Poisoned

"These spirit cattle had all been poisoned. Although it was a slow-acting poison, if it kept going like this, they probably wouldn't live another year."

A chill ran through Li Jun's heart. If he had not picked up the gold foil and learned the Fusang Hand from it, he absolutely never would have discovered that the spirit cattle had been poisoned.

If all these cattle suddenly died at once, his fate was easy to imagine.

"Who poisoned them? Shen Xiyue's rivals on Medicine Peak, or competitors from other peaks?"

Li Jun sank into thought.

These spirit cattle were supplied exclusively to Shen Xiyue. Targeting these spirit cattle was clearly targeting Shen Xiyue.

"Anyone here? The oak leaves have arrived."

A shout rang out from outside the cowshed.

"Coming!"

Li Jun turned and went to the cowshed entrance, where he saw the carriage at the gate.

"Li Jun, it really is you. Everyone at Oak Garden said you got promoted, but I didn't quite believe it! I never thought you'd really come to Medicine Peak!"

Li Jun looked toward the carriage. He knew the speaker. Like him, the man was a bottom-rung laborer from Oak Garden.

The difference was that Li Jun had been responsible for tending the oak trees, while the other man was responsible for escorting the oak leaves.

"What promotion? I just changed places to put in work. Liu Yan, have you always been the one escorting the oak leaves for Medicine Peak?"

"Yeah, it's always been me. It's rare to run into someone I know. Come check them over. If there's no problem, I still have to head to the other peaks."

Li Jun nodded and stepped forward to inspect the oak leaves.

"Medicine Peak gets five hundred jin of oak leaves a week, and the oak leaves requested have to be fresh young leaves. You'd better check them properly. If there are any problems later, it's got nothing to do with me."

Liu Yan yawned and flicked a glance at Li Jun.

Without letting anything show, Li Jun patted them, looked them over, then nodded. "No problem. Thanks for the hard work. I'll take them, then."

"Great! As long as there's no problem. You get busy first. Once I finish unloading, I'll head back."

Liu Yan unloaded the oak leaves into the storeroom, glanced once more at the cowshed, and then left.

When Liu Yan had completely vanished from sight, Li Jun's expression darkened.

He came to the storeroom and looked at the oak leaves before him, a coldness rising in his face.

"Inferior oak leaves would have been one thing, but you actually poisoned them too. Zhao Wenjie, what a vicious heart you have!"

The instant he touched the oak leaves outside just now, Li Jun had relied on the herbal information recorded in the Fusang Hand and identified what was wrong with them.

A medicinal herb called Cartilage Softening Powder had been added to these oak leaves.

This herb was originally a kind of medicinal ingredient, but when eaten by spirit beasts together with oak leaves, it would become a slow-acting poison.

As time passed, the spirit beasts' bones would start to collapse, until they could no longer bear their own body weight and would pierce their own organs to death.

Moreover, this herb was extremely unusual. Once absorbed by a spirit beast, it was very difficult to detect.

"If I hadn't discovered it, the responsibility at the end would definitely have been pinned on me, the one feeding the spirit cattle."

Li Jun's eyes were icy. It had not been easy to make the spirit cattle produce more milk. How could he possibly watch helplessly as these spirit cattle were poisoned to death?

"Looking at it this way, Zhao Wenjie has been doing this for a long time. He's trying to cut off Shen Xiyue's resources. Has the competition for young sect master already intensified to this extent?"

Li Jun took a deep breath. Originally, he had thought he could be counted as someone who had finally struggled his way out.

But now it seemed he had probably jumped from one pit into another.

"I can't just sit here and wait for death. As long as Zhao Wenjie is still in Oak Garden, who knows what kind of moths he can stir up next."

Li Jun's gaze flickered, and an idea gradually formed in his heart.

Over the next few days, Li Jun first mixed medicinal herbs and washed away the Cartilage Softening Powder from the oak leaves.

After that, he performed massage treatment on the spirit cattle. After keeping at it for several days, the spirit cattle's milk really did increase!

