Pharmacy

As Lin Feng and Yang Xinhe entered the restaurant, Lin Feng saw Mei at the room's most oversized, most packed table.

Lin Feng was dazed to see the group of people that were sitting around and complimenting Mei. He felt like he had spoiled this fox rotten as he looked at some of his wealthiest and most high-profile customers flattering Mei.

"Senior Mei, try this roast duck. The Yang family bought some southern oranges from me last week, and they made it into a beautiful glaze for this dish." A wealthy merchant put a glistening whole roast duck down on the table in front of Mei.

"Ah, Senior Mei doesn't like such heavy dishes. It's bad for her figure," Fang An said from the side. "Here, I have some medicinal wine from Zhou. I've heard that Senior Lin is still recovering from when Zhang Fei attacked her. This should help with the healing process."

Zhang Fei looked stormy as Fang An brought up the attack on Mei.

"Senior Lin has already killed the one who attacked Mei." Zhang Fei loudly protested. "Tell me, how is your sister? I heard you failed in selling her off to Senior Lin. It must have been a blow to her confidence to find out she was so unwanted."

Mei sat smugly at the head of the table while people argued around her. She was wearing golden bangles inlaid with jewels around her two front legs that looked to be too big.

Lin Feng was speechless after seeing such a ridiculous scene.

"Big brother! You're here!" Mei excitedly spoke up and interrupted the arguing around her, causing the group to notice Lin Feng walking over.

"Senior Lin!" Surprised greetings rang out.

Multiple people stood up to offer their seats to Lin Feng, only for him to wave them off.

"What are you doing?" Lin Feng asked Mei incredulously.

"Eating," Mei said innocently.

Lin Feng looked over the lavishly laden table and the group of people around it. He recognized many people from the Yan imperial court, including Zhang Fei, and the Yang and Chen family members. There were also numerous people that Lin Feng thought might be members of the government from neighboring countries.

"Should we sit down, Senior Lin?" Yang Xinhe asked. "The food here might not be as good as what you sell, but my Yang family is still very proud of it."

Lin Feng shook his head after a second.

"I'm just here to get Mei for something."

"Huh? Brother, I can't just leave in the middle of a meal. That would be rude!" Mei protested.

"Senior Lin, please join us! I still have to thank you for your generous deal! Please let me buy you a meal." Fang An interjected, causing many other people to look at him with envy.

After Lin Feng had agreed to give Fang An a discount for bulk purchasing, many other people approached him about securing the same deal, but Lin Feng had been uninterested. Providing the free meals to someone required him to track how much they bought and personally redeem the meals from the vending machine on their behalf.

Doing it for Fang An alone was already a pain. Lin Feng didn't want to do the same thing for multiple groups. They were already buying the product even if he didn't offer them the discount. So he felt little need to encourage them further.

"No, I came to get Mei for important business," Lin Feng decisively refused. "Come on."

"This is important business!" Mei resisted. "We meet here daily to discuss important issues in and around the shopping mall!"

"Then they can continue without you, don't be a brat." Lin Feng looked unconvinced. "Didn't you want to heal the damage to your demonic core? Didn't I tell you I would get you medicine?"

Mei was caught off guard and stunned when Lin Feng mentioned that.

"You got the medicine?!" She nearly shouted out of excitement.

"I'm opening a new store that has medicine. We have to go see if it can heal you."

Mei jumped up excitedly, causing her gold bracelets to clatter onto her seat around her feet. She looked down unhappily at them before looking back up at Lin Feng.

"Carry me!"

Lin Feng's silence was louder than words as he looked at her with disapproval.

"If I walk, my bracelets will fall off," Mei whined.

Lin Feng opened his mouth to ask why she didn't wear smaller bracelets if she was going to wear any at all, but Mei interrupted him before he could.

"If I get them sized to me as a fox, they won't fit when I'm a human!"

Lin Feng took a moment to take in the ridiculousness of what she had said before sighing and walking around the table.

"So you're going to be carried around everywhere in fox form from now on?" He asked as he picked her up.

"No! I'll walk. It's just easier to be carried if you're here," Mei denied before changing the subject. "Where are you opening the store?"

"I haven't decided yet."

Hearing this, Yang Xinhe jolted next to Lin Feng and looked imploringly at Mei. Mei gave him a reassuring nod before turning back toward Lin Feng.

"Why not open it here? I think next door sounds good."

Lin Feng looked suspiciously down at Mei and at Yang Xinhe. He didn't know what this bootlicker had done to get Mei to speak up for him, but he was sure it was shameless.

Lin Feng debated whether or not to go along with Mei's suggestion. He wanted to fill the main room before spreading into the hallway, but it didn't matter all that much.

Lin Feng looked down at Mei again suspiciously, causing her to look away uncomfortably.

"It's a good location. Good clientele," she said awkwardly.

Lin Feng looked at the group around him and the other people in the restaurant. What Mei said did not seem to be… untrue. The restaurant seemed to cater to relatively more expensive tastes and attracted many of the more affluent customers.

