Special Orders, Cloud Crane Medical Hall

Su Mu's eyes narrowed slightly; faintly, he seemed to hear a death knell tolling for himself.

Putting himself in that person's shoes, if Su Mu were going on a long trip that would take about five months, he would often say half a year to leave some leeway.

But the person in charge who gave him the antidote had left him six pills before departing. Now seven months had passed with no return—clearly something was wrong.

What was he supposed to do now?

With his comprehension as high as ten points, already marking him as Excellent Talent, Raw Jade, Su Mu forcibly suppressed the panic in his heart and quickly sorted through the tangled thoughts in his mind.

"First, watch and wait for one month... then make further plans."

Though the hope was slim, he couldn't yet rule out the possibility that the person in charge had been delayed on the road.

Assuming that person was now heading back, one month later would be the final deadline. Under normal circumstances, if Su Mu didn't get the antidote after a month, he would surely die from the poison.

So he had to wait this month. If he panicked and fled this area, blindly seeking a cure, and it turned out the situation wasn't bad enough to be an Abandoned Child, that would be no different from walking to his doom.

Su Mu had long imagined breaking the poison in his body and throwing off the shackles of being a death warrior.

He wanted to reclaim the right to control his own life and death, his own fate!

But Su Mu also knew the poison in him was potent, and completely removing it wouldn't be easy. So he had been lying low, growing stronger, planning to take it slow.

Without confidence in fully detoxifying and without a certain level of strength, Su Mu was unwilling to act prematurely.

Yet things went against his wishes—plans couldn't keep up with changes. During the month of watching and waiting, he would stay at the Iron Shop, but he also had to start moving early.

"Su Mu, Su Mu, what's wrong?"

His thoughts were interrupted by a call. Li Xiaohu waved his hand vigorously in front of Su Mu's eyes.

"Ah... I'm fine."

Su Mu took a big bite of the steamed bun in his mouth. With his mind in chaos, he couldn't taste the bun at all—it was flavorless.

That same afternoon, Li Tie, who had been anxiously waiting for a reply at the Iron Shop, finally received a letter from Qingyun County. He eagerly opened it and read.

"Senior Brother wants to test Su Mu... have Su Mu forge a Thirty Refinements blade weapon as the test..."

After reading, Li Tie's expression soured. He had described Su Mu's forging experience in detail in the letter, with fair evaluations, but clearly Senior Brother wasn't convinced.

Asking a newcomer who had only been forging for a year to forge a Thirty Refinements blade weapon was far too demanding.

Right now, no one at the Iron Shop could forge a Thirty Refinements weapon.

Li Tie and another Old Master who had been steeped in forging for over twenty years both had the skill to forge Thirty Refinements weapons, but the shop's tools and ordinary iron ore couldn't meet the forging conditions.

So even if Li Tie himself took it on, it would be nearly impossible to forge a Thirty Refinements blade weapon.

"Still, let the kid try... Senior Brother isn't that unreasonable. As long as Su Mu can get into the Weapon Forging Workshop, everything will be fine."

"What I can see, Senior Brother, who's above me, will surely see Su Mu's extraordinary nature too..."

After calming his emotions, Li Tie went to the forging room and called Su Mu out.

"Su Mu, the weapons you've been forging lately are top quality, with good reviews... Now the shop has a special order. A customer specifically requested that you forge a weapon."

Li Tie paused, studying Su Mu's expression.

Su Mu grew curious. What kind of special order would make the shop owner call him out specifically?

"The special part is that the customer wants you to forge a weapon of Thirty Refinements or higher. Do you want to give it a try?"

Forge a Thirty Refinements weapon?!

Su Mu's eyes lit up. To be honest, he was already thinking of leaving—Su Mu wasn't the type to wait for death.

For a while now, his forging skill had been progressing slowly for various reasons, but Su Mu believed a big part of it was that ten-refinement weapons had lost their challenge for him.

Imagine asking a mathematician to do simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division every day—there's no way they'd improve.

The same went for Su Mu. For instance, his pharmacy skill still hadn't reached minor mastery because he only ever processed the same few herbs and boiled them simply, never delving deeper. So it was hard to advance further.

He had one month left. Challenging his own forging limits before leaving might not be a bad idea.

Su Mu agreed on the spot.

"Shop owner, I'll take this order."

"This order is special—you don't have to complete it. Just do your best." Seeing Su Mu accept without hesitation, Li Tie felt gratified and spoke earnestly.

He didn't want this to put too much pressure or disappointment on Su Mu.

As the sun slanted westward, Su Mu sealed his furnace and left the Iron Shop at dusk. He arrived at a Medicine Shop in town. The Old Physician there beamed when he saw Su Mu—over the past few months, Su Mu had become a regular, spending several taels of silver each time.

"Young friend, how many sets of herbs today?"

"Ten sets." After saying that, Su Mu changed the subject. "I also came today to ask the Old Physician to check my body."

"Of course, of course."

The Old Physician's face lit up with a bright smile. He first called for a Pharmacy Apprentice to fetch the herbs, then had Su Mu extend his hand for pulse diagnosis. The Old Physician's fingers pressed against Su Mu's wrist meridian.

After taking the pulse for a while, the Old Physician looked surprised. "I see your pulse is steady and long, your internal qi and blood are far more vigorous than ordinary people. There's nothing unusual in the pulse."

Hearing this, Su Mu spoke calmly, "Old Physician, lately whenever it's a rainy day, I get unbearably itchy, as if there are bugs crawling inside me."

"Oh?! Such a strange thing."

The Old Physician looked at Su Mu with great surprise and suspicion. Seeing that Su Mu did not seem to be joking, he had Su Mu follow him into the inner hall. Su Mu lay down on a bamboo bed, and the Old Physician pressed his ear to Su Mu's chest and abdomen, examining him carefully before a look of confusion crept over his face.

After a thorough check, he found only that Su Mu's body was robust and his internal organs stronger than an ordinary man's, but there was nothing unusual about the organs themselves—everything was perfectly normal.

"Young friend, you said earlier that when it rains or is damp, your whole body itches and you feel like insects are crawling inside you... How about this: I'll prescribe a few doses of medicine to dispel dampness and expel parasites, and we'll see if they work?"

"Alright, I'll trouble you, Physician."

Su Mu sighed inwardly. As expected, the poison in his body wouldn't be so easy to deal with, but he could still try the effects. As he got up from the bamboo bed and was about to leave—

The Old Physician called out to him from behind. Su Mu had bought quite a few medicinal herbs at the Medicine Shop, and the Old Physician, seeing that Su Mu's earlier words didn't seem false, intended to offer a word of advice.

"Young friend, if these doses don't show much effect... you could try going to Qingyun County and looking up Pharmacist Lin at the Cloud Crane Medical Hall. Pharmacist Lin's medical skills are superb—he's well-known in Qingyun County and even the surrounding counties. He'll surely cure you with a single prescription."

Qingyun County, Cloud Crane Medical Hall, Pharmacist Lin!

Su Mu committed this to memory and thanked him, "Thank you for telling me, Physician."

Leaving the Medicine Shop, Su Mu tried several other medicine shops in the town. None of the physicians there could identify the poison in his body—they couldn't even detect the slightest trace—and all shook their heads with looks of doubt.

Their final words were all more or less the same: they could prescribe a few doses of parasite-expelling and dampness-dispelling medicine to try.

Su Mu wasn't too disappointed by this result; he had expected it.

"Actually, I did gain something... I can go to Qingyun County another day."