The Demonic Path (Please Read On)

Once the medicine fair began, Wang Qinian hurried off to discuss a large-scale medicinal herb deal with the people from Gao Manor.

Qian Ming and Zhou Li followed Wang Qinian to the trading district, while Lu Chen stayed by Ge Ye's side and headed with him to the alchemist exchange.

The gathering was held in a spacious flower hall in Gao Manor's inner courtyard.

Windows opened on all four sides of the hall, and the fragrance of osmanthus trees drifted in from outside. More than a dozen long tables stood within.

Tea cups, medicine trays, incense burners, and samples of pills, sliced medicinal herbs, and rubbings of incomplete prescriptions brought by various alchemists lay atop the tables.

Several alchemists sat together, carefully examining a pill as they occasionally argued over its medicinal properties and the control of the flame.

The moment Ge Ye entered, someone looked up and laughed. "Old Ghost Ge, you're here!"

Ge Ye's face darkened. "Old Luo, you're not dead yet?"

The man had white hair and beard, wore a long blue-cloth robe, and was somewhat plump. When he smiled, his eyes narrowed into slits.

"You're still alive, so how could I dare leave first?"

Ge Ye snorted and walked over to sit down. "Cut the nonsense. Take out whatever good medicine you have and let this old man broaden his horizons."

Ge Ye had considerable connections among alchemists. Once he sat down, many people came over to chat with him.

Lu Chen stood quietly behind Ge Ye and listened.

He could not understand most of what these alchemists were discussing.

Things like three turns of flame control, clashing medicinal properties, the timing of supplementary herbs, and the quality of a pill's coating.

Sun Shun, the medicine apprentice beside him, also wore a thoroughly baffled expression.

Before long, the topic shifted from pill formulas to the recent disturbances in the medicine market.

Apothecary Luo raised his tea cup, and the smile on his face faded somewhat.

"Speaking of which, have you heard about that strange Blood-Qi Powder that has recently appeared on the market?"

Another alchemist frowned. "You mean the Blood-Qi Powder that costs half as much?"

"Precisely."

Apothecary Luo set down his tea cup and lowered his voice.

"The medicine has some efficacy, but without even getting close, you can smell an extremely strong stench of human blood."

The flower hall fell silent.

Ge Ye frowned. "The smell of human blood?"

Apothecary Luo nodded, his expression grave. "Some have privately named it—the Human Blood Pill."

"Human Blood Pill?"

Clear shock appeared on Ge Ye's face.

Another alchemist said, "I specifically studied it. It is made from a martial artist's essence blood. Its effects are roughly comparable to genuine Blood-Qi Powder, but it costs half as much. If you buy in bulk, there is even a discount."

Ge Ye pressed a hand against the table, his tone sinking. "Using people to refine pills—this is the work of the demonic path!"

The several alchemists beside him all revealed looks of disgust and hatred.

Apothecary Luo sighed. "Isn't that so? But this stuff is cheap. How much does ordinary Blood-Qi Powder cost? That Human Blood Pill costs only half as much. For some low-rank martial artists with empty purses, even if they know its origins are improper, there are still those willing to buy it."

One alchemist sneered. "Take such pills, and the blood and qi you cultivate will be impure, poison will build in the five organs, and you will sever your own future."

"How would those poor martial brutes care about that? As long as they can grow stronger quickly and strut their strength for a time, that is already an immense joy to them."

"Some clans and factions even want to expand. They buy these Human Blood Pills in bulk to cultivate a great number of low-rank martial artists as deathsworn."

Apothecary Luo said this.

Ge Ye sighed helplessly. "Demonic alchemists have no taboos. They can use anything as medicine and refine it into pills."

It seemed to stir up old memories. A nostalgic look entered his eyes as he said, "When I was young, I heard my master say that some demonic alchemists would hunt down gifted alchemists everywhere in order to improve their own aptitude."

"They used secret arts to extract souls and refine those souls into pill furnaces, thereby strengthening their spiritual sense and improving their comprehension of medicine refinement."

"And now this Human Blood Pill has appeared..."

Lu Chen's gaze narrowed slightly.

Using souls as nourishment to improve one's aptitude for medicine refinement?

