The Strong, The Few, True Cultivators on Campus
chapter-46

Chapter 46:Replenishing Life

As Tang Zheng walked he would occasionally turn his head back to look at his Grandfather who stood at the door and gestured, sending him off with his gaze.

Today, Tang Zheng’s primary goal was to refine the pill but first he must take a trip to the school because after abruptly leaving school yesterday the teacher in charge, Liu Qingmei, and Fang Shishi both gave him a call to see what happened. For this reason, today, he must first go to school to ask for a leave of absence before finding a place to refine his pill.

“Guess who I am?” Suddenly, two hands covered Tang Zheng’s eyes, and a warm voice rang out.

“Ai, who are you? Let me guess, you are a great beauty.” Tang Zheng effortlessly guessed, his mood feeling better as he intentionally teased.

“Heng, all you think of everyday are beauties.” Fang Shishi loosened her hand and playfully pouted.

“Of course, aren’t you a beauty? Is it wrong for me to think of you?” Seeing her sweet smile, Tang Zheng held her hand, feeling that the sunlight was all the more dazzling and a sense of happiness blossomed within him.

Previously he was constantly worried about his Grandfather’s sickness but today that would no longer be a problem as his heart was finally able to relax and loosen up.

“At least you still have a heart. Why did you leave in a rush yesterday?” Fang Shishi asked her face containing small smile.

“I had to handle matters for my Grandfather to leave the hospital.”

“Is your Grandfather better?” Fang Shishi asked, pleasantly surprised.

“En, almost fully recovered.”

“That is great, tonight I will go to your house to visit your Grandfather.”

“Not tonight.” Tang Zheng tactfully declined, “How about tomorrow? My Grandfather needs to rest tonight.

“Okay, then tomorrow night. Once school is finished today you should go home and accompany your Grandfather. There is no need to stay with me.”

Tang Zheng felt his heart warm, she really was too considerate of others, completely not having the arrogant and finicky attitude of a miss from a wealthy family.

“Yi, what happened to your leg?” Fang Shishi asked in astonishment seeing him slightly limp.

“I accidentally fell yesterday. It’s not a big problem.”

“Is it serious? Let me take a look.”

“There is no need, it really is nothing. Moreover, it is not good with so many people looking.”

Fang Shishi took a gaze around and discovered that there were indeed a lot of people stealing glances at them, and said: “I’ll go to your house to take a look tomorrow.”

Tang Zheng found Liu Qingmei and asked for a leave of absence. Liu Qingmei was very considerate and allowed his to take a day off. Just as Tang Zheng walked out of the school entrance he coincidentally met Feng Siniang sending Ye Dingdang to school. Tang Zheng told them that he took the day off so he could not protect Ye Dingdang. Feng Siniang did not pressure him and let him take care of his own personal matters. Moreover she also told him that the Huang Clan’s matter has been dealt with.

Tang Zheng expressed his gratitude, not worrying anymore and went straight towards Chang Heng Mountain.

One could refine pills anywhere but usually one would chose an area with concentrated spirit energy and also a place that is not easily disturbed by others. So Chang Heng’s back mountain was the optimal place for this.

In the back mountains of Chang Heng Mountain Tang Zheng sat on the precipice, focused on calming his breath. He thought back to the teachings Tian Chanzi passed onto him concerning refining the Continuing Life Pill so the process itself should not be too hard.

Tang Zheng carefully took out the Heaven Fragrant Flower and the other materials needed for the pill. Thankfully, Tang Zheng had a lot of leftover money otherwise he would not be able to obtain the other herbs required.

He put all the ingredients into a small furnace. This small furnace was nothing rare, in fact he got it from an antique store, buying it for one hundred thousand dollars. To buy this furnace coupled with the other ingredients he practically spent all the money he received from the matches and from the Ye Clan.

After he made his preparations he started to work based off his memory. Immediately the spiritual energy in the air started to stir and the fog outside the precipice started to roil. This was a sign of spiritual energy moving.

Thin strands of spiritual energy, undetectable to the naked eye fell from the sky and into the pill furnace causing a glimmer of light to gradually arise within.

Tang Zheng continuously poured in his qi, refining the ingredients. A moment later the ingredients shriveled up as a ball of waterlike substance appeared within the pill furnace. This was the result of the medicinal energy combing with the spiritual energy in the air.

In the end, once the shriveled up herbs vaporized, only the lump of water like material was left in the pill furnace.

“You can put in the Heaven Fragrant Flower now.” Tian Chanzi advised.

Tang Zheng took out the Heaven Fragrant Flower from within the wooden box and placed it within the pill furnace.

The ball of water looked as if it was boiling and an exotic smell assaulted the nose causing one to feel incomparably refreshened.

The Heaven Fragrant Flower melted in the pill furnace and Tang Zheng immediately capped the furnace while continuing to use his qi to stimulate the Heaven Fragrant Flowers medicinal properties.

Unknowingly, the sunset glow flooded the sky and Tang Zheng opened his eyes, his eyes were filled with excitement and happiness.

“Success!”

Tang Zheng restrained his joy as he uncovered the furnace,’hu’ a fragrance wafted into his nose causing him to feel as if he could float to the heavens. *TL: hu= cry, shout, exhale*

Tang Zheng’s eyes stared wide open, only to see three fingernail sized pill sitting quietly at the bottom of the pill furnace.

“How come there are three pills?” Tang Zheng asked with astonishment.

Tian Chanzi also had a hard time covering his surprise as he said: “Little brat, your qi is extremely rich and concentrated so when you were refining pills you ended up with three of them. With the same ingredients people with stronger qi will be able to refine more of the ingredients, thereby refining more pills.”

