Immortal Pills of Legend

Two days later, Chen Xuan paid another visit to Hundred Herbs Hall.

The same receptionist came forward to greet him. "Welcome. Do you have a prescription... Why are you here again?"

Hostility!

"I'm not here to buy medicine. I'm here to sell it," he said bluntly.

"Sell medicine?" She looked Chen Xuan up and down, then pointed to a door deeper inside the pharmacy. "Go over there and find Doctor Jiang."

Chen Xuan had thought she would give him a cold look and throw him out.

The Voice of Trust's judgment was rather vague... It seemed to be about the same as a gut feeling.

When he entered a separate room beside the hall, a middle-aged man in a white coat received him. "Selling medicine? Dry goods or fresh goods?"

Because Foothill Mountain was a famous mountain known throughout the land, most local pharmacies both sold and bought medicinal herbs. Most of what they bought came from herbalists who lived off the mountain. Wild lingzhi and wild ginseng, in particular, were hard to distinguish from cultivated varieties in terms of efficacy, but adding the word "wild" could multiply their price several times over.

Chen Xuan had looked into it beforehand. Dry goods referred to herbs that had been sun-dried, while fresh goods were newly picked from the mountain. Pharmacies generally only accepted dried medicinal creatures such as snakes, scorpions, and centipedes—that was, ones that had been baked dry.

He sat opposite Doctor Jiang and placed a Blood Orange on the table.

"Young man, what is this?"

Doctor Jiang smiled as though he had seen something curious. He picked up the pill, examined it, then brought it to his nose and sniffed it twice. "Take it home and eat it yourself. We don't accept finished medicine here."

Chen Xuan did not mind. "It's called Blood Orange. It specifically treats external injuries."

"Even if it were an Immortal Pill that cured every disease, it still wouldn't work." Doctor Jiang chuckled. "If you want to sell finished medicine, do you have a pharmaceutical manufacturing license? Have you conducted pathological and toxicological tests? We're a legitimate pharmacy, and every finished medicine we sell has a legal source. Yours doesn't even have packaging. Who would dare take it?"

The man's reaction was completely within Chen Xuan's expectations.

Joan of Arc's subordinates had proven how effective the prescription was. Selling medicine to earn the money to open his shop was still the easiest option available to him. Over the past two days, he had mainly been busy gathering herbs and refining pills. He had accumulated more than twenty pills, most of them Blood Oranges, whose effects were more immediately apparent. But selling them through ordinary means was clearly impossible. To outsiders, these things were just lumps of mud. Unless they witnessed the effects firsthand, no one would take them seriously.

Chen Xuan suddenly pulled out a pair of scissors.

"Hey, young man, let's talk this out!"

Doctor Jiang's face changed instantly. "Every grievance has its source! If you have a problem, go to the hospital next door!"

Chen Xuan took a deep breath and sliced the back of his own hand with the scissors!

A sharp, piercing pain shot through him, and blood immediately welled up.

The doctor's face went even paler.

Stabbing himself before making a move—what kind of ruthless man was this?

"The medicine." He pointed at the pill in Doctor Jiang's hand.

"Ah, here, take it, take it..." The latter hurriedly offered it back, afraid Chen Xuan would misunderstand and think he was trying to steal it.

Chen Xuan said nothing more. He crushed it on the spot, swallowed one segment, and rubbed another over the wound. In less than ten seconds, the pain began to fade, and a layer of white frost gradually spread over the injury.

Doctor Jiang stared blankly at the changes on Chen Xuan's hand.

"...This isn't some magic trick, is it?" he finally managed to say after a long while.

"Then try it yourself." Chen Xuan pushed the scissors toward him.

After hesitating, he surprisingly did not refuse. "Not this. There could be cross-infection... Wait here."

Doctor Jiang rummaged through his desk for a while, then took out a blood lancet used for blood sugar tests.

The wound it made was small, but it was convenient and sterile.

And he did not test it right away.

