The private guest room within the Black Rock City Alchemist Association was a study in subdued luxury. Sandalwood incense curled from a bronze censer in the corner, masking the sharper, earthier scent of dried medicinal herbs that clung to the wooden beams. Moonlight stones embedded in the ceiling cast a soft, milky glow over the polished sandalwood table, illuminating the fine grain where Xiao Yan rested his elbows.
He sat cross-legged on a raised cushion in the center of the room, a high-tier pill formula spread across his knees. He was glaring at it.
'You've been staring at that same character for three breaths,' Yao Lao's ancient voice echoed within the confines of his mind, dry and resonant as temple bells. 'Either you're having a revelation worthy of carving into stone tablets, or your brain has finally melted from alchemy fumes and you're too polite to admit it.'
Xiao Yan exhaled through his nose, a faint smile touching his lips as he rubbed his temples. The scent of aged parchment and dried medicinal herbs filled the air, familiar and comforting. "Just remembering how this all began," he murmured, more to himself than to anyone else.
The first time he had refined a pill, he had been so nervous that his Dou Qi control wavered before the cauldron had even stabilized. The flame sputtered, the medicinal essence nearly clashed, and Yao Lao's voice had been sharp enough to cut stone.
'Control your breathing. You're not fighting a beast. You're guiding it.'
Back then, his hands had trembled from more than heat. They had trembled from something close to desperation.
Three years of silence. Three years of being called useless.
Xiao Yan's mouth curved faintly at the memory. "But when I held that first successful pill in my palm..." His voice trailed off, his gaze distant. The memory was vivid—the clumsy movements of his hands, the unsteady control of the flame, the sheer terror of nearly destroying his family's legacy. But beneath the fear, something else had stirred: purpose. A certainty that this was where he belonged, even if he was terrible at it.
'You nearly poisoned yourself three times before you mastered basic flame control,' Yao Lao added, the mental tone shifting to something almost proud. 'But you never stopped. That stubbornness... it's what saved you. It's what will save you again.'
He let the memory drift without settling into it.
Yao Lao noted, his tone shifting from dry mockery to the sagacious weight of a true teacher. You're thinking about Wu Tan again.'
"Can't exactly help it," Xiao Yan muttered out loud. He leaned back against the wall, the velvet cushioning his spine.
Six months. That was the tax he had paid to secure his family. The clan war against the Jia and Ao families had been brutal, messy, and necessary. He had been the hidden knife in the dark, using his alchemy to fund their victory until the rival factions were entirely uprooted. He could still smell the smoke of the Xiao Clan's courtyard, the iron tang of blood on the stone tiles. . Resources were seized from defeated enemies, debts reclaimed, alliances rewritten in blood and ink. It was during those months that Xiao Yan stopped feeling like a boy who had regained talent and began to feel like someone who had something to prove.
'If we had just left sooner...' Xiao Yan thought, the frustration bleeding into his mental voice.
'You stayed because your blood demanded it,' Yao Lao corrected smoothly. 'A tree without roots cannot weather a storm. You secured your roots.'
Xiao Yan sighed. When the dust had finally settled, his father had called him to the main hall. Xiao Zhan had looked at him, not as a broken genius, but as a man.
"Jia Nan Academy's yearly entrance is approaching," his father had said. "You meet the cultivation requirements now. More than meet them. You could go."
"I'm not going to school," Xiao Yan had replied instantly, rejecting the idea out of hand. "I don't need to be locked in a courtyard listening to elders lecture about foundational qi. I need real experience."
His father had smiled a weary, knowing smile. "Then go to the desert. Find your brothers. The desert is a harsh anvil, Yan-er, but it forges the best steel."
'Your father was wiser than he knew,' Yao Lao mused. 'The desert teaches lessons no clan hall ever could. It strips away pretense. It shows you what you're made of.'
And so the path that might have led him to Qing Shan Town never unfolded. There was no wandering into the mountains in search of rare herbs, no strange healer hidden in poison mist, no unexpected encounter with a mysterious woman in purple robes. Instead, He bypassed the Magical Beast Mountain Range entirely and headed straight for the sweltering dunes. There was only the desert — unending sand and the steady discipline of mercenaries who valued strength over sentiment.
