Ya Fei was a woman who traveled with nightmarish economy.
Before I had even gotten the words out of my mouth, the embarrassed Manager Sun was taken aside by two guards, his own face fixed in an ashen look of despair. He was sobbing something incoherent about his life being over, but no one paid him any mind. Ants that get in the way are meant to be trodden upon. It's a simple law of the universe.
"Come, Young Master Ling, this way," Ya Fei addressed me now with an entirely transformed tone. The teasing, condescending attitude had vanished; in its stead was a deep, humbling humility. She herself guided me to the stairs that went up to the third floor, a section I noted no other guests were allowed to access.
Walking past the counter, I caught sight of Su Mei'er and her mother. They were looking at me like I was some sort of divine creature who had descended to the world of mortals. Su Mei'er's face was a beautiful masterpiece of mixed emotions – shock, disbelief, and a spark of something that I interpreted as nascent admiration. Her cheeks were flushed deep pink. I winked at her slowly and intently. She emitted a high-pitched squeak and darted behind her mother, blushing to the colours of crimson that would shame an overripe apple. Hahaha. It was one most fun activity, teasing mortal girls.
The third level of the Hundred Herbs Hall wasn't a shop. It was an exquisite private wing. We entered a spacious, well-furnished room. Soft, sweet incense burned in the corner.
"This is to be your own refining room, Young Master Ling," Ya Fei announced, sweeping his arm about. "You have anything you need, you have only to ask."
Servants arrived a few minutes later. One of them deposited a heavy wooden chest with intricate carvings on it on the table. He lifted the lid, revealing stacks of silver taels, neatly stacked. Five hundred, exactly as offered. Another brought in a bronze cauldron. It was waist-high, had three legs and two handles, and featured pale spiritual markings etched into its surface. It was a decent starter's device. Good as I had hoped to discover in this desolate world.
Finally, they put in front of me the herbs that I had requested in the Nine Orifice Tempering Liquid. 'Ironbone Grass', 'Spirit Cleansing Flower', 'Hundred Year Ginseng Root'. The quality, it was acceptable. Barely.
"Is everything to your satisfaction, Young Master?" Ya Fei asked, her phoenix eyes watching my every move.
I nodded abruptly, my gaze running over the items. "It will suffice."
The old alchemist, Zhang, followed behind us like a loyal dog, his eyes glued on me with an enthusiasm that bordered on worship. "Young Master's comprehension. it is as deep as the sea! I have been an alchemist for sixty years, but today I realized I had been just a child who played around with mud! Please, Young Master, allow this old one to observe you divine skill!"
Hmph. At least he knew his place. "You may watch. But if you disturb me, I will turn you into ash."
The old man shivered and nodded violently, not daring to even breathe too hard.
Ya Fei waved the servants out, closing the door behind them. The three of us were now alone in the room. There was a heavy air of anticipation. She looked at me, her beautiful face a mix of curiosity and calculating business sense.
"Young Master Ling," she began, talking in a soft and cajoling voice. "Your formula for the Qi Gathering Pill is revolutionary. If the Hundred Herbs Hall may have a monopoly on selling it."
I broke in. "One thousand silver taels a month for the privilege. And you will provide me with any and all of the herbs that I require, free of charge, without hesitation. That is my price."
One thousand silver taels a month! It was an outrageous sum, enough to buy half of Green Leaf Town. Ya Fei's breath caught even. But then she thought of the profits on a pill ten times stronger than any other on the market. Her eyes glowed.
"Deal," she said with no demur. She was a canny woman. "But I have one condition more."
"Tell me," I said, already moving toward the cauldron.
"I wish you would be my Hundred Herbs Hall's resident Alchemist," she purred, taking a step closer. Her own special, adult fragrance wafted to me. She was applying her feminine charm deliberately. A canning of mortals' art. Sorry for her, I had fraternized with heavenly fairies and divine empresses whose beauty could disrupt kingdoms. Her charms were play for me.
I turned around, my gaze raking over her voluptuous form, catching a glimpse of her nipple before I looked into her eyes. "You want to bind me down?" I sneered. "Woman, your ambition is gigantic. But you are not qualified to have me as your underling."
Her face became set, a faint color of embarrassment rising to her cheeks. She had never been so openly rejected.
I addressed her, my voice growing teasing, commanding. "But. I do require an assistant. A body to manage my affairs, do my errands, and warm my bed on cold nights. Your form is acceptable. If you are of use to me, perhaps I shall even permit you to be my chambermaid."
"You!" Ya Fei's eyes bulged. Her face blazed with a white-hot, blazing red color, a blend of rage and deep, first-time shame. She, the mysterious and proud owner of the Hundred Herbs Hall, to be told she was only qualified to be a bed-warmer and chambermaid? The audacity! The sheer, undiluted impertinence! She was too enraged to speak. Puchi! A sweetness scorched in her throat, on the verge of vomiting blood sheerly through indignation.
Before I could blow it, I turned away, my whole concentration now on the cauldron. "Enough said. I am starting."
My sudden switch put her in suspended animation. There was no release for her anger. Pissing into a wad of cotton. She could only stand there, her chest heaving, her beautiful face red, and seething with a storm of feelings she'd never experienced before.
Along the bottom of the refining room was a small formation ring. This was a "Fire Guiding Array," linked to a weakly conducting Earth Core Fire Vein below the building. It was an old setup.
"Light the fire," I commanded.
Alchemist Zhang struggled to place a low-grade spirit stone in the middle of the array. The bottom of the bronze cauldron was licked by a column of orange flame that erupted from the ground with a low growl.