Perhaps out of caution, he first brewed two cups of tea himself and brought them over. After waiting a full fifteen minutes, he checked Chen Xuan's wound again, then gave him a complete examination by looking, listening, questioning, and taking his pulse. Only after confirming there were no signs of poisoning did he begin the test.

Following Chen Xuan's demonstration, he pricked his finger several times, then swallowed and applied the Blood Orange. Afterward, he squeezed the wound hard. Yet no matter how much strength he used, he could not force out another drop of blood.

"Whoa, it's miraculous!" Doctor Jiang completely changed his attitude and exclaimed repeatedly. "Young man, where did you get this medicine?"

"It's inconvenient to say."

"Why sell it to Hundred Herbs Hall? Can't it be mass-produced?" He was somewhat puzzled. "As long as proprietary Chinese medicine has real effects, the drug administration bureau will issue a license. If you sold it yourself, you could charge however much you wanted."

That was exactly the problem.

Even with identical ingredients, without an alchemist using qi to help the pill take shape, what came out of the furnace would only be medicinal dregs.

Making a few once in a while was fine, but Chen Xuan had no desire to sit in front of a Pressure Cooker all day as a full-time pill refiner.

Besides, following the official process meant undergoing review. If they asked where his factory was, what machines he had, or how many tests he had conducted, he would have no answers. Was he supposed to say that he could only make the medicine by hand? He wanted to make money to support his shop, not be studied as some kind of new human species.

"How should I know? I'm only responsible for deliveries." Chen Xuan made as if to leave. "Just tell me whether you want them. There are plenty of pharmacies around here."

"Wait. I can't make this decision myself. I'll call the boss over."

Doctor Jiang took out his phone and walked to the door, speaking quickly for a few moments. He nodded vigorously throughout, as though trying to prove that he was telling the truth.

In less than half a minute, the boss came downstairs.

He appeared to be around sixty. His temples were slightly gray, but he was in excellent spirits. He walked with a spring in his step, and the moment he entered, he asked in a booming voice, "You're the customer selling medicine? What should I call you?"

"Chen Xuan."

"Boss Xu," Doctor Jiang introduced. "He has the final say in all of Hundred Herbs Hall's business."

Chen Xuan nodded. He had already figured it out without the introduction. Photos of the boss hung on the walls of both the pharmacy hall and office, with the name Xu Wangxian written beneath them.

"You tested it?" the boss asked his doctor.

"Yes... It really works. But the wound I made was rather small—"

"Let me try it too. Go get a knife and disinfect it with alcohol."

"Ah? This..."

"What's with that?" Xu Wangxian waved his hand. "It's not that I don't trust you, but I need to see something like this with my own eyes. The top-tier hospital is right next door. Even if something goes wrong, there's nothing to fear."

Seeing Chen Xuan's surprised expression, Doctor Jiang explained while searching for a knife, "Heh, don't let the boss's age fool you. He used to climb mountains alone to gather herbs all the time."

Chen Xuan could not help revising his opinion of Boss Xu. He had thought that, at his age, Xu Wangxian treated Hundred Herbs Hall more as a tool for making money and did not particularly care whether the medicine worked—or how well it worked. But now it seemed that not only did the man care deeply about efficacy, he also had quite a practical spirit.

After a round of testing, the result was exactly the same.

Xu Wangxian watched the wound gradually become covered in white frost. His face was equally shocked, though his expression was more complicated than Doctor Jiang's, as if it carried a mixture of emotions. Only after a long while did he look at Chen Xuan. "How do you want to sell them?"

"One hundred thousand per pill."

"How many do you have?"

"Twenty-six. But only nineteen are Blood Oranges. The other seven treat pneumonia and respiratory illnesses. I call them Sweet Jade Clear Pills."

Doctor Jiang looked troubled as he turned to the boss. "That would be 2.6 million..."

Xu Wangxian did not hesitate for long. "I'll take them all, at the price you named."

Chen Xuan nodded in satisfaction. If the other party had shown even the slightest inclination to haggle, he would have walked away. "To be fair, that price isn't high. If you encountered someone urgently needing their life saved, raising it several times over would be easy."