His brothers had grown leaner there, more pragmatic. Their mercenary group was not the largest in the region, but it was stable, efficient, and increasingly difficult to provoke. That stability, of course, invited resentment.
Xiao Yan nodded slowly. "He was right. The brothers' mercenary group—the Desert Metal Mercenary Company—wasn't respected. He paused, the memory sharpening. "Until I started supplying them ….."
A polite knock at the door cut him off.
"Enter," Xiao Yan said, his voice shifting instantly from casual to the polite neutrality expected of a tier two alchemist.
The heavy oak door clicked open, breaking the silence. A young Association maid stepped inside. Her cheeks were heavily rouged, her uniform collar pulled down just a strategic fraction too low, and she carried a silver tea tray with a practiced, swaying grace. She batted her eyelashes, looking toward the young, famous alchemist.
"Grandmaster Xiao," she said, her voice sweet, carrying a slight lilt. "The Association sends its compliments. We thought you might require refreshment while you wait for the steward's report."
She moved toward the table, hips swaying just enough to be noticed, setting the tray down with a soft clink. She reached for the teapot, her fingers lingering near Xiao Yan's hand. "Shall I pour for you? It's a special blend from the—"
"I'll do it."
The voice was soft, barely above a whisper, but it carried a sudden, sharp tension.
Xiao Yan blinked. He hadn't noticed Qing Lin standing in the shadowed corner near the window. She had been so still she seemed part of the room's architecture. Now, she stepped forward. Her head was bowed, her green dress simple and unadorned compared to the maid's uniform. Her hands were clasped tightly in front of her, knuckles white.
The maid paused, hand hovering over the pot. She looked at Qing Lin, then at Xiao Yan, confusion flickering behind her professional smile. "I… beg your pardon? It is my duty, miss."
"It's fine," Xiao Yan said, though he didn't move to stop Qing Lin.
Qing Lin didn't look at the maid. She reached out, her movements timid but decisive, and took the tray from the woman's hands. Her fingers brushed the maid's, cold and trembling slightly. "You can go. Thank you."
It wasn't a request. For a girl who usually stuttered when addressed directly, the command was startling.
The maid stiffened. She looked at Xiao Yan for confirmation. He gave a slight nod. "She's right. We're discussing private matters. You can leave the set."
"…As you wish, Grandmaster." The maid's smile tightened. She backed out, closing the door with a bit more force than necessary.
Silence returned, heavier than before.
Qing Lin let out a breath she seemed to have been holding for minutes. She set the tray down, avoiding Xiao Yan's gaze. Her ears were red. She picked up the teapot, her hands shaking just enough to make the liquid inside ripple.
"You didn't have to do that," Xiao Yan said gently.
"She… she was too close," Qing Lin murmured, pouring the tea. The steam rose in thin, curling lines. "And… you were talking to yourself. Like you do with… him."
Xiao Yan smiled faintly. 'She's jealous,' Yao Lao chuckled in his mind. 'Or protective. Hard to tell with this one.'
'Shut up,' Xiao Yan thought back.
Qing Lin placed the cup before him.
He took a slow sip, the warmth grounding him. "Until I started supplying them with pills," he said softly.
Black Rock City became his axis.
He traveled back and forth between the desert encampments and the Alchemist Association so frequently that the guards stopped questioning him entirely. He sold pills. Purchased ingredients. Refined in rented chambers until the air itself seemed to taste of ash. Franke had watched his progress with equal parts suspicion and admiration.
"I took the Tier-1 test first," he recalled, his fingers tracing the rim of his teacup. "Passed without difficulty. But the Tier-2 examination... that was different."
'You succeeded on your first attempt,' Yao Lao's voice carried unmistakable pride. Sixteen years old. The youngest Tier-2 alchemist in a century. Franke nearly dropped his teacup when he saw the results.'
Xiao Yan's gaze dropped to his hands, the lamplight catching the faint calluses along his palms. "Franke treated me like his own son after that. Ao Tuo saw potential. They gave me access to resources I'd never dreamed of—rare ingredients, advanced formulas, the Association's private library."
Qing Lin's fingers tightened slightly around her own cup. "Young Master's pills changed everything for the Master Li and Master Ding`s group," she said softly, her voice barely above a whisper.
