Chapter Forty-Nine: The Remarkable Ancestor Sister
"Are you sure you refined these pills yourself? With your own hands?!"
Elder Mu Huo’s lips were trembling slightly, his face grave and urgent as he questioned.
"Of course I did," came the reply. "As you said, these are the lowest grade of pills. If I didn’t refine them myself, do you think I’d go out of my way to find some random pills to fool you, sir? I wouldn’t dare be so bold."
…
"You rascal, do you think I can’t tell whether a pill is newly refined or not? What, are you afraid your master’s accusing you unjustly?"
"I’m not that bored," Elder Mu Huo said, regaining a bit of his usual calm, though he was still worried that his earlier odd behavior had frightened the boy into backtracking. He hastened to reassure him.
"You really gave me a fright, sir."
"Wrong, boy! It’s you who startled me!"
"What’s wrong now?"
"Come with me, you brat!"
…
They walked together to Elder Mu Huo’s bedchamber. There, the elder tapped lightly on a side wall. With a series of clicks, a nearly invisible crack slid inward, revealing a hidden chamber.
The interior was exceedingly simple: a brocade box on a table, a portrait on the wall, and a meditation cushion on the floor.
"Kneel with me," Elder Mu Huo said, lighting six sticks of incense and handing three to Gu Xiaopang before pointing at the portrait.
Gu Xiaopang stared intently at the portrait—a woman of extraordinary beauty and ethereal grace, as if fashioned by heaven itself. Her long black hair cascaded like a waterfall, her lips softly parted, her slender waist accentuated, her posture elegant and alluring… truly a figure of immortal charm.
"Master, who is this beauty? Your wife?"
"Mind your manners, boy. That is our ancestral founder."
"What? Ancestor?"
"That’s right."
…
After their obeisance, Elder Mu Huo carefully took the brocade box from the table beneath the portrait.
"Xiaopang, look at this pill and tell me what’s different from the six you refined."
"Master, are you testing me?" Gu Xiaopang remarked. "The ones I made are just basic Blood Dissolving Pills. As for this one… I don’t recognize it at all!"
"I’m not asking if you recognize it," the elder said. "I mean, compare its structure—appearance, patterns, everything—to yours. What’s different?"
"Let me take a closer look."
Gu Xiaopang took the pill from Elder Mu Huo and compared it carefully to his own, while the elder watched in silence.
…
"Master, it feels exactly the same as mine, except for the color…"
"Ignore the color."
"Alright."
"Then it’s just like mine."
"As I thought," Elder Mu Huo murmured softly, seeing that Gu Xiaopang had checked again and again.
"Master, why do you keep this pill hidden? And especially place it under the beautiful ancestor’s portrait? That’s a bit disrespectful…"
"You rascal, are you asking for a beating?"
"Don’t mind me, master. I was only joking with you."
…
After closing the secret door, Elder Mu Huo began to tell Gu Xiaopang about the ancestor in the portrait.
Her name was Feng Qingling, a celestial at the Ascension stage. She was the founder of the Valley of the Medicine King, famous for her wondrous pills and renowned across the land.
Later, to save her husband, she journeyed across the continent in search of rare and magical herbs, a journey that lasted centuries. During those centuries, the Valley of the Medicine King lost all trace of her, and her two personal disciples within the sect eventually fell into conflict, resulting in one branch being wiped out.
When she finally returned with her husband and saw what had become of the sect, she felt no desire to stay. Together, they ascended to the heavens, taking the sect’s treasured manual, the "Divine Alchemy of the Medicine King," with them.
"Divine Alchemy of the Medicine King?"
"Yes. It was lost to the world tens of thousands of years ago."
…
"Master, then the current Medicine King Sect—?"
"You guessed right. The current Medicine King Sect was founded by the victors of that old conflict, and it has continued to this day."
"Then, master, are you—were you descended from the branch that was destroyed?"
"Yes," the elder replied. "One of my ancestors escaped by sheer luck, living in hiding ever since, adopting the surname Mu as a new identity."
"But after so many generations, there’s really no enmity left."
"I see, so that’s how it is."
…
"How I envy our ancestor—invincible across the continent. But how did the Divine Alchemy manual end up in Old Man Qin’s hands? And why is he left only as a weakened soul? Why does he always avoid my questions about it?"
Having learned of the ancestor’s history from millennia ago, Gu Xiaopang was filled with wonder and questions.
…
"Boy, the reason I brought you here and told you of our ancestor is to confirm one thing."
"What is it, master?"
"Did you, perhaps by accident, obtain, learn, or… somehow inherit the method of the Divine Alchemy of the Medicine King?"
"Each of your six pills bears traces of that very method, just like the ancestral pill I have kept here…"