paranoianovel Chapter 23 New Drug Clues, Cult Enters the City
Chapter 23 New Drug Clues, Cult Enters the City
In the blink of an eye, more than half a month has passed, and it's now mid-December.
The biting wind, like a whip dipped in ice water, lashed through the streets and alleys of Cangzhou City.
Even the coldest wind couldn't blow away the ever-growing festive atmosphere of the New Year.
On the street, red lanterns were hung up early in the morning at each shop.
Bundles of firecrackers, wrapped in red paper, were piled up at the entrance of the general store, exuding a festive atmosphere; on the dried goods stall, melon seeds, peanuts, and persimmon cakes were displayed in abundance, their oil paper wrappings rustling in the wind.
People wearing cotton robes, scarves, and leather hats, carrying baskets and oil paper packages, moved between shops. The sounds of bargaining, greetings to acquaintances, and vendors' shouts blended into a bustling and lively atmosphere.
The air was filled with the aroma of roasted nuts and seeds, the sweet smell of boiling sugar, and the greasy, meaty smell of stewed meat wafting from some restaurant.
Zhou Tong walked out of a small shop called "Baoyuantang".
He stood on the steps, took a deep breath, concentrated, and the panel appeared.
[Estimated time to break through "stone skin": 52 days]
[Estimated time to master the "Dragon Tiger Ruyi Blade": 29 days]
During this period, he practiced diligently without stopping, and his skill level and swordsmanship have been steadily improving.
But he was not satisfied and wanted to go further.
That's how people are; once they've tasted something sweet, they always want it to be even sweeter.
With the "Improved Formula of Golden Jade Ointment" being so effective, Zhou Tong naturally wanted to further refine the formula to make cultivation even faster.
My biggest asset is the control panel, so I must make the most of its functions and maximize its advantages!
The panel's ability to improve prescriptions is based on the analysis of a large number of medicinal material samples.
The richer the sample, the greater the possibility of deriving a better solution.
Large pharmacies like Renjitang have a complete range of medicinal materials and stable quality. However, doing business requires stability and smooth circulation. Because of this, such large pharmacies are less "unconventional" or "strange".
Those unsystematic folk remedies circulating among the people have a small distribution range and may use some medicinal materials that are not commonly found in pharmacies. They might contain unexpected surprises.
Therefore, during this period, Zhou Tong would visit the various pharmacies in the city from time to time in his spare time from cultivating.
Although he hasn't gained much yet, he's thoroughly enjoying it.
Just as I was pondering this, a sweet aroma with the scent of caramel wafted into my nostrils.
Zhou Tong looked up and saw an old man wrapped in a thick cotton-padded coat guarding a clay stove at a street corner not far away.
A tin bucket sat on the stove, its body blackened by the charcoal fire. Several sweet potatoes, roasted until their skin was crispy and cracked open, revealing their golden flesh, were steaming hot, and the sweet aroma wafted from there.
"Afu," Zhou Tong instructed behind him.
"Young master, please wait a moment." Ah Fu understood and jogged towards the roasted sweet potato stall.
Zhou Tong stood still, his gaze unconsciously sweeping across the street.
Amidst the festive atmosphere of the Lunar New Year, one can still see refugees huddled in the shadows of eaves, shivering in tattered clothes.
Prosperity and misery are always so starkly intertwined in this era.
Just then, a cautious, ingratiating voice came from behind:
"Sir...please wait a moment."
Zhou Tong turned around and saw that it was the young shop assistant who had been hiding behind the counter and fiddling with an abacus at Baoyuantang earlier.
He was in his early twenties, with an ordinary appearance, wearing a faded blue cotton-padded jacket. He was rubbing his hands together, a smile on his face, but his eyes were somewhat shifty.
"Something wrong?" Zhou Tong raised an eyebrow.
The waiter took a small step forward, lowered his voice, and chuckled:
"Sir, I noticed you in the shop earlier. You looked through all the medicine cabinets, asking about herbs that invigorate qi and blood, and strengthen the body..."
