Chapter 52: Chapter 52: Pharmacist Master Purifying Light Saber
"Why do you look so pale?"
In the Fu Family study, Fu Guosheng looked up from behind the large executive desk, a rare note of concern in his voice.
"I didn’t sleep well last night..."
Fu Juemin stood before the desk. After a moment’s thought, he added, "And I got a bit of a scare on the street."
"Then don’t go running around outside for a while."
Fu Guosheng picked up the pen cap in front of him and gently capped the golden fountain pen in his hand. "The city is still dealing with that Civility Venerable Cult nonsense. Yesterday, Hu Fulai was even attacked at Dasheng Street..."
Hu Fulai was the County Magistrate of Luan River County.
Fu Juemin was taken aback, a little surprised. "Father, County Magistrate Hu was attacked and injured by thugs from the Civility Venerable Sect?"
"He wasn’t injured."
Fu Guosheng shook his head and said lightly, "Just like you, he only got a bit of a scare... Anyway."
Fu Guosheng waved his hand dismissively. "If you have nothing to do, stay home and learn to look over the account books. Always practicing martial arts isn’t a proper occupation."
Fu Juemin’s expression flickered. He answered, "Alright," then obediently exited the study.
Closing the study door behind him, Fu Juemin’s expression grew strange.
’Fu Guosheng is actually telling me to look at the account books... Does this mean... he intends for me to start taking over the Fu Family business?’
’It seems my good behavior recently—not going out, not stirring up trouble, not causing any disasters—combined with Second Uncle Fu Guoping probably putting in a lot of good words for me, has already caused a major shift in Father’s attitude toward me.’
’In the past few months of martial arts training, who knows how much I’ve spent from the family accounts on all sorts of things. Fu Guosheng hasn’t said a word about it. Instead, he’s telling me to learn to look at the books.’
’A good thing.’
Fu Juemin walked into the living room. Seeing the butler, Uncle Chen, he casually asked him to have a bowl of ginseng tea brewed and brought up.
Then he went up to the third floor and returned to his room.
The moment he entered his bedroom, he sat down at his desk.
He pulled open the drawer beside him, picked out two of the twenty-year-old Profound Leaf Stone Tiger pellets Xu Shirong had given him, and tossed them into his mouth, chewing them casually.
’These things look like cicada pupae. I have no idea why they’re named "Stone Tiger."’
’Perhaps because their medicinal properties are as fierce as a tiger?’
After swallowing the two Stone Tiger pellets with some water, Fu Juemin felt some of his depleted energy return.
"[Yao Ling]..."
Fu Juemin’s knuckles tapped lightly on the desk, his eyes glinting. In the end, he couldn’t resist and activated [Yao Ling] once again.
Voyeurism is an extremely contradictory psychological impulse.
On one hand, it brings a godlike thrill of omniscience; on the other, it causes moral unease.
Everyone has the desire to pry into others’ privacy, and Fu Juemin was no exception.
The voyeuristic urge is like an invisible hand reaching out from the darkness, pulling you step by step into the abyss while making you simultaneously crave the truth and fear knowing more.
Fu Juemin was well aware of this, but having just gotten his first taste, he found it hard to restrain himself.
After nightfall, the things he heard within his own mansion were vastly different from what he heard during the day.
He listened for a little while, then got down to business, beginning to search through the jumble of sounds for clues about the man in colorful clothes from the Civility Venerable Sect.
He remembered the man’s vocal tone, but after searching for a long time, he found nothing.
’Is he asleep? Or dead?’
Fu Juemin frowned. After a moment, he tried switching the filter criteria back to his own name.
"Fu Juemin... Fu Juemin!... Fu Juemin..."
Night had its advantages. The number of voices murmuring his name was undoubtedly far less than during the day.
As usual, Fu Juemin searched for familiar voices. Before long, a vocal tone that seemed vaguely familiar entered his mind.
The source of this voice was perhaps too far away, nearing the absolute limit of [Yao Ling]’s range.
The voice was intermittent.
"...idiot... told him to kill Fu Juemin, but not only did he fail, he got himself killed in the process..."
"...that Mouse Demon escaped too... It was originally... meant to be Marshal Huo’s rations..."
"You go back and help me report to Marshal Ming... send people..."
"SHHH..."
Like a radio suddenly losing its signal, the voice vanished without a trace.
In the unlit bedroom, bright moonlight spilled in. Fu Juemin sat in the shadows where the moonlight couldn’t reach, his eyes flashing.
From the content of the conversation he’d heard, he was almost certain it was related to the man in colorful clothes he was looking for.
At the same time, he finally remembered who the voice belonged to.
The image of a handsome young man in a gray tunic suit and gold-rimmed glasses flashed through his mind.
Zhao Xinhua!
Xu Leyi’s friend, the one who had been the last person to call the authorities during his kidnapping by mountain bandits.
’No wonder that guy arrived so quickly last time... It was all premeditated.’
A few clues rapidly wove together in his mind, and Fu Juemin quickly pieced most of the puzzle together.
