Chapter 4123 — Zheng Dongjue's Compromise
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 3
Over the next few days, business at the Heavenly Pill Pavilion slackened noticeably compared with opening day, gradually settling into a steadier rhythm.
This was hardly surprising. On the first day, most people had been drawn in by the novelty and the crowd, and having stumbled upon such an array of top-grade pills—together with Di Xingdao's living endorsement—they had surged forward to snap them up.
And though pills are consumables, they are not like wine or a meal; the vast majority of cultivators might not take even a single pill in a month. Once these people had bought their pills and carried them home, they would have no need of more for some time.
So the dip in the Heavenly Pill Pavilion's sales was only to be expected. In truth, even the Five Elements Merchant Guild in its day could not have stayed packed every single day the way a new shop does on opening day; a drop of more than half in sales was perfectly normal.
Still, the display shelves held no small number of top-grade pills, which carried an inherent pull and appeal. Compared with the dismal, sparrow-forsaken doorways of other merchants, the Heavenly Pill Pavilion's trade remained rather good—enough to make many a fellow trader green with envy.
With no repeat of the first day's packed house, Xue Li alone could handle the shop's business, which happened to leave Wei Zhao and Tian Chan time to refine pills. Had the two of them also been forced to show their faces and thus left with no leisure for alchemy, they would truly have been on the verge of running out of stock.
During this stretch, Wei Zhao had only one task each day: to devote himself to alchemy—not only attempting to refine more fifth-grade pills, but also building up a reserve of fourth-grade pills for the days to come.
Yet he did not place these freshly turned-out fifth-grade pills directly on the display shelves for sale. The Heavenly Pill Pavilion had only just opened, after all, and its top-grade fourth-grade pills still held ample appeal; there was no hurry to roll out fifth-grade pills just yet.
Another, more important reason was the news Wei Zhao had learned from Cai Zhongxuan: the Central Island Grand Auction would formally begin in ten days.
Wei Zhao therefore meant to stockpile the fifth-grade pills he had on hand and, when the time came, put them up for auction under the Heavenly Pill Pavilion's name. If he wished to make the pavilion's name resound as quickly as possible, this was a heaven-sent opportunity he could not possibly let slip.
Beyond that, during this time Wei Zhao had received another piece of good news thanks to Cai Zhongxuan: the Heart-Devouring Linglong Grass he had long awaited had arrived!
Five stalks in all. The quantity was not as great as the ten portions Ning Xuefei had provided before, yet when Wei Zhao finished refining them, he successfully produced eight top-grade Foundation Establishment Gold Pills—an even more outrageous success rate than last time!
The reason lay partly in the superb quality of these five stalks of Heart-Devouring Linglong Grass, and partly in the fact that they were freshly harvested: the shorter the storage time, the less the medicinal potency had bled away, and the better the result in the crucible. That eight pills emerged was unexpected, yet entirely reasonable.
With eight brand-new top-grade Foundation Establishment Gold Pills in hand, Wei Zhao himself had no use for them for the time being. He had only recently used such pills to push himself to the peak of the late Foundation Establishment stage; to recklessly keep popping pills would easily destabilize his foundation—a loss outweighing the gain.