The two of them continued to talk until the sun rose, but neither of them felt like stopping until Shen Yuan decided to get up.

"Can I rent a room for myself?" Shen Yuan did not want to go through the procedure out in the open, so he decided to rent a room on the third floor.

"No need to rent a room. I have a more private place." Candy took his hand and took him to her personal room on the fourth floor where no one without access was allowed. The guard had already delivered the herbs he had requested to her room.

On the way, the two of them barely encountered another soul. There were only guards who were blocking the entrance to the fourth floor, but when they saw it was Candy who was taking Shen Yuan up, they let them pass and even bowed their heads a little.

The musician and the dancer group had already left since most of the customers were either sleeping in or had returned to their homes.

Candy’s personal room was like the inside of a mansion.

Everything was beautiful, and the room was well decorated. The first room was the bedroom, where a ten-foot-long bed was sitting against the wall.

The room was separated by thick curtains and wooden structures.

There were paintings and mirrors hanging around the room, which gave the place a little life, but it still lacked soul.

"I was hoping to do this somewhere more privately." Shen Yuan looked at Candy with a slight embarrassed smile.

It was a fake one.

Shen Yuan did not want her to watch him while he made the Dragon Bone Paste.

A 2-star recipe was a treasure and a bargaining chip he could use to gain her favor later, but for now he wanted to keep it to himself.

Candy seemed to see through his intentions but did not mind it. "Can you handle the procedure yourself?"

"You might not know this, but I was sort of a physician myself before..." He did not have to continue, as the black-haired beauty understood him better than anyone else.

"You can take the inner room where I usually perform my alchemy. I need to take a rest, so I will sleep outside. The bathroom is attached to that room too." She pointed in the direction of the curtained room before walking to the dressing table, where she sat down to remove her accessories and makeup.

"Hurry up." When she noticed Shen Yuan watching her through the mirror, candy pouted, "I don’t want you to see me without my make-up. I look hideous."

"Hehe. Somehow, I doubt that." Shaking his head, Shen Yuan picked up the wrapped package from the bed and walked through the curtains and entered the inner room.

This room was completely different from the bed room.

There was a huge cauldron lying in the middle of the room, and several tables were aligned on the side of the room.

Everything was arranged properly, like someone had put thought into arranging this place. There might not have been any personal thing in this room, but Shen Yuan could feel it. "So this is where your soul resides."

His voice was barely a whisper.

Shen Yuan did not waste much time admiring the massive artifact sitting in the middle of the room and walked around it to the table where a copper bowl was placed.

Sitting down, he arranged the medicinal herb he got from the courtesan outside along with the bone powder of an unranked beast he had gathered on his own around the bowl and got to work.

Following the recipe, Shen Yuan started throwing in the first batch of herbs before grinding into a paste.

While he was working on the Dragon Bone Paste, in the outer room Candy was done changing.

Even without the makeup, her beauty had barely diminished. She was now lying on the bed wearing nothing but a thin purple-colored gown with golden edges.

Instead of sleeping, she was playing with the bag Shen Yuan had given her.

She could feel the weight of the coins, but there were other things that she could feel inside them.

Out of curiosity, she opened the bag and looked inside. The pouch contained around a thousand coins, which he had lifted from the two servants he had killed before.

Another thing inside the pouch was a small booklet.

She opened it and flipped through the contents of the book. The moment she started reading it, she understood what it was.

"Why do you treat me so well?" Her eyes softened as she whispered, "This booklet alone was more than enough payment, you idiot."

Throughout her life, no one has ever treated Candy with such sincerity. Everyone either wanted to take advantage of her or gain her favor.

No one ever treated her like Shen Yuan did.

Like an equal. A friend, maybe.

The book contained many things.

First, there was his knowledge as a physician, which the original Shen Yuan had learned from his father, who was also a renowned doctor.

The other things written inside were the workings of Peng Ho’s operation.

Where he got his money from, who was helping him in the market, and the shops he had been skimming off from.

Candy knew how important this information was because a few of the shops that were being robbed by the joint dealings of the workers and Peng Ho came under the jurisdiction of the pavilion.

There was also another book that contained the proof of the said cooperation. It was something Shen Yaun had tortured out of Servant Leng.

’Looks like it was a good thing that I brought him here.’ She let her eyes drift to the room Shen Yuan was working in. ’I can use this information to my advantage.’

...

Shen Yuan was now standing naked in the bathroom with only a towel wrapped around his body.

There was a bathtub full of boiling water before him. The steam from the water had filled the room.

"Let’s do this."

Shen Yuan picked up the paste lying on the table beside him along with many other bathing products and started applying it to his body.

The paste was dark and murky. He could feel some uneven and rough remains of the plants and herbs rubbing against his smooth skin.

There was no magical glow on the mixture, but the cool sensation it gave Shen Yuan almost energized him.

Once he was fully covered in the paste, from head to toe, Shen Yuan jumped into the bath without any hesitation or fear of pain.

"Urgh!" Unlike what he had expected, the boiling water did not burn his skin, but instead it still felt hot.

Fortunately, the coating on his body was preventing him from feeling most of the pain.

’I have to bear this pain for three hours.’ The fire under the wooden bathtub was still alive, but the wood did not show any signs of burning.

The effects of the Dragon Bone Paste was instantaneous. The cold sensation, which was lingering on his skin, slowly seeped into his muscles, providing him a moment of relief. "Mhmm~"

Shen Yuan’s body was being tempered at the most basic level.

His muscles suddenly stretched thin and his eyes went bloodshot. Shen Yuan had never felt such a pain before in his life.

Even with his high pain threshold, he had to bit the edge of the tub to suppress the voices.

Beads of black sweat started to ooze out every pore of his body.

Shen Yuan’s vision started to blur, everything was moving and twisting. He felt as if his body was on fire. ’Hot....’

The boiling water did him no good. HIs skin was curling like someone had shoved him in an oven and was roasting him alive.

Barely five minutes had passed since he had started, and he was like that. How was he supposed to last for three hours?

’Why are you feeling this pain? Weren’t you numb your whole life? What good would come out of this? Just let go... let go... go.’ Doubts appeared in his mind; a voice in the back of his mind urged him to get out of the bathtub.

’This is the first time pain ever got to me. No way I am letting it leave so easily.’ But Shen Yuan was stubborn as a mule. He did the opposite and dove under the water.

His eyes were burning with madness, obsession and... well, heat.

He let the water muffle his screams before rising up.

He continued to do that for a couple more times before the pain started to fade on its own.

The paste had slowly disappeared from his skin. It was a mystery whether it was washed away or it had been absorbed by his body.

His skin had turned so red that it looked like that of a newborn baby.

Before he knew it, the three hours had passed.