Chapter 185 The Multi-purpose Alchemy Furnace
Chapter 185 The Multi-purpose Alchemy Furnace
Ginseng can improve the working ability of a human, as it is proven to reduce fatigue. Also, its various functions are far more impressive than amphetamines. Moreover, it does not have the disadvantage that amphetamines have.
In fact, ginseng could even greatly aid in healing and prolonged life. For example, when the ancients were injured or bleeding, they often would put a piece of ginseng in their mouths, allowing them to buy more time to heal.
As well as having many benefits, ginseng also mirrors closely the valuable, well-known qualities of all essential oils. This can be seen in that it is a multipurpose remedy, that can be useful in fighting cancer, protecting the liver, purifying blood, moistening the lungs, improving immunity and so on. Even men who are sterile could be treated with such a powerful element as this.
Yet still, Chen Fan looked at the bucket in a worried manner. He was also glancing at the Taisui, which had absorbed a huge amount of ginseng essence. Eating a bowl of meat could supplement you nutrition, but eating a ton of meat might kill you. A such, it could not be eaten by the human for the time being, and the electric eel need only a tiny bit of it, when it would get hurt during a fight. Otherwise, it would be a waste to eat it during the rest of the time.
After shaking his head, Chen Fan exited the stone tower. He was ready to go back to Zhongyun city, so that he could buy a beautiful large glass jar to store it in. He figured that, as it could be considered as half a million years old ginseng, it should absolutely not be kept in a rusty old bucket!
Originally, there was a big fish tank in the old house, which was used by the electric eel until now. However, the fish tank was too high to be used anymore.
The glass needed for the Taisui needed to be lower. Specifically, the key word for the character of the tank was "wide". It had been two hours since Chen Fan, who was carrying a large glass jar with a diameter of 1.5 meters and a height of half a meters, returned to the lake that was beside the stone tower. He had returned to this spot in order to wash it.
There was no room for the big guy in the capsule, so he had to let the electric eel bring it in by placing it in its mouth.
After spending time putting the Taisui in a glass filled with fresh water, it was already noon when he finally got home. Upon arriving, he prepared to wash his hands and eat.
"Eat?" After washing his hands, Chen Fan suddenly realized that Yunmeng hadn’t came home yet.
Looking at the time, it was already 12:20 p.m. Yunmeng’s classes were over at 11:40 a.m, and she could get home in fifteen to twenty minutes. Hence, Chen Fan was a little worried, so he took out his phone to call and ask her situation.
"Sorry, the number you dialed cannot be connected, please redial later..." was the response on the line, when he tried calling.
"Has she turned off her phone, or maybe she’s not in the service area?" Chen Fan frowned, as she hadn’t returned within this half an hour, and she hadn’t called. What had happened to her?
As started the car and drove out of his house, he slowed down and focused his attention on the sidewalk. In the middle of the day, there were not many people on the road, and Yunmeng was wearing a white coat, which should be easy to spot.
After the car came to the large shopping mall called Suguo supermarket on Sanpai road, Chen Fan found that, on the pavement, there were six or seven pedestrians, who were gathered in a circle, watching some scene. He could vaguely hear a faint voice of a woman, babbling from the middle of the crowd. Through the crowd, Chen Fan suddenly caught a glimpse of a white figure that looked like Yunmeng, and an electrical bike, which was tilted to the ground.
"F**k!" Chen Fan quickly turned the steering wheel, cranking the car towards the supermarket square.
"What’s the matter?" Chen Fan, who was now squeezed into the center of the crowd, hurriedly asked, as he had just caught sight of Yunmeng, who was pathetically standing next to the electrical bike.
"Are you her guardian? You came at the right time, as she knocked into my car, spilling my two boxes of eggs." A lady in her 40s, wearing a blue coat with egg white and dust on it, spoke in the speed that was faster than a machine gun, while pointing to the electric vehicle that had fallen on the ground. "As you can see, I just came back from the supermarket after buying eggs, and now there are only seventeen left, after being knocked by her. So, now, you must quickly pay me for the lost ones."
"Why didn’t you call me?" After Chen Fan ensured that Yunmeng was not injured, and had no dust on her clothes, questioned her with a slightly blaming tone.
"The phone fell on the ground and broke, I... I just wanted to wait and call you from the phone booth, but then you came." Yunmeng’s face, which was filled with hesitation, immediately turned to one of embarrassment after seeing Chen Fan, just like a good kid that had just made a mistake and was afraid to look his parents in the eye.
