The junior sister thought for a moment, "Then what should we do?"

[Let's go together. If it's someone we know, we'll apologize while sliding on the track. If it's a bad person, we'll take action together.]

The junior sister, "But wouldn't that be a bit embarrassing?"

[It doesn't matter. I'm in a stroller now, and it's you and Di who will be sliding on the track.]

The junior sister, "..."

The junior sister suspected that Xiangxiang was setting her up, but she had no evidence. Just as she was thinking of a rebuttal, Zhang Ze's voice came from ahead.

"Hey! Stop pulling each other. It's not an elder or a demon from the Outer Path, it's Fuji."

Fuji?

The two girls hurried over upon hearing this and, turning the corner, saw the Fuji Zhang Ze mentioned.

Judging by its color and size, this should be the one kept as a pet at Lao Di's house.

Having run away, it had been hiding here all along.

In front of it was a row of pill furnaces and several rows of pill jars, with the fire casting its shadow into a strange shape.

Focused as it was, it hadn't noticed it was being powerfully observed.

Little Fuji mumbled under its breath in a raspy voice, and as the pill furnace's flames burned brightly, it opened the furnace door and pulled a Taisui the size of a washbasin out of its body.

With a shout, it stuffed the washbasin-sized Taisui into a teacup-sized pill furnace.

The pill furnace began to tremble, then suddenly exploded with a bang.

This triggered the explosion of other pill furnaces and all the jars as well.

Lao Di, standing quite close, had fragments and ash from the explosion all over her face. Luckily, she was already dark-skinned and her body was sturdy, so she was unhurt.

Only her clothes were slightly dirty.

"Fuji, what on earth are you doing? And what's wrong with your voice?" The junior sister swept away the smoke with a sword and picked Fuji up.

"Tried some medicine and lost my voice because I'm refining medicine!" Fuji rasped.

The junior sister, "What kind of medicine?"

Fuji, "I don't know, but it must be tasty! Look!"

Saying this, Fuji somehow produced a round, smooth pill.

The pill's fragrance was overwhelming, and both Zhang Ze and Chen Qin found it very familiar.

It was a Dream Origin Pill.

The color was right, the scent was right, except for its shape, which was like a butt, it had no flaws.

One pill from one explosion—it seemed it had gone through several furnaces.

"Where did you get the pill formula?" Zhang Ze asked in surprise.

"What pill formula? I don't have one!" Little Fuji said, pulling two half-burnt books from the ashes on the ground.

"I was following this!"

One was "Southern Border Gourmet Compilation", the other "Medicine King Pill Furnace User Manual" 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

Zhang Ze, "..."

Luckily, with Xiangxiang around, she temporarily adjusted her intelligence to match Little Fuji's, and after entering Fuji's realm, she finally figured out what this little fellow was trying to do.

True to her master Qin of Medicine King Valley's lineage, some things, though never explicitly taught, were passed down.

For example, Little Fuji was also quite interested in the Holy Tree.

However, instead of wanting to steal it and plant it back home, she wanted to taste it.

In fact, ever since pretending to be a decor item and being bought by Lao Di, she had been pondering over this.

Yet she hadn't bitten into it directly because she knew it wasn't right. To avoid unnecessary trouble, she planned to find a piece of discarded bark to try.

[As long as it's a tree, it must shed bark.

And anything on the ground must be unwanted.

So picking up things from the ground to eat surely isn't illegal.]

Following this millennia-old myxomycete wisdom, she finally found her target.

At the deepest part of the sanctuary, she found a few small wood chips.

Naturally fallen.

Fuji, "As civilized beings, we should eat cooked food, so that's why I'm cooking here."

Aside from being a civilized person, the real reason Fuji started a fire was because she couldn't digest the holy tree chips.

No matter how she gnawed, she couldn't refine them. Helpless, she lit up these troublesome pill furnaces.

She tried for a long time, until after putting in the Taisui, in a series of explosions, she managed to blast one chip into a butt-shaped Dream Origin Pill.

Immune to all poisons, eternally indestructible, the master synthesizer Fuji, through a lucky mishap and with a passion for gourmet, accidentally recreated a Dream Origin Pill—butt edition.

Zhang Ze, 'So, Taisui plus holy tree fragment equals Dream Origin Pill?

'But the holy tree fragments aren't stray dogs on the roadside, how could they end up in the hands of an outsider so easily?

'Unless...'

Zhang Ze suddenly recalled something. After arriving here, he had reviewed the history recorded by the Holy Tree Division about the Central Continent battle of that year, where only one event was documented.

That Xiao Jing had once led a raid on the Holy Tree, and even made a cut, removing a piece of bark. The wound was still clearly visible...

Zhang Ze, "Oh, crap..."