This world actually had such an evil art?

Apothecary Luo had heard of it as well and picked up the thread. "Soul-Extraction Alchemy... that was a method of the old Demon Pill Sect. Those beasts should have long ago been wiped out by Great Zhou, shouldn't they?"

Another alchemist shook his head. "The sect may have been destroyed, but its people may not have all died. Its legacy may not have been completely severed either."

"As long as a pill formula or refining method gets passed down, demonic alchemists will soon rise again from dead ashes."

Ge Ye nodded. "The reason the demonic path causes such great harm, yet people still rush toward it one after another, is because they understand the greed in human nature all too well."

Then Ge Ye changed the subject and asked, "What is the Gaolin County authorities' stance?"

Apothecary Luo said, "Of course they have been investigating strictly, but there have been no results."

"The people selling the pills are extremely cautious. The pills circulate only in secret on the black market. Every time some clue is found, the people vanish."

Ge Ye fell silent for a moment, then suddenly asked, "Has anyone brought you one of these Human Blood Pills to examine?"

Apothecary Luo took a small porcelain bottle, tightly sealed, from his sleeve and placed it on the table.

"I have one here."

"A few days ago, someone brought it to me to identify, saying it was a newly released, cheap Blood-Qi Powder. I could tell from the smell that something was wrong, so I spent one tael of silver to keep it."

Ge Ye reached out, picked up the porcelain bottle, and pulled out its stopper.

A thick, sweetly fishy stench of blood immediately wafted out.

Lu Chen's nose twitched, and his brows immediately furrowed.

The medicinal fragrance of genuine Blood-Qi Powder was stronger than its bloody smell, so it was not pungent to the nose.

But the scent given off by this pill was like fresh blood forcibly boiled dry, then mixed with inferior herbs and congealed into a pill. It was fishy, restless, and fierce, drilling straight into one's nostrils and stirring irritation in the heart.

Ge Ye tipped the porcelain bottle slightly, and a dark-red pill rolled into his palm.

The pill was an extremely deep color. Its surface lacked the delicate pill patterns of genuine Blood-Qi Powder. Instead, it bore several blackish-red spots, like scabs of dried blood.

Ge Ye narrowed his eyes. He first brought it close to smell it, then used his fingernail to lightly scrape a small bit of powder from its edge.

He rubbed the powder apart between his fingertips, then added a little clean water.

The dark-red powder dissolved upon contact with water, spreading a faint ring of blood-red across the small white porcelain dish.

Before long, his expression darkened. "It really is human blood."

"They only added a little Red Blood Vine and Blood-Coagulating Powder. Aside from human blood, the other supplementary herbs make up less than a third."

Someone voiced a doubt. "A martial artist does not have much essence blood. How many Human Blood Pills can be refined from it?"

"I would say fewer than three."

"Three taels of silver in exchange for a martial artist's life—however you look at it, that does not seem worthwhile!"

"To raise a martial artist, medicinal baths, meat, cultivation techniques—what does not cost silver? And it takes at least several months."

"This demonic path business does not seem very profitable."

Apothecary Luo shook his head. "The demonic path never makes a losing deal."

"They would not simply kill martial artists and take their essence blood, as you imagine."

"They surely capture martial artists elsewhere and raise them as blood slaves. Every so often, they draw blood to refine pills, then rely on the martial artists' powerful natural recovery to slowly replenish it. They torment them again and again until the person's life force is completely drained away."

"As long as they time it well, refining ten or eight pills from a single blood slave would be no problem."

Everyone in the flower hall changed expression.

Just hearing Apothecary Luo describe it sent chills down their spines.

"Those damned demonic cultivators!"

An alchemist cursed through gritted teeth.

Standing behind Ge Ye and listening to the alchemists' conversation, Lu Chen also felt a chill in his heart.

This world was even more chaotic than he had imagined.

Gaolin County was prosperous and bustling, its streets filled with the fragrance of medicine and the endless flow of carriages and people.

Yet beneath that prosperity, first there had been the flower thief Thousand-Faced Gentleman, hunted throughout the entire city, and now Human Blood Pills refined from martial artists' essence blood had emerged—of unknown origin and impossible to trace.