"I say, what’s wrong with you, young man? Just pay the damage, so that I can go home to prepare my food." The woman spoke in a speed that even an announcer couldn’t keep up with. Moreover, she had a mental arithmetic level that even Hua Luogeng would admire, as she calculated, "That’s two cases of sixty plum green husk eggs, making for a total of forty-three broken. According to a rate of thirty cents per one, you should compensate me 57RMB and 19 cents, but I don’t want the few cents. And hey, the electric bike’s rain shell and bumper are broken, so those two added together means that you should pay me three hundred, and my clothes were roughed up, so you have to pay me one hundred more..."
"Wait a minute, I’ll ask what happened!" Chen Fan waved his hand and interrupted her. Since neither of them was hurt, he had to then know who was really responsible, and only then could he leave.
The cause was simple and funny. The woman, who had just come out of the supermarket and rode away on an electric bike, dropped her five dollars from her pocket and stepped on her brake to stop and retrieve it. Meanwhile, behind her, only half a meter away, was Yunmeng. Unfortunately, Yunmeng had taken out her mobile phone to text at exact that same time, so she did not have time to react...and bang! They ran into each other.
Since Yunmeng used to climb trees, her sports skills and balance were good. So, even though the cell phone fell, she did not, but the woman was dumped on the ground, along with the electrical bike.
According to car laws and regulations, as long as the front car is not changing lanes, or doing something illegal to cause the collision, the car behind should take full responsibility for any collision, because it could likely encounter a different situation and brake, and the safety distance left by the car is not considered as sufficient enough.
Chen Fan did not know the law for electric bikes, but seeing that the woman’s clothes were drenched with egg, and she measuring up her heightened emotional, machine gun speed of talking, Chen Fan estimated that three to five lawyers still would not have been able to speak over her, so he did not even attempt to help Yunmeng to explain this away. Instead, he just took out 500RMB from his pocket and gave it to the lady.
"Boy, I don’t have a change for you!" she said.
"Forget it!" Chen Fan helped her lift the electric bike and waved his hand. He then pushed Yunmeng’s electric car away from the scene of the accident.
"Pay attention next time! Put your bike next to the supermarket. I’ll take you to eat and then buy you a new phone," Chen Fan said to Yunmeng.
"Okay!" Yunmeng said embarrassedly. "It’s just that the distance was too close. I had no time to respond."
"You can’t be blamed totally. The woman was responsible, too. It’s not an emergency. She should look behind her when she stops, to see if there are any other cars." Chen Fan locked the electric bike, as he attempted to reassure her. "But this matter, I’m afraid that even if the traffic police had come, they would not have been able to talk it out any better than we just did."
There were only two places to dine at the supermarket: a pair of western restaurants. Choosing the more luxurious of the two, they walked in together, while Chen Fan found a window seat.
From the menu brought by the waiter, Chen Fan ordered his food, which was mostly similar to Chinese fare. He ordered a fruit milkshake for Yunmeng.
Foreign wine was also on his mind, as he figured that this was probably the thing that most people ordered when eating western food. So, he turned over the wine list and ordered a cup of the cherry fruit wine made by the restaurant.
No matter how well the western food was made, it was still inferior to authentic Chinese cuisine. When the dishes were ready, Chen Fan didn’t even bother to use the knife offered, but just used the fork to poke and eat them.
"Gurgling..." Yunmeng saw that he had stabbed a whole steak into his mouth. She was so busy laughing at this sight, she didn’t even take the time to wipe the milkshake mustache off her mouth.
"Oh, what is that?" Chen Fan put down his fork and then, turned his face to the window confusedly.
"What?" Yunmeng was fooled!
Chen Fan took advantage of Yunmeng’s being distracted, secretly dipping a bit of ketchup with his finger, then suddenly putting out his finger to quickly wipe the ketchup on her little nose.
"Haha.... haha..." this time was Chen Fan’s turn to cover his belly and laugh wildly. His voice was loud, and the people that were dining near him turned to give him scornful eyes.
But when they saw the beauty of Yunmeng, the scornful looks stopped, replaced with stares of envy, jealousy, covetousness and greed. They were so smitten and enamoured by her, that they themselves could only hear the swallowing sound as they chewed and ate.
"Ah...." Yunmeng was stunned, as only then did she understand that she had been deceived. She lost no time in reverting to a full-on pout.
"Haha! Don’t move! I’ll wipe it for you!" Chen Fan picked up the napkin and gently wiped the tomato sauce away.
"Such a coincidence, bro, are you accompanying your girlfriend for lunch?" Just then, a man dressed smartly, with polished shoes and neat hair, walked up to the table, fawning over Chen Fan.
