Looking down at the hexagon below, Xu Yao suddenly remembered that *Herb Classic*, about which his father had once remarked, "In all my years practicing medicine, I've never seen a single herb recorded in this book."
Xu Yao had once studied it in earnest. After all, it contained no shortage of bizarre, fantastical lore, quite fitting to read as strange tales of gods and spirits.
One passage went as follows:
"When heaven and earth turn somber and dark, when lightning crisscrosses and torrential rains form a vast deluge without end, when silver serpents bridge the sky and circle, quaking the firmament; wherever such celestial phenomena manifest over terrain naturally formed as a hexagram, a stone bead is bound to emerge into the world. Lustrous and smooth, shattered by the Heavenly Dao's power of lightning, the stubborn rock blooms like nine lotus petals, revealing a yellow stamen at the stone's heart. In an instant it blazes with radiance, bearing a single stem and single leaf resembling a blooming calla flower, fragrant with purple brilliance. Spurred to growth by divine thunder descending from heaven, shielded into form by the hexagram, gathered by the nine dragons of the earth veins, and cradling the spiritual grace of the sun and moon: this is none other than the Stone Heart Grass, a wondrous herb of heaven and earth."
"Ranked nineteenth among the genus of immortal spiritual herbs in the *Biluo Canon's Records of the Mountains, Seas, and Great Wilderness*."
"The stone bead suppresses demons and evil spirits; the grass penetrates the soul, solidifying one's origin foundation and condensing the essence of heaven, earth, and stars. Such is a marvel of the cosmos, belonging to the ranks of immortal spirits."
Xu Yao's heart began to pound.
Yet that fervent heart soon cooled, for another remark Cao Wang had made—though casually spoken—implied a great deal.
"It constantly feels faint and indistinct, like there are people everywhere, yet you can't see a single soul."
Xu Yao had felt this as well, and more than once.
Anyone who went on missions in this area basically experienced a similar feeling: in the dim, shadowy mountain forests all around, there seemed to be people!
Yet upon searching carefully, they found nothing at all!
This was by no means a coincidence, then.
Could other people know about this cosmological marvel?
Furthermore, if he wanted to search for it himself, the difficulty would be immense. The lightning was concentrated in this region, but this region... was truly not small. Even if no one else came seeking treasure and he had the entire place to scour as he pleased, he might still never turn it up.
The dark clouds in the sky churned incessantly, piling higher and thicker, while the lightning and wild thunder grew ever denser.
Like earthen demons surging into the heavens, like heavenly devils descending upon the world.
Yet unlike the previous two occasions, the torrential downpour did not fall right away! Some sort of momentum was still brewing, still continuing to gather.
The oppressive gloom over heaven and earth had reached the absolute extreme.
In the afternoon.
Frowning as he pondered the matter, Xu Yao made his way home.
He wanted badly to stop himself from thinking about it, yet his thoughts sprouted like wild grass in his heart, impossible to rein in.
Dense clouds already covered the sky, yet even blacker storm clouds could be seen churning frantically along the horizon, converging toward this place.
Dense ribbons of lightning snaked through the clouds. The dull thunder at the edge of the sky never ceased for a single moment, rumbling heavily in the distance.
The entire world felt so oppressive that everyone's chest grew tighter and tighter.
"The third time. A completely identical third time!"
When Xu Yao reached his front door and looked back, he saw that the distant sky—faintly over the area of Black Pine Ridge—was already pitch-black.
Heaven and earth were so stifling it almost suffocated a person.
Just as the oppressive stillness reached its peak—
A bolt of lightning fell from the sky like a long saber, completely illuminating the entire expanse.
Then, as if holding back until it burst, an explosive crack of thunder shook the mountains, rivers, and earth. Xu Yao clearly felt the ground beneath his feet lurch violently.
With a colossal roar, the rain came down.
It was as though someone in the firmament was tipping vast basins of water downward.
Everything was cast from the exact same mold as the previous two torrential downpours.
Xu Yao felt dazed. This was already the third time experiencing such weather; starting from the second, he had felt each time as if history were repeating itself.
Today was no different, feeling as though he had returned to that very day...
Only this third downpour was far icier than the previous two.
Xu Yao's mind was wholly fixated on this: within a single quarter of a year, three identical mega-storms, every one of them filling the sky with thunder and lightning. Why?
When the rain started, he had already reached his doorstep.
Xu Yao was very fast now, yet in the brief dash from the outer gate to the central hall, he was already soaked to the bone!
Liu Taohua had been stitching shoe soles in the room, clearly startled by the sudden deluge as well. She was staring outside with wide eyes when her son burst in with a rush of water, leaving a sprawling puddle across the hall floor. Her expression finally sprang to life. "You're finally back! Hurry and change your clothes! Don't catch a chill."