Xiao Yan's expression shifted, the memory of those early days in the desert surfacing with vivid clarity. The Sand Mercenary Company had carved their territory with blood and intimidation, dismissing the Desert Metal Mercenary Company as amateurs who didn't belong in the harsh reality of desert politics. They'd laughed when his brothers tried to negotiate trade routes. They'd threatened merchants who dared to work with them. They'd made it clear, in every way possible, that the Desert Metal group was nothing more than a nuisance that would soon be eliminated.
Until Xiao Yan arrived.
"I supplied them with Energy Recovery Pills," he said, his voice even, measured. "Strength Recovery Pills. Pills that enhanced their Dou Qi, their endurance, their speed. Basic formulas, but refined to perfection."
'You turned a struggling group into a force to be reckoned with,' Yao Lao added, the mental voice carrying a note of satisfaction. 'The Sand Mercenaries couldn't understand how a small group suddenly matched their strength. They thought it was cultivation breakthroughs. They never suspected alchemy.'
Xiao Yan's jaw tightened slightly. "When they finally challenged us directly... we were ready."
The battle had been swift, decisive. The Sand Mercenaries' superior numbers meant nothing against enhanced cultivators wielding refined techniques and sustained energy. Xiao Yan had watched from the rear, arms folded, as his brothers' group dismantled their rivals without breaking stride. No grand speeches. No dramatic confrontations. Just efficiency. The Sand Mercenary leader had stared in disbelief as his best fighters fell one by one, their Dou Qi depleted while the Desert Metal group seemed to grow stronger with each passing moment. By the time the dust settled, there was no question about who controlled the territory.
"After that," Xiao Yan said simply, "no one questioned their authority in the region."
Black Rock City became a second home. Xiao Yan traveled there regularly—sometimes weekly—trading pills for ingredients, studying advanced formulas, testing his limits against the Association's masters. The journey was long, arduous, but each trip brought him closer to mastery. He'd learned to navigate the political landscape of the Association, to earn the respect of masters who had initially dismissed him as just another young prodigy with more ambition than skill.
It was a good rhythm. But the Three-Year Agreement didn't care about mercenary turf wars. He needed a Heavenly Flame.
Xiao Yan stared at the teacup. The liquid inside wasn't the usual pale green of herbal brews. It was a deep, translucent red-orange, glowing faintly in the moonlight stone's luminescence. Like molten rock cooling into glass.
The color hit him like a physical blow.
'Magma.'
The thought didn't come from Yao Lao. It surged from his own memory, unbidden.
His mind violently snapped back to the underground magma crypt in the eastern desert.
They had heard the rumors in a tavern—Queen Medusa emerging from a volcano, bathed in a blinding green light, radiating a heat that turned the dunes to glass. Yao Lao had instantly deduced the truth: the Green Lotus Core Flame.
'I recognized the description immediately,' Yao Lao's voice grew serious, the usual dry humor absent. 'Green Core Lotus Flame. A true Heavenly Flame. She took it. But a flame of that tier leaves roots. A lotus platform. We must investigate.'
Xiao Yan's gaze darkened. "You said there might be remnants."
"I said might," Yao Lao corrected out loud. "Not would. But you insisted. Brought Qing Lin. Brought your brothers. Marched into that magma chamber like you owned it."
A beat of silence passed between them. Qing Lin's grip on her teacup tightened slightly—she remembered.
The volcano had been exactly as the rumors described—scorched stone, residual heat, echoes of power that made the air hum with latent energy. The descent had been suffocating. The air itself had tasted of sulfur and ancient power. And then, the magma had erupted, birthing the massive, terrifying Tier-4 Twin-Headed Fire Spirit Snake.
Xiao Yan remembered bracing for a desperate, life-or-death fight. His hand had been on the Heavy Xuan Ruler, Dou Qi flooding his meridians. Instead, Qing Lin had stepped forward. The three tiny, jade-green flower dots had bloomed within her irises—the legendary Triple Jade-Green Snake Flower Pupils. The sheer, bloodline-deep suppression had forced the magma leviathan to bow its dual heads into absolute submission.
They had ridden the tamed beast to the hollowed-out chamber below.
'And found absolutely nothing,' Xiao Yan thought bitterly, staring at his tea.
