Saving Nalan Jie's life was, in a sense, also "saving" the entire Nalan Family-
If Nalan Jie "died young" from the poison before Nalan Yan came into his own, and Nalan Su still hadn't broken through to Dou Wang, the Nalan Family would find itself in a very awkward position.
After all, she had heard that the Mu Family had a youngster named Mu Zhan. His talent wasn't on par with Nalan Yan's, but he wasn't all that far behind, either.
Without a Dou Wang holding the fort, the Nalan Family's standing in the empire would inevitably suffer, even if Nalan Yan was the Misty Cloud Sect's chief disciple.
She had come up with an idea to help rid Nalan Jie of his poison, resolving this "hidden threat" to the Nalan Family in the process. Charging just one stalk of seven illusory azure spirit saliva was already as cheap as it could possibly get.
Again, he still owed her a thank-you!
Nalan Su went out to find Nalan Jie, while a bored Xiao Yan picked up her teacup and took a sip.
Then she frowned and set it back on the table.
Tsk, I still can't get used to this stuff.
It wasn't that she was "allergic" to tea, but... why was all the tea in this world bitter?
I don't get it.
Sigh, another day of missing the GOAT... ahem, iced black tea.
Meanwhile, Apothecary was already broadcasting "noise... her dulcet tones" inside Xiao Yan's head:
"Hey, girl, what method did you come up with, exactly? Tell your big sister, won't you?"
"Curious?" Xiao Yan asked with a smile.
"Mm-hmm, curious."
"...?!"
Good grief, that's awfully "honest." Apothecary really must have been dying of curiosity-and that made sense. After all, that brand poison had left even the Sixth-Rank Alchemist Pill King Gu He helpless.
Although Gu He was nothing in Apothecary's eyes, and Apothecary might well have had ways to deal with it besides burning it away with heavenly flames;
A mere Second-Rank Alchemist claiming she could resolve brand poison sounded a little too outrageous, however you looked at it. It was only natural for Apothecary to be curious.
An idea immediately stirred in Xiao Yan's mind. "Teacher, do you really want to hear it?"
"Yes-come on, tell me!"
Xiao Yan grinned and, under Apothecary's expectant gaze, spoke in a "deep" voice:
"Heaven's secrets must not be revealed."
Apothecary: "..."
As a child, the thing Xiao Yan had hated most was that pretentiously mysterious line: "Heaven's secrets must not be revealed."
-She had really wanted to tear the mouths off people who said it.
Without a doubt, she had grown up to become the very sort of person she hated most.
Apothecary was always teasing her, but today she had finally seized a chance to pull a fast one on her teacher. Xiao Yan cackled inwardly, her laughter sounding like the calls of barnyard fowl.
Then she saw Apothecary's soul form seemingly grab that familiar little whip inside the ring.
"Gah... hic..." Xiao Yan's laughter cut off abruptly.
"...Teacher, I sowwy..."
"Hehehe, girl, I'll put this on your tab for now. Once you head into the mountains to train, we can settle it nice and slowly..."
"Teacher-no, big sister-I was joking! Please don't take it to heart, hahaha..."
After considerable effort, Xiao Yan finally managed to "placate" Apothecary, who had been itching to act.
Honestly, Xiao Yan felt that if they had been on the mountain behind the Xiao Clan, she would probably already have started special training in taking a beating.
From what she knew of Apothecary, her teacher genuinely cared for her, but she could also "hold a grudge," and was especially proud.
Moreover, Apothecary had a very "young" mindset and didn't mind mingling with her or trading jokes-young at heart, after all.
But she really was capable of "using public authority to settle private grudges."
Or rather, Xiao Yan felt that this woman simply wasn't proper at all. Sometimes, when her hands got itchy, she would find any old excuse to put Xiao Yan through a bout of "training"!
-This woman is poison!
Xiao Yan felt deeply concerned about her future "training."
Well, there certainly wouldn't be any "danger to her life," but it might turn out to be a case of "escaping the death sentence, but not the punishment."
How am I supposed to take that?
Just then, before Xiao Yan's "worries" about the future could fade, Nalan Su returned with Nalan Jie.
