Chapter 487 – The Starlight Within the Pill

Dusk had long fallen. Zhang Xiaohua finally stopped his cultivation, looked around the empty pill room, and smiled. “Has Elder Zhang changed his surname? A whole day has passed, and he still hasn’t come to check on his precious Scarlet Flame Pill?”

Just as he thought that, he heard approaching footsteps. Without even releasing his divine sense, Zhang Xiaohua already knew it was Nie Qianyu.

When Nie Qianyu entered the pill room, Zhang Xiaohua deliberately looked behind her a few times and said, “Eh? Where’s Elder Zhang? And Uncle Nie? I haven’t seen them all day—I’ve been missing them dearly! How come they haven’t come to watch me refine pills?”

“Pfft.” Nie Qianyu couldn’t help but laugh. “Do you really want them to come? Then I’ll go call them right now.”

Seeing Nie Qianyu make as if to leave, Zhang Xiaohua quickly waved his hand. “Forget it. I was just saying that. Uncle Nie still has the vast Spring Rebirth Valley to manage, and Elder Zhang has his divine steed Da Bai to attend to. Better not trouble you to make another trip.”

“Bah.” Nie Qianyu laughed with her eyes, then scoffed lightly. “Even if you did invite them, they might not come.”

Without waiting for Zhang Xiaohua to ask, she continued, “You scolded them back and forth—one moment you let them into the pill room, the next you drove them out. They’re both your elders—how could they still have the face to stay?”

“If you let them observe the pill refining from the start, of course they would come.”

Zhang Xiaohua suddenly understood and pointed at her with a grin. “Little Fish Nie, you’ve become a lobbyist again! Did Elder Zhang come looking for you?”

Nie Qianyu covered her mouth, laughing. “Looks like nothing can be hidden from Brother Ren! My father and Elder Zhang both asked me to sound you out—if you’re going to show them something new and interesting, they’ll come. But if all they see for ten days straight is medicine paste bubbling like pancakes, they’d rather not bother.”

Zhang Xiaohua nodded. “Then tell them both to come only on the final day. For these ten-some days, there won’t be much change.”

Nie Qianyu agreed, then asked a few questions about the Great Evolution Five Elements Formation. She had been inspired by Zhang Xiaohua and wanted to ponder some ideas of her own, but the principles within Immortal formations were far too vast—just grasping the basics was already difficult enough. She had only just started learning; how could she possibly comprehend anything original?

So, to all her questions, Zhang Xiaohua replied almost without thinking, his answers making Nie Qianyu’s eyes sparkle like stars.

Seeing the admiration in her gaze, Zhang Xiaohua’s little tail almost curled skyward. With the air of a master, he said, “Time is short, Little Fish. Once I’m gone, where will you ever find such a great expert again? You’d better hurry and learn as much as you can!”

On an ordinary day, if Zhang Xiaohua boasted like this, Nie Qianyu would have already spat back at him. But this time, his words touched a soft spot in her heart. She merely pursed her lips and said nothing.

Seeing her like that, Zhang Xiaohua felt an indescribable feeling stir within him. To ease the mood, he began explaining more of the fundamentals of formations—whether Five Elements or Three Talents formations—and even blended in his understanding of martial principles, trying to make them as clear as possible so Nie Qianyu could grasp them and apply them in practice.

Gradually, Nie Qianyu’s attention shifted fully to his explanation, listening with complete focus.

When Nie Qianyu left the inner valley, Zhang Xiaohua immediately sealed the pill room with restrictive wards. Without wasting a moment, he resumed his comprehension of the Dao of Heaven.

Zhang Xiaohua did not think that explaining formations to Nie Qianyu had been a waste of time. For one, Nie Qianyu’s cultivation in the martial path was still shallow—if she could learn formations, she would at least gain some means of self-protection, which could be considered a way of repaying her for recognizing him when others did not. Secondly, his own understanding of formations came entirely from studying jade slips and personal exploration—it might not all be correct. Through teaching her, he could also gain new insights or fill in the gaps in his own knowledge.

After some time, it was already nearing midnight. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, Zhang Xiaohua suddenly opened his eyes, frowning slightly as he released his divine sense from within the pill room, sweeping it outward toward the outskirts of Spring Rebirth Valley.

He saw several carriages and a few fine horses carrying a group of people hurrying along the small path leading toward the valley. Zhang Xiaohua was puzzled—what were people doing coming here at this hour? Yet judging from their hurried but upright manner, they did not seem to harbor ill intent toward Spring Rebirth Valley.

Just then, from the roadside forest, a guard dressed in tight armor darted out, planting himself in the middle of the road with a long spear in hand to block the convoy.

The carriages came to a halt. A young man in fitted clothes riding a white horse emerged from the group and approached the guard. In the moonlight, Zhang Xiaohua could see clearly—it was Spring Rebirth Valley’s second son-in-law, Qiang Sheng, the Young Master of the Giant Whale Gang.

Seeing that, Zhang Xiaohua lost interest and withdrew his divine sense. Still, he found it odd—why would Nie Qianxiu bring her husband back to her parents’ home in the middle of the night?

Since entering the peak of the early stage of Qi Refining, Zhang Xiaohua’s comprehension of the Dao of Heaven had deepened a little. Especially in the past few days, as he combined the Guiding Spirit Formula with his insights into the Dao, he had made new progress. He could easily merge his presence into the surrounding environment; even without extending his divine sense, any disturbance within a certain range would naturally register in his mind.

