Pursuing Immortality

“Slap!”

“Slap!”

The fellow was slapped seven or eight times in a row before the crisp yet frightening sound finally stopped.

His lean face was now massively swollen and covered with purple veins. With the swelling taking up most of his face, his nose seemed exceptionally protruding and his eyes squeezed to tiny slits; he was now a perfect imitation of a pighead.

Crumpling onto his chair, the man was as much in pain as he was baffled. Despite his low grunts, he dared not—and could not even if he wanted to—utter a single word.

“…”

The fellow had always left a poor impression on those in his circle and was never a popular figure. Now that his ass was being kicked, the rest of the group all watched him with strange looks on their faces—they were even secretly expecting the show to go on.

“Pop!”

Right under their gaze, a fluctuation seemed to spread out in the empty air. Immediately after that, a cherubic kid materialized silently with no forewarning, as if it had just jumped out of a wormhole from another dimension.

The kid was about 30 cm in height, wearing a red dudou and brandishing its naked smooth buttcheeks. As soon as it hit the ground, its face lit up into a broad grin. However, in spite of its wide open mouth, not a sound was coming out of it.

‘What the hell is THAT?’

The crowd felt their hair standing up on their backs as a chilliness rose up inside them, moving swiftly up along their spines. Those not careful enough happened to look right into the kid’s eyes and at a glance of those bottomless black pupils, they shuddered violently, utterly petrified.

Fortunately, the kid showed no interests in them whatsoever. Still grinning, it ran out jauntily on its bare feet.

“Phew…”

They all heaved a sigh of relief. The fellow’s bodyguard was the only person that felt unhappy and wronged. ‘Come on, there was nothing I could do!’

“Something came up when we were just setting out. Sorry for keeping you waiting!”

Right at that moment, a voice came from outside and the speaker entered the room while they were just registering the words. A man and a woman had arrived, both with a splendor about them and looking subtly elegant. The cherubic kid was nowhere to be seen.

“Swoosh!”

Seeing them, the crowd stood up in unison and greeted them solemnly, “How do you do, Mr. Gu!”

“Please sit down. You guys are way too polite!”

Gu Yu led Long Qiu into the room and gestured at the crowd. He then took one look at the pighead and said right away, “This gentleman, I’m afraid, would have to leave.”

“Hm… Mhm…”

Struggling with his swollen face, the man tried to explain himself, but was unable to make any distinctive sound. His bodyguard was quick to take the cue. Hoisting up his master, they stumbled out in a hurry.

With the sole idiot out of the picture, the rest of the group was much relieved. Moral of the story: regardless of time and occasion, one should never expect that everyone present was in possession of an adequate IQ.

“I did not expect there would be so many of you. Just to avoid any possible confusion, please take turn to show your things, one at a time.” Gu Yu then turned to Yuan Peiji. “I’ll have to borrow the room upstairs.”

“Of course!”

Yuan Peiji led them onto the second floor right away.

The rest of the group exchanged hesitant looks and the man from the capital city let out a sudden laughter. “Let’s line up, then. No one’s gonna be left out, anyway. I’ll take the liberty and go first!”

With that, he climbed up the stairs with his suitcase and turned into a small room, where Gu Yu and Long Qiu were seated.

“Hello, Mr. Gu. I’m from the Meng Family of the capital city and my name is Meng Shaohui,” he introduced himself.

“Nice to meet you. Please take a seat.”

Sitting down across the table from Gu Yu, the ruffian act from earlier was now nowhere to be found on the man. He said, “After hearing the news, we sent our men out right away and started collecting. It just so happens that the core business of my family is the trade of medicinal materials and we’ve got some very rare treasure—sort of an ‘ace in the hole’.”

He opened the suitcase and pushed it lightly towards Gu Yu.

Gu Yu looked into it and was rather surprised at what he saw, for inside was a sun-dried, fully processed ginseng.

