Early the next morning, Chen Ming rose on time. As usual, he picked up his broom and swept the fallen leaves and dust from Elder Qin's courtyard, then carried a bucket over to water the medicinal garden. He even fed the Poison Toads until they were thoroughly sated.
The servant in green emerged with a yawn. Seeing everything inside and outside the courtyard neatly tended, he nodded in satisfaction.
"Chen Seven, good work. Keep this up, and when Elder Qin returns, I'll certainly put in a good word for you."
Chen Ming gave an honest, guileless smile and cupped his hands. "Thank you for looking out for me, senior brother. I'm new here and still don't understand many of the rules. If I do anything improper, please give me your guidance."
His flattery put the servant in green in an excellent mood. Waving a hand, the servant said, "Of course, of course. Carry on with your work. I'm going to take a nap in the front courtyard."
Once the servant disappeared behind the moon gate, the smile slowly faded from Chen Ming's face, replaced by his usual calm expression that betrayed nothing.
He was in no hurry to visit the Scripture Pavilion.
There were too many people and prying eyes during the day. Disciples constantly came and went around the Scripture Pavilion, making it a terrible time to act. He had to wait until the dead of night, then use the secret passage to slip inside without anyone being the wiser.
Before that, however, he had one more thing to do: determine exactly how to use this authorization token.
Chen Ming returned to his side room, shut the door and windows, and took the jade-green token from his robe. He placed it in his palm and examined it closely. The runic markings on it were intricate and precise, resembling some ancient key to a restriction.
He tried feeding a thread of spiritual energy into it. The spiritual glow on its surface brightened slightly, then faded again, with no other response.
"This token probably needs a specific incantation or a bloodline imprint before it can be fully activated," Chen Ming murmured.
He pondered for a moment, then suddenly remembered an old book titled Essentials of Restrictions that he had glimpsed in the pill room's medicine cabinet the previous night.
The book looked quite old. Dust covered its spine, and clearly no one had opened it in a long time. If it contained information about authorization tokens and restrictions...
A gleam flashed through Chen Ming's eyes.
That afternoon, he asked the servant in green for the pill room key, claiming he needed to "organize the pill room's medicinal ingredient catalog."
Of course, he did not say he intended to enter the pill room. His excuse was that he needed to consult the ingredient list hanging in the corridor outside to organize his herb-gathering notes.
The servant in green suspected nothing and casually tossed him the spare corridor key.
With the key in hand, Chen Ming took advantage of the servant's afternoon nap to open the pill room door once more.
He touched none of the precious medicinal ingredients, heading straight for the row of medicine cabinets against the wall. On the bottom shelf, he found Essentials of Restrictions.
Its pages had yellowed and grown brittle, and the writing was somewhat blurred, but most of it remained legible.
He flipped through it rapidly and finally found an entry about "elders' authorization tokens" on a page near the middle.
"The authorization tokens of Ten Thousand Poisons Sect elders are refined from azure jade marrow and embedded with proprietary runic markings. They must be activated with the holder's vital essence blood before they can open the corresponding restrictions. If anyone other than the holder forcibly activates one, it will trigger a backlash restriction, resulting in severe injury at best and death at worst."
Chen Ming's pupils contracted slightly as he read this.
Vital essence blood.
In other words, even with the token in hand, he could not truly activate it without Elder Qin's own vital essence blood.
He closed the book and fell silent for a moment. Then a smile slowly curled the corners of his mouth.
"Fortunately, I came prepared."
He set down the book and took a small porcelain vial from his robe. It contained a few drops of dark red blood that he had secretly collected from Elder Qin's pillow two days earlier, while replacing the incense in his bedroom.
As an experienced herb-gathering disciple, collecting seemingly useless little things had long since become a habit etched into his bones. This time, that habit had saved his life.
Chen Ming carefully dripped a drop of blood from the vial onto the jade-green token. The instant it touched the jade, it swiftly seeped inside and vanished without a trace, as though something had absorbed it.
Immediately afterward, the runes on the token flared to life, releasing a soft jade-green glow. An ancient, powerful aura spread from within.
Chen Ming tightened his grip on the token, sensing the power it held. A sharp gleam flashed in his eyes.
Now everything was ready; all that remained was the east wind.
He put away the token and vial, returned Essentials of Restrictions to its original place, and restored the pill room to its previous state. Then he locked the door and returned to the courtyard as though nothing had happened.
At dusk, he watered the poisonous locust tree and fed the Poison Toads as usual, exchanging idle chatter with the servant in green. Everything was just as it always was, without the slightest flaw to betray him.
Night slowly descended, shrouding all of Poison Miasma Ridge in profound darkness.
Chen Ming lay on the bed in his side room with his eyes closed, waiting quietly.
Once the moon stood high overhead, once all sounds fell silent, once the servant in green's snores rang out again-
He would set out.
