BDSMST -Chapter 135 The First Trial — The Hundred Herbs Map

Three days later, the blessing ceremony of Medicine King Valley was solemnly held on the high platform beside the Spring of Life.

All members of the Guardian Clan, regardless of age, had changed into the purest white linen robes and gathered beneath the hillside. The worries and weariness that once filled their faces were gone, replaced instead with deep devotion and hope.

The High Priestess stood in the center of the platform, chanting ancient prayers in a voice that was old yet resonant. Behind her, young warriors such as Wuhuan performed the ritual dance. Their movements were powerful and vigorous, brimming with a primitive vitality.

As the core of the ceremony, Jiang Suisui stood alone by the pool of the Spring of Life. Following the High Priestess’s instructions, she spread the “Star-Track Map” flat on a smooth bluestone beside the spring. Then she took out a silver needle and gently pricked her fingertip, letting a drop of bright red blood fall onto the symbol called the “Eye of the Vortex” at the center of the map.

The blood seeped into the parchment, and the symbol instantly lit up with a faint red glow.

Immediately afterward, the lines across the entire map began to flow, transforming into countless points of light. These lights rose from the parchment, gathered in midair, and finally projected onto the Inheritance Stone Wall beside the Spring of Life, forming a slowly rotating red vortex identical to the symbol.

“The entrance has opened,” the High Priestess announced at the right moment.

All the clanspeople held their breath, watching this sacred scene with awe.

“Spring Master, please.”

Jiang Suisui turned her head to glance at Gu Yan, who was standing not far away. Gu Yan nodded to her, his eyes filled with unspoken trust and encouragement.

Steadying herself, she walked toward the stone wall. The moment her hand touched the red vortex, a gentle pulling force emerged, and her figure vanished before the wall.

After a brief sensation of spinning and disorientation, Jiang Suisui found herself standing inside a vast cavern.

The dome of the cave was embedded with countless glowing crystals, illuminating the entire place as brightly as daylight. The air was filled with an extremely rich and complex scent of herbs and vegetation.

In front of her stretched a boundless herbal garden.

Countless strange plants grew wildly here, arranged in uneven heights and dazzling colors. A murmuring stream wound out from the depths of the cavern, dividing the garden into many irregular sections.

At the entrance of the garden stood a stone stele engraved with the same text that had appeared on the bamboo slips:

“Map of a Hundred Herbs. Those who enter must distinguish truth from falsehood among countless medicinal plants, identify their toxicity, and prepare the ‘Soul-Returning Decoction’ according to the ancient formula. One wrong step, and you will fall into illusion and remain trapped forever.”

Beside the stele was a stone platform with a prescription on it—the formula for the Soul-Returning Decoction.

Jiang Suisui stepped forward and picked it up. It read:

One stalk of Dragon Blood Grass

One Nine-Leaf Phoenix-Tail Flower

Three qian of Qilin Horn

Seven Ice-Heart Lotus Seeds

Boiled with Rootless Water

Seeing these names, Jiang Suisui frowned slightly. She had seen records of all these herbs on the Inheritance Stone Wall—each of them extremely rare spiritual medicines.

But she also knew that the trial would never be so simple.

She walked into the vast herbal garden and began to examine the plants carefully. Soon, she discovered the problem.

Within a cluster of plants with red thread-like leaves, she saw at least a dozen varieties that looked almost identical to Dragon Blood Grass.

Some had faint serrations along the edges of their leaves.
Some had slightly darker veins.
Some had a subtle ring of white fuzz around the base of their stems.

Without her modern botanical knowledge and keen observation of plant morphology, it would be nearly impossible to distinguish these subtle differences.

According to the records on the Inheritance Stone Wall, the real Dragon Blood Grass had smooth leaves without serrations, veins the same color as the leaf, and clean, hairless roots.

Among these dozen “Dragon Blood Grass” plants, only one was genuine. The rest were disguised weeds—some even carried mild toxicity.

The situation was far more complicated than she had imagined.

In this herbal garden, almost every medicinal plant had numerous imitators. These false herbs and poisonous plants were nearly identical to the genuine ones in appearance, scent, and even growth habits.

This was no longer just a test of eyesight.

It was a test of knowledge, composure, and the ability to remain calm and focused when facing an overwhelming amount of information.

Jiang Suisui did not rush to start picking the herbs. Instead, she slowly walked along the stream, carefully memorizing the terrain of the entire herb garden and the distribution of the plants. Soon she noticed that the plants here were not growing randomly at all, but were following a certain underlying pattern.

