Open a Clinic to Cultivate Myself Chapter 306 A Dinosaur Catching Fish

The fox demon baby in her arms, Qing Zhui asked curiously, “What did you forget?”

“Something I need to check.” After saying this, Ning Tao turned and went back in.

He had indeed forgotten something very important. He had the means to find out what happened in this place in the past. These events had occurred so suddenly that he had no time to remember this. He also forgot the fact he had the residual Ancestor-seeking Elixir and the Whisperer with him— two professional decoding tools.

The tomb chamber was quiet. Darkness shrouded the place. No one could see anything inside.

Ning Tao opened his small medicine chest and took out a porcelain vial from within. He unstopped it and poured out a fragment of the residual Ancestor-seeking Elixir onto his hand. As he stuffed the elixir into his nostrils, he also injected spiritual power into the Whisperer in his left hand. He activated its function to capture sound waves from the past.

Poof!

The scene before Ning Tao's eyes brightened and changed.

He was no longer in a tomb chamber, but a natural cave. There were many lamps on the cave wall. Specks of light illuminated the place.

A woman was sitting cross-legged on a rock. Her palms were placed face-up on her knees. She seemed to be activating some cultivation method. Green mists gushed out incessantly from her body.

It was a powerful energy field released by demonic spiritual power.

This woman was the fox demon lying in the stone coffin. But there was no large golden tail extending from her butt.

She was silent. It meant that the sound waves captured by the Whisperer from the past would be useless.

Ning Tao was not at all satisfied. He wanted to find out more valuable information. He walked towards her, but the moment he strode, the scene before his eyes shattered, like a glass window hit by a bullet.

Obviously, the elixir power of the residual Ancestor-seeking Elixir and its allergic reaction were not enough to allow him activity in an elapsed time zone. The Ancestor-seeking Elixir might still exist whole, but it was only a mere possibility. He could not ascertain this.

Ning Tao brought the residual Ancestor-seeking Elixir to his nostrils and give it a deep sniff. He reacted allergically to it again. The scene before his eyes ebbed away like the tide. Rays of light appeared, presenting him with another elapsed scene from the past.

The sea was surging before his eyes. A large shoal of fish was swimming in the sea.

How did it turn into a sea?

He was utterly astounded, but soon understood. In the distant past, even Mount Everest used to be the site of a vast sea. Its snowy summit was immersed in the waters. He was witnessing an elapsed moment in history!

Whoosh!

A massive head suddenly craned above his head. Its eyes were as large as saucers, its mouth full of sharp fangs. It was a dinosaur!

Before Ning Tao could see clearly what species of a dinosaur it was, this elapsed moment in time suddenly shattered.

Ning Tao brought the residual Ancestor-seeking Elixir to his nostrils again. He summoned his state of smelling and took a deep breath.

His allergy to the residual Ancestor-seeking Elixir became more severe.

This time, he was lucky. That woman appeared again. She was still in the cave, studying a picture.

Ning Tao stared at the picture. He felt agitated in his heart. It was that Picture of the Six Samsara Realms which had just escaped him!

Suddenly, the Whisperer trembled and the voice of a woman rang out in Ning Tao's brain.

“Hu Ji, will you seize this chance and become an immortal in this heavenly calamity? Or will you perish, your soul disintegrating?”

From these words, Ning Tao could ascertain that she must be Zhu Hongyu's mother, Hu Ji. But this certainty gave him more worries. Hu Ji said that her heavenly trial was coming. This meant that she was only one step away from becoming an immortal demon. Although she might not be invincible, she must be one of the few at the tip of a pyramid. How could such a woman fall for a mortal like Crown Prince Zhu San, and give birth to Zhu Hongyu?

In that instant, another question he had never pondered arose in his mind. “Was Zhu Hongqin her adopted daughter, or her disciple?”

The more he thought about it, the more he felt this likely. Supposing Zhu Hongyu was Hu Ji's biological daughter, no mother would be willing to inscribe the elixir prescription of the Ancestor-seeking Elixir on her daughter's head. Wouldn't that be getting her into trouble?

“I must do some preparations. That fellow will not stop. He will surely come and disturb my trial. I must write something on this Picture of the Six Samsara Realms…”

This was the second speech the Whisperer captured from Hu Ji.

Ning Tao thought to himself, “In the end, she lay in the coffin. The Picture of the Six Samsara Realms had become her funerary object. She must have failed to overcome her calamity. But she mentioned a 'he'. She seemed to fear him. Who was that man?”

Another pile of unanswered questions. Everything concerning the Ancestor-seeking Elixir was enshrouded in a fog of mystery.

The scene of that elapsed time zone disappeared again.

“Hehehe… you are a useful tool, very useful.” Ning Tao started giggling, as if he were mentally ill. He even started to babbler to himself senselessly. He had used the residual Ancestor-seeking Elixir three consecutive times, and its allergic reaction was driving him nuts. He seemed to be muttering like the ring wearer in The Lord of the Rings.

But he was still the owner of Sky Clinic.

The core in his Niwan acupoint, as large as a football, started to shake, releasing spiritual power. The spiritual power cleansed his heart and body. Instantly, the allergic reaction causing him to act insane disappeared.

Ning Tao did not continue to try. He went to the stone coffin, left a blood lock picture on it, and left the chamber.

There were infinite nodes of elapsed time in the past. Every capture was random. In other words, he would return to a different time zone each time he reacted allergically to the Ancestor-seeking Elixir. Although such time nodes were infinite, he could not use the residual Ancestor-seeking Elixir endlessly. If he did, he might really go crazy.

