Chapter 538: Looking for the Drugs
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
The Kingdom of Qi was located in the southwest. It was one of the conventional countries in Central Plains. Its capital could not compare with the city of Chang’an, but it was clean and peaceful. People walked under the ginkgo trees and looked calm, even numb, as if the beautiful view and daily life could not affect them at all.
For thousands of years, the Kingdom of Qi had been a dependency of West-Hill Divine Palace. Haotian Taoism had a very high position here. If people saw a carriage with the mark of Divine Hall passing by from distance, they would reverently kneel to it.
There was a white Taoism Temple in the north of the capital which was inlaid with a variety of precious stones and covered with gold dust on the eaves. It clearly copied the style of West-Hill Divine Palace on the Peach Mountain but was smaller than it.
This temple was higher than the palace of Qi in the center of the capital. Standing in front of the temple, one could look down at the palace.
The difference was designed on purpose and it was also the true portrayal of these thousands of years.
The royal succession of this country must be approved by the Divine Hall. Neither the military nor diplomatic stuff could get over the Divine Hall’s influence. Considering the awesome power of the Divine Hall, the priest in red, who lived in the temple, had a higher position than the emperor.
Coming along with the power were endless wealth and resources. All the people in the Kingdom of Qi knew that the most dazzling jewelry and rarest of treasures were in the temple instead of the palace.
Money is always attractive, but even the most audacious and the most powerful bandits would not enter this temple, let alone the stupid gangsters. Since this was the most heavily guarded place in the Kingdom of Qi — no one, under Haotian, dared to offend it.
Just a few days ago, something big happened in the Kingdom of Qi. The Celestial Taoism on the Mountain Dragon-Tiger was exterminated and the Nation Master Zhang was killed cruelly. Although the Divine Hall and Royals both had sent many people to investigate, the air in the capital was still getting gloomier and gloomier.
The guards at the temple were becoming more and more alert. Standing on both sides of the gates, the soldiers would coldly look at the pedestrians as if they were all murderers.
In the silent street, sounded terrible, squeaky gratings which alerted the soldiers. They all looked in the direction of those sounds and their looks turned incredulous.
A black carriage was being slowly dragged along the street. Its black wheels rolled over the road, leaving deep tracks and crushed stones.
The soldiers were all shocked and they wondered how heavy the carriage would be to create such damage and what was it made of to keep its shape.
The more unbelieved thing was the carriage was not being dragged by the big black horse in front of it. The rope pulling the carriage was in a young man’s hands.
How strong would the young man have to be to drag such a heavy carriage?
The news was immediately reported to the temple and a middle-aged priest came out. When he saw it, his face changed — the man who could drag the carriage with one hand was definitely not a normal man. Although he felt a little strange about it, he would not like to make trouble.
The black carriage slowly moved up and stopped in front of the temple. The horse was breathing heavily and exhausted. Some soldiers felt sorry for it since it was a very fine horse but belonged to a terrible owner.
“What are you doing here?”
The priest looked at the young man and asked. As a priest of West-Hill Divine Palace who represented Haotian, he had lived a superior life for a long time, so he was used to being arrogant and cruel. He did not realize how rude he was because he thought he was gentle enough to ask in such a way.
The young man was Ning Que. If some priests spoke to him in such a hateful tone in the past, he would definitely not accept it. However, since his temperament had become quieter after the battle in Red Lotus Temple and he came here for an important thing, he tried to be calm.
“My wife was seriously ill. I heard that someone in this temple can cure her, so…”
Ning Que said.
Now, the priest knew he was here to ask a favor. He frowned and was going to rebuke Ning Que when he recalled the view of the heavy carriage rolling over the road. He repressed his impatience and said, “It’s not the time to provide drugs. Come three days later.”
Since there were millions of people who believed in Haotian, West-Hill Divine Palace had to bestow favors if they wanted to maintain its rules.
