As night fell, a group of children gathered around the kitchen door and watched Ge Ming cook. Suddenly a naughty kid shouted, “Meat!” Then all the children yelled in unison, “Meat! Meat! Meat!”

With his apron on and his face in sweat, Ge Ming waved the slice and responded, “Meat! Meat! Meat! You want to eat meat all the time. Be careful not to become fatty!”

The children still cried, “Meat! Meat! Meat!”

Li Xiaoyu was the only kid who didn’t join in and shout with the kids. She was standing next to Su Ya, watching Ning Tao and Jiang Hao talking under a banyan tree with Su Ya, and muttered, “Sister Su Ya, are you going to let this mess go on?”

Su Ya gave her a strange look and asked, “What do you mean?”

Li Xiaoyu folded her arms and stated in a mature voice, “Are you silly? Every time Jiang Hao sees Uncle Ning, she smiles and appears very happy. I’m also a girl. I can tell at a glance that she has a crush on Uncle Ning. She has such long legs and a pretty face. You’re in a crisis. You need to do some nasties.”

Su Ya squatted down and spanked Li Xiaoyu.

With a slap, Li Xiaoyu cried and asked, “Why did you spank me?”

“Didn’t you ask me to do some nasties?” Su Ya said. “Lift your hips, let me spank you a few more times.”

Li Xiaoyu frowned and pursed her lips, as if she had eaten mustard for matcha ice cream.

Li Xiaoyu’s scream caught the eyes of Jiang Hao who was standing under the banyan tree. She frowned and said, “Why did Su Ya beat that kid?”

Ning Tao smiled and said, “That’s Li Xiaoyu. She’s a smart girl. Although she is crying for pain, I bet it was she who bullied Su Ya.”

“She bullied Su Ya?” Jiang Hao looked incredulous.

“You’ll know when you get to know her.” Then Ning Tao changed the subject. “Tell me about your former superior. I want to know about him.”

“His name is Ding Ye who’s been in combat. He has high prestige in the military circles in Beidu. My mother was a domestic servant years ago and worked in his family for 10 years. Thanks to Uncle Ding’s help and support, I am here today. In fact, in my heart, he is like my father.” Jiang Hao spoke briefly about her relationship with Ding Ye.

“Then I should go to Beidu to see and treat him myself,” Ning Tao said. “Tell me, what ails him?”

Jiang Hao raised her hand, pointed at her head, and answered, “He’s got a brain problem. I heard from his family that he was in a coma most of the time, but when he woke up, he would make a scene and sometimes even attack others. They had a dog, but he…”

“What did he do to the dog?” Ning Tao asked curiously.

Jiang Hao gave a helpless look and continued, “This happened a few days ago. That day he had an attack and he snapped and killed the dog.”

Ning Tao couldn’t help but imagine the scene and felt a little creepy. Somehow, he had a hunch that Ding Ye was suffering from an unusual disease. According to his identity described by Jiang Hao, he could enjoy the best medical treatment in the country. If the hospital had a way to treat him, Ding Ye would never ask him, a roving doctor, for treatment.

“I’ve booked two tickets in three days. They aren’t first class tickets but economy class tickets. Is that all right?” Jiang Hao inquired.

Ning Tao smiled a little and said, “Of course. It’s my first time flying, thanks to you.”

Jiang Hao laughed at the remark and raised her hand to playfully punch Ning Tao.

“Dinner!” Su Ya suddenly let out a fierce shout.

Jiang Hao’s fist immediately froze in the air.

In the dead of night, Ning Tao had returned to the Sky Clinic.

More than a dozen cardboard boxes had been opened, which were filled with rare herbs and a few kinds of precious non-medicinal materials required by cultivation. With these materials and the materials left by Chen Pingdao, there were only a third of the materials for Primary Elixirs to go.

However, lacking a third of the materials was still a headache to Ning Tao. In the market, the herbs that Lin Qinghua gave him would be worth at least a million yuan. This meant that Ning Tao probably needed the same amount of money to get the left materials for the Primary Elixir, and only if he could find them.

Ning Tao worked hard for a while to classify and store all the medicinal and non-medicinal, before he opened the ledger of bamboo slips.

The balance on the ledger was reduced 49 points, and there was an extra black line. Moreover, Lin Qinghua’s prescription pact for sins of evil intention still existed.

Ning Tao couldn’t resist cursing, “Damn it, how could you record it when I just asked Lin Qinghua for some medicine?”

The ledger did not respond. To the ledger of bamboo slips, rules were rules, and it would not change anything for Ning Tao’s particular situation.

Ning Tao closed the ledger and put it back in the medicine chest. This was exactly what he had expected. When he asked Lin Qinghua for materials, he actually collected money from patients of the clinic in disguise, which was not allowed. But he never intended to get anything from Lin Qinghua’s treatment in the first place. Otherwise, he would never ask Lin Qinghua for these materials.

