Green Gas

After taking the Forget-Love Pill, Luo Mu's head felt perfectly normal. Instead, an unbearable pain gripped his lower abdomen, forcing him to think of the pill he had just swallowed.

If Bai Lin had been telling the truth, then his head should be hurting now. There was no reason for the pain to be in his lower abdomen!

But at the time, Luo Mu had been unable to move. Even if he had known there was something wrong with the Forget-Love Pill, he could do nothing about it. Now the agony made his entire body curl up, and sweat poured down him.

Black blood seeped from his nostrils and dripped to the ground. This only strengthened Luo Mu's conviction: there was definitely something wrong with the Forget-Love Pill.

After studying medicine for so many years, if he couldn't even figure out what was happening right in front of him, then all his medical studies would have been for nothing.

The intense pain made Luo Mu writhe on the ground. In a short while, the floor was covered with black blood. Then the agony overwhelmed him, and he passed out. He lay motionless and unconscious, like a corpse.

?

"Senior, will that Forget-Love Pill really make Brother Luo Mu forget Ling'er?" On the way back, Xiao Ling'er, her face full of shame and her spirits low, asked Bai Lin beside her.

"Heh, of course. That brat will forget you completely, Junior Sister Ling'er." Bai Lin smiled meaningfully before replying.

Of course he'll forget you completely. At this point, that brat should be on the road to the Yellow Springs. Hahaha... Bai Lin gloated to himself.

Hearing Bai Lin's certainty, Xiao Ling'er looked conflicted. At last, she let out a deep sigh, her feelings in turmoil.

"Junior Sister, there's no need to feel this way. Remember, you're a noble cultivator. You and that brat belong to entirely different worlds. If you keep spending time with him, you'll only ruin your future. You have to forget him completely, so he won't hold back your cultivation!" Seeing Xiao Ling'er looking down, Bai Lin knew exactly why and hurried to console her in a grave, earnest tone.

"Thank you for reminding me, Senior. Ling'er knows what she wants. Brother Luo Mu... Ling'er will forget him completely." After a moment of struggle, resolve appeared on Xiao Ling'er's face, and she spoke with unwavering conviction.

"Good! Good! Good! Knowing you can think this way, Junior Sister Ling'er puts my mind at ease!" Bai Lin's face lit up. He called out "Good!" three times before replying happily.

Father Xiao watched all of this without saying a word, his expression unchanged. Yet deep down, he couldn't get past it. The image of Father Luo, now dead, kept circling through his mind, leaving Father Xiao feeling deeply guilty toward the deceased Father Luo and his only beloved son, Luo Mu.

Father Xiao also knew that things had reached this point and there was no turning back. All he could do now was take things as they came, one step at a time. After acting against his conscience, he could only hope that, as Bai Lin had said, Xiao Ling'er would become a cultivator and bring glory and prosperity to the Xiao Family, earning them the respect of others and a life above the common people.

If things really turned out that way, Father Xiao would consider it all worthwhile!

"The sun has already set. Once we get back, Junior Sister, get your things ready and have a good night's sleep. We'll set out for Jinxiu City first thing tomorrow morning," Bai Lin said, glancing at the sky.

"Mm. I'll do whatever you say, Senior," Xiao Ling'er replied with a slight nod.

Xiao Ling'er no longer thought about Luo Mu at all. In her eyes, her future mattered most. Learning that she would be going with Bai Lin to Jinxiu City the next day made her a little excited. She was eager to begin a whole new life and enter a world she had never before been worthy of setting foot in.

The sun sank below the hills, and the sky gradually darkened. The moon that should have appeared did not; instead, one enormous dark cloud after another rolled in.

A short while later, strong winds swept through Dragon Gate Town. The trees bent under their force, and leaves whirled through the air. The delicate flowers in the grass were battered to pieces, their petals torn away.

At this rate, a storm would soon descend upon Dragon Gate Town!

"Bang! Bang..." The doors of Luo Mu's clinic were blown open by the gale. The wind battered them against the walls again and again, sending loud crashes through the air.

When Xiao Ling'er and the others left, Father Xiao, feeling guilty, had closed the doors behind them. But they could only be locked from the inside. Luo Mu, unconscious on the floor, had of course been unable to lock them. So when the gale arrived, the doors were blown open with ease.

"Creak... creak..." The gale rushed into the room, making something creak loudly, though it was impossible to tell what. In the darkened room, Luo Mu still lay motionless on the floor like a dead man. He had no idea a storm was coming—and it was impossible to tell whether he was truly dead.

After the gale raged for a full hour, a deafening crash sounded in the sky. Lightning flashed, and rain poured down in torrents. At last, the storm had arrived!

