Chapter 64

Song Qingshi, utterly exhausted, fell asleep, clinging to Yue Wuhuan like an octopus, as if fearing the other might vanish, holding on tightly and refusing to let go.

Yue Wuhuan once again experienced the sensation of being unable to move, but fortunately, the medicine's effects were strong enough to make it bearable. He tried to shift to adjust Song Qingshi into a more comfortable position, only to find his waist tightly encircled—any movement would press against the other's arm. So he remained still, using a Blood King Vine to pull the blanket over them.

When the Master became this clingy, there was simply no resisting...

Yue Wuhuan gently untied the hair ribbon of the person in his arms, letting the soft, dark strands cascade down, mingling with his own already spread-out hair until they became indistinguishable.

A playful thought struck him. While Song Qingshi remained unaware, he quietly picked up a lock of his hair and braided it with his own, tying a loose knot. Satisfied, he admired his handiwork for a moment before tucking it away, to be undone the next morning.

The night pearls dimmed, and the sheer bed curtains closed.

Yue Wuhuan wrapped his arms around the defenseless person in his embrace, breathing in the calming herbal scent, savoring the memory of those wild, sweet kisses—a feeling of happiness almost too good to be true.

This was precisely the situation he had most yearned for.

Intimate companionship, eyes only for each other, yet never crossing the line.

The Master's Emotionless Path remained unshaken, indicating that no matter what they did, he had not developed those kinds of feelings.

Yue Wuhuan couldn't help but chuckle self-deprecatingly. He had long been a creature shaped by the pleasure trade, keenly aware of how easily his body and beauty could stir men's lust. He had witnessed all manner of unsightly desires—a mere glance was enough for him to discern what someone truly wanted. Conditioned by habit, he had instinctively employed seductive techniques in their kisses, realizing it only when it was too late. Fortunately, Song Qingshi remained unaffected, showing no inappropriate physical response.

Song Qingshi's kisses were utterly innocent, like a child asking for candy.

Even he could sense the pure sweetness within them...

But what if the Master's Emotionless Path were to waver?

Yue Wuhuan pondered this, concluding he lacked sufficient understanding of the Emotionless Path. He needed to gather relevant information and study it thoroughly.

...

The next morning, Song Qingshi woke up, a little embarrassed to find he had been lying on top of Yue Wuhuan all night. He gave him a morning kiss, then hurriedly washed up and dashed to the lab, full of vigor, ready to embark on a new round of toxicology research.

The Black Death Butterfly was a highly potent contact poison. When Poison Master Nie refined toxic spirit stones, he had no effective way to remove impurities. Now, with improved purification methods and techniques, Song Qingshi could increase the toxicity of the spirit stones fivefold and adjust the auxiliary materials affected by impurities—there was a strong possibility of creating a poison capable of killing a Soul Formation Cultivator.

Refining toxic spirit stones was dangerous.

Song Qingshi dared not let his assistants handle it. He worked alone in the lab, conducting test after test, preparing over a dozen culture dishes to cultivate the symbiotic flora that aided toxin diffusion. Only by perfectly combining this flora with the toxic spirit stones could the Black Death Butterfly be considered a success.

Yue Wuhuan sent the Blood King Vines to check on him several times, but seeing him completely engrossed and oblivious to his surroundings, he eventually gave up.

He himself had a mountain of tasks to complete: in addition to managing the accounts and internal affairs, he needed to strengthen the poison mist arrays and craft more poison puppets, striving to transform Medicine King Valley into an impenetrable fortress.

All dozen culture dish fusions failed—either the symbiotic flora lost effectiveness or the toxic spirit stones' potency diminished...

Song Qingshi recorded the failures, feeling frustrated for a quarter of an hour.

By the time he left the lab, dusk had fallen. Rubbing his tired eyes, he headed to the classroom, where he saw Qing Luan guiding the apprentices in alchemy research, seemingly experimenting with a new formula.

Unfortunately, her experiment also failed—black smoke and a foul odor billowed from the cauldron.

Qing Luan was silent for a moment, then instructed Rong Ye to record the failure process and results.

Rong Ye glanced at the darkening sky and complained, "Sister Qing Luan, everyone's hungry. Why don't we eat first?"

Qing Luan refused. "Record it first."

Rong Ye didn't understand. "It's all wrong anyway, so why bother recording it? Look at this notebook—nothing but errors, errors, errors, at least seventy or eighty times. What's the point?"

Ming Hong interjected, "This is something the Master specifically instructed us to do. Every experiment, whether right or wrong, must be recorded."

"The Master must be really amazing," Rong Ye, hearing it was Song Qingshi's directive, dared not argue further. He sighed dejectedly as he recorded, "We're just too stupid, always failing. Sister Qing Luan says Medicine King Valley will take in more apprentices later—I'd better hide this notebook so the junior disciples don't see it and laugh at how useless we are."

Just as Qing Luan was about to speak, she saw Song Qingshi enter from the doorway. She quickly bowed.

The children stopped their playful chatter and stood respectfully.

Song Qingshi smiled and took the record book from Rong Ye, flipping through a few pages. "Mistakes shouldn't be hidden. They should be kept in the laboratory, preserved forever. That way, when researching this medicine in the future, we can rule out erroneous approaches... All the experiments you've done in the past, all the data, must also be saved. We need to understand why we failed."

Rong Ye's face flushed. He mumbled, "Even the time I blew up the cauldron?"

"Mm," Song Qingshi chuckled. "That way, everyone will know that you can't add orpiment when refining Revival Pills, or the cauldron will explode."