He left a blood lock behind so that he could return anytime to look. Each time, he could experience one or two time nodes. If he was lucky, he might return to that point in time when Hu Ji wrote the prescription of the residual Ancestor-seeking Elixir on Zhu Hongyu's head. Then all his questions would be answered. But such a probability was less likely than him striking the lottery.

Comparatively, it was easier to capture sound waves from the past using the Whisperer. And he would suffer no side effects from it. But Hu Ji was living alone here. She would not have talked to herself all the time. No one had conversed with her. This was the reason why the Whisperer could only capture two of her speeches.

Ning Tao walked out of the tomb chamber. Qing Zhui and the Howling Celestial Dog advanced to meet him.

Qing Zhui asked with concern, “Brother Ning, I heard your laughter inside. I was about to go back in when I heard your footsteps. What were you laughing about?”

Ning Tao said, “Nothing. I just felt like laughing. By the way, her name was indeed Hu Ji, but she might not be Zhu Hongyu's real mother. She was a demon undergoing a trial and very powerful. Since she is reborn, this name is no longer suitable. It may cause some trouble too. Let's give her a new name.”

The female baby in Qing Zhui's arms started to stare at Ning Tao with her inky eyes. Her pretty eyes were clear and bright, like two lovely gemstones.

Qing Zhui said, “You're the man in the family. You give her a name.”

In other words, she was saying something like “You are the father of the girl”.

Ning Tao did not correct her. He thought for a while. “Let's call her Hu Xiaoji.”

Qing Zhui kissed the face of Hu Xiaoji and grinned. “Baby, you will be called Hu Xiaoji in the future. Be good, or I will smack your bum.”

Hu Xiaoji started to gurgle a peal of laughter, as clear as silver bells. “Goo-goo-goo…”

At this stage, an ordinary baby could only cry. But she was no human baby. Even though she had lost all her former cultivation, she was still a newborn fox demon.

They came to the side of the level dyke. The ink in the Soil-seeking Inkstone was rippling and gushing directly towards the opposite. Ning Tao took out his tactical flashlight and shone. He discovered another level dyke in front. There was no bridge to reach it, but this did not worry him. He immediately took out his herb-collecting rope, summoned his spiritual power, and flung it out forcefully.

Whoosh!

The other end of the herb-collecting rope stiffened. It became as hard and sharp as a spear. Its end started to extend out and soon reached a distance of several dozen meters. It lodged itself in the rock wall above the level dyke.

Ning Tao clasped Qing Zhui by her waist, while she carried Hu Xiaoji in her arms. The Howling Celestial Dog bit on Ning Tao's belt with its jaws. These two adults, a baby and a dog all swung across on the rope. They landed on the level dyke on the other side.

Even without using the Soil-seeking Inkstone, they discovered a small spiritual field on the level dyke. It occupied an area of a dozen square meters. A blue snow lotus was growing on it.

Qing Zhui spoke. “It's a Night Snow Lotus, a very precious spiritual material. My sister wanted to pick one for me, but she never found one. You won't get it even if you pay.”

Ning Tao had also recognized it. He had seen an introduction to this herb in the Compendium of Spiritual Materials, written by Xuan Tianzi. This Night Snow Lotus could revive a dying man and was very precious. Most people who found one would store it to keep themselves alive at the brink of death. They would not sell it.

Ning Tao said, “I'm taking all these spiritual materials back to the clinic. Help me gather some spiritual soil here. I will take them back.”

They started working the moment he finished talking. Qing Zhui put Hu Xiaoji down and started gathering the soil with the Howling Celestial Dog. Ning Tao shuttled between two locations using the convenient door. He moved mounds of the spiritual soil to Sky Clinic. He stored them in the first storeroom of the Scriptures & Scrolls Store. This time, he would not keep them in the House of Sword Pavilion Cave. The clinic had become bigger. He must make good use of its increased capacity. It would be good to grow some house plants in this soil.

Soil from this one dozen square meters of the spiritual field was soon all gathered. The piles of soil were moved to Sky Clinic, together with the Night Snow Lotus. It sounded strange, but rearing such spiritual materials in the Scriptures & Scrolls Store could increase the spiritual energy in both the spiritual field there, and in the Night Snow Lotus itself. He could not help getting agitated over this. He started to wonder if he should move the spiritual field of the House of Sword Pavilion Cave to Sky Clinic.

The next problem would be how to leave this place. Unless it was totally necessary, Ning Tao would not want Qing Zhui to leave using the convenient door. It would prove too much of an ordeal to her.

“Goodness gracious me, there's the smell of snow from there. I wonder if there's a secret tunnel,” the Howling Celestial Dog suddenly said. It raised its paw and pointed to the side of the dyke.

Ning Tao was still pondering how they could leave. The Howling Celestial Dog's words made him run over to look.

There was a natural fissure there, wide enough for a human to crawl through. It was all dark inside the fissure. Even the tactical flashlight could not illuminate its inside. But Ning Tao could detect the smell of snow from in there. In other words, the other end of this fissure would lead to somewhere close to the surface.

One hour later, a rock wall on the snowy summit suddenly emitted a dull thud. A portion of the heavy snow covering the wall crumbled. Ning Tao, the Howling Celestial Dog and Qing Zhui carrying the fox demon baby Hu Xiaoji all emerged from a fissure. The wall was so precipitous that even after making a crack, it was still almost 80 meters above ground. But this did not worry the cultivating doctor with a herb-collecting rope…

Chapter end