Even Dregs Possess a Hint of Fragrance

The dark-faced disciple led Chen Pingan up the mountain, remaining silent from beginning to end.

Passing through the mountain gate shrouded in swirling mist and following the winding bluestone path for a full hour, Chen Pingan was finally brought to a vast valley halfway up the mountain. As he stepped into this valley, his mortal body, laden with turbid air, felt as though it were being soaked in a warm spiritual spring.

The air was filled with a pure, fresh aura that was difficult to describe. Merely breathing was enough to make the exhaustion throughout his body vanish by half. The strand of True Qi within him became more vibrant than ever, like parched earth meeting a spring rain, joyfully flowing through his withered meridians.

This place was the outer sect herb garden of the Liuyun Sect. Looking out, one could see neatly planned spiritual fields stretching endlessly. Within the fields grew all sorts of exotic flowers and divine herbs he had never seen before. Some were emerald green but possessed veins of pure gold; others bloomed as bright as fire, emitting a faint glow even without sunlight. The thick fragrance of hundreds of plants blended together, lingering in the air.

The dark-faced disciple brought him to a row of simple wooden huts at the edge of the herb garden and called out to a young disciple supervising the laborers: "Senior Brother Wu, the manager has sent a new handyman. I'm handing him over to you."

The one called Senior Brother Wu approached with an impatient expression. He was young, in his early twenties, but his face was etched with irritation and a sharp edge from being worn down by trivial matters. He sized Chen Pingan up, his eyes full of contempt.

"Another old man with one foot in the grave," he muttered before snapping at Chen Pingan, "Listen here, I don't care what you did before. Now that you're here, you follow the rules. Do what you're told, don't ask what shouldn't be asked, and don't look at what shouldn't be seen. Work starts at the Hour of the Rabbit and ends at the Hour of the Rooster. If you dare to be lazy, get the hell off this mountain yourself!"

"Yes, yes, many thanks for the Immortal Master's teachings." Chen Pingan bowed low, perfectly playing the role of a humble and terrified mortal old man.

Senior Brother Wu casually assigned him three acres of herb fields, pointed toward the most dilapidated wooden hut, and then couldn't be bothered with him anymore. Inside the hut were five other handymen, all old men with lifeless expressions. They only gave Chen Pingan a cold glance before burying their heads back into their work, no one saying a word. This place was like a forgotten world.

Thus began Chen Pingan's new life. His work was tedious and heavy. Every day before dawn, he had to wake up and carry water from the mountain spring to irrigate the three acres of herb fields. Spiritual herbs were extremely delicate; the water could not be too much or too little, and he had to use a specialized jar to carefully water each plant. After watering came the weeding. The weeds in the spiritual fields had far more vitality than ordinary grass and had to be pulled out by the roots to ensure they didn't steal the nutrients from the spiritual herbs.

He worked with extreme seriousness, more meticulous than anyone else. He applied his decades of experience caring for medicinal herbs in the mortal world to this task. Before long, the three acres under his care became the cleanest and most orderly section of the garden. However, this brought him no praise. Senior Brother Wu still shouted at him, and the other handymen continued to treat him as if he were invisible.

Chen Pingan did not mind at all. What he wanted was not their approval, but the herb garden itself. He needed the thin spiritual qi present everywhere and the direct knowledge of the growth habits of spiritual herbs gained through daily contact. After only ten days, he felt the True Qi in his body had grown significantly stronger compared to three months of bitter cultivation in the mortal realm.

One afternoon, Senior Brother Wu seemed to have encountered something frustrating. In a foul mood, he sought a way to torment the handymen. He pointed at Chen Pingan and barked arrogantly, "You, the new old man, come here!"

Chen Pingan quickly dropped his work and ran over.

"The medicinal dregs at the Pill Hall are about to overflow from the stone pit. They've been piling up for three days and stink to high heaven. Take that pile to Heifeng Jian at the back of the mountain and dump it." Senior Brother Wu waved his hand in disgust as if shooing a fly.

This was a grueling task that everyone avoided. The dregs were not only filthy and foul-smelling but also very heavy; the mountain path from the herb garden to Heifeng Jian took nearly an hour. Without a word of complaint, Chen Pingan respectfully replied "Yes" and pushed a creaking wooden cart toward the Pill Hall.

The dregs were piled in a large stone pit in the back courtyard of the Pill Hall. Before even getting close, one could smell the burnt scent of herbs mixed with a strange, fishy odor. He suppressed his nausea, using a shovel to load the black, steaming piles of residue onto the cart. As he shoveled a pile of dregs mixed with charred roots, a surge of pure spiritual qi—a hundred times more concentrated than the air in the herb garden—suddenly hit his nose.

Chen Pingan's movements froze for a split second. His gaze locked tightly onto those fragmented spiritual herb roots that were being treated as trash. He pushed the heavy wooden cart along the deserted path leading to the back mountain. There was no one around, only the sound of the wind and bird calls. Confirming it was safe, he quickly dug out a root the size of a child's arm, half-charred, from the cart. He recognized it as the main root of a Chixue Deng, a precious spiritual herb.

He carefully guided a wisp of True Qi into the root. *Boom!* A surge of Fire-attribute spiritual qi, pure and vast beyond imagination, flowed back from the ruined root, nearly shattering his weak strand of True Qi!

Chen Pingan's heart raced! He realized that the Pill Hall's alchemy could not refine 100% of the medicinal power from the herbs. These dregs were garbage in the eyes of the high-and-mighty Alchemists, but for a low-level cultivator like him, every remaining thread of spiritual qi was a supreme treasure!

He suppressed his pounding heart, his face returning to a calm, lifeless mask. He did not greedily scavenge everything but carefully selected seven or eight fragments of roots and leaves that contained the densest spiritual qi, wrapped them in a rag, and hid them in a pocket inside his shirt. Once finished, he continued pushing the cart to dump the remaining dregs into the depths of Heifeng Jian.

Night fell, and all things sank into silence. Inside the wooden hut, snoring echoed everywhere. Chen Pingan lay on the hard wooden board, his eyes closed as if in deep sleep. But his hands, hidden under the blanket, were tightly gripping the Chixue Deng root. He did not perform any breathing exercises, merely allowing the warm spiritual qi from the root to seep bit by bit into his palms, merging into his meridians before gathering in his Dantian. This process was ten times more effective than ten days of bitter cultivation in the herb garden!

In the lowliest corner of an immortal sect, amidst the filth that everyone shunned, Chen Pingan had found the most solid and secret foundation for his Great Dao of Longevity.