He had always thought the man in colorful clothes from the Civility Venerable Sect had sought him out because of some shared perception between Demon Fiends.
Only now did he realize it was on Zhao Xinhua’s orders.
And behind this Zhao Xinhua, there seemed to be another power at play.
’Marshal Huo,’ ’Marshal Ming.’
These were the keywords Fu Juemin had caught from Zhao Xinhua’s words.
The one he called "Marshal Huo," judging by what Zhao Xinhua said, intended to eat the Mouse Demon as rations. ’Could he be a Demon Fiend too?’
If Marshal Huo was a Demon Fiend, then Marshal Ming was most likely a Demon Minion.
Fu Juemin’s brow furrowed. The key was that this Demon Fiend and Demon Minion pair seemed to be plotting something big, and Zhao Xinhua was just a pawn they had sent.
’This matter... I have to discuss this properly with Second Uncle.’
He thought for a moment and tried searching for Zhao Xinhua’s voice again, but after several attempts, he couldn’t find it.
’Forget it.’
Fu Juemin gave up. ’I’ve already locked onto Zhao Xinhua, anyway. I don’t necessarily need to eavesdrop with [Yao Ling]. I’ll just have someone keep an eye on him later.’
Zhao Xinhua was after him. Originally, Zhao Xinhua had the advantage of the shadows while he was exposed. Now that he’d overheard the secret, their positions were reversed: Zhao Xinhua was exposed, and Fu Juemin was in the shadows.
’Should I send someone to warn Su Hui, too?’
’Hmm, should I listen in on what Su Hui is doing right now?’
For a moment, thoughts swirled in Fu Juemin’s mind, giving rise to countless ideas and plans.
He listened aimlessly for a while longer. All sorts of filth entered his ears, causing distracting thoughts to sprout in his mind.
At that moment, Fu Juemin suddenly understood a sliver of the true meaning behind the name, Yao Ling--
From the shadows, listen to the treachery in the hearts of men.
This treachery was in others’ hearts, but also in his own.
The slightest misstep could lead to a fall from which there was no recovery.
’This Talent... I must use it with caution.’
Fu Juemin stood up and paced around the room in the moonlight, trying to calm the many distracting thoughts and delusions in his mind.
He stood in a stance by the window for a while, closing his eyes and listening to his own heartbeat and the sound of blood flowing in his veins. His mind gradually calmed.
But he still couldn’t find complete peace. After some thought, he simply took out the Pharmacist Buddha Sutra and began silently reciting it in the moonlight.
"...a body like glaze, bright and clear inside and out, pure and without blemish; its light vast, its merits majestic..."
After several silent recitations, Fu Juemin finally felt the distracting thoughts in his mind gradually fade.
He didn’t know if this process happened to align with some profound truth contained within *The Sutra of the Buddha’s Original Vows and Merits of the Pharmacist Master Vajra Light*, but Fu Juemin faintly felt he had grasped a sliver of the mysterious "Purity of Mind" required for the *Pharmacist Buddha’s Glazed Body*.
The feeling was hard to describe. It was like the moonlight filling the room before him—visible and perceptible, yet untouchable.
’If I use [Yao Ling] to stir up distracting thoughts in the future, and then recite the Pharmacist Buddha Sutra to dispel them... could that accelerate my comprehension of "Purity of Mind"?’
Fu Juemin’s eyes lit up, feeling he had found a shortcut to mastering the *Pharmacist Buddha’s Glazed Body*.
He flipped through the Pharmacist Buddha Sutra in his hands with some delight. Under the moonlight, the pages, made of neither paper nor silk, seemed to flow with a faint, ethereal glow.
Suddenly, a gust of night wind blew in.
The entire sutra riffled rapidly through Fu Juemin’s hands, page by page, with a rustling sound.
In a daze, between the flipping pages of the Buddhist Scripture, Fu Juemin seemed to faintly glimpse some patterns he had never seen before.
Fu Juemin was suddenly startled. He quickly picked up the Buddhist Scripture and riffled through it again in the moonlight.
This Pharmacist Buddha Sutra had been in his possession for so long that he could almost recite its contents from memory. He knew exactly what was written on every page.
’How could there be something I’ve never seen before?’
After fiddling with it for a while, Fu Juemin finally pinched a page of the Buddhist Scripture, held it up to the moonlight, and tried slowly changing the angle.
He saw that on the page, as thin as a cicada’s wing, the text of the *Pharmacist Buddha’s Glazed Body* quietly faded away. In its place, new words and patterns slowly appeared.
Fu Juemin squinted to read the five tiny, fly-head-sized words at the beginning.
"Pharmacist Master... Purifying Light Saber?"
"Well, I’ll be..."
Fu Juemin couldn’t help but mutter, "It’s even got color-shifting anti-counterfeit technology..."
.......
New week, trying to climb the new book rankings. Asking for monthly tickets, thank you everyone! (orz)
This Chapter is a bit late, but there will still be two updates today.
