Pan Long spent about half an hour preparing the medicine.
Green, red, white... all kinds of medicinal ingredients were kneaded together until they became a deep-purple salve.
At market prices, the half mortar of deep-purple salve was worth far more than an equal volume of gold. Even a palm-sized box of it would be enough to keep an ordinary family fed and clothed for years.
And that was only the cost of making it.
Zheng Shuang had no way of knowing the salve's true value, but he was no fool. An Innate Master had spent two days searching the mountains for its ingredients, and the supplementary herbs alone had cost nearly ten taels of gold. Of course Zheng Shuang understood how precious it must be.
Without his master's help, he could have bankrupted himself and still not afforded it.
Books were for the poor; martial arts were for the rich. This made the saying plain enough.
With the salve ready, Pan Long began guiding Zheng Shuang through his training.
This older disciple really was getting on in years. His muscles and bones were terribly stiff, and his joints and muscles all needed to be stretched and loosened.
His blood and vitality had also begun to wane. Without replenishment from outside sources, his body could not withstand training that "tempered the sinews, bones, and skin without, and cultivated a single breath within."
Worse still, his body was badly weakened. His organs had never been properly nourished, and he carried many hidden injuries. He had learned to cook as a child, practicing through the coldest days of Winter and the hottest days of summer. That had given him knife skills impressive enough to win even Pan Long's admiration and stir his desire to take on such talent, but it had also left