Carefree Cave, Luojing's Outer City.
The spring sun hung overhead, and merchants and travelers of every kind moved through the bustling market. Outside the Nine Dragons Hall on the main street, crowds packed the entrance. Bu Hanying, serving as its promotional ambassador, stood on a platform advertising the hall's latest medicine-the Appearance-Preserving Pill!
This pill slowed the aging of one's looks. With long-term use, one could still retain one's charms at sixty. Although it offered no benefits for cultivation, looking good was a lifelong affair. The moment the pill launched, it swept through Jingzhao Prefecture, selling no less briskly than the Academy's Phoenix Immortal Gown. Clearly, both establishments had grasped the money-making essence of "sex appeal is the foremost productive force."
In the pill-refining area at the back, several apprentices were toiling like unpaid beasts of burden. Since demand for the pills outstripped supply, Lin Zisu had even recruited a group of classmates from the Alchemy Medicine Institute and the Imperial Pharmacy Directorate as interns. Young students were inevitably playful, and Lin Wanyi worried they might make mistakes. These days, she had practically worried herself sick, watching over the hall all day. Only at night could she secretly send her spirit wandering far away and take a great chariot for a spin to relieve her fatigue.
As the chief pill refiner, Lin Zisu had now made quite a name for herself. From morning to night, she was busy making custom pills for wealthy clients, with the Eldest Princess placing the most orders.
To catch up with Xie Jinhuan as quickly as possible, Zhao Ling had given Momo a profound understanding of what an "imperial heiress" meant. Whatever resources the Great Qian's Imperial Treasury possessed, Zhao Ling had obtained practically all of them. With alchemists and leading figures from Confucianism, Buddhism,