The stem consisted of three sections. The bottom section was cylinder-shaped and not very long; the middle section was the “patterned stem” densely lined with date-stone-shaped adventitious root; the top section was the “horse-tooth stem”, which contained three “teeth”.

This big ginseng was 5 cm in length and 3 cm in diameter. The five main threads of fibrous roots wound and bent into various shapes, resembling the running hand in calligraphy. Its skin was of a yellowish white and felt fine and smooth. The entire plant possessed a natural grace.

‘This is the real deal!’

Gu Yu sighed with admiration. Regret then took over—if only this was a living plant instead of a processed one. One had to be reasonable, though. This ginseng was at least a hundred years old and there was no way it could stay hidden in the mountain for that long a period.

As the saying went, a seven- liang ¹ ginseng was a ginseng, while an eight-liang ginseng was a treasure.

There was a treasured “king of ginseng” in the country, which weighted 285 g—or 9.12 liang in traditional units. What was miraculous about it was that it split into two life-like ” legs ² ” at the bottom, deeming it a gem unequaled by any contemporaries.

This ginseng was not as heavy as that, but was at least 8 liang already.

“…”

Meng Shaohui was flustered at Gu Yu’s silence. He had brought the most spectacular treasure of his family and had no idea how much it would bring them in exchange.

To the mortal men, ginseng was but a medicine to treat illness. To the cultivators, however, it was also an ingredient for refining spiritual medicines. These were no ordinary medicines, though. As a work of the cultivators, one would not be exaggerating by saying that these medicines could instantly add a few more years to one’s life!

After a brief moment of consideration, Gu Yu finally replied, “The ginseng is of the highest grade. Unfortunately, it is processed instead of being a living plant, which will affect its value. That being said, we will not be stingy, since you’ve proved your sincerity.”

With a wave of his hand, Long Qiu passed over an oblong box. “If you find this acceptable, we’ll have a deal.”

“…”

Feeling ill at ease, Meng Shaohui opened the box and found it filled with incense pellets; the amount delighted him. “Thank you, Mr. Gu! Thank you so much!”

“Whatever medicinal materials you find in the future, you can bring it here. Oh, we prefer the living plants.”

“Yes, of course!”

The overjoyed Meng Shaohui went back downstairs jubilantly.

Long Qiu had just put the ginseng away when the second seller entered the room. It was none other than the pretty young man. Same as Meng Shaohui, the sarcastic attitude he exhibited in the squabble earlier was safely tucked away—he was a perfect gentleman now.

“Hello, Mr. Gu. I’m from the Bai Family of Xuan Zhou. I’m Bai Bo.”

After introducing himself, he cut to the chase right away. “This is a stone we stumbled upon and the test we ran came back empty. We thought maybe we could trouble you with the appraisal.”

“Oh?”

Taking over the fist-sized stone, Gu Yu found it of an irregular shape with quite a few edges and corners. The stone was goldish red in color—mainly red, with a tiny bit of golden hue.

As soon as it was in his hand, Gu Yu detected a barely discernible fluctuation of spiritual essence. Unlike the neutral ones he had sensed before, this one seemed to have a natural property to it.

He sensed it more carefully. It was somewhat broiling, which gave him a slight burning sensation… was it fire?

“Where did you find it?” He was immediately interested.

“Well…”

Bai Bo’s hesitation was deliberate. It did not take a genius to guess his intention.

“Haha, the stone itself is of little importance to me. I’d like to know the information you hold rather than having the stone.” Gu Yu knew how such thing worked and proposed, “I’ll trade it for three pellets of Blue Cloud Incense. How does that sound?”

“Maybe a little bit more than that?”

“Maybe, depending on the value of your information.”

“Deal!” Gritting his teeth, Bai Bo thought it over and agreed. “My friend found it by accident when he was travelling in the Flaming Mountain.”

“As in Flaming Mountain of Huo ³ Zhuo?” Gu Yu was surprised.

