Elder Ruan Hu’s gaze, sharp and cold as glacier ice, swept over the trio. He was a gaunt man, his dark robes hanging loose over sharp collarbones, but the force rolling off him pinned the air flat against the flags. Yansheng instinctively cringed, his eyes dropping to the flagstones. The remnants of the shattered outer disciple weapons lay scattered, glinting innocently under the faint glow of the lumistones embedded in the ceiling.
“The Reliquary has been breached,” Elder Ruan Hu’s voice grated, “and its stored metal stolen. Speak! Who is responsible for this desecration?”
Pang Dalong, usually so boisterous, shrunk behind a stack of rusted spearheads, his face pale. Mei Chulan stepped forward, her posture straight, her expression unwavering. “Elder Ruan Hu,” she began, her voice calm despite the tension, “we were investigating a strange energy fluctuation. It seems a discarded rod, long thought inert, reacted violently with draft currents in the hall. It was an accident.”
The Elder’s eyes narrowed, dismissing her explanation with a flick of his wrist. “An accident that shattered two disciples’ weapons? An accident that drained the wards of this entire precinct? Nonsense. Qiao Yansheng,” he barked, his gaze snapping to the cowering figure. “You, a courtyard drudge whose channels snapped three winters ago, suddenly muster the force to split bronze?”
Yansheng flinched, his head bowing further. “I-I…” he started, but the words caught in his throat. His knuckles, still raw from Mei Chulan’s healing, whitened as he gripped the dark rod, now cool and silent in his hand.
Elder Ruan Hu smirked, a cruel twist of his lips. “I have heard rumors that you once showed a flicker of talent in the crafting arts before your meridians collapsed. Perhaps you were attempting to reforge iron from sect scrap? A desperate attempt to reclaim lost glory?” He paused, his eyes gleaming with a malicious idea. “Very well. Since you are so keen on meddling with fire and slag, you shall be tested. Tomorrow, in the Pill Chamber. You will participate in the weekly apprentice challenge. If you produce a satisfactory cleansing pill, I will overlook this… 'accident.' Fail, and the consequences will be severe, perhaps even expulsion.”
His gaze drifted to Mei Chulan. “And you, Mei Chulan, for your misguided defense, will supervise this broken wretch. Ensure he does not attempt further sabotage.” With a final, disdainful look, Elder Ruan Hu turned and swept out of the armory, the heavy door thudding shut behind him, leaving silence in its wake.
“The Pill Chamber?” Pang Dalong finally squeaked, creeping out from the racks. “Elder Ruan Hu is close with Young Master Lin. That’s a trap, Yansheng!”
Mei Chulan laid a hand on Yansheng’s shoulder. “It’s a chance, Yansheng. You have talent. I’ve seen it.” Her voice was a soft whisper of encouragement against the lingering fear. Yansheng, however, felt a dull ache behind his eyes, the Starving Heaven Cleaver a constant, hungry whisper in his mind. *‘Weak. Still so weak. Two pig-iron blades were barely a taste. More. You need more.’*
At sunrise, the great hearth hall buzzed with the murmur of thirty nervous novices. The vast, circular hall was lined with rows of bronze pots, each whistling over banked coal pits. The air hung thick with the earthy scent of herbs and the sharp tang of minerals. Young Master Lin, resplendent in robes of deep crimson, smirked from his station, flanked by two fawning disciples. Elder Ruan Hu sat motionless upon a raised dais, his hawk-like stare fixed on the floor.
Yansheng stood behind a dented iron kettle, his knuckles gray with ash. Mei Chulan stood a respectful distance away, her eyes on him, a silent anchor in his rising anxiety. Lin strolled past Yansheng’s station, his hand casually brushing against a small pouch of prepared herbs Yansheng had laid out. A pinch of gray soot drifted from Lin’s cuff, settling among the dried hemlock shavings on the slate.
*Ash-weed. Crumble-root. It will turn the boiling marrow into sour sludge,* Yuwen Zhan’s dry baritone rasped within his skull. But Yansheng was too tired. The blade had drawn too much from him overnight, a constant, gnawing hunger that had left him with a throbbing headache and leaden limbs. His vision blurred, the pot's grate-glow twisting into smears of dull orange. He lifted the tainted hemlock, his forearms numb. He swayed.
“Qiao Yansheng, what are you waiting for?” Elder Ruan Hu’s voice boomed. “Begin your refinement!”
The pressure, the exhaustion, the blade’s ceaseless drain – it all crashed down. Yansheng’s world spun. The hemlock tray tipped from his fingers as his knees struck the slate. Before he hit the ground, his body went rigid. His eyes, though still unfocused, were now wide, staring blankly ahead. His arms, moving with an eerie, disconnected grace, began to work. Yuwen Zhan had taken over.
His fingers pinched the gray ash-weed away from the pale shavings, flicking every speck into the coal trough. Then, in a sharp snap of his wrists, he tossed the shredded bark straight through the smoke. The vent fires hissed low, bending toward the metal belly as if hauled by chain. A faint, ethereal blue light pulsed from Yansheng’s hands, weaving intricate patterns in the air above the simmering concoction. This was the 'Phantom-Weaving Fire,' an art from the drowned dynasty that seized raw heat straight from the coals, requiring no living meridian pathways. Every tap against the iron rung chimed clear as cold crystal.
Lin, who had been sneering, backed into an unlit brazier. “What… what is that?” he muttered, the confidence draining from his face. The liquor within the vat had stopped bubbling; it contracted inward, spinning into a tight, luminous bead. The air between the pillars filled with the crisp scent of frost-bitten pine.
Elder Ruan Hu leaned forward, one hand frozen on the carved dragon-head armrest. The pill, when finally extracted, was a masterpiece. It glowed with a soft, inner luminescence, perfectly round, its surface smooth as polished jade, radiating an aura of profound purity. A Legendary Grade Cleansing Pill. Silence swept the flagstones, broken only by a muffled, booming cheer out in the courtyard. Pang Dalong, it seemed, had just won big.
Elder Ruan Hu descended from the dais, his eyes fixed on the pill. His initial shock was replaced by a glint of possessiveness. “An extraordinary result,” he said, his voice regaining its venomous edge. “Such a pill is beyond the capabilities of an apprentice, especially a crippled one. Clearly, you used illicit means. I shall confiscate this artifact. It will serve as evidence in your expulsion.”
Just as his hand reached out, a new voice, sharp and cold, sliced through the tense air. “Confiscate it? On what grounds, Elder? That pill is mine.”
The brass double-valves swung inward with a dull groan, and Bai Yueli stepped over the threshold, her gaze fixed on the glowing sphere. “I believe,” she declared, her voice ringing with a false sweetness, “it is compensation for my wasted youth.”