Chapter 401: Medicinal Herbs
Translator: Sparrow Translations Editor: Sparrow Translations
"Knock! Knock!"
Morning, the next day.
The sun just rose and a violent knocking noise could already be heard from outside the door.
"Who is it?"
Fang Yuan opened the door groggily and saw two policemen in peak caps, "What's the matter, officers?"
"Are you Fang Yuan?"
A tall policeman flipped through his records and continued asking, "Eh, Sambhogakaya Monastery Heart Questioning House's owner? You even sold an Aquilaria Maitreya yesterday?"
"Yes, I have already instructed my shop assistants to pay the taxes!"
Fang Yuan asked confusedly, "Is there any other matter?"
"Yesterday night, where were you between 12am to 3am?"
The other policemen questioned him sternly. As the policemen represented the law's sense of righteousness, they could easily cause those who were not firm in their thoughts to waver and let the cat out of the bag.
"The weather was so cold and it was so late at night, I was, of course, sleeping at home..." Fang Yuan answered naturally.
"Is there any witness or alibi? The Aquilaria Maitreya brought by Mr Thomas for 500,000 dollars was stolen in the hotel last night!" The policemen questioned Fang Yuan and immediately observed his reactions detailedly.
"Stolen? What the..."
However, Fang Yuan had the acting chops of an award-winning actor. A surprised yet shocked look appeared on his face and the policemen could not observe anything abnormal.
"Ok, if you thought of anything else, please inform us immediately!"
After a round of questioning, the two policemen bowed and left.
"Indeed, they came just to try to scare me….." Fang Yuan thought.
Fang Yuan closed his courtyard doors. He then watered the medicinal herbs in his garden as usual with a slight smile on his face as he thought, "What a pity... I had a witness who was absent! And it was your own guy!"
The stalker last night would most likely say that Fang Yuan was at home if not, he would then be admitting he was derelict in his duties.
With him as a witness, Fang Yuan was naturally not worried at all.
After he finished tending his garden, he rode his bicycle to a breakfast stall.
There were not many people at the breakfast stall yet. The steaming hot buns in the bamboo steamers gave out a tantalising and salivating aroma.
Fang Yuan immediately ordered his food and began slowly eating some buns and a bowl of spicy soup.
Suddenly, Fang Yuan noticed Guo Jing enjoying his fried dough and porridge opposite him. Fang Yuan did not know when he appeared. Guo Jing was wearing a pair of sunglasses which was rather odd looking.
After they finished their breakfast, the two of them mixed into the big group of people doing their morning exercise at the park.
"Little Master... you have to treat my injury! Or else I can't even go to work today!"
They then went to a secluded spot in the forest. After ensuring there was no one following them, Guo Jing took off his sunglasses with a bitter smile to reveal a racoon eye which was strangely smaller than it was last night.
"Old Guo, you are a security guard, there's nothing wrong for you to get in a few brawls!"
After Fang Yuan spoke to him last night, Fang Yuan knew more about him. Although Guo Jing was a cultivator, he was not officially a daoist. Instead, he worked as a security guard at a factory. It was the perfect example of being hidden in plain sight.
"I am a nice old man deemed as a mister goody two shoes by the neighbour committee! If those middle-aged women found out I was involved in a fight, they would definitely annoy the hell out of me..." Guo Jing replied.
"Eh, don't worry! Take a seat!"
Fang Yuan pricked the area between Guo Jing's eyebrow with a silver needle and used his technique. A stream of spiritual energy was immediately transferred over to Guo Jing.
Moments later, all the remaining bruises on Guo Jing's body disappeared. He was no different from usual.
"Ah... amazing!"
Guo Jing took out a small mirror and looked at himself. He was satisfied and nodded, "Little Master, your magical needles skills are really perfect, it really reminds me of the Magical Needler Xue..."
"I merely learnt it from some ancient books, I was lucky to cultivate till such..."
Fang Yuan waved his arms and sat on a piece of rock, "Old Guo... do you think there are many people like us?"
"I'm afraid not!"
Guo Jing gave a bitter smile, "I have lived for so long and only met one, which is you... but lately, things are a bit different! Even though no one in my master's sect has ever managed to cultivate the divine techniques in the , which I inherited from my master's master, after fumbling with it these few years, I managed to achieve some results! I can now open my spiritual eye and draw talismans to mess with people!"
"Doesn't that means those people with lineage should have realised it by now and are secretly cultivating?"
Fang Yuan stroked his chin and smile radiantly, "Old Guo, you don't have to belittle yourself... your 6 Ding 6 Jia Talisman last night was really good. Also, with your spiritual eye techniques, next time, you can just wear a daoist robe and be a master exorcist!"
"Although that 6 Ding 6 Jia God possession technique is powerful, it consumes too much elemental energy. If I didn't meet you last night and you didn't protect my elemental energy with your silver needles, my old bones would definitely not be able to get out of bed today! I would definitely be bedridden for 7 days and 7 nights to recover..."
Guo Jing shook his head and took out a cloth bag, "This magical equipment... I should return it to its owner!"
"No need!"