The lotus platform had been scraped clean. The crushing disappointment of finding that empty pedestal had nearly driven him mad. His grand shortcut, his trump card for Nalan Yanran, had been stolen right out from under him. The emptiness of that cavern echoed in his chest even now.
If Yao Lao hadn't dug into the pedestal and salvaged the eleven Green Lotus Seeds hidden beneath, the trip would have been a total failure.
Enough to accelerate Xiao Yan's foundation. Enough to catch him up to where he should have been.
'The seeds contained traces of the Green Core Lotus Flame's essence,' Yao Lao explained. 'Not enough to wield, but enough to refine your meridians, strengthen your core, prepare you for what comes next.'
Xiao Yan's palm rested on the table, the lamplight catching the faint scars along his knuckles. "I spent three months cultivating those seeds."
'Dwelling on empty pedestals won't fill your cauldron, Xiao Yan,' Yao Lao advised softly, sensing his disciple's spiraling thoughts. 'It was not a waste. But a seed is not a flame. We must prepare for the next target. That is why you asked Franke for the Ice Spirit Cold Fountain.'
'I know,' Xiao Yan replied, his jaw tightening. 'I just don't like losing to timing.'
'You don't like losing at all.'
'That too.'
A sharp, sudden knock sounded at the heavy oak door. It wasn't the tentative rap of a servant. It was urgent.
"Xiao Yan? Are you free?"
It was Grandmaster Franke. But there was something undeniably strained beneath the older alchemist's words. A tightness that hadn't been there when Xiao Yan arrived this morning.
Inside the black ring, Yao Lao's tone shifted, the relaxed sagacity vanishing instantly. 'This is not about your fountain, little fellow.'
Xiao Yan stood up, brushing off his robes. The movement was fluid, shedding the lethargy of the study session. "Come in, Chairman Franke."
Franke hurried inside, looking uncharacteristically flustered. He wiped sweat from his brow, his eyes darting around the room before settling on Xiao Yan. "Xiao Yan, my boy. Put your robes in order. I know you came for news on the Cold Fountain, but that will have to wait. You have visitors."
"An important figure from the Imperial Capital just arrived. A Tier-6 Alchemist wants to meet our youngest prodigy," Franke said, his voice dropping to a serious, hushed whisper.
Xiao Yan blinked, surprised. A Tier-6 Alchemist? In a border city like this?
Before he could ask for a name, a terrifying sensation washed over him. Deep within the black ring on his finger, Yao Lao's soul aura violently contracted, vanishing entirely into absolute nothingness. It wasn't a gradual fade; it was an emergency suppression.
'Teacher?' Xiao Yan called out mentally.
Silence.
A cold sweat pricked the back of Xiao Yan's neck. Yao Lao only hid like that when he sensed something capable of detecting his soul. Something horrifyingly powerful.
"They are waiting in the President's Chamber," Franke urged, gesturing toward the door.
Xiao Yan's eyes narrowed, his senses hyper-alert. Whoever this Tier-6 Alchemist was, they had brought a monster with them.
"Let's go, Qing Lin," Xiao Yan said, his voice dropping to a cautious, terrifying calm. He strode out of the refinement room, stepping into a confrontation he couldn't possibly anticipate.
And for the first time since entering the Association, his instincts sharpened instead of drifting toward the past.
-----------------------------------------------------
The President's Chamber of the Black Rock City Alchemist Association was vast compared to the guest room. High arched windows filtered pale desert light across polished stone floors. Moonlight stones embedded along the pillars cast a cool glow that should have felt tranquil.
Today, however, the lavish decor felt entirely irrelevant. The air itself was leaden, suffocated by the sheer, invisible weight of the people occupying the room.
Xiao Yan pushed the heavy oak doors open. His expression was a mask of cold hostility, though his pulse hammered against his ribs. Qing Lin trailed closely behind him, clutching the edge of his sleeve, her eyes darting nervously around the spacious room before fixing firmly on the floor.
And immediately—
The black ring on his finger went silent. The warm, ancient presence that had accompanied him for years vanished like it had never existed.
A thread of cold slid down his spine.
'Teacher?' he called inwardly.
Nothing.
Not even an echo.
Inside, Grandmaster Franke wiped his brow for the third time in as many minutes, looking like a merchant who had accidentally invited dragons to tea and was now desperately hoping they wouldn't burn the building down. He stood between the door and the central table, his body angled slightly toward Xiao Yan as if physically buffering him from the two figures seated beyond the tea service.