"And you are...?" Chen Fan raised his head in confusion, and after five seconds of thinking in his head, he suddenly realized the connection. "You are Wei Jie, why have you come here for lunch?"
The man with the typical playboy face was the same one he had met on Zhang Xueyang’s birthday. He saw this man trying to win Wu Ruoyu’s heart, and Wu Ruoyu had then taken Chen Fan as a shield.
"Yes!" Wei Jie smiled, as he said to the waiter passing by, "Charge the cost of this table to my account."
Why would Chen Fan refuse, if someone wanted to pay the bill? After being half-loath and half-consenting, Chen Fan smiled and said, "Thank you!"
"Is Chen brother a stranger to me?" Wei Jie was still being foolish and thinking that Chen Fan was Wu Ruoyu’s cousin, so he said obsequiously, "Elder brother, you enjoy your meal, I’ll excuse myself first."
When Wei Jie left, Chen Fan began to cover his belly and laugh again. "Imagine! This silly person unexpectedly treating me to a meal?!"
"Why is he silly?" Yunmeng’s face was still red, due to her blushing at being called Chen Fan’s ’girlfriend’, and her big glittering eyes looked at Chen Fan curiously.
"I can’t explain why in such a short time. Let’s eat quickly and leave him alone." Chen Fan kissed her forehead, then went on with eating the steak.
It was not a minute before the meal was interrupted again. This time it was a waiter in white.
"This gentleman, the guest of table 23, told me to send a bottle of 2005 Lafite to you."
"Ah, haha, put it here!" Chen Fan’s smile was as inscrutable as Wu Peifu.
When the waiter was gone, Chen Fan could not even eat anything more. He held the wine glass that was filled by the waiter and took a sip and said, "Silly!"
"Brother Chen Fan, do you have any misunderstanding with that person?" Yunmeng pointed to her forehead helplessly, a vexed action which, when made by her, was filled with elegance, so much so that the pedestrians outside the window stopped to look in at her.
"It’s not a grudge, but a sense of superiority," he replied.
After the meal, Chen Fan smiled villainously, as he took Yunmeng to buy a new mobile phone, then took her to her school. He then made a call to Wang Bing, letting him drive the BMW that he had abandoned in order to transport Yunmeng back and forth from school.
.........
The next afternoon, Chen Fan took the electric eel to the sea cave again, prepared to observe the latest situation of the demon standard Taisui. On the second floor of the tower, Chen Fan took the Taisui out of the water, and was surprised to find that the ugly scar, which was the size of the cigarette box, was still there, without a trace of growth. It was obviously not like what the book says: regenerate a piece after eating a piece.
"F**K, is it going to die?" Chen Fan’s eyes were full of question marks, as the information said that on the second day, the Taisui would be able to recover. Now, just past one day, it was okay if it had not recovered, but could it be possible that its cells would not even multiply?
When he returned it to the water, Chen Fan found that it was not actually dead, because the surface was bubbling from time to time, indicating that it was still breathing. Staring at the glass jar was like staring at a gold bar for half a day. Suddenly, Chen Fan tapped his forehead, chiding himself in his mind: how could he forget about the secret way?
Simply put, it’s similar to if one expected three meals a day of just a bowl of rice porridge each could actually raise one’s muscle mass, allowing one to become stronger than dozens of martial arts masters. It just simply isn’t practical. Such strength could only be cultivated by having three meals a day with nutritious, balanced food.
"F**k, it is a waste then?" Chen Fan’s eyes were bigger than ox eyes, as his thoughts whirred: eat ginseng, produce ginseng, which was better... if he ate ginseng directly, why go through the process of even breeding a Taisui?
Thinking of it this way, Chen Fan could only scratch his head. Finally, he decided to buy some high-grade ginseng, then ground it into a powder and poured it into a glass jar. One reason he chose this route was because the beautiful old Taisui had now turned into an ugly scarface. Another reason was that he was now a person who had property worth tens of billions of RMB, so he didn’t care about the money needed for ginseng purchases.
Returning to Zhongyun, Chen Fan drove to the big ginseng stores in the mall to buy some old and wild ginseng. Stores like this one, although they were expensive, at least he didn’t have to worry about buying fakes.
However, when Chen Fan walked into the antler store, he realized how ridiculous he was in having the idea to buy the old and wild ginseng. Not because he didn’t have enough money, but because there wasn’t much wild ginseng stocked there.
Most of them were, about 95 percent, were planted artificially. The cheapest ones, like a white radish, were only a few hundred RMB per kilo. And on the walls, which were encrusted with glass boxes, was where the wild ginseng was, with only a few dozen grams of ginseng present, that of which was sold at a price of up to thirty thousand dollars!