"This storm is downright uncanny."
Liu Taohua grumbled as she hurriedly brought dry clothes for her son. "Three times this year already with rain like this. Truly bizarre."
By now, the creek at the bottom of the ravine before the house had begun to roar with a deafening rumble.
Flash floods from all sides poured down like countless waterfalls.
While changing clothes, Xu Yao looked around the house. Finding no sign of Physician Xu, he couldn't help but worry. "Mother, where's Dad? In rain this heavy, what did he go out for? Out seeing a patient again?"
"Your father went herb-gathering. He headed up the mountain early this morning."
Liu Taohua said worriedly, "He said this morning that it felt like rain today, so he went to Black Pine Ridge to wait for Cloud-Rain White Ganoderma. But how could the rain be this heavy..."
"Neither of you two, father or son, ever gives me peace of mind..."
Xu Yao knew about Cloud-Rain White Ganoderma. The herb resembled a mushroom, only sprouting during heavy rain; once the rain stopped and the ground dried out even slightly, it vanished.
Yet his mind froze in an instant, and he blurted out, "Black Pine Ridge?!"
Wasn't that where the terrain formed the hexagram?
It was also the place where they had first encountered the triplet mountain demons. Xu Yao was intimately familiar with Black Pine Ridge's terrain, the memory etched indelibly into his mind.
Right there, he had met Ning Wuxia for the first time.
But... the terrain there was exceedingly perilous! The mountain trails were precipitous, with sheer cliffs and precipices everywhere.
"That's right. Cloud-Rain White Ganoderma only grows where black pines are thick. You didn't know that?" Liu Taohua looked surprised by her son's ignorance. "Even I know that common fact."
"Black Pine Ridge..." Xu Yao paid no mind to his mother's rambling. Standing at the door, he looked out at the torrential downpour, his face full of concern.
In weather like this, Black Pine Ridge... was far too dangerous.
His father was just an ordinary man, not a martial artist. In such heavy rain, even without running into other dangers, the storm alone was enough to take a life.
Xu Yao felt his heart sink like a heavy stone. He had lived through this kind of storm before; it was utterly terrifying.
In an instant, he couldn't sit still any longer.
"I'm going to meet Dad. With rain this heavy... and he doesn't know martial arts..."
Xu Yao immediately changed into a tight-fitting black suit again, binding the collar, cuffs, and trouser legs tight.
"Then be careful on the road. Once you find your father, come back as fast as you can."
Liu Taohua was indeed worried about her husband, but now that her son was going, she worried for him too. Hurrying to the doorway and leaning against the frame, she hesitated before finally adding, "There are so many mountain trails. If you don't run into him, come back early yourself."
"Understood."
With a single stride, Xu Yao stepped out the door.
He plunged headlong into the howling storm.
Behind him, his mother gripped the doorframe, watching the curtain of rain with a face full of worry.
Dense raindrops carrying biting cold slammed against Xu Yao's face and body like hailstones. Even though he had reached the Iron Skin stage, he could still feel the heavy thrum of their impact.
Yet as if oblivious to it, he sprinted at top speed through the mountain woods, where heaven and earth were already shrouded in pitch darkness.
With his newfound strength and his heart burning with anxiety, he took shortcuts all the way.
He surged directly against the mountain torrents.
The flash floods roared, yellow dragons surging in all directions with deafening fury.
Two hours passed, and Xu Yao's black-clad silhouette appeared near Black Pine Ridge, cutting a straight black line through the storm as he scaled toward the crest.
He knew where his father gathered herbs.
As Physician Xu's son, and given that this wasn't Physician Xu's first time gathering Cloud-Rain White Ganoderma—something even Liu Taohua knew—how could Xu Yao not know? His objective was crystal clear.
*If Dad wants to gather Cloud-Rain White Ganoderma, he has to wait until the rain passes. Since it hasn't stopped yet, he's definitely still in that patch of woods.*
Xu Yao knew what to expect.
His destination was that dense grove of black pines near the crest of the ridge.
Lightning crisscrossed directly overhead, alternating between pitch blackness and blinding incandescence.
The mountain forest flickered in and out of sight, as if countless vengeful ghosts and evil fiends were dancing wildly in the mist of the storm and lightning.
Xu Yao couldn't help recalling those words: *It constantly feels faint and indistinct, like there are people everywhere...*
The sensation was so tangible.
The rumbling thunder sounded as though it would blast this entire stretch of mountain forest to pieces.
Xu Yao finally scaled Black Pine Ridge. Grabbing a protruding rock above, he vaulted up to the highest point.
Then, he dashed straight for the black pine woods.
Heavy rain pounded around him into wildly fluttering, glittering butterflies of water, and he charged forward against the lightning.
His pitch-black silhouette seemed to carve an open path straight through the lightning.
Chapter 52