Chapter 102: Rushing Headlong into Disaster

Heaven’s Final Pill, the last elixir the Medicine King crafted before his ascension—so the legends say. It is said that this pill was no longer tolerated by the world below; the moment the elixir was completed, heavenly thunder crashed down from above, striking the Medicine King and sending him straight to ascend.

The original novel never described this event in detail. The ten years during which Xiao Jihan inherited the Medicine King’s legacy were but a few passing lines. It must be that Yan Shu’s arrival brought about changes that altered the course of the story.

Now, Yan Shu and Xiao Jihan followed behind the Medicine King, both wearing grave expressions. The Medicine King, leading them, suddenly stopped, turning to Yan Shu. “Have you prepared everything?”

Yan Shu was taken aback. “Prepared what?”

“That, of course!” The Medicine King pointed toward the sky.

In that instant, Yan Shu understood. “Master, don’t worry. I’m prepared. I’ve memorized it all by heart.”

Since Yan Shu hadn’t known just how powerful the heavenly thunder needed to be for Xiao Jihan’s spiritual root to transform—and since she was hardly adept at cursing—she and the Medicine King had worried that, at the crucial moment, they’d run out of words and ruin everything.

So, two days prior, they had solemnly compiled a long list of curses and insults on paper to ensure the thunder’s force would be sufficient.

Yan Shu thought to herself that, among all the people who transmigrated into novels, perhaps she was the only one who diligently studied the art of cursing.

Xiao Jihan glanced from the Medicine King to Yan Shu, then spoke slowly, “Are you and Master hiding something from me?”

The Medicine King and Yan Shu shook their heads in unison. “No, absolutely not.”

Xiao Jihan’s brows rose slightly, clearly unconvinced.

The Medicine King hurriedly changed the subject. “Ahem, let’s get on with pill refining.” With that, he slipped away into the house.

To call it a house was generous; it was more a pill chamber. Since Yan Shu and Xiao Jihan’s rooms had been converted into proper bedrooms, all the medicinal herbs were thrown into the Medicine King’s quarters. Pill refining was done there too, so it had become the de facto pill room, with only a small couch for the Medicine King to rest.

Yan Shu had once felt apologetic, but the Medicine King didn’t mind in the least. He even said this was the environment he was most accustomed to and at ease in.

As soon as the Medicine King left, Yan Shu was left alone to face Xiao Jihan’s scrutinizing gaze.

Xiao Jihan, tall and broad-shouldered, blocked two-thirds of the doorway just by standing there. Yan Shu shrank back, intending to sneak past him through the remaining third.

But as soon as she stepped over the threshold, she felt a hand grip the back of her collar. In the next instant, Xiao Jihan lifted her like a quail and set her outside the door.

Dangling in mid-air, Yan Shu’s legs kicked helplessly. The position was so humiliating that, once her feet hit the ground, she flew into a rage. “Xiao Jihan! I am your master!”

Xiao Jihan’s lips curled for a moment before his usual cold expression returned. “Not master—senior sister.”

After so many years together, sharing the same bed even, their affection score still stubbornly stuck at 25, but compared to the former -90 and below, it was already a world of improvement.

All of this gave Yan Shu the courage to be less timid and cautious around Xiao Jihan. After all, they had shared a bed—any pretense of the original character was long gone before him. Yan Shu had thoroughly let herself go.

So, upon hearing his words, Yan Shu didn’t simply accept them. Instead, she jumped up, indignant. “Once a master, always a… always a master!”

She was still a little too cowardly to say, “always a mother.”

But Xiao Jihan didn’t react at all. He simply stepped inside, saying coolly, “You don’t know the first thing about pill refining; there’s no need for you to stand guard here.”

With a bang, he shut the door.

Yan Shu nearly got her nose caught. Instinctively, she stepped back, scowling. “Hmph! Who cares!”

From inside, Xiao Jihan raised an eyebrow at her remark. The Medicine King, who was preparing for the alchemy, let out a quiet snort. “You two are just like a pair of children.”

Xiao Jihan showed no reaction to being called a pair, merely smoothing his expression and moving to the Medicine King’s side. Watching the pill furnace, he said coolly, “An eighth-tier pill furnace—I've spent ten days refining it. Even Master would need several days to make a Heaven’s Final Pill. If she tried to stay, she’d only wear herself out and disrupt you.”

“You’re not wrong,” the Medicine King replied with a soft laugh. “But if she really wanted to learn pill-crafting from scratch, she might not be any worse than you. Look how she started at zero with cultivating soul-soil. I spent thirty years to plant all sixteen plots with spiritual herbs, but she did it in six years. The truth is, she’s just lazy.”

At these words, Xiao Jihan lowered his gaze and said quietly, “Master is mistaken. She just wanted all the opportunities to go to me.”

The Medicine King sucked in a breath, rubbing his jaw. “So sweet it hurts my teeth.”

The Medicine King and Xiao Jihan began the pill refining—or rather, the Medicine King was guiding Xiao Jihan step by step. The two of them remained in the pill chamber for ten days. Only in the last two, when the Heaven’s Final Pill was nearly complete, did the Medicine King take over himself.

He poured the cultivation of one soul and one spirit into the furnace, then used his remaining spiritual power to carefully control the flames.

On the tenth day, with a tremendous bang, the pill furnace exploded: Heaven’s Final Pill was completed.

The moment it emerged, the Medicine King fed the pill to Xiao Jihan and called out, “Yan Shu, are you ready?”

Outside, Yan Shu looked up at the clear sky and replied loudly, “Ready!”

The door flew open and a gust of palm wind sent Xiao Jihan out. His condition was dire; as soon as the Heaven’s Final Pill entered his body, overwhelming spiritual power surged within him, nearly bursting his sea of qi.

His face was as pale as death. He used every ounce of strength just to keep his qi sea from shattering, completely oblivious to anything happening around him.

Yan Shu quickly seized his hand and began reciting under her breath, “Xiao Jihan, look at you—nobody loves you, not your grandmother, not your uncle. You’re like one of the seven dwarves. When your mother took you shopping, people would ask, ‘Ma’am, how much did you pay for this monkey?’”

A wild gale rose, thunderclouds gathering out of nowhere!

“You look like an idiot from the left, a fool from the right, a pig from above, and a donkey from below!”

Crash! Sizzle—

“Get your act together and stop farting around. Don’t take yourself so seriously!”

Crash! Sizzle—

“I won’t say you’re brain-damaged anymore, because that would require you to have a brain in the first place!”

Crash! Sizzle—

“When you were born, your father fell ill. After coming home, your poor mother had her hands full—her husband on one side, you on the other. She’d nurse one, give medicine to the other—milk here, medicine there, medicine here, milk there. Oh no! She gave the milk to your father and the medicine to the baby, and that’s how you turned out like this!”

Crash! Sizzle—

Yan Shu swore to herself she had never been so shameless in her life, never once so eager to be struck by lightning.

Strike after strike, the thunder left her limbs weak and her vision swimming. All she could feel was pain, tingling, and numbness; everything else had faded away.