Fang Yuan shook his head, "I have already sold this magical equipment, if you want to return it to its owner, you have to return it to Mr Thomas. Or you can keep it with yourself, anyway, I have nothing to do with it now."
"Sigh... although this is a magical equipment, after yesterday night's events, it's a piece of trouble!"
Guo Jing kept the sculpture with a bitter smile on his face, "I reckon the pickpockets in this city would definitely be super unlucky in the next few days..."
"These thieves should be cleaned up!"
Fang Yuan then asked interestedly, "What exactly is this magical equipment? Do you know?"
"This... I only realised it yesterday when I went to look at the commotion!"
Guo Jing awkwardly continued, "But this is definitely a magical equipment, it is also no doubt related to the Way of Brahma... Brahman magical equipment mostly can calm a person's spirit and cleanse the psychological barriers in their hearts. This item should have similar effects... Whereas for other effects, I'm not really sure..."
"It's okay, you can keep it and slowly analyse it. If you have any new discoveries, just inform me..."
Fang Yuan stood up and said, "I have to go to school now! I still have to rush my thesis!"
In actual fact, Fang Yuan's gains this time around was counted not bad already. Not only did he obtain a Yin Yang Master's notebook, he met a real cultivator.
Okay... although this cultivator seemed like an amateur, his background was real. He even allowed Fang Yuan to experiment on him, which was greatly beneficial to Fang Yuan's process in perfecting his theories.
...
"Write my thesis! Write my thesis! This time….. I must really set the Thames on fire!"
Inside Xijing University's library, Fang Yuan sat in front a pile of books while biting his pen and thought, "Looks like I have to put in something substantial..."
Fang Yuan's pen could not stop moving and a stream of dragon-and-phoenix-like words appeared. In that instant, it was as though the surroundings became absolutely silent, all sorts of noise, commotion, ruckus and hullabaloo turned into silence and emptiness under the tip of his pen.
After Fang Yuan wrote a few lines of words, he raised his head and saw the library was as per normal. Golden sun rays shined through the window and lighted up the fine dust particles in the air. Under the piles of books, there were many bookworms like Fang Yuan who had large round spectacles and were also busy studying.
"After all, this realm has harsh laws and is realm purely based on physics. If I want to sense the heavens or what not, I better get to bed early!" Fang Yuan thought.
Fang Yuan blew at his papers and stared at the tile of his thesis, !
"It's already not bad if the professors don't think I'm an idiot after seeing such a thesis title! But the truth always rests with the minority!"
Fang Yuan looked at the huge history books in front of him and a smile appeared on his face, "Spiritual King Comet? Interesting!"
"Of course... just these pieces of evidence aren't enough, I still need some human data. Else, the professors might really chuck my thesis into the bin... In Chinese Country, it is super embarrassing if someone can't even pass the thesis defence..."
Fang Yuan solemnly memorised the resources he obtained. After registering the books, Fang Yuan left the library and went to the Faculty of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
"Fang Yuan, you're here!"
The faculty's Professor Tian's eyes lit up immediately when he saw Fang Yuan, "Did you complete your germination experiment? Are you bringing me some good medicines..."
"No, I just came to prepare the resources for my thesis... I still need to contact the Traditional Chinese Medicine clinic for some medical cases!"
"You still need the agreement of the patient and the patient's family! Also, this is a bit too risky!"
Professor Tian was not very happy about Fang Yuan's thesis, "Fang Yuan, don't be too ambitious. I'm not criticising you, but as long as you systematically and scientifically write down your experiences in cultivating the medicinal herbs in your thesis, even if other professors do not pass it, we can still save you a spot in our master's degree programme!"
"Think about it, artificially cultivated herbs that are as good as wild herbs' medicinal properties! There is such a huge economic value in this, think about all the contributions you can bring to our motherland..."
As Professor Tian tried to convince Fang Yuan, seeing Fang Yuan's unwavering smile, he felt slightly gloomy.
Prescriptions in Traditional Chinese Medicine had two aspects, it was symptomatic and based on medicinal herbs. Of course, after so many years, many wild medicinal herbs became extremely rare and could only be replaced by those grown artificially.
However, many of these artificially cultivated medicinal herbs were always lousier than their counterparts found in the wild, even if they were of the same age.
Furthermore, such minute differences could not even be detected by equipment. Professor Tian was extremely shocked when he discovered the medicinal herbs Fang Yuan grew were not in the tiniest bit lousier than those found in the wild.
Nevertheless, Fang Yuan cooperatively participated in the research. They even did a control experiment with two medicinal herbs that were exactly the same and were both the same age. Although the equipment could not detect any difference, the effects of Fang Yuan's medicinal herb was 30% better, which made Professor Tian completely baffled.
"I'm still more interested in treating patients and saving lives!" Fang Yuan replied resolutely.
In actual fact, the results were produced after Fang Yuan restrained his special ability already.
The slightly stronger medicinal property could be attributed to good or secret cultivation skills and tips, but if the greatly shortened growth cycle and even the variations were found out, the herbs would be treated like monsters and would definitely be investigated.
Although Fang Yuan was not afraid to reveal some more, what was the point?