Mingyue was looking down, eating her meal, when she saw Fang Bai return from his morning exercise. She blinked at him and flashed a wide smile.
After all, she was just a seventeen-year-old high school student who couldn’t see through the sorrow and pain deep in her father’s eyes, nor did she know that her mother might leave her forever at any moment.
A thick scent of medicinal herbs wafted from the kitchen on the east side.
Fang Bai took just a whiff to accurately identify sixteen types of herbs.
Among them were even the Snow Lotus, Polygonum multiflorum, Poria cocos, and Lingzhi from the "Nine Great Immortal Herbs" of Huaxia.
The other twelve herbs were also extremely rare and precious.
Some of these herbs required a lot of money to purchase, and others might not even be available for any amount of money.
Fang Bai guessed that Qiu Zhan must have gone through a lot of trouble to gather these herbs.
From the scent of those herbs, Fang Bai knew that Qiu Zhan must have profound medical knowledge, and his medical skills had to be exceptional.
The herbs that Qiu Zhan was carefully brewing could effectively suppress the toxicity of the Man-Eating Flower, something ordinary doctors simply couldn’t do.
Without the suppression from the herbs that Qiu Zhan was brewing, Qiu Yuzhi, who had been poisoned, would have died within a few years, and it would have been impossible for her to have survived until now.
"Just who is this Qiu Zhan?"
Fang Bai became even more curious about Qiu Zhan’s identity.
However, curiosity aside, Fang Bai would never delve into it further, lest he attract trouble.
What Fang Bai found regrettable was that there were still some key ingredients missing in the herbal concoction prepared by Qiu Zhan. Therefore, it could only suppress the toxicity in his wife’s body, but could not eradicate it completely.
If Fang Bai had been the one to concoct the remedy when Qiu Yuzhi was first poisoned, he was confident that he could have purged the poison from Qiu Yumei’s body within a few months.
But now, the toxicity of the Man-Eating Flower had penetrated into Qiu Yuzhi’s bones and blood, beyond the help of Qiu Zhan, who could only watch his wife’s condition deteriorate day by day, until her death.
Even now, saving Qiu Yuzhi would require a tremendous amount of effort.
Fang Bai entered the courtyard, greeted Qiu Zhan and his family, then went back to his room to take a shower and change his clothes, ready to go out for breakfast in the city.
He planned to take advantage of the two days of free time before his internship to enjoy the major sights in Yanjing City, and to buy a few sets of clothes for changing both inside and out.
As for Su Linglong, Fang Bai knew she was busy hanging out with a group of close girlfriends these days. He didn’t take the initiative to contact her, planning to meet her during his internship at Yanjing Hospital in a couple of days instead.
In his previous life, Fang Bai had known countless women and had many fairy companions. He was well aware of Su Linglong’s fondness for him.
When it came to romance, in both his past and present life, Fang Bai adopted a go-with-the-flow attitude. If both parties liked each other, they would be together; if one did not, he would not force it.
Cultivators value fate and fortune the most, and whether he and Su Linglong could go further would depend on their destiny.
At a breakfast shop in the city, Fang Bai filled his stomach and then strolled at leisure. In one day, he visited several ancient historic sites within the city.
What Fang Bai cared about most were the treasures displayed for tourists to see at some historic sites.
Fang Bai discovered that some jade treasures, which may have originally contained Essence Energy, had been left exposed for too long and most of their Essence Energy had almost completely dissipated, causing Fang Bai to sigh at the waste.
In some shops specializing in the sale of jewelry and jade, Fang Bai also browsed around.
Unfortunately, the jewels and jade sold in those shops were either plain jade without any Essence Energy or had undergone artificial carving that depleted any Essence Energy they might have originally contained.
Fang Bai also visited some long-established traditional Chinese medicine stores to see if there were any Spiritual Medicines worth buying, only to find that the best item was a single Hundred-Year Ginseng.
If it were a fresh Hundred-Year Ginseng, it would be considered the most basic Spiritual Medicine in the Cultivation World, and Fang Bai might have considered purchasing it.
But a Hundred-Year Ginseng that had been picked many years ago, having lost its spiritual properties, didn’t interest Fang Bai enough to spend hundreds of thousands to buy it, even though it still had high medicinal value.
After spending half a day wandering around, Fang Bai hadn’t found any treasures suitable for cultivation that caught his eye, which left him somewhat disappointed; it seemed that in order to find Spiritual Medicines and Essence Stones, he still needed to search in the primitive mountains.
At dusk, Su Linglong called to invite Fang Bai over to her place for dinner.
The Su Family was the wealthiest in Zhongzhou, with extensive business holdings in Yanjing as well. They owned dozens of villas, and Su Linglong was currently staying in one of them.
As Su Linglong was interning in Yanjing, her parents did not accompany her, but they sent a loyal old housekeeper along with bodyguards and maids to Yanjing to ensure her personal safety and to take care of her daily life.
With a beauty’s invitation, Fang Bai naturally would not refuse. He didn’t need Su Linglong to send a car to pick him up; after getting the villa’s address, he simply walked there.
As he passed through a bustling antique market, Fang Bai faintly sensed fluctuations of Essence Energy from a roadside stall.
He turned his head towards the stall emitting the Essence Energy fluctuations, crouched down, picked up a dingy wooden box, opened it to take a look, and saw that it neatly contained five slender needles.
The five slender needles, each as fine as a strand of hair and similar to the silver needles used for acupuncture, were covered in a layer of rust, indicating their considerable age.
Fang Bai pinched one of the needles and examined it closely when suddenly, the True Yuan within his Qi Sea stirred, showing signs of resonance with the needle in his hand.
This item had Essence Energy fluctuations; it could possibly be a Spiritual Artifact!
Fang Bai immediately became excited.
"Boss, how much for this?"
Fang Bai placed the needle back into the box and closed it quietly, then asked nonchalantly.
"Brother has good taste; this is indeed a fine item! I acquired it from a remote village two months ago, paying 9,500 yuan for it. If you want it, it’s yours for 10,000 yuan. I’m only making a 500 yuan profit off you!"
The stall owner was a skinny Yellow Plaque man. He had bought this ancient wooden box containing the fine needles from a country farmer for 500 yuan, hoping to sell it for a good price and make a profit, but no one had shown any interest till now.
Fang Bai was the first to seriously examine the needles and ask about the price. Seeing Fang Bai’s interest and his nice dress, the Yellow Plaque man blurted out a price of 10,000 yuan, a twentyfold increase over the purchase price.
Yellow Plaque had set this price expecting to bargain with Fang Bai, and even if Fang Bai negotiated the price down to 1,000 yuan, he would have been willing to sell.
"10,000 yuan, why don’t you just go ahead and rob me?"
Fang Bai casually tossed the needle box onto the stall, saying displeased, "I was interested in this because it looked old and I thought I could study it, but with such an outrageous asking price, how can I even begin to haggle?"