Shennong Glazed Glass

"You dared lie to me!!"

"How would this lowly official dare? Palace Physician Sun said it himself. I truly..."

Lu Changfeng raised an eyebrow. The voice answering her sounded familiar-Imperial Physician Director Zhang Shouzhuo. He seemed to sense someone approaching, and his words abruptly cut off.

Lu Changfeng did not pause. He walked openly into the Medical Section's archive room.

Inside was a scene of utter chaos.

Medical books and scrolls lay piled haphazardly across the floor and tables. Many precious silk manuscripts and paper volumes had been carelessly discarded. Some even bore scorch marks, water stains, and suspicious traces of smeared medicines, as though someone had tried every extreme method imaginable to force the secrets hidden within these texts out of them.

There were only two people in the room.

One was Imperial Physician Director Zhang Shouzhuo, standing to one side with his back bowed and an expression of cautious deference.

The other was a beautiful young woman dressed in a pale-yellow martial outfit. Yet there was a spoiled, vicious edge to her features, and her slender brows were fiercely raised, her anger clearly still unspent.

Lu Changfeng glanced at Qing Dai, his eyes asking: What happened to avoiding suspicion, like staying out of melon fields and keeping your hands down beneath plum trees?

"..."

Qing Dai helplessly transmitted her voice. "This is His Highness the Prince of Liang's most beloved youngest daughter-Wu Lingyun. His Majesty conferred on her the title Countess of Wan'an, so naturally... besides..."

There were things she could not say outright.

Physicians treated illnesses and saved lives, which sounded important, but to martial artists, medical texts were hardly precious-they were not even assigned a grade.

That was why Wu Lingyun dared behave so outrageously. On the upper four floors, among those fifth- and sixth-tier divine martial manuals, even Wu Sansi would not dare damage anything at will!

Lu Changfeng shook his head.

Throughout history and across the world, the medical profession had always been the same. Physicians seemed respected, but in truth they were still mere "craftsmen." To many people, a medical book was no different from an excavator's instruction manual.

"Lu Changfeng?"

Zhang Shouzhuo recognized Lu Changfeng at once. Yesterday's clash remained vivid in his mind, but here in the Pivot of Heaven Pavilion, Wu Lingyun could rely on her status to do as she pleased. He, however, did not dare openly violate the rules and could only suppress his emotions.

"Here to read?"

Wu Lingyun swept a cold glance over Lu Changfeng, her tone dripping with undisguised arrogance. Without waiting for his answer, she casually pointed her toe at the medical books scattered across the floor. "Read whatever's on the floor. Don't touch anything on the shelves!"

Her manner made it plain that she regarded this room as her own territory.

Lu Changfeng looked at the ravaged books. Many bore the name "Sun Simiao" on their covers or inner pages, and he immediately understood-they were searching for something Medicine King Sun Simiao might have left behind.

What a wanton squandering of treasures...

Lu Changfeng sighed inwardly, then told Qing Dai, "It's a mess in here. Go rest outside. If anything comes up at the Spirit Pivot Institute, come get me."

Deaths and injuries were strictly forbidden in the Pivot of Heaven Pavilion.

Qing Dai nodded, dipped her knees slightly toward Wu Lingyun and Zhang Shouzhuo, and quietly withdrew.

Ignoring all ceremony, Lu Changfeng sat straight down on the floor. He picked up a volume of the Medical Compendium, dusted it off, and began reading as though no one else were there.

Seeing that he was behaving himself, Wu Lingyun paid him little further attention. She and Zhang Shouzhuo each took a volume of Sun Simiao's handwritten Supplement to the Thousand Gold Prescriptions and subjected it to scorching, soaking, smearing with medicines, and every other kind of abuse. Fortunately, the work had already been published, so these handwritten volumes were not the only surviving copies. Otherwise, the loss would have been immense.

Lu Changfeng turned a blind eye to their actions.

He had always minded his own business and had no interest in standing up for a few books. Princess Taiping did not care, the pavilion's guardian slave did not care, and the Imperial Physician Director did not care-why the hell should he?

