Chapter 44: Developing the Antidote for First Snow

"Alright, that's enough."

Before long, the old man, who had been sitting with his eyes closed, opened them again, looking entirely confident.

He turned around and walked toward the exit of the room.

"I am going to brew the antidote now."

In the blink of an eye, the old man had left the room, leaving Chuxue no chance to ask any questions.

"He just left like that?" Chuxue looked at the half-open door and asked in a daze.

Wang Chu stepped forward and patted her shoulder.

"He always treats patients this way. Don't worry, he will definitely be able to make the antidote."

Chuxue smiled with a squint of her eyes.

"Heh, is that so..."

If she didn't know by now that Wang Chu had an extraordinary identity, and thus deduced that the physician he brought along couldn't be ordinary either, Chuxue would have really suspected that this physician was a fraud.

What kind of physician stands there with his eyes closed for a moment and then just leaves without explaining anything to the patient?

Could it be, as the books often say, that the greater the master, the more eccentric his ways?

"You can rest a hundred percent assured. His medical skills are quite good. Everyone in our village gets cured by him whenever they fall ill."

Seeing that Chuxue was still somewhat worried, Wang Chu offered another example in an attempt to prove the old man's medical prowess.

However, he failed to realize that the "villagers" in his eyes and the "villagers" in Chuxue's understanding were completely two different concepts.

"V-Villagers?"

Wang Chu's words made Chuxue even more uneasy.

"You mean he's just a village doctor from your hometown?"

Wang Chu found this phrasing somewhat amusing. To think of Hua Tuo, the most renowned divine physician under heaven today, as merely a village doctor from their village?

Still, strictly speaking, calling him their village doctor wasn't entirely wrong. He smiled and nodded.

"You could put it that way."

Upon hearing this, Chuxue felt a sudden wave of disappointment in her heart, though she didn't show it on her face. Contradicting her inner thoughts, she said, "Oh, I see. Then he must be truly remarkable."

Wang Chu was no fool and immediately sensed the shift in Chuxue's mood, though he chose not to point it out.

"Well, you'll see for yourself soon enough."

With that, he stood up from his chair and turned toward the kitchen.

"What would you like to eat for dinner?"

Chuxue replied casually, "Whatever you make, I'll eat."

Wang Chu pondered for a moment before saying, "Let's have hot pot then."

Chuxue was in wholehearted agreement.

Previously, while out on a mission, she had once had the fortune of tasting it, and she still couldn't forget that flavor to this day. She licked her lips slightly.

"Great!"

Because he had once been infatuated with cooking out of sheer boredom, Wang Chu's culinary skills were actually quite impressive.

When he placed the broth pot and the charcoal brazier onto the wooden table, followed by plates of fresh ingredients, Chuxue caught the scent of the scalding chili oil wafting from the pot, and her taste buds were instantly awakened.

Placing a carefully mixed dipping sauce dish in front of Chuxue, Wang Chu handed her a pair of chopsticks and said, "Let's eat."

Chuxue accepted the chopsticks, her joy written all over her face.

"You bet!"

Without further ado, she impatiently dumped a plate of meat straight into the bubbling broth.

After finishing the hot pot, Chuxue decided to read a novel with Wang Chu.

Whenever she read books in the past, she was always entirely by herself, leaving her with no one to share her thoughts, whether she wanted to complain or praise the plot.

Now, she was going to make up for that past regret.

The title of the novel was *A Chinese Odyssey*.

This was a magical book infused with illusion runes.

When someone read this book, it would conjure up imagery corresponding to the text directly within the reader's mind based on their own imagination.

Although such books were much more expensive than ordinary ones, they were practically impossible to obtain in the current mainland and were immensely popular among cultivators.

After all, it was a divine book that could generate imagery from one's own mind, making it far more interesting than dry, boring text—especially texts of that particular kind.

This book was actually another piece of work Wang Chu had brought over from his original world.

As for how he brought it over, it was quite simple, really.

He used a memory-replication divine ability to transform the original film and television content into text, wrote it into a book, and then circulated it across the mainland through the publishing house he had founded.

It was precisely by relying on these transplanted works from his past life, along with these "illusion books," that Wang Chu gradually expanded his publishing business until it became the undisputed industry leader across the entire mainland.

Of course, that was already many years ago.

The present-day Wang Chu had long since become a hands-off boss, leaving the publishing house to be managed by others, only occasionally sending over a few more works from his past life.

"Heeheehee, this book is so interesting, but why is it completely different from the version I read before?"

After flipping through a dozen pages, Chuxue giggled while asking with a puzzled expression.

Wang Chu flipped the book back to the cover and pointed at the four large characters on it, saying:

"This is *A Chinese Odyssey*, and the one you read was *Journey to the West*. The former is an adaptation of the latter, and the authors of the two books are completely different."

Chuxue came to a sudden realization.

"Oh, I see. No wonder the spirit was there, but the form was different. This writing style isn't bad either; it's much more humorous than the original... Wait, that's strange..."

"What's strange?" Wang Chu asked.

Chuxue continued, "A story like this should be very popular, but when I used to buy and read books at bookstores all over the place, I never saw this book anywhere."

Wang Chu explained, "Heh, this book was only recently published by the bookstore. After all, it takes time to become famous."

The actual truth, however, was that the book hadn't even been published yet at all.

However, since telling the truth would require explaining even more to Chuxue—such as whether he was the author of the book—Wang Chu found it troublesome and simply fabricated an excuse on the spot.

Chuxue didn't suspect anything amiss and nodded thoughtfully.

"Mm, that makes sense."

With that, she lowered her head and resumed reading intently.

As she reached the latter half of the book, Chuxue's cheeks gradually flushed with a rosy hue.

Seeing this, Wang Chu feigned ignorance and asked, "Chuxue, what's wrong?"

Chuxue was jolted back to reality, yet the scenes constructed in her mind refused to fade away.

She looked at Wang Chu's face, and her cheeks turned even redder, resembling the evening clouds on the horizon.

"N-Nothing at all, heh..."

She certainly wasn't embarrassed to tell Wang Chu that the male and female protagonists pictured in her mind looked like herself and...

"The male lead's face is me, am I right?" Wang Chu asked with a mischievous grin.

Just because Chuxue didn't say it didn't mean he didn't know.

He was, after all, the first reader for most of these "illusion books."

Could he possibly be unaware of what images Chuxue was constructing in her mind?

Chuxue's head instantly felt like a boiling kettle, on the verge of venting steam, as she made muffled noises:

"No, no, no... not at all! Don't overthink it!"

"Oh?" Wang Chu stroked his chin, fixing his gaze on Chuxue's wildly darting eyes. "Really?"

Not daring to meet his gaze at all, Chuxue quickly lowered her eyes and forced her focus back onto the text in the book.

"I'm go... going to keep reading."

Wang Chu withdrew his gaze and stopped teasing the young woman.

"A friendly warning: there is emotional pain ahead."

Chuxue frowned in confusion. "What do you mean by emotional pain ahead?"

Wang Chu smiled mysteriously. "You'll understand once you finish reading."