Over the next several days, Zhang Xiaohua focused solely on refining Grain Abstinence Pills. From the initial single pill, he gradually succeeded in refining nine at once. Yes, not an even number, but an odd nine. At first, Zhang Xiaohua thought there was something wrong with the heat control in his refining, but later he discovered that even when he carefully used his divine sense to pull every pill apart into two halves, some pills would still inexplicably vanish in the end. Meanwhile, the corresponding nine pills grew plumper and more beautiful with each refinement. Their yellowish-brown sheen and nearly perfect roundness made them a pleasure just to look at.
However, after Zhang Xiaohua first tried one of these pills, he never ate another. The reason was simple: for several days after taking it, he had not the slightest desire to eat. Even when he occasionally roasted meat, he only looked at it. Who would eat roasted meat while belching from fullness? When his appetite finally returned, Zhang Xiaohua impatiently roasted a seabird. He even eagerly gnawed half a stalk of Solomon's Seal, which he had never liked before.
Being able to fill one's stomach through the delicious pleasure of tasting food and swallowing those flavorless pills to fool oneself were absolutely two different realms. Looking at the perfectly refined Grain Abstinence Pill before him, Zhang Xiaohua believed that if he took it, he would certainly endure hunger and thirst even longer than last time. How could he dare take it?
With a flick of his hand, he took out a small jade vial from his money pouch and placed the refined Grain Abstinence Pills inside. Then he tossed the vial back onto the spatial shelf, where it stayed with the jade vials that had already been filled with quite