"Back when I roamed the Central Continent, I made quite a name for myself. If someone hadn't gone around broadcasting my aphrodisiac properties and forced me to seek refuge in the Dao Seeking Sect, I'd still be out traveling right now."
"The person traveling with me was also a renowned figure among your human race, known as Layman Guyue. When he brought me to the Dao Seeking Sect, he even said he would write about me in his book so the whole world would remember me."
Layman Guyue was a famous traveler of the Central Continent. He had a passion for roaming and adventure, leaving his footprints across the Central Continent, the Demon Domain, the Buddhist Kingdom, and beyond. Legends of him circulated everywhere.
According to one legend, he had once served as a court historian in the Great Xia Dynasty, meticulously recording Emperor Xia's romantic encounters among commoners and tallying how many illegitimate children he had.
In the Demon Domain, he was abducted by a dragon princess, fled right when he was about to be forced into marriage, and was pursued all the way to the Buddhist Kingdom.
In the Buddhist Kingdom, he posed as a monk and swindled people. Whenever someone caught him in a logical flaw or posed an unanswerable question, he would say, "The Buddha says, 'It cannot be spoken.'" Later, that phrase spread far and wide throughout the Buddhist Kingdom.
Layman Guyue compiled everything he had seen and heard into books, which became widely popular across the cultivation world.
Though no ancient texts explicitly recorded Layman Guyue's cultivation level, Lu Yang figured it had to be quite high—if it had been even a bit lower, he would have been beaten to death long ago.
The Ginseng Baby made for an excellent teacher. Many of the stories it told were past events from its own personal experience; several medicinal herbs in the garden had even been discovered during its travels with Layman Guyue. Lu Yang followed behind, bobbing his head and listening with great relish.
The human and ginseng arrived at a small cottage constructed from flowers and grasses. The closer they drew to the cottage, the more Lu Yang could sense a vitality within that felt almost tangible, making his heart leap into his throat.
"Something's wrong!" Lu Yang clutched his chest, his body trembling uncontrollably.
*Thump, thump, thump...* His heart raced faster and faster, and a continuous buzzing filled his ears, as though countless tiny insects were swarming around his head.
Listening closely, a chill seized Lu Yang to his core, and his spine went cold. That wasn't the sound of tiny insects at all—it was the sound of countless people speaking inside his body!
Those voices cried out that they were trapped inside his body, demanding to leave, demanding to break free...
The Ginseng Baby was the first to notice something was amiss with Lu Yang and shouted loudly, "Hey, hey, hey! We've got an outsider here! You lot be careful and reel your vitality back in, hurry up!"
Lu Yang circulated his cultivation technique to calm his boiling blood, and only then did the voices gradually fade away.
Lu Yang knelt on the ground, gasping for breath. What had just happened was no hallucination—something had truly stirred inside him. What was that?!
The Ginseng Baby set down the emptied spirit stones and trotted up to Lu Yang with an apologetic tone.
"Sorry about that. I didn't realize you hadn't reached the Nascent Soul stage yet."
Unlike humans, the cultivation of a Medicine King was judged not by cultivation stage, but solely by years of growth. The Ginseng Baby couldn't discern Lu Yang's cultivation level; it had simply found him pleasant to look at.
"What... was that just now?" Lu Yang asked, his wits still scattered, as if he had just taken a stroll through the depths of the Netherworld.
"Little Ba and that she-devil have cultivation levels far too high among your human race, so I overlooked how our vitality would affect you."
"Our vitality is so exuberant that it's enough to cause every single one of your organs to develop a will of its own and become a brand-new individual. Only when you cultivate to the Nascent Soul stage, with all your acupoints perfected and your golden body made leakless, will you no longer be affected by our vitality."
Alerted by the Ginseng Baby's shouting, countless three-inch-tall medicinal herbs came hopping over to Lu Yang's side.
"Ginseng King, is this a human? Why is he so small?"
"What do you mean 'so small'? He's clearly the exact same height as us! Does that make you tiny too?!"