He had no choice but to do so. If he didn’t get all the materials for refining the Primary Elixir, he would soon run out of medicine. Without Primary Elixir, he could not earn good-evil rent. By that time, he would be dead for a month’s rent! The immediate violation paled in comparison with that outcome. Rules were fixed, but men could be flexible, and sometimes one should bend the rules a little.

Setting that aside, Ning Tao had to consider another headache—making money, and lots and lots of money.

When he was in the botanical garden of Blueprint Biotechnology Company, Ning Tao actually thought of painting a blood lock there, and then he could go there at night to get some precious medicinal materials or plants. Then he could make tonics and beauty creams by the delicate perfumed tripod and sold for money. This was actually a shortcut to make money, but he eventually rejected the idea, because in his opinion, such behavior was no different from stealing. How could he, the owner of the Sky Clinic, steal medicinal materials when he did not go to steal things during the past four years of hard college life? He disdained to do such a trifling thing.

After mulling over it for a while, Ning Tao couldn’t figure out what to do. Then he opened the door and walked out of the clinic.

The night was quiet, a bright moon quietly hanging in the sky. The bright moonlight seemed to give all things on earth a layer of silver powder.

Ning Tao walked around the Sky Clinic.

The Sky Clinic was at the end of Garden Street, behind which was a narrow path lined with thick trees and a hillside beyond.

This was Ning Tao’s first visit to the back of the clinic.

The dense canopies of trees obscured the moonlight and made the path dark. There were insects chirping in the grass along the road.

The environment and sound seemed strange, as if everything here had gone back in time.

“It feels really weird…” Ning Tao said to himself. At that moment he suddenly stopped, and his eyes fell upon a piece of plant by the roadside.

There grew a very thick mass of aloe vera.

Ning Tao’s heart thumped and an idea flashed through his mind.

A few seconds later, Ning Tao burst out laughing inexplicably. “Why should I look for those precious materials? I’m not a drug dealer who cheats people of money. I’m the owner of the Sky Clinic, who is able to turn ordinary medicine or other materials into priceless things!”

Then Ning Tao went back to the Sky Clinic. He went out empty-handed and came back with a large bundle of aloe vera in his hand.

Aloe vera was a very common plant, but it absolutely had very good value. It had not only medicinal value, such as reducing inflammation, removing blood stasis, clearing heat, detoxification, diuresis, killing bugs and so on, but also cosmetic effect, like moistening skin, whitening, eliminating wrinkle and adding vitamin for the skin.

Modern industrial technology couldn’t fully extract the essence of aloe vera, but Ning Tao could.

Ning Tao washed the aloe vera that he brought back, randomly selected some of the leaves and put them into the delicate perfumed tripod. Then he “lit” the alchemy fire and put his hands on the cracked tripod.

Just like last time, all the cracks on the delicate perfumed tripod in this moment were like the dried-up river began to store water. The buzz came from the tripod and echoed in the clinic. It sounded sacred and mysterious, like the sound of the ways of Heaven.

An energy field that could not be explained by science was created by the combined action of Ning Tao’s alchemy fire and delicate perfumed tripod. The aloe vera in the tripod seemed to experience the force of natural weathering all the time, removing the dross and leaving the essence. Subsequently, the essence was again concentrated, becoming more refined.

A few minutes later, a few aloe vera disappeared, replaced by a bit of sticky green juice. The juice smelled sweet and looked like liquid ice jade.

Ning Tao carefully poured the few drops of aloe vera essence into a small porcelain bottle. Then he put a little juice on his hand and wiped it evenly. The liquid jade-like aloe vera essence spread on his skin. The skin felt cool and refreshing, as if dry cracked skin was suddenly moistened by the breeze after rain, which was very comfortable.

After a few seconds, Ning Tao reached out his hand and stroked the skin moistened by aloe vera essence, and found that the skin there was obviously more delicate and shiny.

Aloe vera essence should be the best beauty and skin care products in the world.

“There’s no doubt about its skin care effects, but what about the medicinal effects?” Ning Tao was eager to know the answer, so he got the medicinal knife and cut an incision in the back of his hand.

Blood gushed from the wound, but with the healing power of the spiritual power, it quickly coagulated and formed a scar.

Ning Tao then dripped a drop of aloe vera essence from the small white porcelain bottle, and then evenly applied it on the thin scar. A sense of coolness reappeared and a miracle occurred in the process. The wound quickly disappeared, leaving no scar at all. What was more, the skin was even smoother than the skin without aloe vera essence!

Ning Tao laughed with excitement. With this, he didn’t have to worry about making money at all.

After this night, more than half of the aloe vera in the back of the Sky Clinic was gone.