"Hmph. A mortal fire," I complained in distaste.
Ya Fei and Alchemist Zhang held their breaths, waiting. They wanted to see the divine technique that I had promised. I did not disappoint them.
I did not squander any stammering pre-heating rituals. My divinity, however weak, was still a God's. I covered the cauldron. I knew its every weakness, its every strength instantly. And then, I began.
My fingers were blurs. Not fingers, but tools of the Dao. One moment they closed like a flying dragon, the next like a sleeping tiger. Each movement was charged with an intangible rhythm, as if I was stitching the very fabric of nature. This was the "Celestial Cloud Hand," a simple method, but in this terrestrial world, it was a heavenly miracle.
Alchemist Zhang's eyes nearly popped out of his head. "Such. such profound hand seals! I've never ever seen anything like it! Every move has a thousand variations! It's. it's marvelous!" he cried, his aged body trembling with excitement.
I first threw in the Ironbone Grass. It was a tough, resolute herb. A normal alchemist would have to burn it for ten minutes just to get it soft. I formed a "Penetrating Vortex Seal" using my left hand. A thread of spiritual energy shot into the cauldron. The Ironbone Grass failed to melt. It dissolved. In less than three seconds, it had turned into a pool of pure, emerald-green liquid, with not even a hint of impurity.
"Heavens! Instantaneous dissolution!" gasped Alchemist Zhang, his face as pale as the driven snow.
And then there was the Spirit Cleansing Flower. I didn't think twice. I added it in even as the Ironbone Grass essence was boiling.
"No! The two essences will be at odds with each other!" Zhang screamed in despair. Everyone knew that these two herbs had opposite properties and were to be separately processed.
I turned my back on him. I formed a "Yin-Yang Harmony Seal" with my right hand. I tapped gently at the side of the cauldron. DING! A clear, bell-like resonance filled the room. In the cauldron, something truly amazing occurred. The two opposing liquids failed to explode. Rather, they whirled together within one another, forming a perfect taijitu form of green and white, swirling harmoniously into each other.
Ya Fei's hand flew to her mouth, the breathtaking eyes rounded with utter amazement. This was not alchemy. This was art. This was magic.
I threw the herbs in turn. I acted with a speed and an accuracy that was unreasonable. My fingers flew across the cauldron at lightning-fast speed, the cauldron hummed, and the fire thundered with my perfect mastery. What took an hour to do in slow motion was done in ten minutes.
And finally, all the herbs were mixed into a gooey, rainbow-colored liquid in the cauldron. The key step followed: purification and condensation.
"Now, listen," I told them, my voice thrumming with an ancient power. "This is the way you purify the divine and the dross."
I placed both hands on the cauldron. I closed my eyes. My last divine soul stirred. I was not merely drawing on the weak Qi of this body. I was calling up a slice, a fractional percent, of the genuine Dao of Alchemy.
BOOM!
One of the scented white mist exploded out of the cauldron, shooting directly upward and hitting the ceiling. The mist did not diffuse. Instead, it took the otherworldly form of an open lotus flower in the air directly above the cauldron. The room was suddenly filled with a scent so fresh and clean that simply breathing it in caused Ya Fei and Alchemist Zhang's cultivation bottlenecks to unwind.
"A. a wonder drug! A Pill Scent Form!" Alchemist Zhang fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face. "wuwuwu. I have lived long enough to see a true miracle! This old one can die without regrets!"
Ya Fei was frozen, her body trembling. She had seen alchemists refine pills countless times before. She had never, however, seen anything like this. This was not a refinement. It was a creation, a birth. The boy before her was not a boy. He was a monster, a god in flesh. All her previous thoughts of controlling or seducing him now seemed laughably insignificant. One does not control a dragon; one can merely pray that it does not incinerate you to ash.
I opened my eyes. With a final seal of hand, I roared, "Condense!"
The blossom of the lotus in the air broke into motes of light that rained back into the cauldron. The bubbling liquid in the cauldron ceased at once. I scooped it in with a ladle of jade and drew it out.
There was no pill. The Nine Orifice Tempering Liquid was, its name being literally true, liquid. It was kept in a little jade bowl. It was perfectly clear, like water. But floating in it were nine little flecks of gold light, flashing around each other like a troupe of sprites. There was a soft, holy light surrounding the bowl that made the air in the room around it seem clean and sacred.
It was perfection. A hundred times better than I could have managed with the original recipe, thanks to the brush of divine art that I had poured into it.
I stood up, holding the bowl in one hand. "This is the Nine Orifice Tempering Liquid," I announced.
Alchemist Zhang knelt on the floor, banging his head repeatedly. "Divine medicine! This is a divine medicine! Young Master is not a mortal, he is the reincarnation of the Pill God!"
Ya Fei merely stared at the bowl, her beautiful face a blur of amazement, desire, and healthy terror.
I looked at them, the kneeling old man and the stunned beauty.
"Leave me," I commanded, my level of tone. "I must cultivate."
They did not dare say a word. Ya Fei looked at me with a deep, complex stare before bowing and practically pulling out the still-awed Alchemist Zhang from the room, softly closing the door on the pair.
At last, alone.
I looked at the holy fluid in my palms. The seal on my Primordial Chaos Body. It was going to be broken.
I sat mid-room, folding my legs under me, and placed the bowl in front of me. I took a deep breath.
Ji Yao'xue. Ling Family. My enemies' faces materialized before my eyes and fueled the cold fire raging inside me. Your nightmare will soon begin.
With no more delay, I picked up the bowl and downed its contents in one swift action.