"Uncle-Master!"
Du Lao's face, ravaged by蛊虫 (gu worms), looked ancient as he stood beside Gui Lao, who was a generation his senior. They appeared to be of the same age.
Gui Lao had only been in rebellion against Medicine King Valley for thirty-odd years. Du Lao recalled the time he spent learning medicine under Gui Lao, and even now, a sense of being dominated would wash over him.
If Ji Wuruo knew, she would have burst into laughter – Uncle-Master, you have your days!
"Oh, you..."
"Uncle-Master, have a drink!" Du Lao shoved the wine cup to Gui Lao's lips, cutting him off.
"Why did you give yourself such a name? Gui Lao, Gui Lao. If people didn't know, they'd think you were calling those barbarians from the far north."
Du Lao muttered.
Uncle-Master's old name was so pleasant, Zhu Yue, chasing the moon.
What was this name now?
"You're called Du Lao too!"
"This 'Lao' is not that 'Lao'!"
"I like it, got a problem?"
"No, no, it's very good!"
"Pfft~" Nan Shiying couldn't help but laugh, nearly spitting out the wine in her mouth.
Gui Lao looked at Du Lao, and Du Lao glared at Nan Shiying.
Nan Shiying, being considerate, lowered her head and admitted fault: "Master, I was wrong. I'll go prepare some more food and drinks for you and Grand-Uncle-Master!"
After seeing Nan Shiying leave, Gui Lao turned back and said to Du Lao, "You've taken a good disciple. He's much better than those idiots in Medicine King Valley."
Du Lao took a pleased sip of his wine, arrogantly raising an eyebrow: "Of course. You haven't seen who his master is."
Gui Lao: "..."
With a slight movement of his finger, the shadow at his feet suddenly leaped to Du Lao's feet and yanked out the chair leg.
Du Lao cried out, nearly falling to the ground.
Gui Lao, without changing his expression, mocked, "What, already drunk?"
Du Lao looked down at the chair. The leg wasn't broken. Why did it just wobble?
"Drunk? I can hold a thousand cups!"
"Alright, drink!"
Gui Lao poured him more wine.
After drinking and eating their fill, Du Lao's eyes became slightly unfocused. Gui Lao put down his wine cup and asked, "I heard Feng Luan say you're not returning to Medicine King Valley because of a medicine boy?"
Du Lao tried to keep his mind clear, but Gui Lao's voice seemed to float into his ears.
"She told you all that?"
"That's not important. More than that, I still can't figure out why you left Medicine King Valley back then. What... what did you do it for?"
"A bunch of medicine boys!" Gui Lao replied.
"A bunch?"
"I discovered back then that Senior Brother was refining medicine boys."
"What? No, impossible!" Du Lao straightened up instantly, his eyes no longer showing any trace of drunkenness. Gui Lao had known all along he wasn't drunk, but did it matter whether he was drunk or not?
"You don't know?"
"This is impossible!" A flicker of anger flashed in Du Lao's eyes!
Gui Lao's brow furrowed: "You don't know? You're not staying away from Medicine King Valley because of that medicine boy?"
"When I was traveling back then, I stumbled upon someone refining medicine boys. After I rescued that child, I discovered that many of the herbs used in refining medicine boys came from Medicine King Valley. But at that time, Master was already dead!"
Gui Lao was silent for a second and then asked, "So, are you sure your Master, my Senior Brother, is truly dead?"
The anger on Du Lao's face dissipated slightly, and he deflated like a pricked balloon: "To be honest, I don't know!"
He had rushed back to Medicine King Valley after receiving the news. By the time he arrived, the coffin was already sealed. He hadn't even seen his Master one last time.
For years, he had refused to believe that Master was truly dead.
After all, his Master had been in robust health. After discovering Gouzi, he had more than once suspected that Master was not dead or had been harmed. But he had never expected to hear such words from his Uncle-Master today.
Was it his Master who was refining medicine boys? No, that was impossible!
Gui Lao took a sip of wine, for the first time feeling the wine in his mouth so sour and spicy. All these years, every time he recalled those events, he still refused to believe his Senior Brother could have become that kind of person, or done such things.
Even now, he still felt it was an absurd dream.
"No, I don't believe it. Why would Master refine medicine boys? Even if physicians inevitably use live subjects, they wouldn't use children as medicine!!" He and his disciples studied anatomy on criminals so evil that a hundred executions wouldn't suffice to cleanse their sins, never on innocent people.
He refused to believe his Master had gone that mad.
Gui Lao took another sip of wine and said, "For eternal youth."
Du Lao was slightly stunned. What kind of nonsense was this, eternal youth? How could anyone in this world transcend the boundaries of life and death to achieve eternal life without aging? If they only sought longevity, Medicine King Valley had countless methods to delay aging. The average lifespan in Medicine King Valley had already reached one hundred and fifty years. Was that not enough?
"It's simply absurd!" Du Lao found Gui Lao's words hard to accept.
He even doubted them!
"Absurd?"
Gui Lao paid no mind to Du Lao's doubtful gaze. He himself had found it absurd, but it wasn't until he discovered the jade coffin hidden by his Senior Brother at the end of the cave that he realized that so-called absurdity was merely human narrow-mindedness.
Inside the crystal-clear jade coffin lay a stunningly beautiful body. Senior Brother had said, "That is the Great Yuan Empress, Nan Feng Luan."
Senior Brother opened the coffin, pointed at Nan Feng Luan, and said, "Come, feel her pulse."
He hadn't understood Senior Brother's intention until he felt Nan Feng Luan's pulse. She wasn't dead. She wasn't a corpse that wouldn't decay or rot, but a living person in a death-like state.
Alive. A person from hundreds of years ago, and she was alive.
"This is impossible!"
Du Lao and Nan Shiying's voices rang out simultaneously.
Nan Shiying pushed open the door. She had tried to suppress her laughter several times but couldn't.
She was supposed to be buried in the imperial mausoleum. How could her coffin be in Medicine King Valley? Let alone immortality and invincibility. If she were immortal and invincible, what was she now? A soul split from the main body?
Gui Lao turned, looking at Nan Shiying, who had rushed into the room. He could understand the shock, doubt, confusion, and resistance on her face. But what he couldn't understand was why there was also anger.
It was the first time Du Lao had seen Nan Shiying so out of control. She couldn't even hide her true thoughts.
Nan Shiying could no longer care about anything else. She just wanted to understand what was going on.
"You said the person in that coffin was beautiful?" Nan Shiying pressed. She had been over seventy when she passed away, nowhere near beautiful.
Gui Lao nodded: "Yes, beautiful."
Nan Shiying breathed a sigh of relief and smiled, "As far as I know, the Great Yuan Empress Nan Feng Luan passed away in Fengli Year Twenty-Eight, at the age of eighty. Her face was aged and deeply wrinkled, far from beautiful. How could the beautiful woman in the jade coffin be Empress Nan Feng Luan?"
Gui Lao looked at Nan Shiying, then at Du Lao, and after a moment of silence, said, "Have you heard of rejuvenation?"
Nan Shiying and Du Lao exchanged glances, falling into silent speechlessness: "..."
What was that?
"For the past few hundred years, Medicine King Valley has been guarding the Empress's coffin. However, only the Valley Master of each generation knew about this. It was only after I discovered Senior Brother refining medicine boys that I followed him into the cave in the back mountains of Medicine King Valley and found the Empress's jade coffin. Senior Brother then told me about the Empress and some matters concerning Medicine King Valley."
"The first Valley Master of Medicine King Valley was the medicine boy beside the Great Yuan Imperial Preceptor—Yue Ming!"