Cultivation is just so scientific! Chapter 6 Poisoning

Li Shiming stepped into the garden. Although Chief Escort Wang was nowhere in sight, he felt a certain conviction that the man was tracking his every move.

He made his way to the rockery where they had arranged to meet. The shadows of the surrounding foliage flickered as the sky gradually surrendered to the coming night.

"Chief Escort Wang, I have brought the medicine!" he announced, placing the food box on the ground.

"The Young Master truly is a man of his word!" Chief Escort Wang remarked with a smirk, stepping out from behind the artificial mountain.

His skin appeared even more sallow than it had earlier that day, indicating that his internal damage was far more severe than Li Shiming had initially suspected.

Opening the food box, Li Shiming revealed a large bowl filled with the medicinal brew.

Chief Escort Wang took a deep breath, inhaling the steam from the liquid, and a look of contentment crossed his features.

As a seasoned veteran of the Martial World, a single sniff was enough for him to verify the authenticity of the concoction.

He had targeted Li Shiming specifically because the youth, while intelligent, was like an unmarked sheet of paper—a scholarly Young Master who lacked the spine to fight back when coerced.

Given that the Magistrate’s residence was occupied only by the official and his son, Li Shiming’s social circle was narrow. Chief Escort Wang was confident that the boy had no access to the underworld. He doubted the boy could even source a vial of poison if he tried.

While Li Shiming could purchase ordinary goods easily, no merchant would dare sell poison to the Magistrate’s son. Any mishap would result in a catastrophic investigation.

Furthermore, Chief Escort Wang relied on his years of experience; he had undergone rigorous training to ensure no toxin could bypass his sense of smell.

Without the skill to detect poisons, one could not survive the dangerous business of escorting valuables. A man without such instincts would have been dead long ago.

In truth, the bowl of medicine was perfectly safe; it had been prepared exactly according to the prescription using high-quality herbs.

Li Shiming lifted the bowl from the box and presented it to Chief Escort Wang.

"Chief Escort Wang, I have fulfilled your request. When will you remove the poison from my body?" he asked, his voice heavy with anxiety.

Chief Escort Wang was pleased by this reaction. This desperation for survival was the exact leverage he needed to maintain control.

"Prepare this same brew twice more tomorrow. By tomorrow night, I shall provide you with the antidote," Chief Escort Wang replied with a thin smile as he accepted the bowl.

"I hope you remain true to your word, Chief Escort Wang!" Li Shiming said, his expression darkening.

Having finished his task, he grabbed the empty food box and turned away, appearing frustrated that he had not yet received his cure.

In reality, his haste was born of fear. He worried that if the lethal reaction began too soon, Chief Escort Wang might use his remaining strength to kill him in a final fit of rage.

Moments ago, while passing the bowl, he had surreptitiously accessed the Acacia Poison Protein from his spatial machine room. He had slipped the entire dose into the liquid without a single suspicious movement.

Because the Acacia Poison Protein was added directly at the last second and had not yet fully integrated, its scent remained masked by the pungent medicinal herbs.

Moreover, the amount of protein was minuscule compared to the volume of the medicine and possessed no distinct smell. Even if it had been mixed thoroughly, there was a high probability the veteran would have noticed nothing.

The traditional art of poison identification relied on familiarity with known toxic substances and their aromatic profiles.

However, Acacia Poison Protein was an anomaly that had never existed in this world. No matter how skilled he was, Chief Escort Wang’s training could not help him detect such a foreign and potent substance.

Li Shiming increased his speed, distancing himself from the man as quickly as possible.

Unable to wait any longer, Chief Escort Wang raised the bowl and drained the contents in a few large gulps.

His wounds were agonizing, and he had been relying on subpar tonics while waiting for this specific healing medicine to be prepared.

As the liquid hit his stomach, a familiar warmth spread through him, suggesting the secret medicine was beginning its work.

Suddenly, his breath hitched. His entire frame began to shudder violently as his internal body temperature spiked to extreme levels.

"The medicine... it’s poisoned!" Chief Escort Wang tried to roar, but the words died in his throat, strangled by his own lungs.

Against his already battered constitution, the Acacia Poison Protein—delivered at twenty times the lethal dose—took hold with terrifying speed.

Agonizing abdominal cramps and uncontrollable muscle spasms rendered him completely immobile.

Chief Escort Wang pictured Li Shiming’s refined, scholarly face. He could not fathom how an old fox of the Martial World had been outmaneuvered and poisoned by a mere student, especially while he was on high alert.

A wave of humiliation and stubbornness washed over him as he fought to reclaim his motor functions.

He forced his Inner Qi to surge through his body, hoping to purge the toxins, but he had no understanding of what he was fighting or how to neutralize it.

In his eagerness to heal, he had even used his internal energy to accelerate the absorption of the medicine; now, there was no way to expel the death he had swallowed.

His face took on a sickly purple hue as his respiratory system failed.

Li Shiming watched from behind a tree twenty meters away. Thanks to the moonlight and his sharpened senses, he had a clear view of the man's struggle.

He did not rush to the fallen man’s side. Instead, he remained perfectly still, waiting in the silence.

The Acacia Poison Protein he had synthesized was designed for rapid absorption. Once it entered the system, it was fatal without modern medical equipment and specific knowledge of the compound—neither of which existed here.

As his consciousness faded, Chief Escort Wang remained baffled by Li Shiming’s resolve. Why would the boy risk a double suicide?

After all, the man had watched Li Shiming swallow the Three-day Soul-breaking Pills. Without his specific antidote, no famous doctor could save the boy from a grisly death.

Filled with confusion and bitter regret, the Chief Escort finally stopped breathing.

Li Shiming didn't move for a long time, keeping his eyes fixed on the body from behind the tree.

Only after ten minutes had passed without the slightest rise or fall of the man's chest did Li Shiming finally confirm the death.

He approached the corpse with extreme caution, staying alert. He knew better than to be careless when dealing with a dangerous figure from the Martial World, even a dead one.

Seeing the twisted, grimacing face of the corpse, Li Shiming felt a wave of nausea hit him.

He had been an ordinary man in his past life and a scholar in this one; he had never been close to a dead body before. Maintaining his composure was a feat in itself.

Despite the fact that he had just committed his first kill, he remained surprisingly level-headed.

Using a fallen branch, he began to sift through Chief Escort Wang’s belongings.

Aside from his blade and a few scraps of silver, the man seemed to have nothing of value on him.

Li Shiming knew that a Cultivator would not have pursued Chief Escort Wang without a significant reason.

The man had even gone so far as to massacre seven leaders of the Weiyuan Escort Agency at the Tianxiang Building.

Official records noted that violence involving Cultivators was incredibly rare, with no such events occurring in Nanling Prefecture for decades.

The local authorities already suspected that Chief Escort Wang possessed an item desired by the Cultivator, which had triggered the entire bloody ordeal.

Li Shiming’s motivation for the kill was twofold: to stop the man from terrorizing the prefecture and to satisfy his curiosity about the mysterious object.

Now that the body was cold and the item remained missing, a sense of disappointment settled over him.