Across the chamber, a middle-aged man in refined alchemist robes stood near the window, hands clasped behind his back, his chest bearing the unmistakable six-ripple insignia. His bearing was straight, chin slightly lifted — someone used to being respected the moment he entered a room.
Tier-6 Alchemist.
Beside him, seated calmly at a carved sandalwood chair, was a woman in green robes. Her face was veiled. Her posture relaxed.
She possessed no visible aura, yet the space around her seemed to bend in quiet reverence.
Franke cleared his throat.
"Master Gu He… Sect Master Yun Yun… this is Xiao Yan."
The veiled woman's gaze lifted.
She looked at him once.
And in that single glance, a flicker of disappointment passed behind the veil.
Not him.
Not the Healer Yao from the mountains.
Just a boy.
Gu He stepped forward, composure immaculate. He had spent the entire flight from the Tagore Desert trying to swallow the bitter ashes of his humiliation at the hands of the Snake-People. Finding a young, unparalleled prodigy in this border city was exactly the balm his battered ego required. He straightened, puffing out his chest slightly, projecting the practiced, magnanimous authority of the Jia Ma Empire's Pill-King.
"So you are Xiao Yan," he said smoothly. "To pass the Tier-2 examination at sixteen... it is a feat that demands notice. I am Gu He. I have come to witness this talent myself."
He paused, letting his name hang in the air, expecting the usual gasp of reverence, the wide-eyed awe he received everywhere else in the empire.
His tone carried weight — not overt arrogance, but unmistakable authority.
Xiao Yan inclined his head politely.
"I was fortunate."
Gu He studied him for a moment longer.
"With proper guidance, your talent could shake the empire. I am willing to take you as my personal disciple. The Misty Cloud Sect has resources that a lone cultivator could only dream of."
Snap.
The name of the sect severed the last fraying thread of Xiao Yan's restraint. The three years of being called a cripple, the mocking laughter in his clan's hall, the crushed, helpless look on his father's face—it all flooded his chest like boiling acid.
"Disciple?" Xiao Yan's voice was rough. He swallowed, trying to clear the grit from his throat. "Of the Misty Cloud Sect?"
Gu He smiled, mistaking the silence for awe. "Yes. It is the pinnacle of the Jia Ma Empire. To be invited—"
"Do you know who I am?" Xiao Yan interrupted.
He lifted his head. His eyes were no longer those of a humble alchemist seeking ingredients. They were dark, deep pools of something old and hardened.
Gu He blinked. "You are Xiao Yan. The youngest Tier 2 Alchemist in Black Rock City. A prodigy."
"I am Xiao Yan," Xiao Yan said, his voice gaining an edge, sharp as broken glass. "Of the Xiao Clan. In Wu Tan City."
The name hung in the air.
Yun Yun, who had been sipping tea silently behind her veil, froze. The cup halted halfway to her lips. She knew that name. She knew the story. The cripple. The engagement.
Gu He frowned, his memory searching. "Xiao Clan? Wu Tan City? I recall… there was an engagement dispute involving the Nalan family…"
"Dispute?" Xiao Yan laughed.
It was a bitter sound. Devoid of humor. It scraped against the walls of the chamber.
"You call it a dispute?" Xiao Yan stood up. The chair scraped loudly against the floor. He didn't look at Gu He. He looked at Yun Yun. His gaze pierced through the veil, as if he could see the sect leader's face beneath it. "She came to my home. With her elders. With her sect's backing. She threw a contract on the table. She told my father—a man who raised me alone—that I was trash. That I was unworthy."
Gu He frowned, his eyes narrowing, but Xiao Yan didn't give him a chance to speak. The dam had broken.
"A betrothal set by our grandfathers—a sacred vow between clans!" Xiao Yan spat, his hands clenching into fists so tight his knuckles turned white. "And how does she handle it? She trampled my father's face into the dirt just to flaunt her own 'freedom' and superiority! She used your sect's banner to bully a weakened clan!"