He focused on reading, only to find things more complicated than he had expected!

According to the text, different cultivation arts produced different true qi and different injuries, naturally requiring different treatments.

The Medical Compendium comprised thirty-five volumes recording the patients Sun Simiao had treated throughout his life. The Martial Arts section alone listed over eighteen hundred types of internal injuries inflicted by Sword Qi, saber qi, palm power, fist force, and more, along with emergency treatments.

The palm techniques included over four hundred varieties, among them the common Cinnabar Palm, Iron Sand Palm, Poison Sand Palm, Cotton Palm, Cold Ice Cotton Palm, Mountain-Splitting Palm, and Primordial Chaos Palm...

Some required acupuncture, others prescriptions. Needle depth, the precise force to apply, and the dosage of medicines according to the severity of the injury-everything was detailed!

"..."

Lu Changfeng stared at the densely packed, fly-head-sized regular script, then at the thick stack of thirty-five hefty volumes that made up this one work. Speechless for a long moment, he finally gritted his teeth. Fuck it! Memorize it! I'll treat it as doing another doctorate!

There was one thing to be thankful for.

Perhaps because he had lived two lives, his memory was even stronger than in his previous life. He was already close to remembering anything at a glance and reciting it backward without faltering, which saved him a great deal of time.

He immersed himself completely, sometimes flipping rapidly through pages, sometimes closing his eyes to recite, and sometimes using a finger as a brush to trace meridians and acupuncture points in the air.

Time passed in the world outside. For him, there was only the cold, heat, warmth, and coolness between the lines, the deficiency and excess, the replenishing and draining.

While he read intently, the other two grew increasingly impatient.

Wu Lingyun went through another book, gaining nothing after scorching it, soaking it, and coating it with medicine. Her face darkened completely. She flung the book aside and glared at Zhang Shouzhuo, transmitting her voice. "What exactly is going on?! Where is the Shennong Glazed Glass Art?! Are you toying with me, or is Sun Huaijin?!"

Zhang Shouzhuo looked even more miserable and hurriedly replied, "How would this lowly official dare toy with the Countess of Wan'an! Unlike nominal disciples such as us, Attending Physician Sun was the Medicine King's final personal disciple. Before the Medicine King passed away, he did indeed break through to the sixth realm. He roamed the Great Void in Divine Wandering, glimpsed the Heavenly Dao, and created a sixth-tier divine art stronger than the Divine Farmer Formula! With his hands alone, he could bring the dead to life, grow flesh on bare bones, and even reshape the body! Attending Physician Sun witnessed it himself. Unfortunately, during his time in attendance, the Medicine King never passed down the art..."

"Hmph!"

Wu Lingyun sneered. "More likely he saw Sun Huaijin's true colors and feared entrusting it to the wrong person, lest his divine art bring calamity upon the world!"

"..."

Zhang Shouzhuo looked embarrassed. After a brief silence, he changed the subject. "Before he passed away, he only copied out these books by hand. Some went to Palace Physician Sun, while others entered the Pivot of Heaven Pavilion. Palace Physician Sun has always believed that the Medicine King must have hidden something in these books, leaving behind the Shennong Glazed Glass Art's inheritance. But over the years, he exhausted every method examining the manuscripts he obtained and confirmed they contained no secrets. These are all that remain... he even planted quite a few people here for this purpose..."

Understanding dawned on Wu Lingyun, and she sneered. "That Director of Medicine the princess cut down yesterday?"

"..."

Zhang Shouzhuo glanced at Lu Changfeng and gave a bitter smile. "Her Highness may already have become suspicious and acted deliberately... and Palace Physician Sun couldn't very well let more people know..."

"So he was afraid he'd end up drawing water with a bamboo basket, and offered this secret to me!"

Wu Lingyun's gaze was icy. "He certainly worked out a fine scheme! But-"

Her tone abruptly shifted, her expression turning ugly as she viciously hurled the damaged volume of the Supplement to the Thousand Gold Prescriptions onto the floor. "There's nothing here! What fucking hidden trick?! I think that old fool Sun Simiao went senile and never intended to pass down his art before he died! Was he afraid that if others mastered it, no one would seek treatment from his disciples and their descendants, uprooting Medicine King Valley altogether?!"

