Taichu Yandao: Starting from the Villain

In front of the palace gate, after Eunuch Li put the ruler into the box, the gem immediately lit up with a dazzling red light.

"Red!" Eunuch Li's hands were shaking and his face was filled with shock.

These two short words immediately caused a commotion in front of the palace gate, and two people rushed forward and headed straight for Eunuch Li.

The first person was Gong Junzhi, his eyes were shining and his face showed ecstasy.

The other person was the little Taoist priest. He threw the cake in his hand and jumped directly from the rocking chair.

The three of them were squeezed together. The young Taoist priest was short and at a disadvantage. His Taoist scarf was immediately tilted and one of his shoes fell to the side.

"Everyone get out of my way, or I'll kill you." The young Taoist priest shouted with an angry look on his face.

Next to the box, Gong Junzhi and Eunuch Li were like frightened birds and immediately stepped aside.

Everyone was silent, but Wang Qinghu's eyes were shining. He trotted forward, picked up the little Taoist's dropped shoes, and half-knelt to hand them to the little Taoist's feet.

"Hiss...Brother Wang's ability to read people's expressions...why the hell I didn't think of it!" Qiu Zongwu, who was standing nearby, took a breath of cold air.

On the other side, Eunuch Li looked at all the young eunuchs and scolded them: "A bunch of servants, their vision is not as good as that of a warrior, and they don't know their duties."

When the young Taoist saw someone handing him shoes, his expression eased a lot. He put on the shoes and took out a ruler from his sleeve.

"Good!" He measured each box one by one, and said "good" to each of the ten boxes.

Eunuch Li followed the little Taoist priest and put his ruler into the box, and the result was also red.

When Gong Junzhi heard the word "good", his smile grew wider. By the time he reached the tenth box, he was smiling like a flower and couldn't help but chuckle.

"Where did this tribute come from?" asked Eunuch Li.

"It's a tribute from Prince Cheng's Palace." Gong Junzhi replied immediately.

"I know it's a tribute to His Royal Highness King Cheng, so I'm asking which state it was sent from?"

This stumped Gong Junzhi. The King he was loyal to was very powerful and owned thirteen states of Yan State. He had sent several waves of troops to attack him today, but he couldn't remember who was who. He hurriedly looked at Wang Qinghu.

Wang Qinghu immediately stepped forward, bowed and said, "My Lords, this is the tribute sent by Mr. Yu, the student of Qingzhou Prefecture."

Eunuch Li hummed and said to the young eunuch beside him, "Mark this at the end when you take notes."

At this time, the young Taoist suddenly pointed at Wang Qinghu and said, "Promote him! Promote him three levels in a row. Go back and tell that Mr. Shengyu to send more tributes like this. Then I will make him a general."

"I hit the jackpot! I was promoted three levels in a row, which means I will be promoted to the fifth rank! If I am promoted to the fifth rank, I will have to work less for many years!" Wang Qinghu was overjoyed. He ran to the young Taoist priest and said, "Master Taoist priest, don't worry. I will definitely pass on your message. I will send another one when I go back."

"Lord Gong, I'll leave this matter to you!" Eunuch Li hurriedly ordered.

"I obey your command. Don't worry, the Cheng Palace never mistreats those who have made contributions!" Gong Junzhi said, then turned to Wang Qinghu and said with a smile, "Master Wang, congratulations on your promotion!"

"It doesn't matter whether I get promoted or not. The main thing is that I can do work for King Cheng and the Taoist priest. I feel very happy!" Wang Qinghu said with a smile.

"Hiss..." Qiu Zongwu took another breath of cool air and felt a stream of fresh air rushing straight to his temples.

In a harmonious atmosphere, everyone had a smile on their face. Eunuch Li took this opportunity to ask, "Master, should this be recorded as a lower grade of Class A?"

"What do you mean by low-grade? It must be medium-grade."

"Remember, King Cheng has to contribute ten boxes of mid-grade Grade A goods." Eunuch Li looked helpless, but shouted immediately.

About half an hour later, all ninety boxes of tribute were counted, and like the first ten boxes, the Tianji ruler lit up bright red.

"It seems that this is the case today. We have gained a lot. I will leave first!" The little Taoist priest said this and walked towards the palace without caring about anyone.

At the same time, several hundred imperial guards immediately took action. They quickly loaded the scriptures onto the carriage and followed the little Taoist priest.

In front of the palace gate, Wang Qinghu and others hurriedly sent him off with gifts. When the figure of the little Taoist disappeared into the darkness, Eunuch Li immediately said, "Everyone, it's getting late. I believe there will be fun in the Cheng Palace tonight."

Gong Junzhi smiled widely, stuffed a banknote in his hand, and said, "Eunuch Li has worked hard all day, this little money is for the servants to buy tea."

"Oh, no, no." Eunuch Li said no, but without hesitation, he put the banknotes into his sleeves.

After Lord Gong made some arrangements, he took everyone away. When he returned, he no longer took a sedan chair, but walked with Wang Chou and they chatted all the way.

The three of them all had good things in their hearts and they were having a great time along the way.

On the other side, the young Taoist priest led hundreds of imperial guards through the continuous palace complex and finally stopped in front of a side door of a courtyard.

"Put the things where they are, and you can go back." The young Taoist priest turned his back to the imperial guards. After giving the order, he opened the side door a crack and slipped in.

Under the light of the lantern, the crack in the door was pitch black, and a nauseating smell of decay permeated the air.

In the imperial guards, several soldiers smelled the odor and looked curiously towards the crack in the door. They were immediately reprimanded by their superiors: "What are you looking at? Do you think your life is too long? Hurry up and pour out the scriptures and leave."

