The jade vial of Pure Origin Pills that Zhao Yanran had left behind had been sitting on the wooden table in Chen Yang's humble room for three days now.
Every time his gaze drifted over that exquisite jade vial, the events of that night would surface in his mind: the collapsed wooden bed, the scattered clothing, the mingled scent of musk and osmanthus drifting through the air.
The association sent waves of pain through his heart, and the vial of Pills became all the more unbearable to look at.
It was compensation. It was charity. It was Zhao Yanran reminding him of the humiliation he had suffered that night.
Every time that thought crossed his mind, Chen Yang wanted nothing more than to hurl the Pills out the window.
Yet reason told him this might be his only chance to break through to the second level of the Qi Refinement Realm.
On the third night, Chen Yang sat cross-legged on the cold floor, the mysterious clay bowl placed before him.
The bowl was filled with clear water, which gradually began to shimmer with a faint, luminous glow beneath the dim yellow light of the oil lamp.
He lifted the bowl and drank it down in one go, feeling the spirit liquid transform into a warm current flowing through his meridians.
When his cultivation session was complete, his gaze once again fell upon the vial of Pills.
After a long internal struggle, he finally reached out, picked up the jade vial, and pulled out the stopper.
A refined medicinal fragrance immediately wafted out. Inside the vial, three Pills the size of longan fruits lay quietly, their surfaces smooth as jade, faint streams of light swirling across them.
"Pure Origin Pills..."
Chen Yang murmured to himself, recalling how Zhao Yanran had said they would help him break through to the second level of the Qi Refinement Realm.
Just as he was hesitating over whether to swallow one, the image of Zhao Yanran and Yang Tianming entwined on his bed that night forced its way back into his mind.
Her arms wrapped around Yang Tianming's neck, soft whispers escaping her lips — those sounds still echoed in his ears to this day.
"Ugh!" Chen Yang clapped a hand over his chest, a wave of nausea surging up his throat.
As though burned, he flung the jade vial onto the table. The three Pills tumbled out and bounced several times across the rough wooden surface.
One of them rolled to the edge of the table and, by some twist of fate, dropped squarely into the clay bowl, which still held a small amount of spirit liquid.
"Damn it!" Chen Yang cursed under his breath and quickly reached in to fish the Pill out.
Yet at the very instant his fingertips were about to touch it, something strange happened: the residual spirit liquid in the bowl seemed drawn by some invisible force, rapidly converging on the Pill and forming a tiny whirlpool.
In the blink of an eye, the spirit liquid in the bowl vanished without a trace, as though it had never existed.
Even more astonishing — the bottom of the bowl did not hold just one Pill. There were two identical Pure Origin Pills lying there.
Chen Yang froze, barely able to believe his own eyes.
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He rubbed his eyes and leaned in for a closer look — sure enough, there were two Pills, indistinguishable from the one he had just dropped in.
"What... what is going on?"
He murmured to himself, carefully lifting both Pills out and placing them in his palm to compare them.
In size, color, fragrance, and even the faint swirling light on their surfaces, the two Pills were completely identical. There was simply no way to tell which was the original and which was the new one.
A bold hypothesis rose in his mind: could this bowl not only transform ordinary water into spirit liquid, but also duplicate objects?
Eager to test the idea, Chen Yang wasted no time beginning his experiments.
He first poured clear water into the bowl, watched it gradually transform into spirit liquid, then dropped in a single low-grade spirit stone — one taken from the pouch of spirit stones Zhao Yanran had left as compensation when she returned home.
Nothing happened.
The spirit liquid remained in the bowl, the spirit stone was still the same spirit stone, and nothing had changed at all.
Chen Yang furrowed his brow and thought for a short while, then a sudden flash of insight struck him.
He removed the spirit stone, drank down the spirit liquid in the bowl, poured in fresh water, waited for it to transform into spirit liquid, and then placed the spirit stone in again.
Still no reaction.
"Does it require some specific condition?" Chen Yang muttered, unwilling to give up.
He thought back to the moment the Pill had been duplicated: there had been a small amount of spirit liquid remaining in the bowl, the Pill had fallen in, the spirit liquid had disappeared, and two Pills had appeared.
His eyes lit up. "Could it be that the spirit liquid is the 'price' being paid?"
This time, he first placed a low-grade spirit stone into the empty bowl, then carefully poured in a small amount of spirit liquid.
The moment the spirit liquid touched the spirit stone, the strange phenomenon occurred again: the spirit liquid was rapidly absorbed by the spirit stone, and then a flash of light burst from the bowl — the single spirit stone had become two!
"Just as I thought!" Chen Yang was so excited he nearly leapt to his feet.
He suppressed the wild joy surging inside him and continued his experiments.
After many attempts, he finally worked out the duplication rules of the bowl: duplicating an object required paying a corresponding "price," typically in spirit liquid or spirit stones.
The more precious the object, the greater the price required to duplicate it.
To test the value of the Pure Origin Pills, Chen Yang began trying to duplicate one.
He placed a Pure Origin Pill into the bowl and added spirit liquid.
When the amount of spirit liquid was roughly equivalent to the Spiritual Energy contained in two low-grade spirit stones, a flash of light burst from the bowl, and one Pill became two.
"Zhao Yanran was right — these Pure Origin Pills really are precious," Chen Yang murmured.
A single low-grade spirit stone was worth about one month's income for a laborer, and duplicating one Pure Origin Pill required the Spiritual Energy of two low-grade spirit stones. That meant a single Pure Origin Pill was worth a hundred low-grade spirit stones — the equivalent of eight full years of his earnings as a laborer!
Yet what shocked him even more was that the bowl could use spirit liquid in place of spirit stones to pay the duplication price.
This meant that as long as he had enough clear water and time, he could produce spirit liquid without limit, and in turn duplicate Pure Origin Pills in ever-greater numbers.
This realization made Chen Yang's heart race.
He hesitated no longer. He placed the remaining two Pure Origin Pills into the bowl and began duplicating them in earnest.
He went ahead and spent all the spirit stones in his pouch, converting them into spirit liquid to pay the duplication price.
When the spirit stones were exhausted, he simply kept producing spirit liquid.
Pour clear water into the bowl, wait for it to transform into spirit liquid, use the spirit liquid to pay the duplication price — and repeat the cycle.
Throughout that night, the oil lamp in the humble room never went out.
Chen Yang worked the miraculous bowl tirelessly, watching the number of Pure Origin Pills grow from three to six, then to twelve, one after another being duplicated, until at last there were twenty-six.
Only when the first pale light of dawn crept across the horizon did Chen Yang finally stop.
He stared at the twenty-six Pure Origin Pills arrayed before him, feeling as though he were in a dream.
The value of these Pills already far exceeded all the wealth he could ever hope to earn in his lifetime.
He carefully put the Pills away, and for the first time, Chen Yang felt a hope he had never known before.
With this bowl and these Pills, perhaps he truly could carve out a place for himself in the cultivation world and never again be at anyone's mercy.
Just then, a soft knock came at the door, accompanied by Liu Yiyi's familiar voice: "Brother Chen, are you awake?"
Chen Yang quickly hid the bowl and the Pills, drew a deep breath to calm his still-racing heart, and only then rose to open the door.
In the morning light, Liu Yiyi stood outside, a food box in hand, a gentle smile on her face.