He paused, his gaze quickly sweeping over Zhou Tong's lower body, then lowered his voice, saying with a hint of ambiguity:
"Excuse my bluntness, but is it... that you have some unspeakable problem? Perhaps it's been going on for a long time without improvement, which is why you're looking for some unconventional remedies to try?"
Zhou Tong: "..."
This fellow clearly misunderstood his search for unorthodox medicinal herbs as a rich young man who had exhausted himself by indulging in prostitution and was secretly looking for aphrodisiac and kidney tonics.
"What I'm looking for are medicinal herbs that can invigorate qi and blood, and strengthen the body."
Zhou Tong, with a stern face, emphasized it seriously before saying calmly:
"If you know where to get these kinds of obscure medicinal herbs, tell me, and you'll be well rewarded. If not, don't waste your breath here."
The waiter felt a chill run down his spine when he was given that look, and the ambiguous smile on his face froze.
He secretly curled his lip, thinking to himself, "What are you pretending for? 'Boosting qi and blood, strengthening the body'—isn't that just an excuse for kidney deficiency?"
What's there to hide? You're just a young person, you're too shy.
Tsk tsk, these young masters, so respectable on the surface, but who knows what kind of debauchery they're in behind the scenes. They're so young, yet their bodies are already so weak.
Thinking this to himself, he dared not show it on his face, and the waiter quickly smiled obsequiously, "Yes, yes, sir, you're right. It was my fault for being so talkative. I deserve a beating!"
As he spoke, he pretended to lightly pat his own face, so lightly that it wouldn't even startle a mosquito.
His eyes darted around, then he put on that ingratiating smile again: "But sir, if you're looking for these kinds of obscure medicinal herbs, I actually know a place."
"Speak," Zhou Tong said succinctly.
"Right there in Zhengyang Old Street, on the west side, there's a small shop called 'Huichuntang'."
The waiter looked around and said in a low voice, "That place... is a little different. The owner is an old seafarer who used to sail in Southeast Asia."
They have a secret folk remedy, supposedly a traditional recipe brought back from Southeast Asia, using herbs that are all rare and exotic local ingredients.
He licked his slightly chapped lips and continued:
"As for the effects... I've heard it's incredibly potent! As long as the bed can handle it, you can do whatever you want. Tsk tsk, many regular customers secretly get their prescriptions filled there, but it's not cheap."
Zhou Tong automatically filtered out all the nonsense about "effects" mentioned earlier.
But when he heard the words "medicinal herbs from Southeast Asia", his heart suddenly trembled, and a faint glint of light flashed in the depths of his pupils!
Nanyang!
It was as if a bolt of lightning had cleaved through the fog!
He frequented various traditional Chinese medicine shops, but forgot that the world is so vast, each with its own space for survival and reproduction, and must also have its own methods of using nature to heal and strengthen the body!
Traditional Chinese medicine is indeed a vast system, but it is by no means the only source of wisdom.
Those tribes in the rainforests of Southeast Asia, the Gobi Desert of the Western Regions, the snowfields of the North, and the islands of the East China Sea have struggled with nature for thousands of years. How could they not have their own unique system?
Those exotic medicinal materials that were not recorded in the medical books of the Central Plains may also contain unexpected effects.
At this thought, Zhou Tong felt a surge of excitement.
His expression remained calm, though his eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at the shop assistant and confirmed, "Zhengyang Old Street, Huichuntang? Is the manager Haike?"
"Absolutely true!"
Seeing that he seemed interested, the waiter quickly nodded, "Sir, you'll find out once you go and ask around. The shopkeeper's surname is Hu, and he has a scar on his left cheek from a jellyfish in Southeast Asia many years ago."
Zhou Tong didn't ask any more questions. He took out some change from his pocket and handed it over: "This is a tip for you."
"Thank you for the reward, sir! Thank you for the reward, sir!" The waiter accepted the gift with a beaming smile, bowing repeatedly.
Just then, Afu came running back, carrying an oil paper package.
A hot, fragrant roasted sweet potato was wrapped in oil paper.