Rong Ye suddenly understood a little, though not yet completely.

"Don't be afraid of failure," Song Qingshi said, glancing at Qing Luan's experiment log and confirming there were no procedural errors. "In medical research, failure is the most common thing. Many, many people fail—hundreds, thousands of times... Success is the rare stroke of luck."

Rong Ye cautiously asked, "Master, do you also fail?"

Song Qingshi couldn't help but smile. "Do you know about the Heartguard Pill?"

"We do!" The children eagerly chimed in, their faces full of admiration. "It's a pill the Master developed years ago, with miraculous effects on damaged heart meridians! Everyone says its appearance shocked the cultivation world and revolutionized the treatment of heart injuries. The Master was hailed as a genius alchemist because of it!"

Rong Ye's peach-blossom eyes were filled with worship. "The Master is a genius to begin with. We're still far behind."

"You're wrong," Song Qingshi told him with a smile. "In developing the Heartguard Pill, I failed three thousand six hundred and seventy-two times."

Rong Ye froze.

"On the twenty-ninth shelf in the library, the stack of over six hundred notebooks at the very top—those are my failure records from back then. Blowing up cauldrons? I've done that many times," Song Qingshi recalled past anecdotes, unable to suppress a laugh. "In the end, I dozed off and accidentally dropped alkali grass into the formula, and that's how it succeeded."

He knew his own intelligence; though somewhat clever, he was far from a genius. All he could do was work hard and keep trying.

"Don't be afraid of failure," Song Qingshi said, seeing Yue Wuhuan approaching from the peach blossom grove. The smile in his eyes grew even softer. "Every failure is the elimination of a wrong path. As long as you don't give up, you will always find the correct answer."

As Song Qingshi prepared to leave, Rong Ye couldn't help but ask, "Master, do you still fail now?"

The Medicine King Immortal Venerable was already a Nascent Soul Cultivator, the world's foremost physician. Everyone said there was no pill he couldn't refine, no patient he couldn't cure.

Song Qingshi stood at the doorway, turning back. "I am always failing."

Bathed in the golden glow of dusk, the tenderness on his face, meant for that one person, hadn't yet receded, falling into everyone's eyes like the most beautiful emotion, stirring longing and envy.

Song Qingshi walked towards Yue Wuhuan, and the two departed, chatting and laughing.

Rong Ye watched Yue Wuhuan, again recalling that exquisite mermaid pearl—now fastened to a new jade pendant at Yue Wuhuan's waist. The pendant was carved from the finest dragon jade, white as congealed fat, with a golden vein running through it like a golden dragon hidden in the clouds, faintly radiating water-attribute spiritual energy, capable of nourishing wood-attribute meridians.

Had Immortal Master Wuhuan stayed at Poria Palace last night? And changed to a new jade pendant today?

Sister Qing Luan always insisted that Immortal Master Wuhuan and the Master weren't *that* kind of relationship, warning everyone not to gossip. Ming Hong and Qingyun believed Sister Qing Luan, who said Immortal Master Wuhuan and the Master discussed academics in the bedchamber—solving math problems, researching formations... Sometimes they worked so late that they were too lazy to return to their own beds, so they slept together.

He had once subtly voiced his dissent.

Ming Hong completely failed to understand. "What could two grown men possibly do?"

Rong Ye nearly fainted from exasperation. "Have you forgotten how you almost got sold off?"

"There aren't that many men who like other men in the world! We don't have such messy things in our Medicine King Valley," Ming Hong, a typical case of forgetting pain once healed, scowled at the memory of those disgusting matters, then staunchly defended their benefactor's character. "Our Master is definitely not that kind of person! He wouldn't do anything disgusting to Brother Wuhuan!"

Rong Ye's mouth twitched uncontrollably as he listened...

There were actually several same-sex couples in Medicine King Valley, yet Ming Hong saw none of them; if he did, he'd simply assume they were close friends. Even Rong Ye himself was attracted to men, and occasionally received advances. That's why he disliked bathing in the large communal baths used by the medicine attendants, disliking the idea of others seeing his body. Ming Hong, however, was oblivious to his friend's orientation. Not only did he bathe in the large baths without hesitation, but he had also invited Rong Ye several times, claiming the hot springs were comfortable...

If he hadn't known that this guy, seemingly aloof, was actually a romantic simpleton, he might have misunderstood.

He Qingyun had once mentioned that someone in the baths had made a pass at Ming Hong, attempting to take advantage. Ming Hong, mistaking it for a provocation—and further incensed by the man's disrespectful words about Qing Luan—had dragged the guy out and beaten him so badly he was bedridden for two weeks. After that day, it seemed no men wanted to flirt with him anymore; instead, quite a few girls among the medicine attendants developed secret crushes on him.

Why were all his friends so idiotic?!

Rong Ye felt a pang of despair...

He decided he would have to rely on himself.

During the Medicine King Immortal Venerable's seclusion, Yue Wuhuan managed all resources. Rong Ye could tell Yue Wuhuan had no interest in women, and he had even considered making advances himself, hoping to exchange favors for cultivation pills. However, Yue Wuhuan's ghastly mask truly terrified him, making it impossible to commit. On top of that, Sister Qing Luan had been piling on an insane amount of homework during that period, leaving him no time to scheme. So, he abandoned the idea.

He knew Yue Wuhuan was extremely intelligent and capable, deeply trusted. He didn't expect to receive the same treatment—he just wanted to use his looks to gain some benefits to achieve Foundation Establishment...

If he could become a true cultivator, perhaps his mother would stop calling him a good-for-nothing?

Rong Ye's mind wandered.