The speculation was so vulgar and malicious that even Zhang Shouzhuo found it hard to stomach, yet he did not dare contradict her.

Wu Lingyun felt a vicious fire burning in her chest. She had expended so much effort and reduced so many precious handwritten manuscripts to ruins, only to gain nothing. It made her feel like a fool being played for sport!

"Useless! All of you are useless!"

She spat out the curse bitterly. Whether she meant Sun Huaijin, Zhang Shouzhuo, or the elusive, departed Sun Simiao was anyone's guess.

She stamped her foot and stormed out of the archive room without looking back, bristling with malice. She was going to settle accounts with Sun Huaijin!

Seeing this, Zhang Shouzhuo hurried after her, terrified that this little tyrant might cause more trouble.

In the blink of an eye, the noisy archive room fell silent, leaving only devastation everywhere and Lu Changfeng sitting peacefully alone.

Someone would naturally clean this place up.

Lu Changfeng steadily memorized one volume after another, and a vast world of wandering martial artists, a martial realm filled with strange and wondrous techniques, gradually took shape.

Just as he was about to pull out another volume of the Medical Compendium, he caught sight of an open book from the corner of his eye. It was the first volume of the Thousand Gold Prescriptions. At its beginning was a preface laying out Sun Simiao's lifelong principles for treating illness and saving lives-Great Physician's Sincerity!

"There are fools in this world who, after studying prescriptions for three years, declare that no illness under heaven is beyond their cure; yet after treating illnesses for three years, they realize there is no prescription under heaven they can use. Thus, students must explore the sources of medicine exhaustively, studying diligently without tiring. They must not rely on hearsay and declare they have mastered the medical Way, thereby gravely deceiving themselves..."

Having studied both Chinese and Western medicine, Lu Changfeng had naturally read the immortal Great Physician's Sincerity. He could not help giving it another look, then noticed something amiss.

Some strokes seem to be missing...

Looking at the handwriting, Lu Changfeng felt a stir of interest. He took the book and examined it closely. Sure enough, several characters had either unfinished strokes or strokes missing altogether. The differences were minute, but they could not escape his eyes.

Remembering that Zhang Shouzhuo and the others had been searching for something, he immediately realized there was a hidden secret. He began carefully checking the entire book for missing strokes, memorizing them as he went.

Soon, lines of verse emerged in his mind:

"The five qi return to their source, gathering in the central court; dragon and tiger unite, nurturing the elixir's flower. No evil can approach the realm of glazed glass; with all five aggregates clear, the embryo of the Dao takes form. A single mystic pearl holds a world within; circulating through the six voids, it returns to infancy..."

The final five characters.

They unmistakably read: "Shennong Glazed Glass Art"!

Lu Changfeng's eyes lit up, and then he nearly laughed. Those two had scorched, soaked, and smeared medicines on the books, yet never imagined that the secret lay within the characters themselves!

Anyone restless, impatient for success, or unfamiliar with Great Physician's Sincerity could never discover this cultivation art!

Without question, this was a supreme divine art.

Lu Changfeng committed the entire text to memory. Though he did not know its precise tier, it contained a method for opening the two bridges of heaven and earth, which the Nine Yin Manual lacked. It even included a mnemonic for tempering the will through visualization. Unfortunately, the accompanying visualization diagram was missing.

Otherwise, this art would have allowed him to cultivate all the way to the fourth realm without difficulty. That meant it was at least a fourth-tier martial art-and a medical martial art particularly well suited to him!

"What are you reading?"

Suddenly, an icy voice rang out.

Lu Changfeng was inwardly startled, but his expression remained unchanged. Turning his head, he saw that Wu Lingyun had returned and was standing at the entrance to the chamber, regarding him coldly. Behind her stood Zhang Shouzhuo, his eyes narrowed and fixed intently on the book in Lu Changfeng's hands!