Before Doctor Mo returned to the mountain, Han Li knew that using the bottle in Divine Hand Valley was temporarily safe. He was the only person in the entire valley, and normally no outsider would venture inside. This guaranteed that no accidents would occur during this period, and he could use the Small Bottle without worry.
Han Li estimated the time it would take for Doctor Mo to return. He felt that Doctor Mo couldn't possibly find any good medicinal herbs in the nearby areas — he would most likely have to travel to far-off places, probably to the deep mountain forests where few people ever ventured. Only such remote locations held the hope of gathering rare medicinal herbs. But with the round trip and the time spent searching, it would take at least close to a year before Doctor Mo could make it back to the mountain.
It had already been nearly half a year since Doctor Mo left the mountain, and Han Li estimated he would return to the Seven Mysteries Sect in another six or seven months. During these days before his return, Han Li could only cultivate as many useful herbs as possible, planning carefully to acquire ingredients based on the few rare formulas he knew, rather than wasting the Green Liquid recklessly.
The medicines Han Li was about to prepare — the ones that would help increase his power and break through bottlenecks — were all supreme-grade miraculous drugs that Doctor Mo had once wanted to concoct but had never been able to gather the necessary ingredients for. Any one of them, if placed on the market, would be a rare treasure that could drive an ordinary family to ruin or send martial artists fighting to the death over it.
Even with Doctor Mo's extraordinary medical skills, he had never seen a single one of these finished medicines, let alone crafted one personally. After all, though Doctor Mo possessed the formulas for these miraculous drugs, without the ingredients, all he could do was sigh at the heavens.
When Han Li had been studying medicine under Doctor Mo, he had been greatly interested in these rare formulas. Though he had never harbored any hope of being able to prepare these incredibly precious medicines himself, he had memorized a fair number of the formulas. Doctor Mo had been indifferent to Han Li's enthusiastic pursuit of learning them — whenever Han Li asked, he would explain everything in meticulous detail, without the slightest attempt to hold anything back. Perhaps Doctor Mo also considered these formulas to be the kind of chicken ribs: tasteless when eaten, but a pity to discard.
Now these formulas had become the apple of Han Li's eye. He diligently cultivated the herbs according to the required ages specified in each formula, not daring to slack off in the slightest. After all, the time left to him was not much — he had to prepare these medicines before Doctor Mo returned, then put the bottle away on a high shelf and never use it on the mountain again.
Han Li had not the slightest confidence that he could use the Small Bottle in front of Doctor Mo without giving himself away. He knew all too well what a shrewd and cautious man Doctor Mo was, and he had not the faintest intention of revealing the bottle's secret to him.
Han Li felt that the relationship between himself and Doctor Mo was very peculiar — far more complex than the ordinary master-disciple bond.
Doctor Mo often regarded him with a certain strange gaze, which always made Han Li feel that the man was hiding some secret that boded him ill. Especially in the past year or two, this feeling had grown ever stronger. It prevented Han Li and Doctor Mo from being as intimate and open as a normal master and disciple.
In daily life, Doctor Mo was actually quite good to him — he never punched or kicked him, never hurled abuse, and when it came to the cultivation formula, he spared no effort in creating the best possible conditions for him. Yet there seemed to be some kind of membrane between them, an awkward atmosphere always hovering in the space between.
Doctor Mo was clearly aware of this rift, but he showed not the slightest intention of mending the bond between master and disciple. He simply continued doing what he had always done, pressing Han Li to make progress in the cultivation formula. The only change was that his gaze when looking at Han Li — that look which once contained such strange emotions — seemed to have gradually faded, and for a long time he had not shown it at all.
But Han Li's keen intuition vaguely told him that the other party had not truly abandoned his intentions, but had merely concealed his desires with great skill. This only deepened Han Li's wariness, and under such circumstances, how could he dare to let Doctor Mo know the secret of the bottle!
Han Li had learned an iron lesson from many historical texts: "One must never harbor thoughts of harming others, but one must never be without the thought of guarding against them."
Whether Doctor Mo truly meant him harm or whether it was merely a misperception on his part, being vigilant against Doctor Mo could not be a bad thing. If Doctor Mo truly harbored ill intentions, his heightened vigilance would help him avoid being harmed. If it was merely a false judgment by his intuition, then raising his guard was not wrong either. He would not take the initiative to commit the act of betraying his master — he, Han Li, would remain Doctor Mo's good disciple and fulfill a disciple's proper duty of filial respect.
Thinking of this, Han Li still felt somewhat uncomfortable. He and Doctor Mo made for such a strange master-disciple pair that they were probably the only ones of their kind in the entire Seven Mysteries Sect. He could not help but sigh.
The bottle absolutely could not be used again after Doctor Mo returned — that was certain. After all, there was no wall that could keep out the wind forever. Even if he was lucky enough not to be discovered by Doctor Mo, the secret could still be exposed by someone else in the Seven Mysteries Sect. The safest course was to put it away, as if such a thing had never happened.
Having made all his plans and firmly resolved to keep the bottle hidden away and never use it lightly again, Han Li felt his heart ease, and he drifted off to sleep in a daze.
Over the following months, Han Li secretly used the Green Liquid in the bottle to cultivate large quantities of rare medicinal herbs. Using these herbs, he prepared quite a few precious medicines according to the formulas. However, the process involved many failures, and each failure made Han Li's heart ache for a long time. After all, every ingredient used to make these medicines was an exceedingly rare material — each failure meant an unknown amount of silver thrown down the drain. But he could hardly blame himself — it was everyone's first time preparing these formulas, and a few failures were inevitable. Even if Doctor Mo himself had come to prepare these medicines, there would have been one or two mishaps. Han Li could only comfort himself thus.
"Yellow Dragon Pill," "Clear Spirit Powder," "Gold Marrow Pill," and "Essence Nourishing Pill" — these rare medicines seldom seen in the outside world — were all placed in over a dozen small bottles, arranged one by one before Han Li. Looking at these bottles, his face was bright with joy. With these miraculous medicines, to say nothing of achieving the fourth layer of the formula, even the fifth and sixth layers would not require much effort.
Among these medicines, "Yellow Dragon Pill" and "Gold Marrow Pill" were the most helpful for his cultivation, both possessing the wonderful effect of increasing one's power and transforming one's body. "Clear Spirit Powder" was one of the world's rare supreme antidotes, capable of neutralizing thousands of deadly poisons. Finally, "Essence Nourishing Pill" was a miraculous medicine with remarkable effects on both internal and external injuries — no matter how severe the wound, taking just one pill could greatly alleviate the injury and save one's life, even if it could not bring the dead back to life or heal the wound immediately.
(End of Chapter)