The medicinal spring's mist clung to Zhao Rui's robes like spectral hands as he navigated Shu Mountain's labyrinthine corridors. Somewhere in the fog, a qilin's mournful cry echoed his turmoil—What price would Heaven demand for a mortal's ascension?
Xuanling's words still prickled like cursed needles: "Even if Li Lingfeng grants the elixir, your little pharmacist will never pierce the Nascent Soul realm." The Master Artificer had punctuated this verdict with a sip of tea, steam obscuring his pity.
Bargain of Blades
Li Lingfeng's study reeked of petrified ambition. Scrolls detailing centuries of sect politics carpeted hexagonal tables, their edges singed from the Sword Saint's restless qi.
"You ask for the impossible, Stormcaller." Li's fingers traced the Marrow-Cleansing Elixir formula etched into jade—a recipe older than the Tang Dynasty. "This draught demands a drop of my essence. For whom would you have me bleed?"
Zhao's knuckles whitened around the Nine Heavens Thunder Lance. "A debt older than cultivation. A promise carved in childhood ashes."
The Sword Saint's gaze sharpened. Twin phoenixes embroidered on his sleeves seemed to lean closer. "Sentiment is a blade that cuts the wielder. Yet..." His nail scored the jade tablet, releasing a chime that shook dust from rafters. "...Shu Mountain's future requires unconventional alliances."
Anatomy of a Transaction
Negotiations unfolded like a lethal sword dance:
First Movement: Zhao offered three God-Sealing Tome sigils—their golden light revealing cracks in Li's stoicism.Counterpoint: The Sword Saint demanded five years of Zhao's service as sect guardian.Crescendo: A vial of Zhao's dragon-tainted blood, drawn from the lance's tip.
"Your essence contaminates the recipe." Li's censer flared as he examined the crimson sample. "But contamination breeds... innovation."
The Alchemist's Gambit
In Shu Mountain's forbidden alchemy pavilion, cauldrons shaped like screaming demons belched azure flames. Li Lingfeng's sleeves billowed as he orchestrated the brew:
03:47: Added millennium-old glacier lotus petals that wept mercury tears.05:12: Crushed a phoenix feather fossil into powder that screamed with ancestral memory.07:29: Sliced open his palm, letting golden ichor drip into the roiling mixture.
The elixir's birth scream shattered twelve containment arrays. Apprentice alchemists collapsed bleeding from ears and eyes.
Whispers from the Crucible
Dawn found Zhao Rui kneeling before the completed elixir—a single droplet suspended in a jade vial, its surface reflecting infinite permutations of Sun Xiaolan's fate.
"Three lunar cycles." Li's voice rasped from qi exhaustion. "Administer during the Ghost Moon. Any deviation..."
Zhao didn't need to hear the rest. The vial burned colder than arctic iron against his palm.
Epilogue: Flight to Mortal Chains
As Zhao and Dun Che pierced through stratospheric ice clouds, the fox demon finally broke their three-day silence:
"Was it worth it? Binding yourself to that sword-obsessed—"
"Her laughter during the '98 floods." Zhao's interruption startled a migratory thunderbird. "The way she ground herbs while humming Zhou Xuan ballads. That's what we preserve."
Beneath them, Shanghai's neon sprawl materialized—a concrete altar awaiting its sacrificial lamb. In a cramped apartment above Golden Rain Pharmacy, Sun Xiaolan dreamed of dragon scales and bleeding textbooks.