Chapter 660: Yandang

Chapter 660: Chapter 660: Yandang

’This way, even if we can’t find top-quality purple gromwell and drynaria on Yandang Mountain, it won’t matter. We can make do with the high-quality ones from the market. Of course, if we do manage to find them, that would be the icing on the cake. The effects will be mind-blowing.’

Li Xu was in a great mood and quickly packed his bags.

After bidding farewell to Shao Shicheng, Li Xu and Gao Yuan drove away from Huoshan, heading southeast toward Yandang Mountain in Wenzhou.

...

They sped along, the scenery changing around them.

If Huoshan was a graceful and spirited young maiden, then Yandang Mountain was a grand and imposing wandering swordsman.

Known as the "Number One Mountain of the Southeast," Yandang Mountain was famous for its strange peaks, grotesque rocks, flying waterfalls, and gushing springs.

The mountains here were mostly composed of rhyolite. After hundreds of millions of years of weathering and erosion, countless bizarrely shaped peaks had formed, looking as if they were carved by knives and hacked by axes, piercing straight into the clouds.

Compared to the cool, damp climate of Huoshan, Yandang Mountain was far more precipitous and majestic.

Sheer cliffs and precipices were everywhere. The rock faces were bare, with vegetation stubbornly taking root in the crevices, exuding an indomitable life force.

At 10 AM, in the Lingyan Scenic Area of Yandang Mountain.

Below Lingyan Peak, a crowd was milling about, filled with tourists who had come to see the famous sight.

Everyone tilted their heads back, held their breath, and fixed their gazes on the space midway up the cliff.

At the top of the 260-meter-high Lingyan Peak, a thin rope stretched across the sky.

A figure in red, like a monkey, was tumbling and leaping on the rope, at one moment hanging upside down by his feet, the next soaring across the open air.

This was the famous "Flight over Lingyan" performance.

The old man performing was named Wan Cheng’en. He was already sixty-eight years old, but his movements were still nimble.

He was reenacting the perilous scenes of Yandang Mountain’s herb gatherers harvesting the rare herb, Dendrobium, from the sheer cliffs in years past.

"Amazing! That’s incredible!"

The tourists below erupted in waves of cheers and applause.

Gao Yuan stood at the back of the crowd, a flicker of emotion in his eyes as he watched the familiar figure.

"That’s Old Wan, Wan Cheng’en," Gao Yuan said to Li Xu. "He used to be the most famous herb gatherer for miles around, and he’s an old friend of mine. He was the one who guided me when I went into the mountains all those years ago."

"It’s a shame. Later on, wild Dendrobium became a Class II nationally protected plant, and private harvesting was strictly forbidden. To make a living, and also to keep his skills alive, Old Wan switched careers and became a stunt performer at the scenic area, performing these ’cliff-scaling’ feats for tourists every day."

Li Xu watched the figure dancing on the cliff, his heart filled with mixed emotions.

The unique skills of an herb gatherer had now become a circus act to entertain tourists. It was, one had to admit, a helpless sign of the times.

"Should we go say hello?" Li Xu asked.

Gao Yuan shook his head and turned to walk out of the scenic area. "No. He’s a ’celebrity’ now, very busy. Besides, where we’re going this time is true wilderness. We can’t bring too many people, or we’ll attract trouble."

The two of them left the noisy scenic area.

Yandang Mountain was vast, and the developed scenic areas were only a tiny fraction of it.

The real treasures were hidden deep within the vast, undeveloped, primordial mountains.

Relying on memories from twenty years ago, Gao Yuan led Li Xu down a long-abandoned, winding goat path.

The path grew more and more difficult to traverse, until finally, there was no path at all.

The two could only trek arduously through piles of loose rocks and thickets of thorns.

"Be careful! The rocks here are loose. Don’t misstep!"

Gao Yuan warned, probing the path ahead with his trekking pole.

"Elder Gao, you’re in incredible shape. Even better than me."

Li Xu followed close behind. Although he was young and strong, he couldn’t help but admire Gao Yuan’s experience and endurance in the complex wilderness environment.

After climbing for about two hours, they arrived at the base of a steep cliff.

This cliff face was nearly a 90-degree vertical drop, its top lost to sight. The rock was a dark brownish-black, with only a few sparse pine trees jutting out at an angle.

"This is the place."

Gao Yuan pointed to a hidden fissure halfway up the cliff, his eyes glinting with excitement. "That’s where I found it all those years ago."

Li Xu looked up.

The fissure was at least fifty meters off the ground, and the surrounding rock was bare, offering no handholds or footholds.

"How... are we supposed to get up there?"

Li Xu was at a loss.

"Heh heh, watch me."

Gao Yuan pulled a coil of professional climbing rope and some pitons from his backpack. "I may be old, but I haven’t lost my touch."

The two found a relatively gentle spot and began their ascent.

The process was extremely perilous.

The rock face was wet and slippery, some parts even covered in moss.

Li Xu pressed himself tightly against the rock face, taking each step with extreme caution.

Several times, loose stones underfoot gave way and plunged into the abyss, their echoes sending a shiver down his spine.

Finally, after a Herculean effort, the two of them climbed up to the fissure.

It was a natural, recessed platform, only about two or three square meters in size. Perfectly situated in the shade, it never saw sunlight and was extremely damp.

The moment he hauled himself up, Li Xu smelled a unique herbal fragrance.

"Over here."

Gao Yuan pointed to a corner.

There, growing in the crevices of the rock, were several clumps of deep purple, thick-leafed plants.

Purple gromwell!

Top-quality purple gromwell!

Its leaves were covered in a fine layer of white frost. The partially exposed roots were a profound purplish-black, as if they had absorbed all the surrounding cold and spiritual energy.

And next to the purple gromwell were several fern-like plants, clinging tightly to the rock.

It was drynaria.

Its rhizomes were as thick as ginger, covered in golden-yellow fuzz. Its rootlets were sunk deep into the rock crevices, looking as if they were growing right out of the stone itself.

"Hahaha, they’re still here! They’re still here!"

Gao Yuan burst out laughing. "I knew it! No one else can get up here."

Li Xu was thrilled as well.

He moved closer to observe and found that these medicinal herbs were growing even better than he had imagined.

"This purple gromwell must be at least twenty years old; its roots have already lignified. The medicinal properties are definitely top-tier. And this drynaria... look at the thickness of the rhizome, it must be around fifty years old."

"And this."

Gao Yuan pointed to a cluster of orchid-like plants hanging down from the rock face above. "Look, authentic wild Dendrobium from Yandang Mountain. The red-stalked, soft-stemmed variety—the absolute best of the best."

The Dendrobium’s stems were purplish-red with short, thick internodes. Its leaves were fleshy and had a glossy sheen.

"Elder Gao, are these all wild?"

Li Xu found it hard to believe. Wild Dendrobium was nearly extinct these days.

"You could say that," Gao Yuan explained. "These are from seedlings I intentionally left behind when I was gathering herbs back in the day. So, they’re what you might call ’semi-wild.’ But for the last twenty years, they’ve grown in a completely natural environment, with no one tending to them, absorbing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. There’s hardly any difference between them and purely wild ones."

Li Xu nodded.

The quality of these "field-cultivated" herbs was indeed far superior to anything grown in a greenhouse.

The two were not greedy. They only harvested a portion of the mature purple gromwell and drynaria, along with a few of the thickest Dendrobium stems.

They left the rest behind as seeds—a gift to nature, and to the future.

"This is enough. This will be enough for many batches of the Tooth Regeneration Formula."

Li Xu looked at the heavy herbs in his hands, his heart full of satisfaction.