What else could Chen Fan say though? He could only take out his bank card, purchase all of the wild stocks, and move on to the next store. Back and forth, shopping in Zhongyun city for a long time, Chen Fan spent a total of three million, only to come home with a total of 400 grams of authentic wild ginseng. 400 grams, which included those long roots!
Feeling unsatisfied, Chen Fan also bought two catty of Cordyceps sinensis and two catty of Lingzhi. Selecting the biggest five ginseng, Chinese caterpillar fungus, a half catty of Ganoderma lucidum, which he kept for his parents to make tea and drink, he then went to buy two small mills, which he would use for grinding traditional Chinese medicine, and finally, two basketball sized glass fish tanks.
When he returned to the cave, Chen Fan used Kun Wu to cut the flesh of the size of two walnuts from the body of Taisui. He then ground the ginseng into powder and sprinkled it into the tank. Then, he ground the fungus into powder and sprinkled it into the two tanks.
According to the principle, the Taisui should be able to absorb any nutrients, and then slowly grow. Otherwise, this guy wouldn’t survive in the water nor could he grow like sweet potatoes in the soil!
To feed medicinal herbs worth millions to the Taisui would seem ridiculous to most. In fact, if someone knew, they would definitely want to slay this idiot with a knife! No matter, though, the experiment must move forward...
Cordyceps Sinensis: This thing is just like the Taisui, as the specific gender is unknown. It came from bat moth larvae with the fungal infection, then slowly died, only to bloom again, with the grassroots in his head in spring, and is it a worm or grass?
The experimental results showed that Chen Fan’s theory was right. But, he waited until the next day, when the large Taisui part that was cut off had made some progress, revealing some ivory organization growing on it.
Even the two small Taisui pieces by the side had also grown! Measured by the electronic scale, the big Taisui had grown two hundred twenty grams, and the small one had grown two hundred and ten grams.
Of course this shouldn’t be too surprising, as the monster was ten-thousand-years-old! Hence, its appetite was very astonishing! He could see that the medicinal material in the water had been exhausted, leaving only a faint drug aroma. Originally, it had been a milky white mixture, with golden yellow and dark red liquid, which had turned into clear and transparent colorless liquid.
"My god, just kill me, this guy devours everything! Herbs worth millions even, and no real reaction..." Chen Fan was holding his head in pain, and if it had not been for Chen Fan’s strong mental ability, he really might have wanted to boil them with boiling water!
After tasting the consequences himself, Chen Fan did not dare to have the idea of using the wild ginseng anymore. He just returned home, after making a call to Yiteng Yun and Yu Lin, letting them buy a large number of the ginseng, as well as the artificial cultivation Ganoderma lucidum. In the case of the cordyceps, it could not be artificially planted, and with the lack of stock in Zhongyun city, he decided it was best just to temporarily stop the experiment.
Artificial cultivated Ganoderma lucidum was easy to buy, and in just one day, they each bought more than two hundred catties of inventory. After loading it all in the submarine and sending it to the stone tower, Chen Fan continued to use the machine to grind all the ingredients into powder, then sprinkle it into the tank.
What made Chen Fan delighted, was seeing that the artificially planted Ganoderma lucidum’s effect was only five or six times weaker than the wild. Hence, Chen Fan had only had to use about one hundred and fifty catty to make the scars of the Taisui regenerate back to the original look.
As for the size of the walnut, which was raised with Lingzhi, it grew into the size of a bowl within three days. But this little Taisui, admittedly made Chen Fan confused.
In principle, it absorbed so much of Ganoderma’s nutrient, that its own color should be slowly converted to dark red, similar to the color of Ganoderma. However, it was still milky white, and only by careful observation could it be found that to have turned a bit duller in shade.
Thus, Chen Fan deliberately cut the size of a piece of bubble gum from it, and fed it to the electric eel. And the results? The performance of the electric eel after eating it, only made Chen Fan more confused!
This Taisui that was fed using the Ganoderma ended up being no different from that big one! The electric eel’s energy increased the same exact amount, and its electricity increased drastically too.
To know the utility of Ganoderma, it is usually a recessive element, so only long-term use can be manifested, which is quite unlike ginseng, which could be effective immediately. Hence, Ganoderma is not like a stimulant that can quickly improve the vitality and endurance of the body.
At the end of the day, the scientist is left to ponder all he has experimented, thinking: Is the Taisui the universal alchemy furnace, whereby even putting a few catty of organic fertilizer inside, it can also transform and divide nutrition into ginseng?!