Chapter 746: The Meaning of the Cinnabar Pill
The Holy Medical Hall was utterly silent. In the innermost room, even the sound of people breathing could be heard, and one could even detect some deliberately lowering their breaths. Some lowered their heads, others nervously glanced around. The atmosphere was tense and oppressive, as if someone were spying on them.
In the midst of this tension, someone suddenly couldn't help but cough. The general glanced at him and continued asking, "Another ten days?"
Because of these words, the atmosphere in the room lightened slightly.
An Hua followed the Divine Priest to the window and asked in a low voice, "What exactly is going on?"
The Divine Priest said, "No one can make the Medicine Clan hand over their formula, because to this day, no one knows who actually made this pill."
Hearing this answer, An Hua was greatly surprised, forgetting the strange atmosphere in the room, and raised her voice slightly, "How is that possible?"
Since such a pill existed in the world and had already been used, someone must have delivered the medicine to the various military headquarters. How could it be impossible to trace who made it?
The Divine Priest raised his right hand, signaling her to mind her emotions, but offered no explanation.
"Even if the origin of this pill is unknown, what about reverse-engineering it? Even without the formula, the pill's composition can be deduced from its ingredients."
An Hua, seeing the hesitant expression on the Divine Priest's face, thought she understood his concerns and tried to persuade him, "This is about saving lives, not doing business. The safety of the frontline soldiers is infinitely more important than those outdated moral concepts. I believe both the Archbishops and you should be very clear about this."
The Divine Priest shook his head and said, "You don't understand. This matter is very complicated, and this pill is also very complicated. It's very difficult to reverse-engineer."
"Just from the name, one can roughly guess that this pill is mainly made of cinnabar, supplemented by other herbs. If it's truly that miraculous, the key must lie in the supplementary ingredients." An Hua stared into the Divine Priest's eyes and said, "But please don't tell me those supplementary ingredients are extremely rare and hard to find, because that won't convince me."
There was simply no medicinal herb in the world that the State Religion and the Imperial Court couldn't find. But even this couldn't leave the Divine Priest speechless. He smiled bitterly and said, "Don't even mention finding those supplementary ingredients. To this day, no one has even figured out exactly how many kinds of supplementary ingredients this pill contains."
An Hua was shocked again, thinking that with the abilities of so many priests and scholars from the State Religion and the Imperial Court, how could they still not have determined the composition and proportions of those supplementary herbs?
The Divine Priest lowered his voice and said, "The number of pills available for research is too small, and the person who supplied the pills explicitly forbade such actions beforehand."
Hearing that such a thing existed, An Hua became even more intrigued and asked, "What exactly is the origin of this pill?"
"As I said before, no one knows its origin. People only know that a year ago, a bottle of pills appeared at Yonglan Pass."
The Divine Priest's eyes suddenly brightened, as if glowing, but it wasn't greed or possessiveness—it was longing and reverence.
That bottle of pills that appeared at Yonglan Pass contained twenty pills. Perhaps it was desperation, or perhaps the mysterious pill maker had made some prior arrangements. In any case, a soldier who was severely wounded and on the verge of death took one pill and survived.
After that, such incidents kept happening. No matter how severe the injury, as long as the person wasn't killed instantly, taking this pill would allow them to survive. Although it couldn't always fully heal the injuries—some cultivators with damaged spirit mansions or severed meridians couldn't be cured—at least they were pulled back from the shadow of death.
Everyone who witnessed the pill saving lives exclaimed that it was a miracle.
The spread of the miracle was naturally extremely fast. In a very short time, this mysterious pill became the most famous thing in over a dozen military headquarters on the Snowfield.
No one knew from which day it started, but people suddenly learned that this pill was called the Cinnabar Pill. Yet they still didn't know where it came from or who made it.
"Reviving the dead, regenerating flesh and bone"—these were two phrases An Hua had read in the Daoist Canon. She knew they were exaggerated descriptions, not to be taken literally. But today, the reactions of the people in the Holy Medical Hall and the bright eyes of the Divine Priest were all telling her that this was real and had been witnessed. How could such a thing be possible? Even if the legendary holy medicine truly existed deep within the Divine Palace, it probably wouldn't be much better than this. Moreover, the quantity of holy medicine would inevitably be extremely small, meaningless for this war...
She suddenly asked, "How many Cinnabar Pills are there in total?"
The Divine Priest said, "No one knows."
Hearing this answer again, An Hua suddenly felt very weary.
But this time, it had nothing to do with mysticism—it was simply a matter of arithmetic.
"Every month, a bottle of Cinnabar Pills appears. So no one knows how many the person actually has."
The Divine Priest looked into her eyes and said, "I am more inclined to believe that the Cinnabar Pills are refined by that person, and that they are continuously being refined."
An Hua was shocked again, her voice slightly tight as she said, "I also hope it's the latter."
If it were the latter, it would mean that the Cinnabar Pills could be supplied continuously to the frontline soldiers, and the quantity might even gradually increase.
No matter how you looked at it, this was the best possible scenario. Of course, this had to be based on the premise that the Cinnabar Pill was truly as miraculous as claimed.
An Hua looked at the Divine Priest, a look of hope in her eyes, almost like a plea.
The Divine Priest knew what she was feeling at that moment, what she wanted to hear, because he had once been in the same position. The tension and anticipation were still unforgettable.
He looked at her calmly and firmly said, "Yes, the Cinnabar Pill can truly save lives, no matter how severe your injury."
An Hua's hands trembled slightly, not from tension, but from joy and bewilderment.
She was a clergy member and a physician, deeply compassionate and benevolent, always thinking about how to save lives and heal the wounded.
She understood that this meant, for the first time in human history, a holy medicine that could be mass-produced had appeared.
For her, it meant that many partings of life and death would disappear, and pain would vanish.
Of course, for humanity, this holy medicine meant even more. For example, certain important formation masters and cultivators would essentially have two lives.
So, for this war between humanity and the demons, what did this pill mean?
An Hua didn't think about that.
She was thinking, if this pill wasn't a gift from the Divine Kingdom to humanity, then what was it?
Whoever that person was, he was destined to stand on the altar of history, receiving the worship of all people, wasn't he?
...
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(This chapter has 1981 words, continuing to make up for the account of that chapter that was duplicated on Qidian that day.)