This time, his target was no longer Elder Qin's pill room, but the second floor of the Scripture Pavilion, where the complete cultivation method of the True Explanation of a Hundred Poisons was kept.
He touched the jade-green token inside his robe, feeling its cold surface, his heart utterly certain.
Dawn was still far away, and this night was destined to be anything but peaceful.
Three quarters into the midnight hour, all was silent.
The ever-burning lamp in Elder Qin's courtyard swayed a few times in the night breeze. Its flame flickered, then silently went out. The two disciples on night duty at the courtyard entrance yawned and leaned against the gateposts, half asleep.
The door to the side room silently opened a crack.
Chen Ming slipped out like a falling leaf, disturbing none of the moths resting beneath the eaves. Dressed in a close-fitting, ink-black outfit, with a bulging cloth bag tied at his waist and the jade-green token tucked inside his robe, he blended into the night.
He did not use the main gate. Instead, he vaulted over the low wall in the rear courtyard and hurried along the hidden path outside its base, a route he had already walked several times. The night wind whistled past his ears and sent his clothes snapping, but his steps remained steady as bedrock, without a trace of hesitation.
The dark silhouette of the abandoned pill-refining room soon appeared ahead.
Chen Ming darted through the crack and hurried along the familiar passage. This time, he knew the route well, reaching the iron door in less than half an incense stick's time. It was still ajar. He squeezed through sideways, climbed the stone steps, and arrived beneath the stone slab once more.
He pressed his ear against the slab and listened intently.
The Scripture Pavilion was utterly quiet, without a sound.
Chen Ming took a deep breath, slowly lifted the slab, and poked his head out. The shadows of the bookshelves concealed him completely. The oil lamps on the first floor were still burning, their dim yellow light casting long shadows from the rows of shelves. His gaze swept across the space. No one was there.
He climbed out and gently replaced the slab, then hugged the edges of the bookshelves as he crept toward the staircase like a ghost.
The blue restriction screen at the foot of the stairs still rippled like flowing water, giving off a faint spiritual pressure. Chen Ming stood before it, took the jade-green token from his robe, and held it in his hand.
He aimed the token at the center of the screen and slowly fed spiritual energy into it.
The runes on the token suddenly lit up, bursting with dazzling jade-green light. The instant that light touched the blue screen, the screen began shaking violently and gave off a humming roar. Chen Ming's heart tightened, afraid the noise would alert the patrolling disciples outside, but matters had come this far. He had no way back.
He gritted his teeth and poured more spiritual energy into the token.
The jade-green light grew stronger, struggling against the blue screen, eroding it, merging with it... Finally, with a crisp cracking sound, a gap wide enough for one person split open in the center.
Without hesitation, Chen Ming turned sideways and darted through the gap.
The screen swiftly closed behind him and returned to normal, as though nothing had happened.
The second floor was slightly smaller than the first, but its layout was more refined. Luminous pearls were embedded in all four walls, their gentle radiance illuminating the entire floor as brightly as day. Jade slips and ancient books lined the shelves along the walls, each bearing the weight of accumulated years.
Chen Ming's gaze swiftly swept over the labels on the shelves: "Ten Thousand Poisons Heart Sutra," "Poison King Canon," "True Explanation of a Hundred Poisons."
His breath caught slightly.
He hurried to the shelf labeled "True Explanation of a Hundred Poisons" and reached out to take down the thickest jade slip. It felt warm and smooth in his hand, its surface engraved with fine runes. This was the complete cultivation method he had dreamed of obtaining.
Chen Ming did not rush to read it, instead tucking the jade slip into his robe first. He quickly scanned the shelves again, selected two supplementary texts on poison arts, and stuffed both into his Storage Bag.
Just as he was about to retrace his steps, footsteps and voices suddenly sounded downstairs.
"Huh? I thought I heard something on the second floor just now."
"Must've been your imagination. Elder Qin isn't here, and the second-floor restriction is perfectly intact. Who could get up there?"
"True enough. Probably a rat. Come on, let's patrol somewhere else."
The footsteps gradually faded into the distance.
Standing in the middle of the second floor, Chen Ming slowly exhaled. A sheen of cold sweat had already formed on his forehead. Not daring to linger any longer, he hurried back to the stairs, took out the token again, and repeated the process, opening a gap in the screen before darting downstairs.
After returning to the first floor, he quickly put the stone slab back in place, slipped into the passage, and retraced his route.
When he stood once more in the darkness outside the abandoned pill-refining room.
The next morning, before anything had been discovered, Chen Ming pretended he had business that required a trip down the mountain. He made it down without trouble and put some distance between himself and the Ten Thousand Poisons Sect.
After removing his disguise and confirming that no one was around, he hurriedly summoned the Azure Glow Sword, rose into the air atop it, and flew away from that dangerous place.