"What? You're saying a late Foundation Establishment cultivator died in our Dahe Market?"
Early in the morning, Luo Chen had just stepped out the door when he was startled by the discussion in the courtyard.
Qin Liangchen and his wife, Gu Caiyi, and even Bai Meiling and Feng Xia were gathered together.
The topic they were heatedly discussing was none other than the death of a late Foundation Establishment cultivator.
Bai Meiling chattered, "The corpse was found the day before yesterday. A Core Formation cultivator from Mount Ailao used a soul tablet and a tracking magic treasure to dredge it up from the bottom of the Lancang River near Dahe Market."
"It wasn't suicide, but murder!"
Nonsense—what kind of cultivator would throw their life away and commit suicide for no reason?
Luo Chen couldn't help asking, "If he was murdered, why didn't the killer dispose of the body? Sinking it in a river is far too crude. Wouldn't it have been better to incinerate the corpse with high-grade true fire to destroy all traces?"
"Maybe the enemy wanted to, but couldn't!" Bai Meiling tilted her head and said.
"If they killed him, how could they not destroy the corpse?"
"That Foundation Establishment cultivator possessed a defensive magic treasure. Supposedly, his wife specifically begged a Core Formation elder in her clan to grant it to him."
A defensive magic treasure!
Luo Chen's eyelids twitched.
Immediately, he noticed something was off with the atmosphere.
Why were Bai Meiling and Qin Liangchen's group doing all the talking while Gu Caiyi wasn't taking part in the discussion?
Seeing Luo Chen look over, Gu Caiyi showed a complicated expression.
"Fei Baiwen indeed had an unorthodox defensive magic treasure with an extraordinarily bizarre function called Fanlong. It's said that once deployed, it turns into a miniature immortal lodge, isolating all spiritual energy inside and out. Unless one possesses an attack on the level of late Core Formation, Fanlong cannot be breached."
"Of course, once Fanlong is activated, the person inside can't come out either and can only wait for rescue."
Truly worthy of an unorthodox magic treasure.
Defending against enemies while conveniently locking oneself inside.
Murong Qinglian was astonished. "Caiyi, you know that late Foundation Establishment cultivator?"
Gu Caiyi nodded gently and pointed to the gossamer robe she was wearing.
"When he was staying at Tianxiang Pavilion in Dahe Market back then, he gave me this superior-grade defensive magical tool."
Casually gifting a superior-grade defensive magical tool?
That deceased late Foundation Establishment cultivator was actually so generous!
For a moment, Murong Qinglian and Bai Meiling looked at Gu Caiyi with rather peculiar expressions.
Gu Caiyi didn't explain. She had wanted to return the magical tool back then, but he had adamantly refused to take it back.
He had even claimed that things he gave away were never taken back—to do so would be slapping him in the face!
"Fei Baiwen?"
Luo Chen muttered the name once and blurted out instinctively, "Isn't that the contractor from Mount Ailao?"
Contractor?
Gu Caiyi had long since learned what the term meant.
She rolled her eyes at Luo Chen and sighed. "It really was him. Otherwise, Mount Ailao's Core Formation Master wouldn't have personally come looking for him. Because of this, Mount Ailao's shop in Dahe Market, Xianzhu Residence, has been closed for the past two days."
Xianzhu Residence closed?
Luo Chen came to a sudden realization. No wonder the Mount Ailao cultivators helping him build the alchemy chamber had rushed off without even collecting their final payment the day before yesterday.
Turns out something this huge had happened to their sect!
"He came to Dahe Market to renovate spiritual residences and help construct the Dao Discussion Platform. Out of nowhere, who would kill him? And who could kill him?" Luo Chen was immensely curious and began analyzing the man's background. "Not to mention his late Foundation Establishment cultivation, based purely on the fact that he was a matrilocal son-in-law wedded to a Core Formation cultivator's granddaughter, no one should have dared lay a hand on him!"
The crowd remained utterly baffled. After chatting a while longer, they could only disperse.
After all, everyone still had work to do.
Before leaving, however, Murong Qinglian still reminded everyone to be careful when going out.
Perhaps Fei Baiwen's murderer was an outsider who was likely still lurking in Dahe Market.
Everyone agreed, but none took it too seriously.
The culprit was in the business of big fish, killing late Foundation Establishment cultivators. Why would they bother targeting small fry like them?
In Luo Chen's words, they carried an attitude of, "As long as I'm a pile of shit, nobody will want to step on me."
That phrasing earned him a round of scolding from his female neighbors.
...
With the alchemy chamber nearing completion, the coming and going gang members didn't decrease; instead, there were more and more.
Luo Chen was no longer as leisurely as before and grew increasingly busy.
"Luo Erduo, nephew of Luo Wudi, Qi Refinement Layer Four."
"Yang Qi, son of Coiled-Dragon Tiger Yang Wei, Qi Refinement Layer One, and only nine years old! Even he's being sent to the Pill Hall?"
"Mi Li, old man Mi Shuhua's granddaughter? Qi Refinement Layer Four, twenty-one years old. Looks like her aptitude isn't great, or else she'd have been sent off to a major sect long ago."
