Chapter 141 — Drugging the Imperial Physician Hall
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
"Mock strawberry, two mace; heavenly bamboo, one tael six mace; oleander, four mace.
. . " Shen Mu came to the Imperial Academy's storehouse with Snow Fox, handed over the prescription, bought the ingredients he needed, and said to Snow Fox, "The medicine I mean to refine this time is called Lost-Maze Incense—a numbing drug. Grandpa Alchemist once used it to bring down a flood dragon. That ox may be mighty, but this will lay it flat for certain! Only, this drug must be refined in a special cinnabar furnace; it suffers no carelessness at all.
" Snow Fox asked, curious, "Why?
" "The fragrance it gives off can fell even a flood dragon, let alone the alchemist refining it.
" Shen Mu smiled. "If the furnace isn't sealed tight, then once the medicine is done the fragrance will escape, and wherever that fragrance passes, even great divine-power cultivators of the Heaven-Man realm would come tumbling down. I don't own a sealed furnace of that kind, so I must go borrow one from the Imperial Physician Hall. .
.
" Suddenly a familiar voice said, "Little Divine Physician, where are you off to? " Shen Mu looked toward the voice and smiled.
"So it's Physician Qu. That's right—you are of the Directorate of Education, so I ought to address you as Instructor Qu. " Physician Qu said in flustered haste, "Don't say such a thing, you shame me to death!
Little Divine Physician, this afternoon is my lecture; I am to discourse on medical principles to the scholars. You are a divine physician—you take my place and give the lecture. " Shen Mu could not help laughing.
"I am only a student; how could I teach?
Besides, I have business during the afternoon session, and I fear I cannot attend.
I intend to refine a furnace of medicine, and I will need it this afternoon.
" Physician Qu was somewhat disappointed; then his eyes suddenly lit. "You are going to refine pills?
" Shen Mu smiled. "Not quite pill-refining—only making medicine.
" Physician Qu's eyes flickered. "Little Alchemist, will you let me watch? " Shen Mu hesitated, then nodded.
"I mean to borrow a furnace from the Imperial Physician Hall.
If you wish to watch, come along.
" Physician Qu was overjoyed.
"Little Divine Physician, go on ahead to the Imperial Physician Hall—I will be back in a moment!
" With that he went off like the wind.
Shen Mu walked toward the Imperial Physician Hall, and before he had even reached it, Physician Qu was already waiting out front; besides him there were Physician You, Physician Yu, and others of the Imperial Physician Office, all wearing stirred and fervent expressions.
Shen Mu was puzzled—he wanted only to refine a single ordinary numbing drug; was it worth mustering such a crowd?
"Little Divine Physician, hurry, hurry! " The physicians urged him on, all talking at once. "Will you need the great earth-fire furnace lit?
" "We can lend a hand! " "These ingredients—in what order are they arranged? " "When gentle fire, when fierce?
When you perform the techniques, how does the vital qi circulate?
" .
. .
Shen Mu walked into the Imperial Physician Hall with them, and the first thing he saw was an enormous furnace. Refine pills in that furnace and one would have to eat them for two or three years to finish them; it must be a thing for army use, or for refining some world-shaking spirit pill. Beyond it were other furnaces great and small, and beneath these furnaces were rune arrays linked to the earth-fire thirty thousand zhang below the ground; the earth-fire was drawn up and used to refine pills. "Is there a sealed furnace?
" Shen Mu asked.
"This way, Little Divine Physician. " Physician You led him briskly to a stone furnace in the hall and smiled. "This furnace is a sealed one. Will it serve, Little Divine Physician? " Shen Mu's eyes brightened.