Chapter 141 — Drugging the Imperial Physician Hall
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
The stone furnace had been cut straight from jade, hollowed from top to bottom, fitted within with the eight trigrams and the five elements, with no vent left open; one need only set the halves together and give it a turn, and it was impervious to wind. Even if the medicine exploded inside, it likely could not burst this furnace open.
"It will do! " Shen Mu lifted the furnace open and studied it closely, then laid each ingredient in order into the eight-trigram and five-element compartments within. The compartments of this stone furnace each had their own sequence; after a set time the compartments would open, and the ingredients inside would fall into the furnace—so there was no need to lift the lid to add medicine. Once the ingredients were set, he clapped his palm, drew earth-fire up from the rune arrays on the floor, and began to temper the stone furnace. Snow Fox cared little for pill-refining; she looked this way and that.
But the white-haired old physicians watched from the side with keen interest, unblinking. Physician Yu saw Shen Mu's hand techniques and his eyes lit up; he praised without ceasing: "These techniques—truly transcendent, beyond all imagining, excellent indeed! Little Divine Physician, why must your technique tap thirteen times in succession? " Shen Mu said, "Purple Cinnabar Stone is jade; its medicinal nature is hidden within the stone, harder to extract than that of other ingredients.
So it must be tapped thirteen times in succession before its nature can be drawn out.
My cultivation is rather shallow; if you masters had deep cultivation, thirteen taps would not be needed—you would need only to refine out the medicinal nature. " The old physicians nodded again and again, hastily noting it down. Shen Mu refined and conversed with them as he worked, but it was the old physicians who asked the most; he seldom questioned them, spending the time explaining the medical principles and the craft of pill-refining to them.
"This is the Dragon-Tiger Mutual Aid Hand, is it not?
" Physician Qu's expression changed sharply and he cried out, "A technique that has been lost!
" The other three old physicians showed astonishment as well, staring fixedly at Shen Mu's flying palms, striving to commit his techniques to memory. The white-haired Physician Yu murmured, "The Dragon-Tiger Mutual Aid Hand has been lost for two hundred years.
To think I should see this legendary pill-refining technique again at the Little Divine Physician's hands—am I dreaming? " "If you wish to learn, I can teach you when I have time—though I have had none lately. " Shen Mu had now reached the critical stage of refining and could not spare his attention.
The Dragon-Tiger Mutual Aid Hand was only one of the several hundred techniques Grandpa Alchemist had taught him, hardly anything special, and he did not think it would matter much if it got out.
The crux of pill-refining, after all, was mastery of medicinal principles; techniques and the like were only supplementary. Even so, in the physicians' eyes the techniques were of the utmost importance. And besides techniques there were pill recipes—treasures countless students of medicine dreamed of.
Obtain a unique recipe and one would guard it as a precious jewel, never lightly passing it on.
This was wholly different from what Grandpa Alchemist had taught Shen Mu. Grandpa Alchemist put no superstition in recipes or techniques; what he taught Shen Mu most was medicinal principles. Shen Mu had never thought the things Grandpa Alchemist taught him were so remarkable; to him they were all ordinary. The physicians' astonishment struck him as baffling.