Chapter 141 — Drugging the Imperial Physician Hall

"Mock strawberry, two mace; heavenly bamboo, one tael six mace; oleander, four mace.

. . " Shen Mu came to the Imperial Academy's storehouse with Snow Fox, handed over the prescription, bought the ingredients he needed, and said to Snow Fox, "The medicine I mean to refine this time is called Lost-Maze Incense—a numbing drug. Grandpa Alchemist once used it to bring down a flood dragon. That ox may be mighty, but this will lay it flat for certain! Only, this drug must be refined in a special cinnabar furnace; it suffers no carelessness at all.

" Snow Fox asked, curious, "Why?

" "The fragrance it gives off can fell even a flood dragon, let alone the alchemist refining it.

" Shen Mu smiled. "If the furnace isn't sealed tight, then once the medicine is done the fragrance will escape, and wherever that fragrance passes, even great divine-power cultivators of the Heaven-Man realm would come tumbling down. I don't own a sealed furnace of that kind, so I must go borrow one from the Imperial Physician Hall. .

.

" Suddenly a familiar voice said, "Little Divine Physician, where are you off to? " Shen Mu looked toward the voice and smiled.

"So it's Physician Qu. That's right—you are of the Directorate of Education, so I ought to address you as Instructor Qu. " Physician Qu said in flustered haste, "Don't say such a thing, you shame me to death!

Little Divine Physician, this afternoon is my lecture; I am to discourse on medical principles to the scholars. You are a divine physician—you take my place and give the lecture. " Shen Mu could not help laughing.

"I am only a student; how could I teach?

Besides, I have business during the afternoon session, and I fear I cannot attend.

I intend to refine a furnace of medicine, and I will need it this afternoon.

" Physician Qu was somewhat disappointed; then his eyes suddenly lit. "You are going to refine pills?

" Shen Mu smiled. "Not quite pill-refining—only making medicine.

" Physician Qu's eyes flickered. "Little Alchemist, will you let me watch? " Shen Mu hesitated, then nodded.

"I mean to borrow a furnace from the Imperial Physician Hall.

If you wish to watch, come along.

" Physician Qu was overjoyed.

"Little Divine Physician, go on ahead to the Imperial Physician Hall—I will be back in a moment!

" With that he went off like the wind.

Shen Mu walked toward the Imperial Physician Hall, and before he had even reached it, Physician Qu was already waiting out front; besides him there were Physician You, Physician Yu, and others of the Imperial Physician Office, all wearing stirred and fervent expressions.

Shen Mu was puzzled—he wanted only to refine a single ordinary numbing drug; was it worth mustering such a crowd?

"Little Divine Physician, hurry, hurry! " The physicians urged him on, all talking at once. "Will you need the great earth-fire furnace lit?

" "We can lend a hand! " "These ingredients—in what order are they arranged? " "When gentle fire, when fierce?

When you perform the techniques, how does the vital qi circulate?

" .

. .

Shen Mu walked into the Imperial Physician Hall with them, and the first thing he saw was an enormous furnace. Refine pills in that furnace and one would have to eat them for two or three years to finish them; it must be a thing for army use, or for refining some world-shaking spirit pill. Beyond it were other furnaces great and small, and beneath these furnaces were rune arrays linked to the earth-fire thirty thousand zhang below the ground; the earth-fire was drawn up and used to refine pills. "Is there a sealed furnace?

" Shen Mu asked.

"This way, Little Divine Physician. " Physician You led him briskly to a stone furnace in the hall and smiled. "This furnace is a sealed one. Will it serve, Little Divine Physician? " Shen Mu's eyes brightened.

The stone furnace had been cut straight from jade, hollowed from top to bottom, fitted within with the eight trigrams and the five elements, with no vent left open; one need only set the halves together and give it a turn, and it was impervious to wind. Even if the medicine exploded inside, it likely could not burst this furnace open.

"It will do! " Shen Mu lifted the furnace open and studied it closely, then laid each ingredient in order into the eight-trigram and five-element compartments within. The compartments of this stone furnace each had their own sequence; after a set time the compartments would open, and the ingredients inside would fall into the furnace—so there was no need to lift the lid to add medicine. Once the ingredients were set, he clapped his palm, drew earth-fire up from the rune arrays on the floor, and began to temper the stone furnace. Snow Fox cared little for pill-refining; she looked this way and that.

But the white-haired old physicians watched from the side with keen interest, unblinking. Physician Yu saw Shen Mu's hand techniques and his eyes lit up; he praised without ceasing: "These techniques—truly transcendent, beyond all imagining, excellent indeed! Little Divine Physician, why must your technique tap thirteen times in succession? " Shen Mu said, "Purple Cinnabar Stone is jade; its medicinal nature is hidden within the stone, harder to extract than that of other ingredients.

So it must be tapped thirteen times in succession before its nature can be drawn out.

My cultivation is rather shallow; if you masters had deep cultivation, thirteen taps would not be needed—you would need only to refine out the medicinal nature. " The old physicians nodded again and again, hastily noting it down. Shen Mu refined and conversed with them as he worked, but it was the old physicians who asked the most; he seldom questioned them, spending the time explaining the medical principles and the craft of pill-refining to them.

"This is the Dragon-Tiger Mutual Aid Hand, is it not?

" Physician Qu's expression changed sharply and he cried out, "A technique that has been lost!

" The other three old physicians showed astonishment as well, staring fixedly at Shen Mu's flying palms, striving to commit his techniques to memory. The white-haired Physician Yu murmured, "The Dragon-Tiger Mutual Aid Hand has been lost for two hundred years.

To think I should see this legendary pill-refining technique again at the Little Divine Physician's hands—am I dreaming? " "If you wish to learn, I can teach you when I have time—though I have had none lately. " Shen Mu had now reached the critical stage of refining and could not spare his attention.

The Dragon-Tiger Mutual Aid Hand was only one of the several hundred techniques Grandpa Alchemist had taught him, hardly anything special, and he did not think it would matter much if it got out.

The crux of pill-refining, after all, was mastery of medicinal principles; techniques and the like were only supplementary. Even so, in the physicians' eyes the techniques were of the utmost importance. And besides techniques there were pill recipes—treasures countless students of medicine dreamed of.

Obtain a unique recipe and one would guard it as a precious jewel, never lightly passing it on.

This was wholly different from what Grandpa Alchemist had taught Shen Mu. Grandpa Alchemist put no superstition in recipes or techniques; what he taught Shen Mu most was medicinal principles. Shen Mu had never thought the things Grandpa Alchemist taught him were so remarkable; to him they were all ordinary. The physicians' astonishment struck him as baffling.

By now Shen Mu was preparing to gather the medicine; his techniques came faster and faster, dazzling the eye, and in a brief span the physicians saw more than ten lost techniques, some even more intricate than the Dragon-Tiger Mutual Aid Hand. The techniques flashed by one after another, each bringing a different form of change to the earth-fire; before the physicians could note them down, Shen Mu had already withdrawn his hands and was quietly waiting beside the stone furnace.