A Thousand Sparks in the Mist

Ruan Zhihe’s ordinary morning of brewing herbal tea and feeding the local ghosts is violently interrupted when her courtyard’s ancient furnace spits out a blood-stained blueprint - written in her own handwriting. Recently discarded by the prophesied hero, Zhihe couldn't care less about her ruined reputation or her exile. Her sole, consuming obsession is forging the Heaven-Mending Crucible. As she wanders the misty, cursed peaks seeking rare spiritual ores, her profound kindness and eerie, unshakeable focus draw the attention of the realm's most dangerous men. Yet, Zhihe greets their obsessive advances with gentle pity. Believing romantic attachment is a horrific affliction that shatters a cultivator's Golden Core, she holds their hands, looks at them with absolute compassion, and lectures them on spiritual hygiene before offering them rehabilitation tea. Her rejections only fuel their madness, prompting a Supreme Deity to descend from the upper realms just to elicit a single emotional reaction from her. But why does the blueprint require the shattered obsessions of heavenly beings, and what terrible truth did her past self seal away to ensure she would never be capable of love?