In the center of South Ward Square, the cheers of five thousand townspeople and five hundred newly healed border veterans rolled like summer thunder against the eaves of the surrounding shops.
Yet on the eastern platform, Master Dan-Chen stood frozen beside his golden royal tripod like a statue carved from chalk.
In his right hand, he was still holding the jade tongs with his single, lumpy, foul-smelling 800-Silver Purple-Blood Qi Pill.
Twenty paces away on the western platform, ten veteran border sergeants led by Old Sergeant Ma were radiating the unmistakable. Sunlit spiritual pressure of newly ascended Rank 4 Early (Qi Gathering) Immortals—all from drinking a one-copper bowl of mutton, white radish, and five-grain soup!
“Impossible... this is a mass illusion! It has to be a trick!”
Master Dan-Chen’s fifty-year-old worldview—built on burning mountains of gold and torturing rare herbs with heavy-metal earth fire—was crumbling before his very eyes.
Dropping his jade tongs onto the eastern platform, Master Dan-Chen stumbled down the steps, pushed through the cheering veterans with trembling hands, and marched right up to the front of Gu Changsheng’s Star-Iron Cauldron!
“You hired actors!” Master Dan-Chen shouted hoarsely, his purple four-cauldron robe soaked in cold sweat as he pointed a shaking finger at the bubbling golden soup. “How could butcher-shop lamb bones and cheap five-grain rice open an Immortal Dantian without a single stalk of hundred-year ginseng?!