“If a Life Continuing Pill can extend one’s life for ten years then if I gave Grandfather all three wouldn’t he be able to live for thirty years?”

“Heng, if you really want your Grandfather to die early then give them all to him.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Life Continuing Pill is an extremely replenishing pill but it is tyrannical in nature. Moreover, your Grandfather’s health is very poor and his organs are near failure. If you were to feed him two Life Continuing PIlls then the tyrannical nature of the pills will straight up kill him. So how could it possibly extend his life.”

Tang Zheng came to a realization that too much was also just as bad as too little. This logic also applied to someone who had a long chronical illness and is not suitable for one large dose of medicine.

“Then I can only keep the other two Life Continuing Pills.”

He took out the three Life Continuing Pills from within the pill furnace and then put them into a small container, keeping it on his person.

Kacha!

Suddenly, a crack appeared on the pill furnace and in a moment the pill furnace collapsed, turning into several cracked pieces.

“Ah, what happened? This is a hundred thousand dollar antique, how could it be so useless.”

“Heng, this is just an ordinary pill furnace so for it to withstand one use is its limit. In the future if you want to refine better pills then you will need to use better ingredients and a better furnace. Moreover, this time you only used your qi to operate the pill furnace while in the future you will need to use true fire to operate the pill furnace. Hence in the future you need a pill furnace of higher quality.” Tian Chanzi explained.

“True fire?”

“Correct, there are many types of fires in this world. Aside from the ordinary fire you use for cooking food and making rice there is also true fire which is ranked from grade one to grade six. The stronger the true fire, the faster you are able to refine pills and the better the pill refined is. Right now since you can train in cultivation techniques you can also train in true fire.”

Tang Zheng nodded his head, temporarily putting away this information in the back of his mind as he hurried down the mountain, running as if he was flying towards his house.

Grandfather was sitting at the entrance, leaning against the wall looking at the direction at which Tang Zheng usually takes to get home.

Suddenly, a familiar shadow entered his view and as he was about to stand up he felt as if all the energy had left his body and that his soul had exited his body.

“Ai, have you come for me now Yama King? Little Zheng, Grandfather will protect you from the nine springs of the underworld.” He had already gradually started to lose consciousness and his mind was fuzzy but he clearly knew that his time was up.

“Grandfather, I’m home.” Tang Zheng Tang Zheng charged forth towards his Grandfather only to discover that his Grandfather’s eyes were slightly open, his face deathly pale, not breathing.

“Hurry, give him the Life Continuing Pill, his life is rapidly depleting.” Tian Chanzi urged.

Tang Zheng hurriedly took out a Life Continuing Pill, putting it into his Grandfather’s mouth, it dissolving upon contact causing a warm fuzzy feeling to arise within his Grandfather’s body.

“Bring him to the bed to rest and after a good night’s rest he will be recovered.” Tian Chanzi said.

Tang Zheng carried his Grandfather to his bed and seeing that his Grandfather’s pale white face started to gradually reveal traces of red once more. This allowed Tang Zheng to ease the worry in his heart as he has succeeded.

Tang Zheng used up a lot of energy to refine the Life Continuing Pill and was now able to relax, so he unconsciously fell asleep.

In the middle of the night, Tang Zheng felt two cold blasts of air enter the door from outside and then two fuzzy silhouettes appear in front of his Grandfather, one black and one white.

The only sound was the white silhouette saying loudly: “Tang Dahai, your predestined life span is at its end. Follow us to the ghost realm to report.”

Tang Dahai calmly laid there not moving at all.

The black silhouette made a surprised sound, extremely surprised as he said: “Crap, someone actually replenished his life, so now he has ten more years to live. We can not forcibly take his soul.”

“Just who is so daring to actually replenish someone’s life, disturbing the cycle of heaven?” The white silhouette angrily roared.

“Who are you guys? You are not allowed to harm my Grandfather!” Tang Zheng hurriedly ran over and roared.

The black silhouette seeing Tang Zheng was frightened into a jump: “Who are you?”

“You are not allowed to hurt my Grandfather.”

Tang Zheng charged straight up, using both hands to grab at the black and white silhouette.

“Heng, ignorant human. You dare disrespect ghosts! I will bring your soul to the ghost realm.” A black and a white dried up arm grabbed towards Tang Zheng bringing with it a biting cold.

Tang Zheng felt his heart tremble but he did not feel fear, because no matter who dared to harm his Grandfather he would charge forward to prevent it no matter the cost.

Peng peng!

Tang Zheng’s two hands pushed out and a wave of scorching hot energy spit forward, eliminating the biting cold. These two hands struck right at the two boney hands causing the black and white silhouette to release screams as if they had just met their worst nemesis, retreating nonstop.

“This little brat is weird.”

“Right, the pure Yang energy in his body is extremely strong.” The white silhouette parroted.

“Could he have a pure Yang body constitution?

“It must be, the pure Yang body constitution is our nemesis. Hurry, let’s go.” The black and white silhouette shrilly screamed and then disappeared.

Tang Zheng did not chase, but looked on in satisfaction far off into the distance where they disappeared to and said: “At least you guys ran fast.”

The sky gradually lit up and the sounds of a rooster rang out, causing Tang Zheng to suddenly sit up as he rubbed his eyes and suspiciously said: “Yesterday I had the weirdest dream of seeing a black and white silhouette, then chasing them away in order to save Grandfather… right, how is Grandfather?”

He stared at the empty bed, and loudly cried out: “Grandfather, where’s Grandfather? How come he’s not here?”

“Little Zheng, what happened to you? Did you have a bad dream?” Tang Dahai said as he pushed open the door and walked in.

Tang Zheng charged forward, tightly hugged his grandfather and happily said: “Grandfather, you are fine. You really are fine!”