Zhou Tong took it; it was scalding hot to the touch.
He gently peeled back a bit of the crispy outer skin, revealing the golden, soft, and glutinous sweet potato flesh, steaming with white vapor and exuding an even stronger sweet aroma.
Take a small bite, and the warm, sweet, and glutinous flavor melts on your tongue, going down your esophagus and bringing a real sense of warmth.
"Hmm, not bad." He nodded and said to Afu, "Get in the car, let's go to Zhengyang Old Street."
"Yes, young master."
The master and servant got into the black car parked by the roadside.
The driver started the engine, and the car slowly drove into the increasingly crowded street, heading towards Zhengyang Old Street in the south of the city.
Inside the carriage, Zhou Tong slowly ate a roasted sweet potato, his mind constantly making plans.
Southeast Asian medicinal herbs... This is a completely new direction full of possibilities.
Although the shopkeeper's prescription was an aphrodisiac, as long as the herbs themselves had the medicinal properties of "tonifying qi and blood, and strengthening the body," it might be useful to me.
Even if this attempt fails, it still provides a broader perspective.
In the future, you can pay attention to those traveling merchants and sea travelers who travel all over the country. Many folk remedies have regional characteristics and are only circulated in the local area.
Just as he was deep in thought, the vehicle turned onto a slightly wider street.
Suddenly, a strange commotion arose ahead.
It wasn't the hustle and bustle of year-end shopping, but a disturbing wave of sound mixed with extremely high-pitched chanting and countless people's low chanting.
The chanting was extremely strange, fluctuating in pitch and with long, drawn-out endings. It was neither like opera nor Buddhist or Taoist chanting, but rather like some kind of ancient shamanistic prayer.
Zhou Tong's thoughts were interrupted. He frowned, straightened up slightly, and looked ahead through the windshield.
Then, his expression changed.
Ahead, at the street corner, a dense crowd, like a slowly moving tide, was pouring in from another street.
At the very front of the crowd was a man dressed in an extremely bizarre manner.
His face was covered in thick greasepaint, with red, white, and black colors interwoven into distorted patterns, making it almost impossible to recognize his original appearance.
He wore a tall crown adorned with feathers of unknown birds and withered vines, and a wide robe of various colors sewn with shells, bone fragments and metal shards. He held a wooden staff wrapped with faded strips of cloth in his hand.
At this moment, he was tilting his head back, veins bulging in his neck, and chanting difficult and strange syllables repeatedly in a sharp, penetrating voice.
With each line sung, the massive crowd behind him chanted in unison, their voices booming into a single, monotonous, and almost fervently unified chorus.
"May you be free from worry—may Mother bestow blessings—"
"May all suffering vanish!"
"By taking refuge, one attains ultimate bliss."
Zhou Tong's heart skipped a beat, and his gaze swept past the leader and landed on the crowd behind him.
Inside were ragged, emaciated refugees; there were also men and women dressed in decent silk robes, seemingly from well-off families; and there were people who looked like peddlers or laborers.
They were devout and excited, chanting incessantly.
Zhou Tong noticed that everyone present looked extremely excited, with an abnormal flush on their faces.
In the procession, some people were holding up long banners.
The white cloth serves as the background, upon which two striking characters are written in bold ink: "Worry-free".
Above the large characters, there is a painted statue of a deity.
It depicted a kind-faced, smiling old lady dressed in simple clothes, with her hands clasped together in front of her chest, giving her a compassionate, bodhisattva-like appearance.
However, behind this statue, four additional arms are surprisingly extending!
The four arms are in different poses, some pinching fingers, some holding objects, and some gently stroking downwards, forming an extremely discordant and bizarre composition with the hands clasped together in front.
The rough and vibrant brushstrokes of the painting made the old woman's smile appear both kind and inexplicably sinister against the backdrop of the fluttering banners.
Sunlight was cut off by the eaves on both sides, falling in dappled patterns on the slowly moving procession.
Amidst the flickering light and shadow, the fanatical faces, the bizarre attire, the fluttering demonic banners, and the incessant, echoing chants...
