Story 7 - To Kill Demonic Vines (Part 7 🌱) (Patreon)

When I told the Sect Leader that I needed to see this prescription work in person, I hadn’t been lying. Violet Pill Fairy was a genius at creating new recipes, but she wasn’t a scientist obsessed with perfection. This was also one of her early works. Like fuck would I take the recipe I’d memorized at face value.

Of course. The first thing I needed to do was test it to confirm that it worked.

Now that I had set up the formations for our safety, I returned to my courtyard to see a beautiful sight.

Little Spring had prepared a stand with an earthen flame and my golden cauldron on top. He had already started ‌warming it to my normal specifications.

Beside the pillar, he’d arranged a wooden prep table. Various jade boxes cluttered the surface. Three ingredients had been prepped and were waiting in organized piles while the kid sliced off the unnecessary parts of the fourth plant just the way I had explained earlier.

Even though we had access to the space and his spring water, I’d specifically mentioned to him to not soak the herbs. What we wanted was to create something others could reproduce. Something replicable even without specialized ingredient enhancers.

The kid blinked up at me.

I smiled and patted his head. “Good job.”

He grinned.

“Thank you!” he said, and pulled a stem off a red berry. ::While it’s nice out here, the alchemy room in our space is better. So why work here?::

::It’s true that we can enter your space anytime we wish. However, imagine you’re a normal alchemist. You see two children bring batch after batch of pills out of a courtyard, but there is no evidence that they ever worked there? No evidence that they created the medicines themselves.::

His eyes narrowed and grew dark.

::Exactly. They’d either suspect we’d already concocted the pills and were holding out on everyone, or they’d realize that we had a space. Never underestimate the intelligence of any cultivator.::

::Yes, Sister Lin!::

***

On the way to the city, I went over the prescription in my head and devised the best approach to concocting it. Now I just needed to go through the motions.

There were three main ingredients to this recipe: Majestic Plant Killer Walnut, Violet Puffing Fern Leaf, and Viridian Poison Pine Needles. Fifteen more plants were included to either enhance or hinder the effects of the others, creating a balance that was fairly elegant for Violet’s early work.

Two of these herbs, the Rapscallion Oscillating Leafs and the Three Stars Waving Crimson Carrot, were even there to slow down and prolong the effects of the key ingredients. I didn’t know exactly why, but until I saw otherwise I’d assume it was because killing off the vine plague too quickly could harm a mortal body. I’d have to see the effects myself to be sure, though.

With Little Spring helping, we spent a good half hour prepping while I visualized the concoction in my mind again.

Once I’d cut the head off the last red carrot, I was ready.

Now it was time to steal Violet’s work. Muahahaha!

I took control of the earthen flame with a simple hand seal. The fire shot up the sides of the dragon and phoenix cauldron.

Using my spiritual energy, I grabbed the first key ingredient, the Majestic Plant Killer Walnut.

This little golden walnut would have the effect that would do the most damage to the demonic vines growing within people. I dropped it right into the bowl of the cauldron, where it hissed. The lid slammed down on top of it and I started counting breaths.

Just before it had fully melted, after I had covered it for a minute, it was time to add the next one. With a flick of my fingers, the lid lifted high into the air. I grabbed three other ingredients that would enhance the walnut’s plant killer effect and tossed them into the cauldron ten counts apart. Each went in with a small splash and a sizzle.

The next scheduled to go in was the four of the Rapscallion Oscillating Leafs. Each of these leaves looked like long green drills.

Using it here would make the vine-killing effect take longer. Kind of like a time-release pill from my last life in plant form. Of course, taking longer should allow the pill to utilize its full effect while lessening the impact on the body.

The next main ingredient was Viridian Poison Pine Needles. Beautiful long needles with touches of purple where they originally connected to the tree.

This was a tricky bastard of an herb because it was poisonous, but it could also be used to kill off certain unmentionable infections. The kind of infection authors and readers pretended didn’t exist in romantic fiction.

I only uncovered it because of my extensive studies, so its inclusion made me wonder how Violet even thought to use it in this recipe.

I mean, she was the wife of a harem protagonist, so she had a 99% chance of being a virgin.

Well, at least until she married Bloodsword... or had an encounter with him and a rogue aphrodisiac.

As I counted breaths, I simultaneously made a mental note to pick up supplies to make antidotes for the various aphrodisiacs. Ones that I’d obsessively developed in my past life.

In every single one of these Xianxia that I read, aphrodisiacs could only be endured but not cured. In my opinion, the people living in those worlds didn’t try hard enough or want it bad enough. Then again, I couldn’t blame them for the author demanding their world be a specific way. But I could shake a mental fist and silently curse at those writers.

The original author making me do all that fucking work by myself. And I never even got to use them.

Still, it was better to have it than not.

It wouldn’t hurt to pick up supplies for some poisons and trick pills while I was at it.

While I’d never been big on utilizing those since they were consumable items, having some extra protection might help.

Actually, a smokescreen pill to help us vanish into the updated space might become useful one day.

When I finally reached the number I’d been looking for, I grabbed four of the sticky pine needles with my spiritual energy and sliced them in two with a jade knife. Then I lifted the lid with a gesture and threw them in.

The golden cauldron rumbled while I counted breaths and focused on the right timing.