He pointed an accusing finger, his chest heaving. "She has no respect for tradition! No reverence for her elders! She acts like a spoiled tyrant who thinks the world must bow to her whims. And perhaps she can. She is after all the future Sect leader of the Misty Cloud Sect. That is not the behavior of a future Sect Leader! But if that is how your sect's future leader behaves… then I question whether she understands what it means to lead at all. She lacks basic human decency, let alone honor!"
The room plunged into a ringing, suffocating silence, but Xiao Yan rode the wave of his own righteous fury, blind to the terrifying stillness of the veiled woman sitting across from him.
"Tell me, Master Gu He. Is that the conduct you train?"
The chamber felt tight.
Gu He did not respond immediately.
Xiao Yan continued, words accelerating now.
"You say talent should not be wasted in a remote city."
He let out a short breath.
"Do you know what happened after she left?"
He didn't wait.
"My clan's reputation dropped overnight."
"My father endured mockery he never deserved."
"Look at me now!" Xiao Yan demanded fiercely. "For three years I was mocked as a cripple. I swallowed bile and smiled. But I didn't need your pampered sect pavilions to rise. I dragged myself out of the mud! I walked into the unforgiving desert, fought for my life, and earned this Tier-2 badge with my own two hands at sixteen! I built my own foundation!"
He paused. The silence in the room was absolute. Even the guards outside seemed to hold their breath.
"Even if I starve, I will not eat from that bowl."
"Even if I fail, I will fail on my own path."
"I will surpass her."
"I will surpass your sect."
"And when that day comes—"
His eyes burned with quiet fury.
"It will not be because I clung to your protection."
"It will be because I climbed through the mud she left me in."
"So no," Xiao Yan said. "I will not join the Misty Cloud Sect. I will not be her junior brother. I will not drink tea under your roof."
He looked at Gu He, then at Yun Yun.
"And I will not forgive her."
The words landed like hammer strikes.
"I have to thank her, in a way," Xiao Yan admitted, his voice cracking slightly. "If she hadn't humiliated me, I might still be sitting in Wu Tan City, waiting to die of old age. She gave me a reason to climb. But gratitude ends there. I will not forget. And I will not forgive."
He stood tall, chest heaving, waiting for the inevitable moment of respect. The moment the strong recognized the unyielding grit of a peerless genius who refused to be broken.
Off to the side, Grandmaster Franke stared at the boy. The sheer tragedy of the tale, the monstrous injustice inflicted upon this peerless prodigy by a behemoth sect, struck Franke right in the heart. His terror of the Tier-6 Alchemist momentarily vanished, replaced by fierce, protective indignation. Franke stepped forward, his own Dou Qi silently gathering, his spine stiffening. He bowed slightly toward Gu He, voice tight.
"Master Gu He… he is young. His wounds are fresh. Please do not take offense."
But he did not step aside.
If Gu He tried to strike down this brilliant youth for speaking the ugly truth, Franke was ready to risk his own life to shield him.
But it wasn't Gu He who reacted.
Yun Yun slowly set her teacup down on the sandalwood table. The soft clink of porcelain sounded like a thunderclap in the quiet room.
Beneath her veil, her eyes were freezing cold. When Gu He had mentioned a young, brilliant alchemist prodigy, her mind had immediately conjured the image of the mysterious, capable 'Healer Yao' she had met in the Magic Beast Mountain Range. A youth with quiet competence, calm under pressure, who carried the weight of the world without feeling the need to scream about his grievances.
Instead, she found a petulant, screaming boy playing the ultimate victim. A boy publicly slandering her beloved disciple, calling her "unfit to be a woman," while dragging a terrified maid behind his own shadow.
"Enough."
Yun Yun didn't raise her voice. She didn't have to. She merely allowed a single fraction of her Dou Zong aura to slip free from her absolute control.
BOOM.
The spatial pressure slammed into Xiao Yan like a physical mountain.
There was no glorious resistance. No impressive display of grit. His knees buckled instantly, slamming into the polished stone floor with a sickening crack. The air in his lungs was violently expelled. The stone beneath his palms fractured.
He gritted his teeth, his modern pride screaming at him to stand, his Dou Qi flaring desperately. 'Teacher!' he screamed in his mind. 'Lend me your power!'
Silence. Absolute, terrifying silence from the ring.
Panic, cold and sharp, finally pierced through his arrogant anger. He wasn't the protagonist in a story right now. He was a sixteen-year-old boy in a room with a being who could erase him from the continent with a flick of her wrist. Daring to oppose her hadn't earned her respect; it had merely annoyed her.