However, Nie Qianxiu was Nie Qianyu’s second sister. Her return to her family had nothing to do with him—not even half a copper coin’s worth of relation. He naturally had no intention of meddling, and besides, the time to cultivate the Carefree Heart Sutra was drawing near. Even if he wanted to be concerned, he couldn’t afford to be distracted now.

Zhang Xiaohua stood up and drifted to the pill furnace, examining its condition carefully. His heart was still somewhat uneasy. According to the formula for the Meridian-Moistening Pill recorded in the jade slip, it was merely a low-grade elixir. During the ten-odd days of nurturing and infusing ingredients, only light attention was needed—constant care was unnecessary. But from midnight until dawn spanned several hours, during which he would be unable to watch the fire at all. If something went wrong, all his efforts would be wasted.

“Sigh, if only I had a furnace-watching boy,” Zhang Xiaohua thought with a wry smile. Though he himself was practically acting as a pill boy already, the thought made him chuckle—and for some reason, the image of a bald-headed youngster surfaced in his mind. It was none other than that boy from Songning Town who shared his name—Ji Xiaohua!

Zhang Xiaohua couldn’t help but smile faintly to himself and think, “If there really were a bald-headed pill boy here, wouldn’t that be a sight to make others laugh themselves to death?”

Seeing that the appointed time was almost upon him, Zhang Xiaohua pushed aside his wandering thoughts, focused his mind, and successively struck a series of incantations into the pill furnace and the bubbling medicinal liquid within. Then he sat cross-legged on the futon before the furnace, drew two pieces of spirit stones from his robe, and closed his eyes to circulate the Carefree Heart Sutra.

Before long, a mysterious fluctuation surged around his entire body. From the boundless starry sky above, countless invisible threads of starlight pierced straight through the mountain walls of Spring Rebirth Valley, descending and enveloping Zhang Xiaohua in their radiance.

Everything unfolded exactly as it did every other night of cultivation.

Yet tonight, while Zhang Xiaohua’s practice remained the same, the medicinal liquid brewing within the furnace began to undergo subtle changes. The essences of the Scarlet Flame Grass and Crimson Pearl Grass were fusing within the liquid, interacting like the blending of water and fire—constantly trembling, constantly revolving.

Seated directly before the furnace, Zhang Xiaohua was bathed in the descent of starlight; naturally, the pill furnace upon the ground fire was also shrouded within that same glow. The starlight that poured into Zhang Xiaohua’s body simultaneously flowed into the churning mixture of water and fire within the furnace. The two essences, which had been trembling in resistance as though rejecting further fusion, upon contact with that starlight, seemed as if a catalyst had been added—gradually softening, slowly harmonizing, and beginning to accept one another. The quivering of the medicinal liquid lessened bit by bit, and as time passed, it slowly grew calm.

Moreover, because the mysterious fluctuation surging around Zhang Xiaohua stirred the starlight surrounding him, the light within the medicinal liquid was inevitably affected as well. The rotation of the liquid shifted ever so slightly under that unseen rhythm, drawing in even more of the glittering, pulsating starlight…

When dawn arrived, Zhang Xiaohua opened his eyes at once and looked straight toward the pill furnace. As he awakened, the fluctuations about him faded, the starlight instantly ceased its descent, and the brilliance within the medicinal liquid vanished as well. Yet the subtle transformation in its circulation remained.

Unfortunately, the change was exceedingly faint—so faint that even when Zhang Xiaohua extended his divine sense to observe it in detail, he could detect no difference at all. Still, no change was the best outcome. Zhang Xiaohua let out a breath of relief, stood up, and, after imprinting a few sealing incantations to stabilize the furnace, he dispelled the restrictions around the pill room.

Stepping out into the open space before the pill chamber, he began practicing the Big Dipper Divine Fist.

Although the previous day Zhang Xiaohua had already told Nie Qianyu to inform Valley Master Nie and Elder Zhang that nothing special would occur during the ten-odd days of pill refinement and that there was no need for them to come, he had barely sat back down in the pill room to ponder the Guiding Spirit Formula when Valley Master Nie and Elder Zhang arrived together.

After exchanging greetings, the two of them couldn’t wait to examine the medicinal liquid in the pill furnace. Yet all they saw was the liquid lying still at the bottom, unchanged from the day before. They exchanged glances in puzzlement—could it really be that the liquid would just sit at the bottom for ten days straight? What difference could one day make?

Of course, deep down they knew there must be a difference; otherwise, Zhang Xiaohua wouldn’t have been guarding the pill room so diligently all this time. But the question remained: where was the difference? Was it in the refinement of the herbs’ essences? Both of them felt their throats tighten, as if they wanted to grab Zhang Xiaohua by the collar and demand he explain.

But seeing Zhang Xiaohua smiling quietly with his lips sealed, they realized—he was going to make them wait again!

Sure enough, just as Zhang Xiaohua was about to speak, Elder Zhang laughed and said, “Young Master Ren, yesterday Da Bai caught a chill while guarding the herbs. The interior of Spring Rebirth Valley is vast, and I cannot manage it alone. Da Bai has been diligently patrolling here, so I need to take proper care of it. For these few days, I probably won’t be able to come. The refining of the Scarlet Flame Pill will rely entirely on you, Young Hero.”

Valley Master Nie forced a smile and added, “There are always mundane matters in the valley piling up one after another. It seems I won’t be able to check in frequently either. This task must be left in your capable hands, my nephew.”

Valley Master Nie’s frown seemed genuine, and Zhang Xiaohua’s mind stirred as he recalled what he had seen the previous night, quietly chuckling to himself: Even a fair official cannot settle family matters—this must be the affairs of Spring Rebirth Valley itself.