Faces—some tender, some yearning, some skeptical, some proud—flitted through Luo Chen's mind.
These were all people stuffed into his Pill Hall by the various hall masters.
Luo Chen couldn't refuse, because this was the condition he had agreed to back at the Bright Moon Hall meeting: he would do his best to teach their descendants alchemy.
Of course, teach them he would.
But whether he put his heart into it was entirely up to him.
As for how many of them could truly complete an apprenticeship?
What kind of cultivation joke was that? Luo Chen himself was still consolidating his alchemy foundation!
Holding the Illustrated Compendium of a Hundred Herbs, Luo Chen glanced at the group of youths in the valley and curled his lip.
These people couldn't be relied upon. He would have to train another batch of workhorse tools.
In Crescent Moon Valley, a group of young people were gathered together, idling about and casually chatting.
Their conversation was filled with curiosity about the Pill Hall Master, Luo Chen.
"He's not even as old as me, is he? And he's already a hall master?"
The speaker was Luo Wudi's nephew, Luo Erduo.
Radiating a fierce, savage aura, it was clear he had ventured into the mountains and seen demonic beast blood.
However, that background carried little weight in front of the others.
Whose elders hadn't carved their way out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood?
Tang Quan sneered, "Yeah, you're older than him. But your cultivation isn't as high as his. Aside from fighting, what else do you have over him? To make it out in the world, you need skill!"
Tang Quan was the promising recruit recommended by Zeng Wen.
He wasn't related by blood to Zeng Wen, but was the descendant of a deceased sworn brother of his.
Knowing Zeng Wen had a good relationship with Luo Chen, he naturally leaned toward Luo Chen's side.
Luo Erduo's face flushed red. "Right, you're skilled. Learning from that Sick Tiger uncle of yours, you've probably picked up plenty of bedchamber arts!"
Tang Quan shot to his feet!
"Say that again, you little bastard?"
"Think I'm scared of you?!"
Seeing the two about to fight, the others felt helpless.
Tang Quan genuinely wasn't afraid of Luo Erduo. His father had died early, and his uncle Zeng Wen hadn't supervised him closely in the past, so he had often accompanied the Battle Hall into the mountains to hunt demonic beasts.
In terms of cultivation, the two were evenly matched.
"Everyone, please don't fight, all right?"
Hearing those gentle, soft-spoken words, Tang and Luo both backed down after throwing a few harsh parting shots.
Only because the speaker was the gang leader Mi Shuhua's granddaughter, and her mother, Mi Junping, was the Merit Hall Master.
Mi Li possessed three-spiritual-root aptitude and was at Qi Refinement Layer Four.
Upon her flowery, beautiful face, however, there lingered a sickly pallor.
She forced a smile. "We all came to the Pill Hall wanting to learn alchemy from the Hall Master. Why must we make things so unpleasant?"
Some chimed in agreement, while others stayed silent.
Regarding the Pill Hall, they had heard bits and pieces from their respective elders.
Some valued it; some looked down on it.
Consequently, the composition of these juniors sent to the Pill Hall was mixed.
Some had been sent to genuinely learn alchemy, while others were simply tossed here as a perfunctory gesture.
Mi Li sighed, her heart filled with unease.
Within the Mi family, she wasn't particularly valued.
Her congenitally deficient constitution had caused her to waste plenty of her parents' resources since birth without producing any results.
Now, under Mi Shuhua's leadership, the Mi family was flourishing more and more, with talents emerging one after another. One of her peers even had the chance to join a sect soon.
Her own status had plummeted.
Now that her mother had insisted on sending her to the Pill Hall, she couldn't tell what her intention was.
Was it to brush her aside, or was she truly hoping Mi Li would learn something?
Just as apprehension gripped her heart, a companion beside her let out a startled cry.
She looked up to see an earthen-yellow streak of light slice across the sky, drifting leisurely into the depths of Crescent Moon Valley.
"It's Grandfather!" Mi Li thought.
...
"Little Luo, how has your research on the Jade Marrow Pill been going?"
The moment he landed, Mi Shuhua went straight to the point.
The "point"—Luo Chen—rolled his eyes. "You really have high hopes for me, old man. I only got my hands on it a few days ago! If it were really that easy to concoct, wouldn't your Mi family have been raking in massive profits long ago?"
Mi Shuhua chuckled sheepishly, knowing he had been a bit too impatient.
However, after his conversation with Wang Haichao last night, besides ensuring Gao Tingyuan wouldn't trouble Luo Chen in the future, there was another matter driving his urgency.
If the Mountain Breaker Gang's Pill Hall could truly produce top-grade pills, the Great River Gang would also want a piece of the action.
When that time came, leveraging the Great River Gang's distribution channels, their pills could be sold to other markets.
Sighing, Mi Shuhua suppressed his impatience.
"The inauguration date is set for three days from now. At that time, we will invite some of our internal cultivators to observe the ceremony."
"I plan to hold a grand ceremony for you. Any thoughts?"
Luo Chen blinked. A ceremony? Pomp and circumstance?
The grander, the better, of course!
"Sounds good. Let's do the hall inauguration and the first furnace firing together then. I'll also show you all a little display of what an alchemy grandmaster looks like!"
Chapter 87