Chapter 1394 — Hope of Escape
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
The next page held an account of what happened once the Fire Spirit Sacred Fruit had been brought back and given to that friend of his. Wei Zhao had meant only to skim the process and the method, without reading too closely; but when his eye fell upon a single line, he was struck with shock.
The Fire Spirit Sacred Fruit, kept in its medicine box, had already withered away into a dried herb — and Zhang Lifeng, clinging to the hope that something might come of it, had given it to his friend, only for it to produce not the slightest effect. Bewildered, Zhang Lifeng consulted a great deal of literature once more and at last arrived at the reason.
The fruit is extraordinarily difficult to preserve. It partakes of the nature of fire, and once it leaves the branch it can dissipate with the greatest of ease; it is best taken on the spot, otherwise its efficacy is greatly diminished — or lost altogether. Zhang Lifeng had traveled day and night for the better part of half a year, so it was only natural that the fruit's power had lapsed.
Having read this account, Zhang Lifeng could do nothing but laugh bitterly. But his friend's illness had to be treated. He consulted many more records and at last found one of the ways to preserve the Fire Spirit Sacred Fruit: a medicine box made of Ten-Thousand-Year Spring Wood. But that wood was something almost impossible to come upon — a thing one might chance upon and never seek; even Zhang Lifeng had only ever heard of it, and for the moment there was no way to go looking for it. In the end, at his wit's end, he could only take his friend along with him and set out once more for the Extreme North.
And the final outcome was a good one. After taking the fruit, his friend's cold poison was suppressed, and neutralized within the body. But it brought certain aftereffects in its wake — a weakened constitution, an end to his pill-refining, and the like.
Wei Zhao, though, no longer cared about any of that. Nothing mattered more than saving Feng Xiaoxiao's life. Even if she was left weak by it, Wei Zhao would slowly find a way to mend her; so long as she lived, there was hope.
Taking the fruit itself called for nothing special — it was simply eaten. The text mentioned no precautions either, only that afterward the whole person would suffer somewhat, his body swinging between cold and heat, and that Zhang Lifeng had been obliged to warm his friend with his own body heat...
And at that moment... Wei Zhao finally realized that the friend in question was a girl.
Some decidedly wicked thoughts surfaced in Wei Zhao's mind...
He committed the rough location of the snow mountain to memory, then began searching the medical notes for information about it.
With a goal in view, the search was easy enough. The notes did not record how Zhang Lifeng had come upon the place, yet descriptions of it cropped up here and there among the pages.
From information scattered across many entries, Wei Zhao at last found the things he was after.
Its name was the Heavenly Thunder Pig — outwardly a piglet that never grows. In the records it is called either the Heavenly Thunder Pig or the Treasure Pig. It is a spirit beast of very low rank, and yet one that can go on rising: not even Yellow Rank when born, it can, as it devours heavenly materials and earthly treasures in the years that follow, ascend step by step to Yellow Rank, then even to Mysterious Rank and beyond.
Its chief ability is treasure-seeking. Across the vast earth and among the mountains it can locate every kind of rare spirit herb and heavenly material, possessing an uncanny nose for such things; and in all his years it was to this creature that Zhang Lifeng owed the discovery of a good number of spirit herbs.
Reading these accounts, Wei Zhao found the little creature rather amusing. If it truly was lying in Zhang Lifeng's tomb, then he had stumbled onto a fine bargain.