It was as if a cold, sticky undercurrent had suddenly surged into the bustling streets of the Lunar New Year.
The bustling crowd on the street was stunned by this scene.
People stopped and stared, some with surprise, some with fear, some with curiosity, and some at a loss.
The vendors stopped hawking their wares, travelers halted their steps, and children were held tightly by their parents and huddled under the eaves of the shops.
A silent sense of suffocation spread as the group approached.
The car came to a complete stop, its path blocked by the surging crowd ahead.
Afu's face turned pale, and he subconsciously turned to look at Zhou Tong: "Young...Young Master...this..."
Zhou Tong's expression was cold and sinister.
His gaze was fixed on the six-armed "Our Lady of Sorrow" painted on the banner, then swept over the various believers in the crowd who seemed to be in some kind of collective frenzy.
A cold, lingering name, long since residing in the depths of her heart, now clearly surfaced alongside this utterly bizarre scene before her—
Worry-free education.
The sect that spread with the refugees from the great disaster in southern Shandong, claiming to believe in the "Holy Mother of Sorrow" and able to ward off disasters and misfortunes, was briefly mentioned in a corner of the newspaper.
Today, it no longer exists merely in words and rumors.
It entered Cangzhou City on such an extravagant, bizarre, and large-scale scale.
They came into his view!
Zhou Tong slowly put down the slightly cool sweet potato in his hand, his fingertips unconsciously tightening.
Outside the car window, the eerie sound waves, a mix of loud chanting and collective recitation, crashed against the car window like a tangible tide, shattering the city's seemingly solid order and tranquility.
"Back off, get out of its way," Zhou Tong said to the driver in a deep voice.
"Young Master! Hold on tight!"
The driver remained calm, abruptly shifting into reverse. The black car let out a low growl, its tires screeching against the ground as it rapidly reversed.
Just then!
"Clang! Clang!"
"Get out of the way! This is the police station! Everyone get out of the way!"
Suddenly, a sharp brass whistle and harsh shouts rang out from the other end of the street.
Dozens of police officers in black uniforms, carrying batons, led by an officer with a Mauser pistol at his waist, surged into the eerie parade like a black torrent.
"You've all gone too far! Gathering a crowd without permission, causing trouble, and spreading heresy! Disperse, all of you!"
The police waved their batons, trying to disperse the crowd and push aside the believers who were holding banners.
"Holy Mother of Sorrow, protect me!"
"Those who obstruct my holy path will surely be punished by Heaven!"
Instead of stopping, the fanatical believers began to shout and curse.
Soon, the shouting and cursing escalated into yelling, and the pushing and shoving escalated into a physical fight.
Someone's dead!
With a sharp sound, the scene completely spiraled out of control.
The car reversed, and Zhou Tong stared coldly ahead.
The crowd erupted and ran, knocking over the New Year's goods stalls, scattering melon seeds and peanuts all over the ground, which were then trampled to pieces by countless feet.
The cries of children, the screams of women, the roars of men, the whistles of police officers, the shouts of believers... all these sounds combined into a terrifying torrent of noise.
Faced with this chaos that ordinary people would avoid at all costs, the hooligans, thieves, and gang members who roam the streets suddenly became excited.
"Rob it!"
"Damn it, this pocket watch is mine!"
"Hold her down! Slide the bracelet off!"
The car narrowly avoided several people who were rolling and wrestling in the middle of the road, and then suddenly turned into a side alley piled with debris, finally avoiding the chaotic scene on the street.
"Stop here, don't go out," Zhou Tong instructed.
The car was turned off and parked in the shadows deep in the alley.
The carriage was deathly silent, but the sounds of fighting and crying coming from outside were incessant and disturbing.
Just then—
"Hey guys, got some easy prey?"
A hoarse voice suddenly rang out at the entrance of the alley.
The next instant, seven or eight young men, each holding a wooden stick or an iron bar, appeared at the alley entrance, smiling sinisterly, and walked step by step toward the car.