Chapter 398 - Herbal Research Institute

How was he supposed to make amends?

Zhang Che was immediately hit with a headache. No matter if it was in his previous life or his current life, he had no experience with pursuing girls, let alone coaxing them. It was a completely new subject for him, with zero hours of study to his name!

Send her flowers? Apologize?

They didn’t seem useful…

After thinking for a long time, Zhang Che sighed helplessly. He really couldn’t think of a safe solution.

If he knew this was going to happen, he would have taken some courses like “Thirty-six Strategems to Dating girls”, or something.

“Forget it. When we get to the mountain, there’ll be a way through. When the boat gets to the pier, it’ll go straight with the current. Why think so much…” (TLN: Meaning everything will turn out to be fine.)

Zhang Che, fully aware that he didn’t have a single romantic bone in him, shut his eyes for a quick rest in the end, not thinking about this matter.

——

At Bei Du…

Huang Tielan stood in the lab, looking at the pile of ingredients on the table. However, her mind was somewhere else. From time to time, she would look at the personal terminal on her left wrist. Time slowly ticked away by the minutes and seconds, but in the end, Zhang Che never called her back to apologize.

“Zhang Xiaoche, you idiot!” she grumbled hatefully under her breath, her chest quickly rising and falling. She wasn’t in the mood to continue concocting cultivation fluid. She stomped out of the lab and had Liu Gang drive her to the airport.

Being angry was one thing. Of course Miss Tienan still had to go fetch him at the airport…

—–

Night fell. Zhang Che had returned to Bei Du again.

On his way out from the passageway, Zhang Che’s brows were knitted all the time. He truly had no idea what to do.

-How exactly do I coax girls? I’m waiting online, urgent!-

However, when he walked out to the main hall, ready to look for a taxi for hire, he suddenly froze on the spot, and displayed an overjoyed expression.

-I knew it. How can our Miss Tienan be like those ordinary girls?-

He saw Huang Tielan standing outside in the main hall. He hurriedly put on a fawning smile and walked up to her with quick steps.

Zhang Che walked up, smiling ingratiatingly and said with a guilty conscience, ” Aiya, I’ve missed you so much!” Afterwards, he reached out towards Miss Tienan, trying to hug her.

In the end, Huang Tielan sidestepped away, avoiding his touch and turned around to walk out.

“Let’s get back quickly. It’s already this late. You have to sleep and rest.”

-Is it late? I don’t think so? It’s only slightly past eight. It’s not even an hour since the sky turned dark!-

Zhang Che was confused for a moment. He immediately understood the situation and revealed a bitter smile, chasing after her.

-Ai, I have to make up for my own mistakes, even if I get stabbed full of holes…-

Afterwards, Zhang Che used every trick in the book he could think of, feeling like it was even tougher than battling against an epic-quality beast, before finally getting Miss Tienan to forgive him for now, agreeing to go out for dinner with him. He finally let out a long sigh of relief.

However, this had also taught Zhang Che a lesson. From now on, he mustn’t take any matters relating to her lightly, or he’d only be asking for it.

It made sense when he thought about it. Becoming an official beast card cultivator had always been her dream, and Zhang Che tried to brush it off with a simple congratulations when she achieved it. Who wouldn’t be angry if they were in her shoes?

——

The next day, Zhang Che received a call from his father-in-law, telling him to come over to the Huang family’s ancestral house.

When Zhang Che entered his father-in-law’s study, Huang Juyun’s first sentence took him by surprise. “Remember the scarlet-gold lotus and the snow lotus you gave us before?”

-What’s going on? Is there progress on the research on the two spiritual herbs?-

Thinking of that, Zhang Che’s eyes immediately lit up with a hint of happiness.

Before Zhang Che could reply, Huang Juyun noticed the look on him and knew what he had guessed. He smiled with a nod, continuing, “The herbal research institute has produced some results. They used the fluid from the two spiritual herbs as the main ingredient and developed a type of pill that can greatly improve the toughness of the consumer’s body.

“After some tests, they found out that ordinary mid-tier beastmasters are unable to withstand the medical properties of these pills, but I thought that your spiritual strength is beyond normal standards anyway. It should be fine for you, and so I prepared a few pills for you.

“Of course, to be safe, you eat a tiny bit of it first to try out the effects. If your body is able to take it, then you can continue consuming them. If not, that is fine, too. It’s not too late to consume them after you’ve reached Tier Seven beastmaster.”

Zhang Che’s eyes immediately sparkled. Others might be unaware, but would he be unclear? Although his physique couldn’t be compared to the very experienced high-tier beastmasters, it shouldn’t be a problem for him to withstand the medical efficacy of the pills.

After all, even Liu Gang’s squad, who were all Tier Seven beastmasters, had physiques that might not be on par with Zhang Che’s.

As for his mental aspect, Zhang Che had even less to worry about. He might be inferior to high-tier beastmasters when it came to using his spiritual strength to sense his surroundings, but when it came to the width of their spiritual seas, he was confident that there weren’t many who could compare to him.

“I’ll give it a try, then.”

Although they both were very confident about this, Zhang Che wasn’t a high-tier beastmaster, after all. So, Huang Juyun didn’t dare to let him consume the pills here directly, in case anything went wrong. It would be too late for regrets then.

Under the escort of a team of guards, the two were driven to the Huang family’s Herbal Research Institute in the Bei Du suburbs.

The place was equipped with the most comprehensive medical machines. If Zhang Che felt unwell anywhere after taking the medicinal pill, he could be given the appropriate medical treatment right away.

Of course, even if Zhang Che didn’t come to the research institute, he still had a healing-type beast, the Unicorn!

It was just that none of them had any experience regarding such situations. Heavens knew if the Unicorn could heal the internal injuries caused by the consumption of the medicinal pill…

It was fine if it could. Otherwise, it was too dangerous!

The Huang family’s Herbal Research Institute was located in the mountainous region of Bei Du’s eastern suburbs. The research institute spanned a few hills, and was cordoned off as a restricted military area. Even when Huang Juyun brought people here, they had to pass through three strict security checks before they finally entered the core area of the research institute.

The research institute’s underground areas were naturally where the medicinal pills were studied and developed. As for the exterior areas, they could be considered experimental farms. All kinds of spiritual herbs they had gathered before were planted and cultivated on the lands above.

Before entering underground, Huang Juyun also led Zhang Che to a sloped hill with especially tight security.

A variety of spiritual herbs of mid-grade or higher were cultivated on this hill. Not only that, their growth was countless times better than in other places, where they looked like they were half-dead.

The reason for that was none other the huge spiritual jade buried in the earth under this hill, providing the spiritual herbs planted in the earth above it with an endless source of pure energy.

Seeing the extremely well-grown spiritual herb field, Huang Juyun felt a surge of emotions inside, lamenting, “Speaking of which, it’s all thanks to the spiritual jade you found. Otherwise, many spiritual herb species we have here would be on the verge of dying, and we’d be forced to use them prematurely. In such cases, it would become incredibly difficult to bring out the medical efficacy of every spiritual herb to the fullest!”