Li Jun looked at the extra half bucket of milk, and at that moment, he felt that any amount of suffering had been worth it!

"At this rate, one extra bucket per cow shouldn't be a big problem. Thirty buckets a day, equivalent to ten low-grade spirit stones. In a month, that's... three hundred!"

Considering the individual differences between the spirit cattle, the amount of milk they produced would vary, but he should still be able to save up two hundred and fifty spirit stones in a month.

Li Jun's eyes shone, his heart incomparably excited.

With his current strength, just this surplus milk alone could absolutely satisfy his present needs. At the very least, it could support him until the late stage of Qi Refining!

"Excellent. The spirit stone problem is solved for now!"

Li Jun was very happy.

Right now, he was simply far too short on cultivation resources.

With this milk, his strength could rise steadily.

Once his strength improved, not only could he go to the Mission Hall to take on tasks, he might even be qualified to make a push for becoming an inner sect disciple.

And once he became an inner sect disciple, whether in treatment or status, he would be much better off than he was now.

"First, I'll cultivate to the third level of Qi Refining. Once I reach the third level, I can learn some offensive spells, and I'll at least have some power to protect myself."

Over the next few days, Li Jun fed the cows during the day and cultivated through the night, not daring to stop for even a moment.

The supply of oak leaves continued as usual, and Li Jun did not expose it.

As for Zhao Wenjie, he still put in poison once every week, only for Li Jun to deal with all of it.

Oak Garden.

Zhao Wenjie sat beneath the shade of a tree, drinking tea, utterly at ease.

"My lord, today's oak leaves went smoothly too. That Li Jun didn't notice anything wrong at all."

Liu Yan got down from the carriage, walked up to Zhao Wenjie, and dropped to one knee to report.

"As long as he didn't notice. Has that Li Jun shown anything unusual?" Zhao Wenjie pressed.

"Reporting to my lord, nothing unusual. That Li Jun just feeds the cows every day. His beard is scraggly, and he looks very exhausted."

Zhao Wenjie nodded. "As long as there's nothing unusual. I told you to investigate his background. How did it go?"

Liu Yan took a sheet of parchment from inside his clothes and handed it over.

"My lord, I investigated everything you asked for. To put it simply, this Li Jun is an orphan. When he was little, he was picked up by an attending deacon while the deacon was out, and then brought back to the sect."

"As for that deacon, fifteen years ago, while out on a mission, he died in the jaws of a demonic beast."

Zhao Wenjie opened the parchment, his brows furrowing.

After skimming through it, he burned it to ash with a single flame.

Liu Yan swallowed, then carefully said, "My lord, aren't we overestimating him a little? He has no relatives or friends in the Azure Cloud Sect. If not for some freak twist of fate awakening his spiritual root, he'd be nothing but a wretched life right now, not worth fearing at all."

Zhao Wenjie glanced at him and asked coldly, "Awakening a spiritual root at twenty-six years old—how likely do you think that is? There were so many people sent to act as the medicinal catalyst, yet only he sensed that something was wrong."

"If it were you, could you have done that?"

Zhao Wenjie's expression gradually turned colder, frightening Liu Yan so much that he hurriedly kowtowed and admitted his fault.

"Please calm your anger, my lord! This lowly one knows his mistake. This lowly one will go investigate at once! I'll definitely dig into him thoroughly, and I absolutely won't let a single detail slip by!"

"Hmph! Forget it. Senior Sister Yao has already given the order. Since this fellow can help Shen Xiyue refine pills, we'll let him live a while longer. When the time comes, find an opportunity to capture him alive, force him to tell us about the Purple Foundation Pill, and then it won't be too late to kill him."

Zhao Wenjie took a sip of tea and looked at Liu Yan. "Before that, keep a close eye on him for me. If he shows even the slightest abnormality, you must report it to me!"

"Yes! This lowly one obeys! Rest assured, my lord, I'll watch that fellow like a hawk!"