storage bag together.

Since the evil cultivator youth was still only in the Qi-gathering realm, he had not left his divine sense imprint on the storage bag, only acknowledging ownership with a drop of blood.

Following the death of the evil cultivator youth, the storage bag had become an ownerless item that any cultivator could refine.

The grade of this storage bag was very low, and the space inside was only about two to three cubic meters.

However, there were quite a few things inside.

Seeing these items, Zhou Chen felt as if he had opened the door to a new world.

These things were not treasures, but rather erotic paraphernalia...

Zhou Chen subconsciously imagined dressing Gu Zhaoyue in these items, a somewhat lewd smile revealing itself at the corners of his mouth.

"Ahem."

The space in the storage bag was small to begin with, and since these items had all been used, Zhou Chen felt disgusted in his heart, so he burned them all in one fire.

Zhou Chen took inventory of the items inside the storage bag.

There were not many spiritual stones, only fifty pieces.

There were also various miscellaneous pills and talismans that Zhou Chen looked down upon; he would hand them over to Xiao Yunmei later for her to auction them off.

Zhou Chen took a token out from the storage bag and examined it closely in his hand.

"Demon Cauldron Sect?"

Zhou Chen projected his divine sense to meticulously scan this token.

Judging from the crafting techniques and the properties of the materials, this token had not been crafted for long, perhaps only a few decades.

In other words, the evil cultivator youth was not a lone wolf; behind him was a dual-cultivation-style sect called the Demon Cauldron Sect.

Although dual-cultivation sects could not see the light of day, back in ancient times, they were also recognized by various orthodox factions.

Because what they practiced were dual-cultivation techniques, a win-win technique.

And the Demon Cauldron Sect was clearly one-sided harvesting, a thorough and complete evil cultivator sect.

Zhou Chen could not help feeling a bit worried: if the sect behind the evil cultivator youth came to investigate the cause of his death and thereby tracked it down to him, would they launch revenge against him?

If they only made a move against him, Zhou Chen was not very afraid.

But in case it implicated his family members, that would be troublesome.

However, upon careful thought, if there were such evil cultivator sects, it also meant there were orthodox immortal-cultivation sects keeping them in check.

In any era, justice has since ancient times always suppressed evil.

Therefore, it was impossible for them to attack ordinary people in broad daylight.

Still, precautions had to be taken.

Zhou Chen planned to prepare protective magical treasures for his family when he went home for the National Day holiday.

After taking inventory of the evil cultivator youth's storage bag, Zhou Chen did not find any treasures useful to himself.

It seemed he still had to start crafting them himself.

Sitting cross-legged on the bed, Zhou Chen simultaneously circulated the *Taiji Creation Art* and the *Dao Heart Demon Seed*.

The *Dao Heart Demon Seed* absorbed the soul power fed back by the soul-devouring insects.

The energy fed back by the disease-devouring insects and life-devouring insects was circulated, absorbed, and refined by the *Taiji Creation Art*.

As time passed, the soul-devouring queen successfully advanced to level four.

One level-three soul-devouring insect; four level-two soul-devouring insects; three level-one soul-devouring insects; thirty level-zero soul-devouring insect eggs.

It would still take time for the insect eggs to hatch, but only a day or two.

The corpse of the evil cultivator youth was also a tremendous boost to the life-devouring insects.

The life-devouring queen reached level three in one breath and bred more than twenty insect eggs.

The improvement of the disease-devouring insects had always been very steady; Zhou Chen only brought the disease-devouring queen with him, while all the disease-devouring larvae were in the Traditional Chinese Medicine Department of Huaxin Hospital, absorbing the virus energy of the patients.

After breaking through to level four, the soul-devouring queen unlocked a new skill—Memory Reading!

This new skill was very practical.

The memories of all souls swallowed by the soul-devouring insects would be comprehended by the soul-devouring queen.

With this ability, it was comparable to the soul-searching methods of powerful immortal cultivators.

Zhou Chen understood somewhat: the soul-devouring insect was the brain of all exotic insects in the insect nest and could command other insect tribes.

The intelligence of the soul-devouring insect was very high, and it also had the ability of memory reading; no wonder back then, immortal cultivators found dealing with insect nests so laborious.

...

A few days later.

"Hoo~ finally reached the fifth layer of Qi-gathering."

The *Taiji Creation Art* was good in every way, except that the energy required for cultivation was too massive.

Of course, this was limited to Zhou Chen thinking his cultivation was slow.

In the eyes of Luo Ya and Xiao Yunmei, Zhou Chen was at least an old monster who had lived for a hundred years.

After all, this was the Age of Dharma Ending now; how could anyone reach the Foundation Establishment stage in such a short time!

It was noon now, and Zhou Chen got into a taxi heading towards Huaxin Hospital.

In the taxi, Zhou Chen wondered if he should also buy a car.

Even though he was a cultivator, before reaching the Foundation Establishment stage, he couldn't even manage flying on a sword.

The speed of practicing the *Taiji Creation Art* was too slow. If he hadn't devoured an immortal cultivator at the ninth layer of Qi-gathering, I'm afraid even reaching the fifth layer of Qi-gathering would have had to wait until next month.

The further one went in immortal cultivation, the slower it became.

I'm afraid by the day he broke through to the Foundation Establishment stage, he might have already graduated from university.

Let's see today if there are any overwhelmingly powerful officials among the patients and get a driver's license issued for myself directly.

Huaxin Hospital.

Today Zhou Chen did not see Zhang Bingnan; she had stayed up all night at the Yunmei Auction House without resting and was still sleeping now.

Zhou Chen's fame had already spread out, and it had spread within the upper-class circles of Beijing.

Therefore, Zhou Chen's specialist appointment had become extremely hard to get.

Zhou Chen now also had a separate consulting room, and the waiting hall was filled with people.

Compared to Zhou Chen's place, the doors of other consulting rooms were deserted.

Patients from the Western medicine side also neglected their original treatment courses and swarmed over to Zhou Chen's place.

Zhou Chen had those patients who had previously been cured of cancer undergo their second or third treatment course first.

To speed up the process, Zhou Chen accelerated his pace a lot.

As for those people who had no illnesses, Zhou Chen was too lazy to even look at them.

Going for a simple full-body checkup only cost a few hundred yuan.

If you wanted it to be more comprehensive, if you had money, you could finish the checkup by spending a few thousand yuan.

Therefore, Zhou Chen added a new rule: all patients coming for treatment must be diagnosed with a major disease on their bodies.

Even so, the waiting room was still packed.

Just like before, Zhou Chen did not charge ordinary people, while for the wealthy, he would collect exorbitant fees.

As for those official figures, Zhou Chen would have them collect precious traditional Chinese medicinal herbs for him through their own personal connections.

However, a tall tree catches the wind, and Zhou Chen's practice of radically curing terminal illnesses touched certain people's interests and cut off their financial paths.

Thus, trouble came knocking on the door.

"Fraud! A complete fraud! The two of us old folks traveled thousands of miles to Beijing. In the end, we ran into a fraud, who not only cheated us out of all our money but even took our old man's life!"

"My old man was just pricked with needles by him. At first he was fine, but in just a few days, he suddenly suffered full-body convulsions and couldn't be saved."

"Me too. I originally just had ordinary gastroenteritis, but after being pricked with needles by him, every day my stomach would have cramping pains so I couldn't eat."

A pretty-looking young woman also stood out: "I had symptoms of dysmenorrhea. When he took me into the room for acupuncture back then, not only did he make me strip naked, but he also took advantage of me! I swear, everything I'm saying is absolutely true, because after all, no girl would use her own innocence as a joke!"