“Yes.”

“How many more stones like this one were there?”

“Maybe a handful. He wasn’t looking very closely.”

“When was he there?”

“Half a month ago.”

“Anything else out of the ordinary?”

“Urh, probably not. It felt much hotter than usual, that’s all.”

Gu Yu knew what was happening. Flaming Mountain was in the same province as Tianshan and only 190 km apart. The fire spiritual essence in this stone was barely detectable, which meant it was formed only for a short period.

There were two possibilities.

It could be that a mineral vein similar to that of Tianshan had been formed, bearing fire-attributed ores.

Or, an area of abnormality similar to Grass River Mouth could be taking its shape.

He was inclined to go with the second one, for Flaming Mountain was not a node and it would take a considerably long period to form a lode. It seemed more like an abnormality brought by the neighboring node in Tianshan.

Either way, it was a valuable piece of information.

Consequently, he raised the payment, which satisfied Bai Bo greatly, who then took his leave.

The process went on like this. Seventy percent of them offered medicinal materials and only a few brought with them some minerals. A couple of the less insightful ones produced their “treasures” in the form of mud lumps or tree stumps, which were sprinkled with the faintest spiritual essence.

There were fourteen sellers in total. Gu Yu accepted the goods from nine of them and sent the other five back. Those that managed to close the deal were delighted, while the unsuccessful one dared not complain, but swiftly returned to their vehicles and left.

All in all, Gu Yu found the trade fair worthwhile. The most valuable pieces were the old ginseng and the information on Flaming Mountain. Apart from those, there were also three glossy ganoderma, four fleece-flower roots, and a number of tuckahoe and dendrobe.

***

Dusk time.

With the last deal closed and the seller’s vehicle driving away, quietness returned to the small courtyard. Gu Yu did not think much of the event, but Long Qiu had had great fun. Her brother had brought her along this time so that she could learn from the experience.

Such trade fair would only happen more frequently in the future and there were only three of them. In case anything unexpected should happen, Xiao Qiu had to learn to identify the objects and offer reasonable prices.

Yuan Peiji stood by as a dutiful attendant until everyone else had left. Right now, he was seeing Gu Yu and Long Qiu off.

“This was the first meeting and the young masters of all families were here to make their acquaintance with you. The future trades will probably be carried out by the servants only. I hope you won’t mind.”

“Haha, I understand. Thank you for taking the trouble today.”

“I was only doing my job…” Yuan Peiji paused and went on, “Mr. Gu, we were chatting before you arrived and quite a few people said in passing that we should revamp and expand the place a little. I think that’s a good idea. After all, the group will only get bigger and a small place may not work.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Well, I was thinking of building something like a manor. It’ll at least fit all the cars in. And the road also needs paving. We’d better make it all the way to Phoenix Fair. Also there’s the mountain track you use all the time. How about trimming it a little bit?”

Gu Yu could not be bothered to make any changes before, but with what was going on, this place was potentially a small scale trade center before long. The expansion was inevitable and necessary.

Therefore, he replied after a brief thought. “That sounds good. I’m afraid I’ll have to trouble you with all the work.”

“It’s my pleasure.”

Yuan Peiji accompanied them all the way to the foot of the mountain and watched them going up. It was only then that he turned around and headed back for the courtyard. Despite not being a participant of the actual trade, he still felt his adrenalin pumping.

As a matter of fact, the government would be the most capable party to set up a trading platform. However, without the core technology at the moment, the government would not be able play the key role. Moreover, with the current condition, they could only afford a limited scale of trades.

‘Here’s one sixty-year tuckahoe and two dendrobe. With a few more sealwort and you’re qualified for free shipping! Airmail and fast delivered!’

Come on, no one would be that stupid to take their treasures lightly. Let alone sending them by mail, they would even doubt their own escort. Therefore, all had to be done in the most “primitive” way—as in, to meet in person and barter.