Nalan Jie seemed to have just been "roused" from cultivation and come straight over, but Xiao Yan didn't pay it much mind.
Whatever he had been doing, it was enough that he was here.
Nalan Jie dispensed with unnecessary pleasantries. After taking his seat, he asked directly, "Young Xiao, are you absolutely certain this method of yours will work?"
"Oh, don't take this the wrong way, girl. After all, even Pill King Gu He wasn't completely certain. And no matter how outstanding your talent is, right now..."
Nalan Jie left his sentence unfinished, but his meaning couldn't have been clearer.
"Old sir, why not hear my method out first? If it proves useless, I'll certainly apologize for troubling you today."
"Er..."
Nalan Jie hadn't expected Xiao Yan to be so sharp. Caught off guard, he actually didn't know how to respond for a moment.
Xiao Yan took his silence as agreement and launched straight into her explanation.
In truth, Xiao Yan's "method" was simple enough-if they couldn't remove the poison, then just don't remove it.
Chop off the poisoned part, bones and all, then take a high-grade pill that could regenerate severed limbs and grow the limb back. Wouldn't that count as "removing the poison," too?
Xiao Yan had consulted Apothecary and learned that brand poison wouldn't penetrate the marrow in its "early" or even "middle" stages. Only then had she settled on this treatment.
Nalan Jie could easily force the brand poison into an arm or another part of his body with Dou Qi, then "sever his wrist like a resolute warrior."
Of course, this method would only work early on.
Given enough time, the brand poison would seep into the marrow, leaving them no choice but to try burning it away with heavenly flames.
Still, unless there was absolutely no alternative, it was best not to use that method-not only were Alchemists with heavenly flames difficult to find, but even if they found one...
If that Alchemist's hand slipped, wouldn't Nalan Jie end up in an urn?
Actually, it was perfectly normal that Gu He, Nalan Jie, and the others hadn't thought of this. They had never had that sort of awareness to begin with.
It was like a movie Xiao Yan had watched in her previous life, where a certain Marvel hero, Iron Man, stubbornly insisted on creating a new element to replace palladium when he suffered from palladium poisoning.
Xiao Yan had genuinely been left speechless at the time-Come on, man, couldn't you remove the reactor from your chest, replace it with a clean-energy battery, and run your armor on an "external power supply"?
After all, back in the cave at the beginning, before the first Mark made its debut, a certain someone had nothing more than an ordinary electromagnet in his chest...
Yet somehow, no one-from the screenwriters to the actors to the audience-had thought of such a simple solution, or rather, loophole.
[Don't ask why Xiao Yan had watched Marvel but hadn't read Battle Through the Heavens. The answer is a Parallel World. And honestly, I've wanted to bring up this issue with Iron Man for ages (slipping in my own agenda)...]
Clearly, the "same logic" applied to Nalan Jie's situation-they had missed what lay "right beneath the lamp."
They had focused solely on how to "solve" the problem setting their eyebrows on fire, never considering that they could look at it from another angle.
But Xiao Yan had, after all, "reincarnated from birth." With knowledge from her previous life, she thought in a completely different way from the continent's "natives."
So it was only natural that she could come up with this solution.
For Nalan Jie, though, simply replacing the limb would be easier than disinfecting it and "reattaching it"-after a limb tainted by brand poison was "disinfected," there would probably be nothing left but ash.
As for whether to use this method, that was Nalan Jie's business-presumably, he could get his hands on a pill capable of "regenerating severed limbs."
After hearing Xiao Yan's method, Nalan Jie and Nalan Su both froze.
It sounded a little strange at first, but on closer thought, it really did seem... like a solution?
It even seemed quite feasible.
Of course, a pill capable of regenerating severed limbs probably wouldn't be below the sixth rank, and it certainly wouldn't come cheap.
Still, Pill King Gu He should be able to refine such a pill, and with enough exercise, the newly grown limb wouldn't be any worse than the old one.
Besides, obtaining the pill wasn't Xiao Yan's problem. It was Nalan Jie's and the others'...
Before you continue