Lightning streaked across the sky again and again, turning the whole world silver-white. Through the clinic's open doors, the brilliant flashes revealed Luo Mu, who had lain motionless on the ground for hours. He was slowly, laboriously, beginning to get up.

If Bai Lin had been there to see this, he would surely have cried out that he was seeing a ghost! He was the only one who knew there was no such thing as a Forget-Love Pill in this world. Even if one existed, it was beyond his reach. The so-called Forget-Love Pill he had given Luo Mu was indeed a precious, mid-grade first-tier pill—but it wasn't a Forget-Love Pill. It was poison!

The poison was called the Heartbreak Pill. Its potency terrified even many Qi Refining Stage cultivators. Anyone who took it and failed to consume the antidote within the allotted time would truly experience the feeling of having their heart—and guts—torn apart, just as its name promised.

And Bai Lin had called this poison a Forget-Love Pill, then had Xiao Ling'er personally feed it to Luo Mu. His malice was plain to see. Even ordinary Qi Refining Stage cultivators found the poison difficult to handle, yet a mere mortal like Luo Mu had swallowed it. The outcome should have been obvious without a second thought.

And yet, incredibly, Luo Mu had not died after taking the Heartbreak Pill. Instead, he had slowly crawled up from the floor. It was utterly bizarre.

Luo Mu lay face down on the table, his shoulders heaving as though he were catching his breath. Outside, the rain continued to fall, the gale continued to rage, and lightning continued to flash. But Luo Mu, bent over the table, seemed completely unaware of it all, letting the wind and rain blow into the room.

Luo Mu's shoulders heaved even more violently. But this time, he wasn't catching his breath. He was laughing. His laughter was quiet, but his whole body shook with it.

"Heh... heh..." His low laughter carried joy, but also loneliness. His feelings seemed tangled and complicated.

His laughter continued for the time it took to eat a meal before finally stopping. Luo Mu straightened his head and sat upright on the stool. The gale rushed into the room again, making his long robe snap and flutter. Without even turning around, Luo Mu waved a hand. A stream of green gas shot from it and struck the clinic's two doors, which the wind had blown open, in an instant.

Bang! Defying the gale, the doors slammed shut. The wooden bar that secured them dropped into place by itself, wedging them firmly closed. The wind could no longer force them open.

At that moment, faint green gas was rising from Luo Mu's hands. It was utterly miraculous; unless someone looked closely, they would have a hard time noticing anything at all.

Luo Mu stared at his hands with a complicated expression. One moment he looked fascinated, the next frustrated, then solemn. His expression kept changing, impossible to read.

Luo Mu had only just discovered that he was still alive. Filled with both joy and sadness, he had laughed for the time it took to eat a meal. Once he was done, he began examining his body. From his earlier symptoms, he was certain he had been poisoned. Why he hadn't died left him utterly confused, so he started searching for the cause.

The moment he looked, he froze in place!

His dantian, which had never been able to gather spiritual energy despite all the low-grade spirit herbs he had taken, now contained a faint green gas. This discovery sent Luo Mu into a frenzy of joy! But in its wake came a flood of confusion!

If gas was present in the dantian, that proved a person had reached the lowest level of cultivation: the Qi Refining Stage! That was why Luo Mu was overjoyed!

However, the spiritual energy gathered in the dantians of Qi Refining Stage cultivators was milky white, while the gas in Luo Mu's dantian was pale green! That was what confused him.

Over the years, although Luo Mu's dantian had been unable to gather spiritual energy, he had read every book about the cultivation world in the small-town school again and again. They were nothing precious, and only covered basic knowledge of the cultivation world, but he had still learned a great deal from them.

At school, Luo Mu could be said to know more about the fundamentals of the cultivation world than any other student. Yet even a well-read student like him had never seen any book say that spiritual energy gathered in the dantian could be green!

Just as he thought of this, Luo Mu, his face full of frustration, heard the doors banging against the walls behind him. He was about to get up and close them when his eyes suddenly shifted, and he abandoned the idea of going over himself.

Since he couldn't figure out what the green gas in his dantian was, he could test whether it had the properties of spiritual energy. With that thought, Luo Mu followed the instructions in the books and began to guide the gas into his palm.

And that was how he had closed the doors.

Luo Mu was thrilled that he had managed to shut the doors! As his excitement rose, he began carefully examining the green gas on his palm. He completely forgot about the fact that he had taken a poison pill and not died. The green gas had claimed all of his attention.

After carefully inspecting the green gas on his palm, Luo Mu had become the way he was now. Fascination, frustration, solemnity—his expression shifted constantly, showing just how turbulent his emotions were.

Because, after taking a close look, Luo Mu had realized that the green gas gathered in his dantian wasn't spiritual energy at all!