By the time Lin Yuan’s father finished dinner, it was already dark.
Lin Yuan said goodbye to his parents before leaving the house and heading toward the academy.
Before leaving, he told his mother that some of his classmates knew their family sold medicinal herbs and had asked him to help sell the herbs their parents had gathered deep in the mountains.
Using that excuse, he handed his mother the medicinal herbs Yan Beifei had cultivated.
Lin Yuan’s mother had always been extremely shrewd, especially when it came to business.
In that regard, she could practically be considered an enhanced version of Flender.
Flender only knew how to take advantage of his status as a Soul Saint to jack up his prices.
Lin Yuan’s mother, however, could fleece you while simultaneously making you feel like you had gotten a great deal.
This time, though, she was unusually generous and purchased the medicinal herbs at market price.
As she put it, although she wasn’t a soul master, she knew that soul masters worked in teams and needed to help one another.
They might even become lifelong companions in the future.
She couldn’t let them suffer a loss.
Lin Yuan couldn’t help sighing inwardly at his mother’s way of handling people and situations.
Transmigrators, Yu Xiaogang, the Shrek Seven Devils, the three beauties of Spirit Hall, the Silver Dragon King…
None of them could compare to a peasant woman from the countryside when it came to wisdom.
After sighing inwardly, Lin Yuan had no choice but to accept the several hundred gold soul coins his mother gave him and return to the academy.
That was practically most of the liquid capital of their Lin Family Herb Shop.
That night, he acted as though nothing had happened.
He sat cross-legged and began meditating, secretly gathering the Fortune-Soaring Dew.
The next morning, he followed his usual routine.
One hundred push-ups.
One hundred sit-ups.
One hundred squats.
And a ten-kilometer run.
He attended his classes as usual in the morning and spent his free time hanging out with several of his “close friends.”
But as soon as noon arrived, after confirming that Tang San, Xiao Wu, and Lin Tian had gone to the cafeteria, Lin Yuan didn’t even eat lunch.
He went straight outside the academy and bought a charcoal brazier, a fine iron mesh, and some charcoal.
Then he quickly found a hotel some distance away from both his home and the academy and rented a room.
Only then did he take out the pale-yellow piece of whale rubber his mother had given him.
This piece of whale rubber had originally been prepared by his mother for Yan Beifei.
At the time, only this one piece was available on the market.
She had originally planned to make another profit off that kid.
Unfortunately, he had never returned, leaving the whale rubber stuck in her inventory.
Of course, his mother hadn’t lost money on it.
She had only spent nine gold soul coins to buy the whale rubber.
The century-old wild ginseng from before had already earned her two or three times what the whale rubber had cost.
After filling the bathtub with water, Lin Yuan asked the hotel attendant for some ice and tossed it into the water.
Once everything was ready, Lin Yuan lit the charcoal and placed the whale rubber on the grill.
A full two and a half hours passed.
Lin Yuan was practically about to fall asleep from waiting.
Only then did the whale rubber finally melt into a jelly-like liquid, giving off a faintly fishy yet sweet fragrance.
He carefully scooped up a spoonful and put it into his mouth.
The warm liquid slid down his throat.
It tasted slightly fishy at first, then faded into a faint sweetness.
A moment later, a wave of heat suddenly erupted from his lower abdomen and swept through his entire body.
Lin Yuan felt as though the skin all over his body was burning.
Daring not to delay, he quickly swallowed the entire egg-sized lump of “jelly.”
Then he jumped into the bathtub, sat cross-legged, and used his soul power to guide the wave of heat through his meridians.
As his soul power circulated, a fine tearing sensation came from deep within his muscles.
It felt as though something was squeezing between the gaps in his bones.
His entire body ached unbearably.
Nearly half an hour passed before the pain finally subsided.
Lin Yuan’s body gradually returned to normal.
It wasn’t until the sky was covered in orange-red evening clouds that Lin Yuan finally awakened from his meditation.
Despite meditating for so long, he surprisingly felt no fatigue whatsoever.