Just as I felt Little Spring take out a protection talisman and placed it on my back, I grabbed the herbs that paired with the pine needles and the Three Stars Waving Crimson Carrot. Quickly, almost one after the other, I threw them into the mix. The glow from the liquid turned angry and red. The bubbles started to rage within the bowl.

Muahahahaha! Did this concoction think it could fail with me here?

Never!

I waited until it looked particularly dangerous. This was it. I opened the lid and threw in the Violet Puffing Fern Leaf.

This ingredient had a cool Yin nature and immediately calmed the raging boil I’d worked up in my cauldron.

After waiting for some time for it to melt, I then slowly tossed in the last ingredients that would increase the healing effect of the Fern Leaf.

Three. Two. One!

I twisted my hands to form a seal. Inside the cauldron, the liquid curled into perfectly round pills and hardened. With a quick flick of my fingers, the lid raised up, and the pills flew out. Little Spring pulled out a white jade pill bottle and caught all 16 of them.

Beaming, he handed it to me. “You did it!”

“Of course I did! Who am I?”

“Sister Lin!”

Since it was just the two of us, I held out my hand for a fist bump.

He left me hanging.

I wiggled my fist at him and he reluctantly gave me one.

Soon he would adore them.

“What’s next?”

“Well, it’s about time to test it.”

***

I had Sword Master Salamander and Clear Eyes Mad Tongue, grab Hu Xiaofan (The same maid that brought us to our courtyards). Once they returned with her, she showed us the way to the clinic where the infected volunteers rested, and informed the head physician that we were there.

When I stepped into the clinic, the first thing I noticed was that it had recently been cleaned.

But it wasn’t as clean as it could have been.

The mortal physicians who were looking after the patients didn’t wear cloth masks. At least their sleeves were short.

Ah, this was no good.

I felt that creeping sensation from the area not being as sanitized as it should be, only it was doubled due to there being a goddamn plague. Almost unconsciously, I used the cleaning technique on the entire room. Every single person jumped in surprise and turned to stare at us.

Salamander and Mad Tongue glanced at me with wide eyes.

Of course, the teenager couldn't resist. “Senior Lin, was that really necessary? And couldn’t you have said something before you scraped a layer of dirt off everything?”

I put my hands behind my back like the little master I was and cleared my throat. “That takes too much time. Besides, are you really going to complain about a simple cleaning technique during the middle of a plague?”

“I mean—”

“Sister Lin,” Little Spring interrupted. “Let’s ask our questions.”

A doctor who had walked up to us bowed. “Head Physician Xiang You greets the Immortals from the Indomitable Will Sect. Welcome to the City Lord’s small clinic. ”

I stepped forward. “You may address me as Alchemist Lin. I’m the one developing a cure.”

His tired eyes looked skeptical.

I ignored that look and continued. “But first, let’s talk about proper hygiene. I need all of your physicians to wear masks and gloves. Basically, they should be covered from head to toe until we know how this plague spreads.”

It took him a second... he was probably processing the fact that a short ten-year-old was telling him what to do. Honestly, I was half expecting him to yell at me for speaking to my elders impolitely. But, to his credit, he turned to address the physicians behind him.

“You heard the little Immortal! Get it done!”

A couple of people dashed out through the back door.

“Does your clinic have any Pill Testing Beasts?”

From the golden color and nutty medicinal scent, I already knew that my pills would work, but it didn’t hurt to test it out.

He shook his head. “No, the plague killed them too fast. But all the patients here have volunteered.”

“When you say they’ve volunteered...”

“Their families brought them to us.”

I looked around at all the people. Some of them were writhing and moaning in pain, but most were completely still. They’d probably passed out. “Are any in a condition to speak?”

He looked grim. “No.”

I preferred to get the personal approval from patients but, when the person couldn’t argue for themselves, the permission of the family was also fine. It wasn’t like I was a mad alchemist or something… Well, not entirely.

Physician Xiang You gestured to the first patient. A man in his thirties lay asleep on a cot. Purple veins crawled across his skin. A thin, glowing pinkish vine poked out and curled around his wrist.

I could imagine the pain was enough to make this mortal stay passed out.

“These patients are not going to die. Now tell me about each of their recent medical histories.”

As the doctor went over what prescriptions each of them had been given, I stretched out my divine sense towards them.

Things were not looking good for these people. Having not tested them before, I wasn’t sure if these pills would work on mortals that were this consumed by vines.

The creepy tendrils ran throughout each of their bodies.

From what I could tell, they sucked up the life energy of the patients and used that to grow. The odd thing was that the vines were connected to the heart where they stored that energy. This both helped keep the patient alive longer so it could extract more vitality, and could be used later once the person died to keep the vines alive.

Honestly speaking, this was a horrifying disease. It seemed more like a parasite than an actual infection. Actually, if I saw this back in my past-past life, I would have already called it a parasite. Unfortunately, with spiritual energy involved, I couldn’t be certain exactly what it was without knowing how it spread.

Shit got weird in Xianxia.

And sometimes that weird turned into dark fucked up plagues like this.

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Author's Note:

Thank you all for reading! You are the best readers ever!!! (≧﹏ ≦)

As you can tell from this chapter, parts of this story do get a little bit darker than the others. Everyone's tolerance is different, so I try to write things in a way that doesn't gross people out that much. That said, I don't always know where that line is so please let me know if I ever go too far.