There was a rustling sound and the imperial guards moved quickly. Soon they unloaded all the scriptures and left in a hurry.

As soon as the imperial guards left, there was a dead silence in front of the side door. Occasionally, a cold wind blew past, hitting the scriptures and making them rustle.

"Ding...ling...ding...ling..." Suddenly, a regular ring tone rang out.

A moment later, the little Taoist priest pushed the door open and walked out, followed by a line of zombies carrying boxes on their shoulders.

Accompanied by the eerie ringing of bells, the zombies began to sweep in front of the courtyard gate. Unlike the jumping zombies, their joints were very flexible. In about half an incense stick of time, they packed all the scriptures into a big box.

"It's not enough to ask the guards to move it, but you have to use these zombie strongmen. I'm so tired!" The little Taoist sat on the doorstep and threw the bell to the ground.

He rested for a while, then picked up the bell and led the zombie warrior into the yard.

"Squeak..." When the last zombie warrior entered the yard, the side door closed automatically.

In the dark garden, the little Taoist priest turned several turns and soon passed through a moon gate and entered the courtyard.

At this moment, the courtyard was filled with countless mountains of scriptures, and in the middle was a huge pit that could be hugged by five people.

Above the pit, a huge cauldron three people tall stood, with wisps of green smoke rising from it.

After the young Taoist priest entered the courtyard, he continued to ring the bell and commanded the strong men to pour the scriptures on the ground. After everything was done, he bowed to the main hall and said, "Master, I have collected good things today."

The main hall was pitch black, and no one responded. Instead, a voice came from the pile of scriptures next to it, saying, "Wow, what a good thing, Junior Brother Qian."

Following the sound, a man stuck his head out. His entire body was blackened by smoke, leaving only a mouthful of white teeth.

"Brother Fang, please don't disbelieve me. I detected a red scripture today." Qian Xiaoyi said loudly.

"Are you serious?" A man suddenly appeared at the door of the main hall.

The man was wearing thin clothes, with a haphazard bun on his head, burn scars on his cheeks, and bloodshot eyes.

He had a gloomy face. He was the imperial teacher who now controlled the government of Yan State, Li Tongzhen.

"Where is it?" Li Tongzhen asked again.

"Master, the ninety boxes of tribute have been brought back by the zombie warriors." Qian Xiaoyi hurriedly picked up a scripture and handed it to Li Tongzhen.

A ruler came out from Li Tongzhen's sleeve. As soon as it touched the scriptures, it lit up a faint red. He opened the scriptures, scanned a few pages, and said with a smile:

"It's quite interesting."

"Master, you figured it out so quickly?" Fang Xiaojia, dressed in black and gray, came forward.

"It's just a minor trick, but it's a good idea. Go and inform the prince tomorrow and have his people follow suit."

"Shouldn't the entire Yan State follow suit?" Qian Xiaoyi asked.

"Xiao Yi is being too clever. As the saying goes, too much is as bad as too little. We hide to make the elixir, aren't we afraid that others will notice?"

"Master is right."

Li Tongzhen laughed loudly and said, "Disciples, work harder tonight and see how hard our pills can be tempered."

Fang and Qian bowed their heads and accepted the order. They returned to the cauldron, picked up shovels and added scriptures to the fire pit.

The raging flames swept past, and the scriptures were burned to ashes in an instant.

If an alchemist who knows a little bit about this sees it, this is completely meaningless, because even the lowest-level apprentice has to use high-quality charcoal to ensure a continuous fire when refining the elixir.

The scriptures are written on ordinary paper, which burns quickly and disappears quickly, and is completely useless.

But at this time, under the big cauldron, as the volumes of scriptures burned out, a trace of willpower entered the cauldron from the ears, and then accumulated there, surrounding a small alchemy furnace in the middle.

There were countless runes engraved on the surface of the furnace, crisscrossing to form a mysterious formation. The runes constantly absorbed the power of will accumulated in the cauldron and refined a brown pill in the furnace.

The pill looks dull and dark, but it is not an ordinary pill. Instead, it is a foundation-building pill that can help Qi-cultivating practitioners break through bottlenecks.

Cultivation is going against the will of heaven, and there will be shackles at every step forward. When a cultivator in the Qi training stage has completed his cultivation, he will find that the door to the avenue is not open, but requires several times more strength than his own to knock open.

If a breakthrough is forced without the assistance of external forces, 99% of the cultivators will exhaust their energy and eventually die.

Therefore, for most cultivators, the Foundation Establishment Pill is almost the key to opening the door to the avenue.

However, although the elixir is good, it is not something that ordinary cultivators can afford. Not to mention that the precious medicine and the elixir recipe are hard to come by, what is even more difficult is that the elixir is not easy to refine.

No alchemist can guarantee the success rate of pills when he opens a furnace. If one out of three furnaces succeeds, he is already a very accomplished alchemist. The remaining two furnaces are either scrapped or produce poisonous pills with extremely strong side effects.

As the name suggests, the poison pill may cause great harm to the cultivator, but there is also a slight possibility that the cultivator will be able to knock on the door to the Tao and lay the foundation for the Tao.

Therefore, even if it is a poison pill, no one in the cultivation world will waste it. There will always be someone who will gamble on the one in ten thousand probability. Passing this level will be the difference between an ordinary person and a saint.

Since there are always people who take poison pills, some monks began to think about whether they could improve the quality of the poison pills through some specific methods.

At the beginning, no one had any idea, but with the accumulation of generations of cultivators, the cultivation world finally developed a method to improve the quality of elixirs - the quenching method.