“It really hurts…
but the effects are just as incredible.”
Lin Yuan could clearly feel that the places in his body where soul power had previously struggled to circulate had become much smoother.
His body had also become significantly stronger.
The contours of his muscles were more pronounced, although his overall physique hadn’t changed much.
However, the outlines of his shoulder bones and finger bones had become more distinct.
His bone structure seemed more prominent, giving him a solid sense of strength.
When he clenched his fists, the joints on the backs of his hands stood out clearly.
This should be the effect of the whale rubber strengthening his meridians, bones, and muscles.
The results were almost comparable to more than three months of his own training.
As for the impurities expelled from his body…
Lin Yuan looked at the bathwater, which had been darkened by sweat and grime.
He said nothing.
He immediately took a cold shower and hurried home, telling his mother that the whale rubber was effective.
Naturally, Lin Yuan’s mother was overjoyed.
She immediately closed the shop and rushed to the medicinal herb market to buy up whale rubber.
Before leaving, she boldly declared that she would buy up all the whale rubber in Nuoding City and let her son consume every piece of it.
As for Lin Tian?
How could he possibly be more important than her own son?
However, this could very likely arouse Lin Tian’s suspicion.
It might even attract the attention of other unknown transmigrators.
After all, in Douluo I, this stuff was merely an aphrodisiac.
If his mother started buying it up on such a large scale, it would be difficult to guarantee that nobody would become suspicious.
The whale rubber was flowing into Nuoding City.
There was no telling how many people might notice.
“Looks like I can’t give Lin Tian absolutely none of it.
I might as well give him some leftovers.”
This way, he could dispel Lin Tian’s suspicions and redirect the attention of any unknown transmigrators who might appear toward Lin Tian.
At the same time, he could use this opportunity to circulate the gold soul coins in his possession back into his mother’s hands.
After all, although whale rubber wasn’t expensive right now, before developing resistance to it, the amount of gold soul coins required to keep consuming it would still be a considerable expense for a family with only modest wealth.
…
Time passed.
Before long, an entire academic year had gone by.
Nuoding Academy only had eleven months in each academic year.
The remaining month was the students’ vacation.
During those eleven months, Lin Yuan’s life was extremely regimented.
Every morning, he did one hundred push-ups, one hundred sit-ups, one hundred squats and ran ten kilometers.
He attended his classes normally in the morning and played around with his “close friends” during breaks, continuing to act like an ordinary child.
At noon, he would spend half an hour reading in the library.
Once he had finished reading all the books related to soul masters and soul beasts, he used that newly freed time, along with the entire afternoon, to meditate and increase his soul power.
At night, he continued meditating while secretly burying the Plastic Palm Heaven Bottle in an abandoned flowerpot and covering it with a fragment of the magical treasure.
This allowed him to collect the green liquid.
He discovered that the Plastic Palm Heaven Bottle worked exactly like Han Li’s Palm Heaven Bottle in the Mortal Realm of A Record of a Mortal’s Journey to Immortality.
After absorbing moonlight for seven days, it could condense a single drop of green liquid.
Once the green liquid had condensed, he used it for medicinal baths to improve the quality of his Lone Bamboo martial soul.
Occasionally, he would return home to check whether his mother had managed to obtain any whale rubber.
Whenever she did, Lin Yuan didn’t even need to go through the trouble of renting a hotel and buying charcoal himself.
His mother would prepare everything for him.
As for Lin Tian, Lin Yuan didn’t even need to bring the matter up himself.
His mother had already taken care of it.
After all, Lin Tian’s talent was there for everyone to see.
Offending him without reason was certainly not a wise move.
Therefore, whenever she managed to purchase four or five pieces of whale rubber, she would have Lin Yuan take the lowest-quality piece to Lin Tian.
As a result, over those eleven months, Lin Yuan gradually consumed more than a dozen pieces of whale rubber.
Lin Tian, meanwhile, had only consumed two.
End of Chapter