As long as they remained alive, their reaching the palace realm was as sure as the sun rising and setting.
When it came to the second option, while of the three it could be considered the easiest, Li Shu didn't know any palace realm expert, and she didn't even know how she could begin hiring one.
The only feasible way she could come into contact with one was if she joined a rank 3 organization, and gained their help after becoming a member, but even then, she would need to prove herself before they stepped forward to help her or they could use her condition as a leash to keep her in tow.
Besides some part of her would have felt guilty of leaving the Shao clan even after they in not so subtle terms left her to deal with her affairs alone, creating a wide berth between them and Li Shu as they could.
While she was disappointed in their behavior, she didn't fault them for it. At the Shao clan, she never did anything. She was never assigned any tasks, and the resources she was given were only slightly lower than what the clan leader got. All the Shao clan wanted was her presence as a middle-stage core formation expert.
The arrangement suited her perfectly since she was unskilled in anything else other than fighting. Still, she felt guilty as she always felt like she was a free loader and she always felt like she owed them a lot especially with Shao Qing saving her life by healing her injuries. It was why despite having opportunities to leave for better organizations who would offer much better terms than the Shao clan, she opted to remain with them to repay her favor.
But now, while she didn't blame for choosing the well-being of the family and it was understandable even, she felt it would be better to part ways after the trial. Though she had decided she would help them down the line, should a need ever arise, but she wouldn't do it for free and would put them through the wringer before agreeing to help them.
When she thought of other alternatives of gaining the services of a palace realm expert, that thought led her to Golden Duck Platter restaurant which was owned by a palace realm expert and was the one who had caused her pill poisoning. It was only fitting that they be the ones to solve it, so she went to them and told them of her condition and suspicions.
They rejected her claims right off the bat claiming she was slandering their restaurant, especially with no other customers exhibiting the same symptoms. One of their managers who was a late-stage core formation expert, even threw in some veiled threats of involving the royal family should she continue with her claims.
She could only shrink back after that and figure out another way forward which led her to file a complaint with the Order.
She didn't entertain the third option since it was the hardest option of the three. The morning lily heartseed could be considered to be a low-tier monarch-grade spiritual material. It had the effects of cleansing the body of anyone who consumes it, it had an especially good effect towards ailments associated with pill poisoning.
However, the problem lay in acquiring it. The morning lily only grew in an area that had the perfect yin yang balance and the spiritual qi in the area had to be gentle in nature. Very few areas met that criterion. The heartseed that formed, grew having the gentle yin yang balance.
Only one in a hundred, morning lilies could form one, and harvesting the seed had extremely stringent requirements. For one to successfully harvest it, they either required a treasure of the Yin Yang attribute, or have the Yin Yang attribute themselves, or had a wood physique and wood qi that was gentle in nature.
If one didn't meet the aforementioned requirements, and they tried to harvest the heartseed, it would dissolve in their hands upon contact.
To Li Shu, finding the location where morning lilies grew was hard enough, let alone the odds of finding one that had formed a heartseed. Then came the difficulty of finding someone who met those requirements. Anyone with the needed physique was bound to be a notable figure, which meant finding them was just as hard as gaining the services of a blue-grade alchemist who more often than not were the ones who predominantly had wood-based physiques.
As for a yin yang treasure, she has never seen one let alone hear about one. Therefore as much as it frightened her to confront the Golden Duck Platter restaurant which had a considerable reputation not only within Silent Willow County, but the Jadebrook kingdom as a whole, and with a palace realm expert at the helm to boot, she resolved herself to do it since her life and fate as a cultivator was in jeopardy and this was the only viable option she had. Plus she was certain they were the ones responsible despite being the only one who seemed to have shown symptoms of pill poisoning.
Therefore she could only get them to pay for her treatment by using the Order's might and then disappear for parts unknown to avoid the ire of the owner of the Golden Duck restaurant.
Disappearances and accidents have been known to happen to those who filed cases against stronger parties. Even though the Order would retaliate upon discovery, Li Shu didn't want to risk it. By the time the Order acted, it would mean she would be dead already or worse. It was safer to disappear immediately after the case. She even had half a mind to ask the Order for their help in the matter.
The irony was, with her coming to the Order she had managed to find someone who fulfilled two of the options she needed to remedy herself which was a palace realm expert who happened to have a Yin Yang-based physique, as for whether that person had morning lily heartseeds, it was up in the air.
But the seeds other than their purification ability, they were known for their heavenly flavor. If they were graded in terms of taste, one would grade them as ascendant grade, in terms of flavor.
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