33 The Theory of Elixir

The funeral of the late crown prince started early the next morning.

The king should've hosted the ceremony, but Donghuazi turned out to be the one in charge. Li Qinglin and Li Qingjun stood silently on the side. Li Qingjun cried so hard that her eyes were swollen, while Li Qinglin's face remained expressionless.

His mind had wandered off to the palace, where Qin Yi was having an audience with his father.

The king's health had been deteriorating over the years. The banquet last night had exhausted him to the point that he didn't have enough energy for the ceremony this morning and had to stay in the palace to rest. However, instead of recognizing his weakening state, he actually thought his spirit was much more lifted now.

Li Qinglin sighed quietly and felt conflicted when he saw his weeping sister by his side.

On one hand, he wanted his sister to stay innocent and naive, but on the other hand, he wished she could grow up. Her ignorance got on his nerves, but if she did understand what he was doing, it probably wouldn't be long before they fell out with each other.

He envied Qin Yi a little, as being a desireless man had certainly saved him from a lot of trouble.

Meanwhile, Qin Yi was led to the king's bedchambers by some servants of the palace, and he didn't enjoy the process at all.

Obviously, he couldn't take his spiked club with him to meet the king, so he left Liusu behind in his courtyard and carefully hid it at the center of the formation. He thought he had hidden Liusu well, but as soon as he walked out, he felt he was missing something.

It felt like leaving home without his phone when he was back in his old world or even worse. A big chunk seemed to be missing from his heart, and he wanted to hold something in his hand so badly that he almost wanted to pick the eunuch up.

It was his first time being separated from Liusu since he first transmigrated here.

Luckily, he had his crash course on Taoist theories and should be able to look the part. As for divinations, he would just make things up based on common sense, which was pretty much what Donghuazi had been doing. As for medicine-making, he considered himself a semi-expert. Judging by the lousy pills Donghuazi had made, Qin Yi was confident he could crush the old man without difficulty. Overall, he was quite confident about his audience with the king, and the absence of Liusu didn't render him completely useless.

It was a scene Qin Yi had imagined when he left the village. (Comment from the author: Why would some readers think that Qin Yi overestimated himself by trying to confront Donghuazi?)

The smell of sandalwood filled his nose as soon as the door to the bedchambers was opened. Wearing a Taoist robe, the king sat cross-legged on a rush cushion and meditated. Sandalwood incense was burning around him with smoke curling up in the air, and some maids were gently fanning for the king.

Qin Yi didn't know what to say. The king's oldest son's funeral was today, but he was cultivating in his bedchambers and he wasn't even sick!

The king was sitting high up on the host chair during the banquet the day before and Qin Yi had focused mainly on Donghuazi and Mang Zhan, so he hadn't paid much attention to the king. Now that Qin Yi was looking at the king closely, he saw that the latter had rather handsome features which explained where his children got their good looks. The king was in his early 50s at most, and with his black hair and rosy cheeks, he indeed looked like he had been doing something right with his cultivation. No wonder he trusted Donghuazi.

However, Qin Yi could tell that there was something off about that glow on his face.

King Wude had seen battles in his youth, and he was a martial arts practitioner himself. At his age, an accomplished martial arts practitioner was still at the prime of his life and should have a normal complexion unless he was born with red cheeks or had been practicing some special techniques.

Would one imagine Li Qinglin with rosy cheeks when he reached this age?

This rosiness was a reflection of the toxins accumulating in his body, which had been affecting his health. What's more…

That thick sandalwood smell seemed to be covering the stench he was giving off.

"Your Majesty, Qin Yi is here," a eunuch said softly.

The king opened his eyes, which seemed a little cloudy at first. It took a moment for them to clear up.

"The five signs of a deva's imminent death"—that term popped into Qin Yi's head, which shocked himself. He wondered if he still knew too little about medicinal theories, but from what he could tell, this king wasn't going to live for much longer…

"Mr. Qin, my fellow Taoist practitioner." The king sounded rather benign when he asked, "You're still so young. I wonder who you learned your knowledge from."