It was inconvenient for him to seek out such people himself, but a pharmacy that worked with hospitals could easily do so.

"You're right, but medicine is ultimately meant to cure illnesses and save lives... If only a tiny number of people can afford it, then it loses its proper meaning." Xu Wangxian gave a wry smile. "Would it be alright if the money arrived this afternoon? Raising that much cash will take some time..."

"Fine. Let's sign a contract." Chen Xuan did not make things difficult for him.

Setting the price at one hundred thousand was also a matter of cash flow. He could certainly have charged more, and pharmacies would surely have been willing to buy, but it would be difficult to make them immediately produce several million—or even tens of millions—in liquid funds. The economy was poor these days, and taking a few months to turn over funds before paying was normal. He could not wait that long.

Besides, this was only the price of one batch of medicine.

He could refine more later.

After signing the contract, Xu Wangxian said again, "My young friend, I have one more presumptuous request. I wonder if you might agree to it."

He had been calling him "young man" before, but now he was directly calling him "my young friend."

"Go ahead."

"If you have new medicines to sell in the future, could you give Hundred Herbs Hall priority? The price is negotiable... We'll do our best to meet your requirements."

It was not a major issue. Chen Xuan thought it over and agreed directly.

After Chen Xuan left, Doctor Jiang could not help saying, "If we transfer the payment to him first, buying other medicinal materials may become a problem... And this miracle medicine for external injuries costs one hundred thousand per pill. Not only are there few people who can afford it, they would also need to happen to encounter a patient who needs it... Isn't taking all of them too risky?"

"And what do you suggest?" Xu Wangxian carefully placed the contract into a document bag as though it were some priceless treasure.

"Wouldn't it be better to take half first, or partner with other pharmacies to buy them? We wouldn't need to trouble the young man. We could negotiate it ourselves."

"No need. I'll take however many he brings. That is the most basic sincerity."

"Sincerity?" Doctor Jiang looked at his boss as though he were meeting him for the first time.

"Have you heard of Immortal Pills?" Xu Wangxian suddenly asked.

"The kind in movies?"

"Some things in this world are naturally extraordinary. Medicine is no exception. No one knows where they come from, so they are collectively called Immortal Objects. Such things rarely circulate and are traded only among a small number of people." He looked at the document bag and spoke slowly. "I saw one thirty years ago, though I only glimpsed it from afar. I never expected to see one again after so long... and for it to be delivered into my hands. Tell me, how could I possibly let such an opportunity pass?"

It was Doctor Jiang's first time hearing of such a thing. "Old Xu, are you serious?"

"You've followed me for so long. When have I ever lied to you? I never mentioned it before because I had no proof. Bringing it up would only sound like a daydream. You graduated from a prestigious university too, so tell me: what medicine can achieve this? You can't even invent pharmacological principles to explain it. Do you think it is still ordinary proprietary Chinese medicine?" Xu Wangxian's tone brimmed with excitement. "I'd wager that if you took this medicine to be tested now, identified every ingredient, and made another one, it still would not achieve even one-tenth of its current effect."

"I... need a moment..." Doctor Jiang found it hard to believe. "You mean Immortal Pills truly exist? Do medical schools know about this?"

"Across the country? I'd guess some do. But these things defy common sense. Talking about them would only create more confusion, so they certainly wouldn't be written into textbooks." Xu Wangxian patted his shoulder. "Before we obtained Immortal Pills, we were outsiders. You could treat it as a story or a joke. But now that we have Immortal Pills, Hundred Herbs Hall has a chance to squeeze into that circle. That is why we must show my young friend enough sincerity."

"Chen Xuan said he was only selling the medicine. He isn't the one who made it..."

"Does that mean what he said must be true?" Xu Wangxian laughed. "Even if he did not make the medicine, what relationship does he have with the maker for the maker to let him handle the sale of the medicine entirely? Since it is connected to Immortal Pills, what matters is fate. Whether that sincerity is given to him or to the pill maker makes no difference."