For instance, shade-loving plants mostly grew on the shadowed sides of rocks, while sun-loving plants gathered in areas where the cave’s crystal-lit ceiling shone the brightest. As for the poisonous herbs, they were often accompanied by certain specific plants nearby—plants that could serve as antidotes.

This was no ordinary herb garden.

It was clearly a complete and exquisitely balanced ecosystem.

The Medicine King had designed this trial not merely to test the successor’s ability to identify medicinal herbs, but also to test her understanding of the fundamental principle of medicine: the natural balance of the world—mutual generation and mutual restraint.

Once she realized this, Jiang Suisui’s heart completely settled down.

She no longer treated this as an exam that needed to be completed quickly, but rather as an academic exchange with the Medicine King across time and space.

The first thing she searched for was the Nine-Leaf Phoenix-Tail Flower. According to the records, this flower preferred moist environments and possessed nine feather-shaped compound leaves.

Sure enough, beneath a small waterfall by the stream, she saw clusters of plants with similar appearances. Squatting down, she carefully counted the leaves and examined their shapes.

Finally, within a moss-covered crack in a rock, she found a single plant with exactly nine leaves, each with perfectly curved edges.

Next came the Qilin Horn.

This was not an actual beast’s horn, but a type of fungus shaped like one, growing on dead ironwood trees. Jiang Suisui soon located several withered ironwood trunks in a dim woodland area.

Using the small knife she carried with her, she scraped off a bit of wood and brought it to her nose.

Real ironwood carried a faint but distinctive metallic scent.

By relying on this method, she eliminated several decayed logs that had been parasitized by other fungi and finally located the one bearing the strangely fragrant Qilin Horn.

The hardest to find, however, was the Ice-Heart Lotus Seed.

The prescription required that the lotus seeds be “ice-hearted,” meaning they had to grow in an extremely cold environment.

Yet this cavern was warm like spring.

Jiang Suisui searched every pool she could find, but all she saw were ordinary lotus flowers.

She had nearly explored the entire cavern and still found nothing.

As time passed, she began to sense a faint, almost imperceptible hallucinogenic aura in the air slowly seeping into her body. Her head started to feel heavy and foggy.

She couldn’t delay any longer.

Forcing herself to calm down, she returned to the stone stele at the entrance and examined the inscription again.

“Not victory, but survival.”

No—that was the hint for the second trial.

The first trial’s key was… mutual generation and mutual restraint!

Suddenly, something clicked in her mind.

She hurried back to the ironwood grove where the Qilin Horn had grown.

According to the records on the stone wall, there was a highly poisonous fungus called the Fire Cloud Mushroom, which resembled the Qilin Horn in appearance. However, its nature belonged to fire, and its toxicity was extremely fierce.

The only plant capable of restraining it was called Cold Marrow Grass.

Where Cold Marrow Grass grew, there would inevitably be a cold subterranean vein beneath the ground.

Carefully searching that area, Jiang Suisui soon found several inconspicuous blades of grass beside a fungus disguised as Qilin Horn.

Their leaves carried tiny white frost-like specks.

It was indeed Cold Marrow Grass.

Following the direction in which the Cold Marrow Grass grew, she continued deeper into the cave. The terrain gradually sloped downward, and the air became colder and more humid.

Eventually, she reached the deepest part of the cavern, where a hidden underground pool lay before her.

The pool was not large, yet the water within was a deep, mysterious blue, and wisps of cold mist drifted above its surface.

At the center of the pool bloomed a massive white lotus, as if carved from pure ice crystals.

Within the lotus’s seedpod were the very things she had been searching for—

Ice-Heart Lotus Seeds.

Having gathered all the required ingredients, Jiang Suisui let out a long breath of relief.

She returned to the stone platform. The final ingredient listed on the prescription was “rootless water.”

She glanced up at the cavern ceiling, where droplets condensed due to temperature differences and slowly dripped down.

The answer was obvious.

Using a lotus leaf, she collected a full handful of the falling droplets. Then she lit a fire and placed the herbs into a clay pot one by one in the proper order, beginning to brew the medicine.

Soon, a strange medicinal fragrance spread from the pot.

The scent seemed to possess a cleansing power that instantly cleared her previously foggy mind.

When she poured the finished Soul-Returning Decoction into the groove before the stone stele, the entire cavern suddenly filled with a gentle white light.

The characters on the stele began to shift and transform, revealing four new words:

“A healer’s heart must hold compassion.”

The first trial—

Passed.

As the white light faded, another stone door slowly opened in the wall ahead, leading to an even deeper place.

Without stopping, Jiang Suisui lifted the bowl of unused Soul-Returning Decoction and stepped forward through the newly opened passage.