Chapter 107 Medicine to Lay Foundation
Dragging the half-dead black bear which is literally blind, Li Xi’er walks out of the Water Curtain Cave, looking back repeatedly at every step.
Lin Luoran looks at the old monkey which is seeing them off at the entrance. She transmits some spells to it with her spirit. Later, the old monkey becomes too excited to speak. Lin Luoran shakes her head, telling it not to say anything.
Not knowing how to make use of its Reiki, the old monkey was beaten by the black bear. The bear and the monkey are both intelligent, but the bear is born stronger. The skinny old monkey won’t have a chance of beating the bear.
With the thought of “teaching one to fish is better than giving him fish”, Lin Luoran gives some spells to the old monkey. She and Li Xi’er were able to help the monkeys out this time, but they can’t protect them forever. Though the bear king is gone, the tiger king or the leopard king may come to the monkeys’ cave and make trouble. Therefore, it is the ultimate solution to help the old monkey step on the path of cultivation!
The spells Lin Luoran gives to the old monkey are basic. Basic spells will be easier to understand and to apply. Lin Luoran is not sure what the old monkey will comprehend or even extend from those basic spells.
Li Xi’er is dragging the black bear with her right hand, and a stone box in her left hand. Li wonders: “Before we left, the old monkey insisted on giving me this box. I don’t know what is in it…”
Li doesn’t have a spare hand to open the box, so she hands it over to Lin Luoran.
The second Lin Luoran touches the box, she senses a stream of Reiki. Has the old monkey given Li Xi’er a spirit item? Lin Luoran is curious. She opens the box and Reiki rushes out. A big and a small mushroom are in the box!
“Mushrooms?” Li Xi’er loses her interests. Peaches will be better gifts than mushrooms!
The White Fairy laughs: “The Monkey Mushroom. The old monkey is indeed interesting.”
Lin Luoran inquires with her spirit: “Fairy, do you recognize the mushroom? I see that it is filled with Reiki. What is it used for?” Why didn’t the old monkey eat the mushroom filled with Reiki when it was wounded?
The White Fairy sneers: “Your quality is bad, and your knowledge is even worse. How can you not know that it is one of the ingredients to make the Foundation-laying Bolus? If it were not for the mushroom, the old monkey would have spoken in the first place.”
Hearing this, Lin Luoran doesn’t tell the fairy about the fact that the prescription of Foundation-laying Bolus has been lost. Perhaps she can ask the fairy about it?
For the first time, Lin Luoran has a feeling that she can be scheming. She closes the box and says carelessly: “One Monkey Mushroom is useless. The other ingredients will be hard to find.”
The White Fairy is speechless: “Do you really plan to make Foundation-laying Bolus by yourself? No matter how much the world of cultivation is declined, your school should be able to give you one.” Suddenly, the fairy is chocked by her own words. Even back in her time, no school would give Foundation-laying Bolus to a cultivator who had the Taoist root of all five natures… The White Fairy now actually sympathizes Lin Luoran.
“If you want to make the bolus by yourself, you can spend the entire month searching for the ingredients. You may be lucky enough to gather them all, like the Seven Stars Gra.s.s, Luminous Sand, and the b.u.t.terflybush Flower…” Before the White Fairy finishes talking, Li Xi’er, who doesn’t know that Lin is paying attention to something important, believes that Lin Luoran is “in a daze”. Li asks:
“Sister Lin, where are we heading to with the bear?”
The heaven-sent opportunity is gone, and Lin Luoran has to drop it by now. If the White Fairy got suspicious, Lin would have to pay a price to get the prescription.
Lin remembers that there is a mark for Luminous Sand on the jade slip, which seems not far from where they are standing… Thinking of this, Lin Luoran says to Li Xi’er:
“You should put the box away. The mushrooms are precious. As for the black bear, it is certainly a trophy of ours.”
Li Xi’er doesn’t care much about the mushrooms. Instead, she is curious about the trophy Lin Luoran is talking about. Li asks: “We are going to the bear’s cave, right?”
After getting a positive answer, Li Xi’er pushes the stone box back to Lin Luoran, “Sister, the old monkey clearly wanted to give each of us a mushroom. You keep it first!”
Lin Luoran smiles and doesn’t pretend that she is not interested.
It’s one of the ingredients to make Foundation-laying Bolus… Lin Luoran certainly needs it very much!
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The bear’s cave is on the other side of the peach mountain, opposite to the “Water Curtain Cave”, so Lin and Li have to climb the mountain to get there. Goldie has been circling around the mountain all day, and it flies down after sensing that Lin is around. Seeing that they are dragging a black bear, Goldie, which has been done eating peaches, rushes at it.
Li Xi’er covers her eyes. Lin Luoran was going to stop Goldie, but she decided not to do that — Goldie is never an herbivore. She should not ask a hawk to eat fruits for a living.
The bear screams. Its thick skin can’t defend itself from Goldie’s sharp beak. Goldie pecks through the bear’s chest and starts eating its gall… Since Goldie needs time to eat and she can’t stand looking at this b.l.o.o.d.y scene, Lin Luoran takes Li Xi’er on her flying sword and they cross the mountain first.
Actually, the bear’s paws are precious. Should she tell Goldie to leave the paws for her?
Lin Luoran never sees herself as a moralist. Though the bear is intelligent because of the Reiki in the secret land, it can’t speak human language as the old monkey does. Therefore, Lin Luoran is not guilty because of the killing — if she gets psychological barriers every time she kills something, she shall just give up eating meat from now on. Who knows whether a chicken or a fish may have a chance of enlightenment one day?
As the old enemy of the bear, the old monkey surely knows where the bear’s cave is. The monkey has given a quite accurate location to Lin Luoran, so it’s easy for Lin to find the cave from the flying sword.
It is a natural cave. Lin and Li look down and see three crooked trees. Lin Luoran directs the sword to go down. Before Lin Luoran puts the sword away, a stinky smell comes out from the black bear’s cave.
Li Xi’er laughs: “Sister, I can be on the lookout for you!”
Lin Luoran shakes her head helplessly. They are not here to steal, and she certainly doesn’t need a lookout. This little girl clearly doesn’t want to get dirty!
Forget it. The black bear lives alone, and it has already become Goldie’s food. The cave is not dangerous, so she will be fine going by herself.
Lin Luoran goes in. The smell is so disgusting that Lin Luoran casts a “Cleaning Spell” to make it go away. Then, Lin Luoran casts another spell, and a ball of flame appears on her fingertip. She uses a fire spell to light the cave up.
The bear’s cave is deep, which is totally not as nice as the monkey’s cave house, which is a natural karst cave with a waterfall outside, making the cave bright and airy. Lin Luoran a.s.sumes that the bear always goes to the monkey’s cave because it also wants to take over the “Water Curtain Cave”.
Without the stinky smell, Lin Luoran keeps going deeper into the bear’s cave. Then she arrives at an open area. A round mat made of gra.s.s is on the ground. This seems to be where the bear rests.
However, according to the old monkey, there are treasures in the bear’s cave. Lin Luoran can see nothing but a bunch of gra.s.s.
When Lin Luoran is confused, the White Fairy says all of a sudden: “Just put out the fire.”
Put out the fire? Lin Luoran hesitates. She can see things in the dark with her cleared eyes, and she only lights up the cave because of her habit.
Lin Luoran follows the fairy’s words and disperses the Reiki gathered on her fingertip. Later, she discovers that something strange is happening to the gra.s.s under her feet…