Qin Yi was prepared for that question, so he said, "My teacher is known as Patriarch Liusu, who has travelled wide and far in this world. I'm afraid I don't know which sect he belongs to."

The king gave it some thought and said, "I've never heard of that name before, but there are so many Taoist priests in the world that I can't possibly know them all."

Qin Yi thought: You're much more ignorant than you think you are. 'Can't possibly know them all' is such an understatement. Of course, he didn't say that aloud and only bowed.

"Young friend, please have a seat." The king pointed at the rush cushion opposite him.

Qin Yi slowly sat down with his legs crossed. He slightly raised the lower hem of his robe and put his hands on his knees with his palms facing upwards. It was the standard meditation posture, but he looked almost too other-worldly to be a cultivator. The king studied him with unblinking eyes for a while before giving him a little nod. "That's a perfect lotus position with every part of your body turned in the right position. I see that you've been properly taught."

Qin Yi was almost rendered speechless and wondered what rubbish Donghuazi had been feeding the king. Why would he use such basic information as a criterion?

The king then asked, "What's your specialty, my friend? Is it divination?"

"Divination is only child's play," Qin Yi said. "My specialty is external elixirs, which can expel pathogenic energy from the body and help with longevity."

The king's eyes lit up a little, and he went on, "That's quite similar to what the master teacher does. You should talk to him as often as you can. It'd do you good."

That made Qin Yi sound like Donghuazi's pupil, which proved how highly the king thought of the old man. Qin Yi only said indifferently, "I guess as fellow Taoist practitioners, we can have some discussions every now and then."

The king then said, "The master teacher's nine transformation elixir can achieve immortality, whereas you can only cure diseases and prolong life. I see that you still have the arrogance of youth. Although you have been properly taught, you should still be modest on your path to the Great Tao."

"The claims of prolonging life and curing diseases are lofty themselves. The path to the Great Tao is perilous, and it will take one person a lifetime to achieve immortality. How could one brag about giving other people eternal lives? Boasting like that is very far from being humble."

The king looked baffled for a moment before saying, "The master teacher didn't speak in absolute terms, and he's still searching for a method to achieve immortality through the nine transformations. But the pills he usually makes are already very effective. I feel my mind is much clearer and my spirit lifted."

Qin Yi almost blurted out that those pills were rubbish. However, he remembered Li Qinglin's instructions and managed to fight back those words. Instead, he said, "I'll learn from the master teacher some other day."

The king nodded and suddenly asked, "Young friend, if you lead a life of few wants and ambitions, then Zhaoyang…"

Qin Yi immediately bowed. "Zhaoyang and I are deeply attracted and attached to each other. I would like to have her as my cultivation partner for life."

His directness seemed to have taken the king by surprise and rendered him speechless. After studying Qin Yi for a long while with a strange look on his face, the king slowly said, "Young friend, if you can't cut your bonds in this world, how are you supposed to reach the Great Tao? I have a suggestion…"

Qin Yi cut him off. "I wonder if the master teacher has mentioned this in his elixir theories."

The king didn't seem offended by the interruption and only said amicably, "Pray continue your question."

"When lead and mercury, dragon and tiger, the sun and the moon, and Yin and Yang make contact with each other for the first time, an elixir is born from chaos. If one tries in vain to mix minerals together to create an elixir without knowing the basics of Yin and Yang, it would be like searching for chickens and rabbits in the water or looking for fish and dragons on a mountain. Nothing could be more wrong!"

The king sat there dazed for a moment before he was lost in his thoughts.

Qin Yi felt so smug.

Playing the pitiful boy and begging for the king not to marry his daughter to someone else wouldn't work. If Qin Yi was going to play this game, he would use elixir theories, which the king valued the most!