Yun Yun watched him struggle against the floor for three agonizing seconds. Then, she snorted softly and withdrew the pressure.
"I have no interest in bullying a junior," Yun Yun said, her voice freezing the room. "But you speak of arrogance while drowning in your own."
Xiao Yan gasped for air, his hands planted firmly on the stone, trembling.
"You praise your own journey," Yun Yun continued, her tone analytical and ruthless. "You speak of your freedom, your struggles, the vast world you intend to conquer. Tell me, Xiao Yan... if you had kept your talent, would you have willingly married a girl you had never met? Would you have happily sat in Wu Tan City as a clan head, managing ledgers and local disputes, forsaking this vast world you claim to love?"
Xiao Yan's jaw locked. He didn't answer. He couldn't.
As a transmigrator from the Blue Planet, destined to reach the peak, the idea of being tied down to an arranged marriage in a backwater town made his skin crawl.
"Your silence is loud," Yun Yun noted coldly. "You demand she play the obedient, traditional bride, while you demand the freedom of a soaring dragon. Hypocrisy."
She gestured elegantly toward Qing Lin, who was trembling violently behind Xiao Yan, too terrified to even breathe.
"Nalan Yanran rejected suitors with statuses that dwarf yours," Yun Yun said, defending her disciple with razor-sharp precision. "She cut the strings of tradition because she wished to reach the peak, entirely unburdened. She wished to rely on no man. And yet you, who cry so loudly about your broken engagement and your lost honor, are already dragging a maid across the desert to serve your tea."
Xiao Yan remained on his knees, his mind violently clashing. His Chinese upbringing screamed about face, about the humiliation of the clan. But his modern, Earth-born soul recognized the brutal, undeniable logic in Yun Yun's words.
Gu He watched the boy. A month ago, the Pill-King would have scoffed at Xiao Yan's disrespect, crushed him with his aura, and walked away. But Gu He had just returned from a desert where his own arrogance had been utterly, humiliatingly shattered by beings far beyond his comprehension. He saw a bit of his old, foolish self in the boy on the floor.
Gu He stepped forward, his expression surprisingly soft. He waved a hand, signaling a terrified Franke to step back.
"Xiao Yan," Gu He said quietly, crouching down so he was closer to the boy's eye level. "We might be wrong to assume so much about you. We do not know how you endured three years of being mocked as a cripple. We do not know the depth of that dark well."
Xiao Yan looked up, the sweat stinging his eyes.
"But we know Yanran," Gu He continued softly. "Her goal is the absolute peak. If not for the resources required to reach that peak, she might have severed her ties to the Misty Cloud Sect as well. She wanted no strings. To be tied to you, she had to cut the deepest string of all."
Gu He pitched his voice low. "There are heavens beyond heavens, Xiao Yan. Mountains beyond mountains. Once, I was exactly like you. An arrogant, self-centered fool who thought the realm was a boundless plane laid solely for my steps. I asked Sect Leader Yun for her hand in marriage."
Xiao Yan's eyes widened slightly.
"When she rejected me," Gu He confessed, a wry, self-deprecating smile touching his lips, "I saw it as the ultimate humiliation. I hated her for it. I almost developed a heart demon. I thought it would have been kinder for her to kill me than to dismiss my pride so casually."
Gu He looked back up toward Yun Yun for a fleeting second, his eyes filled with a quiet, matured respect. "But then I saw her conviction. I saw the weight she carried to lead her sect. I respected her determination. Respect is not submission. And refusal is not humiliation. Does that realization make me less of a man?"
Xiao Yan was silent. The words struck him far heavier than the Dou Zong pressure from moments before.
Suddenly, a deeply buried memory surfaced in Xiao Yan's mind. Not a memory of this world, but of his mother. The fellow transmigrator. He remembered sitting in the courtyard of the Xiao Clan as a child, listening to her weave grand, fantastical stories of cultivation, of soaring through the skies and battling gods.
"Why didn't you pursue those dreams, Mother?" he had asked her once.
She had smiled, a sad, beautiful thing, and touched his cheek. "Because I had a duty as the wife of a Clan Head. Because I had the duty of being a mother. I forsook the sky for you, my little flame."
