Searching for waste pills in the waste pill room

By the time Shen Fan arrived at the Waste Pill Room, darkness had already fallen.

“Dong dong dong—!”

From afar, Shen Fan felt a scorching aura rush towards him, and the air was thick with the smell of sulfur.

The next moment, the door opened, and the dry, hot air intensified, as did the pungent sulfurous smell.

A bare-chested, dark-skinned young man opened the door expressionlessly and asked coldly, “Something wrong?”

“I am…”

Before Shen Fan could finish speaking, the young man saw the transfer order in his hand.

“You’re here, finally! It’s been half a year, and I’m finally leaving this place!”

The young man held the transfer order tightly in both hands, crying with excitement.

After a moment, he calmed down and pulled Shen Fan inside.

Once inside, Shen Fan looked at the so-called Waste Pill Room with a shocked expression.

The room seemed to be protected by a Formation, isolating the heat; otherwise, with the core of the earth fire right in the room, no one could withstand such high temperatures.

This chamber was built in the gorge between two peaks.

The top of the Pill Refining Room was open, shaped like a funnel, where all the discarded Medicinal Pills and waste from Pill Refining Peak would collect.

The task here was to gather and incinerate them.

Of the two peaks, the left one was Pill Refining Peak, and the right side was the Spiritual Medicine Area, which was under the jurisdiction of Pill Refining Peak.

Some waste from the Spiritual Medicine Area would also be dumped here for unified incineration.

Listening to this Senior Brother’s explanation, Shen Fan became even more excited.

Spiritual Medicine Area?

Pill Refining Peak?

Waste Pill Room?

The convergence of these three places had so unexpectedly come into his life.

“Waste Medicinal Pills, dregs, and scrap materials are generally processed once every three days. You need to register them, including the quantity, incineration time, and so on. Just follow what’s written above…”

After the Senior Brother finished speaking, he picked up his luggage, ready to leave.

As he was leaving, he saw Shen Fan’s large and small bags, and his eyes darted around as he said, “Junior Brother, there’s one last procedure: a routine inspection to see if you’re carrying anything dangerous!”

With that, he disregarded Shen Fan’s attempts to stop him and began searching himself.

But after he had rummaged through everything, looking at the messy floor, he immediately showed disappointment and muttered, “I knew it, who would come here if they were a good person? As expected, he’s a pauper!”

With that, he completely ignored Shen Fan’s scattered belongings, turned decisively, and strode away from the place.

“Woni Ma! There’s not a single good thing!”

Shen Fan cursed inwardly, but then, on second thought, he secretly rejoiced that he hadn’t brought the top-grade Spiritual Rice.

Afterward, Shen Fan slowly squatted down, picking up the scattered items one by one, his movements slow but methodical.

Once everything was tidied up, he began to carefully examine the furnishings in the Waste Pill Room, his gaze wandering over the mottled walls and old Pill Furnace, as if searching for something.

…

At the same time, Old Duan, returning from the market, passed by his Spirit Field and pretended to farm a few times, but finding it dull, he unhappily returned to his room.

Pushing open the door, a note caught his eye, lying quietly on the ground.

Old Duan was full of doubts, bent down to pick it up, then walked to the table, poured a cup of water, and drank it while carefully examining the content on the note.

“This kid left? And went to the Waste Pill Room? Is that a place for people to stay?”

Old Duan’s brows were tightly furrowed, his worry evident.

“It must be Zhao Erhu’s doing!”

He sighed deeply, his face full of helplessness and indignation.

“What does this kid mean by ‘under the big tree’? Did he bury something there?”

Old Duan’s heart stirred, and the more he thought about it, the more he felt it was possible.

Thinking of this, he no longer hesitated, immediately burned the note, then grabbed a water bucket and hurried up the mountain.

At this time, the sun had set in the west, and the mountain was silent and deserted.

Old Duan followed the instructions on the note and arrived under a large tree.

Under the large tree, weeds grew profusely, and the surrounding terrain was remote and steep, usually uninhabited.

He squatted down and examined it carefully, and indeed found traces of the soil having been disturbed.

Old Duan reached out and dug a few times, only to feel that the soil was unusually loose, clearly indicating something was buried beneath, but the position seemed quite deep.

So, Old Duan turned back to get a hoe and dug vigorously a few times.

In an instant, a rich Spiritual Qi rushed forth, refreshing his heart and mind.

“This… this…”

This sudden change made Old Duan freeze on the spot, his eyes wide, his face full of disbelief.

When he had completely dug open the soil, he saw golden top-grade Spiritual Rice, wrapped in a rough piece of cloth, lying quietly in the soil, shimmering with alluring light in the afterglow of the setting sun.

“This… this is top-grade Spiritual Rice!”

Old Duan’s breathing instantly quickened, his eyes shining as if he had seen a mountain of gold and silver, and his body trembled uncontrollably.

Immediately after, Old Duan vigilantly scanned his surroundings, and only after confirming no one was present did he, with trembling hands, carefully pick up each grain of top-grade Spiritual Rice and examine it closely before his eyes.

“It’s real, it’s real!”

After a brief moment of excitement, Old Duan gradually calmed down, but his brows were tightly furrowed.

“Where did this kid get so much top-grade Spiritual Rice? Since he has it, why didn’t he take it, but instead left it for me?”

A question surfaced in his mind, but as soon as it appeared, he dismissed it himself.

“I suppose this kid was worried about Zhao Erhu and the others finding it, so he hid it here and left it for me!”

Old Duan murmured, “The Spiritual Qi of this top-grade Spiritual Rice is too dense; it simply cannot be taken out of the Spirit Field. I can only consume it here!”

Old Duan’s wrinkled hands tightly clutched the Spiritual Rice, and he tilted his head slightly, his eyes full of gratitude: “Kid, my three years of careful care for you were not in vain. This top-grade Spiritual Rice is truly too important to me. Great kindness needs no words of thanks; I will repay it with my life in the future!”

After a moment of emotion, Old Duan knew that this top-grade Spiritual Rice could not be taken back to his residence, otherwise, it would surely cause trouble.

It seemed he could only come here to slowly consume it every day when he went up the mountain to fetch water.

…

…

Meanwhile, on the other side.

Shen Fan had already thoroughly cleaned the Waste Pill Room.

Everything here was quite good, except it was very hot, and occasionally discarded Medicinal Pill residues and trash would fall from the ceiling into the funnel-shaped collection pool of the Waste Pill Room, scattering around.

His task was to go to the roof every day to sweep them into the collection pool, then return to the Waste Pill Room, open the opening, and pour all the residues into the incineration furnace, using the core of the earth fire to burn them clean.

Night had deepened.

Shen Fan emerged from a pile of trash, covered in ash.

In his hand, however, was a dull gray, spherical discarded Medicinal Pill.

This was the best-preserved discarded Medicinal Pill among the pile of residues.

The others had all crumbled into unusable fragments.

Shen Fan held it under his nose and sniffed it.

The burnt smell made it impossible for Shen Fan to identify what kind of Medicinal Pill it was.

However, even if it were a complete Medicinal Pill, Shen Fan wouldn’t have recognized it.

In his three years at the Spirit Field, the only Medicinal Pill he had ever seen was the Qi Induction Pill; he knew nothing of the others.

After a wash, Shen Fan ate dinner and carefully placed it into the treasure gathering cosmos bowl.

Then he lay on the bed, waiting for tomorrow to arrive.