"It has to be a spell! Human spells are amazing. What's so weird about turning big or small? I've even seen spells that turn a man into a woman, or a human into a demon!"
"This guy's cultivation doesn't look very high. Hasn't he reached the pregnancy stage yet?"
"What pregnancy stage? Kirin King, your memory is getting worse by the day—it's called the Nascent Soul stage!"
"He looks like he can barely stand. Let's carry him into the cottage."
The little Medicine Kings chattered all at once in hushed voices, creating a maddening drone in his ears.
They lifted Lu Yang over their heads and carried him into the cottage built of flowers and grasses.
The Enlightenment Tree King stood outside and scratched its trunk, rustling its leaves with a loud swoosh; it was simply too large to fit inside.
Only after entering did Lu Yang realize the cottage was not made of flowers and grasses at all, but constructed from ancient timber. Under the influence of the little Medicine Kings' vitality, the ancient wood had rejuvenated, sprouting new leaves and blossoms that concealed its original appearance.
Lu Yang felt much better. He slowly stood up and tried to identify these Medicine Kings.
As luck would have it, he didn't recognize a single one.
"Human, what's your name?" asked a small herb with three tender blades. It was entirely silver, its leaves dotted with starlight like a miniature cosmos.
"This junior is Lu Yang. May I ask how to address Senior...?" Lu Yang asked politely. Going by age, these little Medicine Kings were not only his seniors, but the seniors of everyone in the Dao Seeking Sect.
"It's the Three-Leaf Star Herb; we all call it the Star King," another little Medicine King chimed in briskly. It was a seven-colored blossom whose petals corresponded to the five colors of the five elements. The center of the flower was divided into black and white—a dot of white within the black, and a dot of black within the white—arranged like a taiji diagram, resembling an ink-wash painting. It was exquisitely beautiful, drawing anyone who looked at it into an involuntary trance.
"I am the Flower of Time's Demise. Just call me Demise King. Everyone says I'm the most beautiful flower there is, but I think people are just jealous of my charm and trying to flatter me into ruin. As a modest Medicine King, I consider myself merely the second most beautiful flower in the world..." The Flower of Time's Demise prattled on without pause.
Lu Yang stared at the Flower of Time's Demise for two seconds, his pupils slowly dilating in disbelief. Although he had never seen what it looked like, he had heard of its renowned name.
"The Flower of Time's Demise?! The very flower said to bloom in its most radiant form only at the end of the world, amid catastrophic devastation, freezing even time itself?!"
Lu Yang could hardly be blamed for losing his composure. Ancient texts recorded that the blooming of the Flower of Time's Demise was synonymous with the apocalypse, signaling a total reset of the entire world.
Yet according to historical records, no such cataclysm had ever occurred!
The Flower of Time's Demise scratched at its nectar in vexation. "Some people do say that, sure. But as I recall, it was a very peaceful time when I bloomed. Everyone was getting along wonderfully, and there wasn't any disaster in sight. All those stories about my blooming must just be rumors."
Just as Lu Yang was about to ask more, another little Medicine King spoke up.
"Lu Yang, what did you come to the Herb Garden for? Did Little Ba send you to pick herbs?" asked a tiny jade-green kirin. Carved like fine jasper, it was extraordinarily exquisite, bearing no resemblance to anything of the mortal world.
Lu Yang was startled once again. "A kirin?!"
What was a kirin? It was the most mysterious of all demonic beasts. Across the entire world, one would be lucky to find even one or two, making them far rarer than cultivators in the Tribulation Transcendence stage. Traces of them could only be found in sparse fragments of ancient texts. Yet the Dao Seeking Sect actually possessed one?
The sect's hidden foundation was terrifying beyond his wildest imagination.
The Ginseng Baby explained, "It's the Kirin Immortal Herb. Its current appearance is just its manifestation form. Your cultivation isn't deep enough yet; once you reach the Soul Formation stage and cultivate the Heavenly Eye, you'll be able to see its true body."
Chapter 34