The realization slammed into Xiao Yan's soul, synthesizing his two fractured minds into a singular, diamond-hard clarity.
His mother had sacrificed her freedom for duty. Nalan Yanran had sacrificed her duty for freedom.
Was it a crime to choose the sky?
A slow breath left his lungs.
His anger… thinned.
The burning, petty hatred that had fueled him for three years—the obsessive need to restore his 'face', the desire to humiliate a teenage girl for wanting agency over her own life—evaporated. What replaced it was something far colder, far purer, and infinitely more dangerous.
It was pure martial conviction.
Xiao Yan placed his hands on the polished stone floor and slowly, deliberately, pushed himself to his feet. He brushed the dust from his knees, his movements calm and measured. He did not look at Yun Yun with anger, nor Gu He with defiance.
"I understand," Xiao Yan said, his voice stripped of all petulance. The chaotic emotional storm around him condensed into a single, focused blade. "I understand now. The Three-Year Agreement is no longer about a broken engagement."
He looked directly at Yun Yun's veiled face.
"It is a battle of convictions. It is a clash to see whose path to the peak is truer," Xiao Yan stated, his eyes burning with a dark, unyielding fire. "Therefore, I will win."
For the first time since entering, Yun Yun regarded him differently. He was no longer a whining youth.
Gu He studied the boy for a long moment, genuinely surprised by the rapid shift in his temperament. He smiled—a small, approving gesture.
"Well said."
"I heard from Franke," Gu He said smoothly, breaking the heavy tension, "that you have been tearing the Association apart searching for the Ice Spirit Cold Fountain."
Xiao Yan blinked, momentarily thrown off by the pivot. "I am."
"My eccentric little brother, Gu Te, resides in this very city," Gu He continued, standing back up to his full height. "He is a hoarder of rare oddities, and I happen to know he possesses a vial of the Cold Fountain. Consider it a meeting gift. From me, and from the Misty Cloud Sect. I will personally visit him before we leave and ensure he hands it over to you. Assuming Sect Leader Yun does not mind?"
Yun Yun turned her head slightly, her veil shifting. "Ice Spirit Cold Fountain?"
"It is an extreme-yin substance," Gu He explained respectfully to her. "It is meant to protect the inside of a cultivator's body from the destructive temperatures of a powerful beast flame during refinement, preventing them from being burnt to ash. It also significantly increases combat power during the absorption phase."
Yun Yun nodded thoughtfully, her mind instantly shifting toward her own responsibilities. "Then I will increase Yanran's training."
Gu He chuckled lightly.
"You heard her."
He looked at Xiao Yan.
"I will also prepare something suitable for her. We make sure you push each other," Gu He said softly. "The world does not care about your humiliation, boy. It only cares about your height. Climb. Or fall. But do not waste our time with complaints about the ladder."
Yun Yun moved to the door. She paused, her hand on the latch.
"Do not hate her," she said. She didn't look back. "Hate is heavy. It will slow you down. Use the anger. Then let it go."
She opened the door.
"Come, Gu He. We have preparations to make."
The atmosphere loosened.
Franke finally exhaled.
As the heavy oak doors clicked shut behind them, leaving Xiao Yan alone with a terrified Franke and a quiet Qing Lin, the crushing weight in the room finally vanished.
Instantly, Yao Lao's soul flooded back into the black ring, the connection snapping back like a taut bowstring.
'You fool!' Yao Lao's voice roared in his mind, though it shook with genuine relief. 'You absolute, suicidal fool! You dare puff your chest at an unknown expert? If she had desired it, she could have crushed your soul before I could even manifest a spark to protect you!'
'You provoked a Dou Zong. You argued philosophy with a Sect Leader. You accepted charity from the enemy.' Yao Lao paused. 'But you didn't bow.'
Xiao Yan let out a long, shaky breath, leaning his weight against the sandalwood table. 'I know, Teacher. I know.'
Yao Lao sighed heavily, the anger bleeding out quickly. '...But you realized it in time. You found your center, little fellow.'
'Yes,' Xiao Yan replied silently, looking down at his own steady hands. He turned his gaze toward the sweating President of the Alchemist Association.
"My boy… you nearly gave this old man a heart attack," Franke wheezed, slumping into one of the empty chairs.