The will of Haotian could not be sensed by normal people and few priests were able to cultivate the Divine Skills. It was impossible for them to cure all of the diseases in the world. As there were too many herbs and rare pills in the temples of every country, they would like to give some to believers for free at a regular time.
Of course, they would not do this for free. By controlling the timing of issuing the drugs, they gave the hope to the believers, yet, at the same time, held it in their hands.
“We don’t need to see the priest in the temple. I have heard that the drugs and herbs in the temples are more than in any other place, so we come to have a look. Of course, we will pay for them.”
Ning Que answered and then gave him a piece of note.
The mid-aged priest was dazed and thought angrily, “The drugs and pills are all made by the predecessors carefully and cannot be compared with the normal ones. It is humiliating for the temple to sell the drugs for money.”
Suddenly, he saw the numbers on the note and could not help being shocked. He said in his mind, “If it’s an insult, even the priest in red will not mind being insulted more than once.”
The priest’s good mood did not last for a long time. When he opened the door and allowed Ning Que to drag the horse and the carriage in the temple, he received the second paper from Ning Que. That was a list.
The list was full of characters consisting of more than 30 kinds of drugs and pills. Most of them were secretly kept in the temple and forbidden to spread.
He had no idea how this young man knew the drugs were in the temple. Even though he was shocked, when he saw the characters on the paper, he had to admit that it was good handwriting.
He looked at the list, and then the note, saying with regret and alertness, “I can feel your sincerity to Haotian, but I’m sorry. Most of the drugs are not for sale. No matter how sincere you are, you can’t get them.”
While Ning Que was watching the dispensary not far away, he heard the Sangsang’s cough from the carriage. He frowned and became more and more irritable.
After leaving Red Lotus Temple last night, he stopped traveling to Lanke Temple. Although he had repaired the carriage, he still had to walk more than 10 days to reach Lanke Temple with dragging the horse and the carriage. Sangsang was in the coma and being tortured by the poison and disease which paled her very much. Under this situation, his only choice was to find the drugs he needed in the closest city he could find.
Before he left Chang’an, his brother Wang Chi gave him some prescriptions which looked normal but hard to find except in the back of the mountain of the Academy. Therefore, he decided to go to the capital of the Kingdom of Qi to find them.
He had not eaten, slept, rested, and drunk any water since yesterday evening and he had been struggling his way to this capital no matter what he had to pay.
The only thing which could comfort him was that Sangsang finally woke up in the early morning. Although she coughed badly and had no signs of getting better, he finally felt a little relieved.
Although Ning Que looked fine at this moment, he was exhausted. He was too tired to remember things. He had forgotten that he was going to Lanke Temple for the Yue Laan Hungry Ghost Festival. He had forgotten that he had a fight with both Prince Long Qing and fallen knights. He had forgotten that he had reached the Knowing Destiny State. The only thing he remembered was that he had to find drugs for Sangsang.
However, at the moment when he was going to have them, troubles happened.
Ning Que remained silent and his eyes became colder and colder with an extremely scary feeling hiding in them. He gradually grasped the hilt with his hand.
Seeing this, the middle-aged priest changed his face. He was able to accept an insult with the note, but he could not accept being threatened with violence — he was the priest of Haotian and anyone who threatened him, in fact, threatened Haotian.
Threatening Haotian was the blasphemy.
Inside the Taoism Temple, all of the silent soldiers drew out their swords and heightened their Psyche Power. In their eyes, even though the young man had formidable power, he had no chance to survive once he took his saber out.
A cough sounded in the carriage once again, telling everyone that she was in pain.
Ning Que trembled a little and woke up from his choleric mood. He turned his eyes to the carriage.
A thin arm came out of the window and wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief. A weak and guilty voice sounded.
“You are too tired. Get in.”
Even though Ning Que was extremely exhausted as if he closed his eye, he would fall asleep, he never forgot his purpose. “I need the drugs.”
Sangsang said weakly, “Have you forgotten my identity? If I need the drugs, they would gladly provide them.”