Still, there was no way the location was better than the main room. If Lin Feng chose to put the new shop here, he knew it would only inconvenience him and his customers.

"Please?" Mei pleaded pitifully.

"…Alright." Lin Feng said unwillingly.

Mei's demeanor changed immediately as she nodded arrogantly at Yang Xinhe. The people sitting at the table looked surprised and a bit envious of Yang Xinhe's fortune.

Lin Feng felt very stifled. Why did it feel like he was only a resource for Mei to use to reward her group of sycophants?

Lin Feng shook his head and walked out of the restaurant, ignoring the clamor behind him as the group of people hurried to follow him.

Exiting the restaurant, Lin Feng walked to the wall directly opposite the restaurant's entrance.

Shuffling Mei into one arm, Lin Feng opened the system menu and selected the wall in front of him as the location for the new shop. After paying the fifty point fee to place down the shop, the wall in front of him shimmered with energy.

The group behind him gasped in awe as the wall melted away, revealing a new store behind as if it had always been there.

To Lin Feng's eyes, it looked to be a small modern shop with shelves full of different medicinal products. Jade bottles of pills and porcelain jars with different pastes and elixirs were lined up carefully. Lin Feng could see a pharmacy counter at the back of the shop.

Walking into the shop with an amazed crowd following him, Lin Feng went straight for the counter at the back.

He doubted the generic treatments on the shelves would be able to help Mei. But, even if they could, he wanted the best for Mei. It's not like he had to pay.

Reaching the back pharmaceutical counter, there was a screen of light hanging in the air with a handprint imprinted in the center.

After thinking for just a moment, Lin Feng lifted a confused Mei and pressed her paw against the handprint on the screen.

The light screen flashed with a loading symbol before showing an image of Mei with a description of her health condition.

Most of the health information looked normal, but the system highlighted one particular section in red. After Lin Feng selected the red text, the screen updated again to show several products.

The cheapest of the products was a rank-5 pill called the Taiji Foundation Renewal Elixir. It cost forty spirit crystals.

Lin Feng ignored the cheap options at the top of the list and scrolled to the bottom.

[Yang Demonic Fox Blood Origin pill – 2000 spirit crystals]

Pressing his palm against the screen, it flashed green and showed the text "Administrative Unlock" at the top.

Selecting the most expensive option, the Yang Demonic Fox Blood Origin Pill appeared in front of him and Mei.

It was a gleaming gold color. A bloody red energy collected on the pill's surface before dripping down, giving the impression that an endless fountain of blood was pouring from the pill and disappearing just before it hit the floor.

A potent medicinal fragrance hit Lin Feng in the face and made him grimace, the smell filling the whole shop. It was spicy and metallic to his nose and was highly unpleasant, but from Mei's enraptured expression, it smelled much better to her.

Reaching out and grabbing the pill, it felt uncomfortably warm in his hand.

"Open." Lin Feng held the pill in front of the stunned Mei.

Still recovering from her surprise and the heady scent of the medicine, Mei opened her mouth and let Lin Feng place the pill on her tongue. Mei swallowed.

Her eyes shot open and her body stiffened as she felt a sudden electric shock. A tyrannical energy surged through her body, overwhelming the internal energy she had as a Core Formation demonic beast a thousand times over. The air around her body wavered like a mirage as some of the energy escaped, causing the air to heat up.

Seeing this, Lin Feng scowled and used the power given to him by the system to forcibly contain the pill's energy inside Mei's body, unwilling to allow Mei to miss out on any of the medicinal effects of the pill.

Without the energy escaping from her body, the energy within quickly grew stronger and stronger. Mei let out pants of steaming breath as the energy grew hotter.

She didn't know if she felt pain or pleasure as her body was being rebuilt from the inside out. Her nerves felt like they were live wires as the energy roiled inside her. Her eyes and fur slowly gained a golden hue as the energy worked to change her body.

The energy coursed through meridians, strengthening them far beyond any other Core Formation Realm demonic beast, clearing her path forward and preemptively preventing any bottlenecks before she reached the peak.

As the energy finally reached her dantian, much of its tyrannical nature had been lost. Instead, it gently surrounded her damaged demonic core and slowly increased in heat and density as more and more energy flowed in.

As the energy grew hotter and began to rotate around her dantian, the demonic core began to glow red as it got hotter and hotter.

As the core reached a critical temperature, it turned into molten liquid. The hot swirling energy around the liquid core kept it together and gathered it into a perfect sphere.

As the energy slowly died down and cooled, the core hardened into a solid and was again a perfect unblemished ball of gold.

The final cooling bits of energy slowly ceased to spin around Mei's dantian and settled down onto the surface of her core. The energy pressed itself into the surface of the gold, leaving behind glimmering markings of flaming lotus flowers all across its surface. As the energy sunk deeper into the core, it lit up and began to glow with a soft red light.

Anyone who looked at Mei's core would now find it unique and indescribably beautiful.