As he passed through the courtyard corridor, the white crane was dozing on one leg by the stone trough. Hearing footsteps, it only lazily lifted its eyelids.
Ruan Se pushed open a heavy stone door at the end of the corridor and stepped aside.
Lai Li’an stepped through the door, and the moment he entered, he was completely stunned.
The space before him was far larger than it appeared from outside. In the center stood a half-man-high elixir furnace, its surface densely carved with array patterns, each line polished to fine detail.
On the left side, a wooden shelf displayed jade pestles, medicine mortars, and a medicine scale of varying sizes, each spotless.
On the right were rows of medicine cabinets, and a single glance revealed that there were at least a hundred types of medicinal herbs stored here.
Ruan Se had been standing aside watching his reaction.
Seeing Lai Li’an standing speechless after entering, his gaze sweeping over the carefully selected tools, her face behind the veil flushed slightly.
A hint of nervousness crept into her tone.
“Senior, you must be amused. These are all makeshift tools I’ve temporarily cobbled together. Their grade is not high, barely usable. If we were in the sect, the grade could be much higher. For now, I can only ask Senior to make do.”
Lai Li’an snapped back to reality, swallowing the “holy crap” that was about to slip out.
‘This counts as “making do”? ‘
He withdrew his gaze nonchalantly and gave a slight nod.
“Decent enough. Since circumstances are as such, I’ll have to make do.”
When he said the words “make do,” his conscience twinged slightly.
But Ruan Se saw nothing wrong.
In her eyes, this senior was a grandmaster capable of refining eighth-grade elixir pills. He must be used to divine furnaces of unknown grade.
This small alchemy room of hers was probably like a thatched hut in his eyes.
The fact that Senior didn’t turn and leave was already a tremendous face she had been given.
“Senior,” Ruan Se hesitated but still spoke up. “This junior has an impertinent request. During this alchemy session, may this junior observe from the side? Senior, rest assured, I will not disturb you. I’ll only watch quietly and say nothing.”
She kept her posture very low, but her eyes hid an unquenchable longing.
After witnessing Lai Li’an’s earlier actions, she had formed some understanding of him.
This desire had taken root in her heart, and now seeing him about to perform alchemy, she couldn’t contain it.
In all her years cultivating the Alchemy Path, she had seen many alchemists’ techniques.
If this pill could truly be refined today, even just a single glance might surpass ten years of her own groping.
Lai Li’an’s heart skipped a beat.
‘She wants to watch? But I don’t know how to do alchemy! I’m feeling extremely hollow inside right now.’
But Ruan Se had just saved his disciple, and she was lending him both herbs and the alchemy room.
How could he refuse such a simple request?
Ruan Se keenly detected a slight change in Lai Li’an’s expression and thought she had offended him.
She quickly stepped back.
“This junior was too forward. I know that each alchemy path has its own inheritance, and many techniques are not suitable for display. I was overstepping…”
“Fine.”
Ruan Se looked up, a flicker of surprise in her eyes.
She had already prepared herself for rejection, but unexpectedly, he agreed.
Lai Li’an decided not to care anymore.
After all, his Ancient Pill Scripture was automatically managed by the system.
He couldn’t explain the specific pill-forming process, and what others would see was just the rising spiritual flame, the flowing herbal essence—surface phenomena.
Surely they wouldn’t see through at a glance that this “senior” didn’t know alchemy at all… right?
Besides, Ruan Se was cold and taciturn.
Even if she noticed something suspicious, she likely wouldn’t expose it on the spot.
If she thought he had secrets not to be revealed, that might actually make him seem more like a great master.
Ruan Se stepped back a few paces, her form blending into the shadows in the corner of the alchemy room.
Her hands hung respectfully in front of her.
She deliberately suppressed all her spiritual power fluctuations and watched quietly.
Lai Li’an took a deep breath, walked to the furnace, and looked at the ingredients neatly arranged on the tray.
Each one was clear at a glance.
The formula for the Changchun Life-Prolonging Pill from the Ancient Pill Scripture automatically surfaced in his mind.
He “knew” every step.
But knowing was one thing.
Actually doing it was a completely different matter.
He picked up the medicinal herbs one by one, as if inspecting their quality, then, before Ruan Se could even think about what he was going to do next, he dumped all the ingredients into the furnace at once.
All the herbs were emptied in one go, clattering into the furnace, piling up into a colorful little mountain.
The lid slammed shut with a sharp sound that was especially clear in the quiet room.
Ruan Se froze completely, then directly questioned,
“Senior, what are you doing? This is the first time I’ve seen alchemy done this way. Forgive my bluntness, but this doesn’t look like alchemy—it looks more like… cooking in a big pot.”
She felt that all her life’s learning had been overturned.
Ordinary alchemy, even for the lowest first-grade pill, required attention to “Monarch, Minister, Assistant, Envoy, in the proper order.”
Each herb had its time and heat to enter the furnace.
A slight difference would ruin everything.
And the refining of a sixth-grade elixir pill was even more complex, requiring repeated deliberation over the timing of each herb.
Some herbs needed to be refined in advance, some added midway.
There was no logic to dumping everything in at once.
It was like telling her that to make a full Han banquet, you didn’t need to separate frying, sautéing, boiling, and deep-frying—just throw all the dishes into one pot and boil them together.
Lai Li’an’s heart jumped at her exclamation, but his face remained expressionless.
He turned to look at Ruan Se, quickly fabricating a lie in his mind.
“Fellow Daoist Ruan,” he explained unhurriedly, “What do you think is the foundation of the Alchemy Path?”
Ruan Se was taken aback by the question and answered,
“Controlling the heat, pairing Monarch and Minister, balancing Yin and Yang.”
‘Saying these in front of Senior—would it be too shallow?’
She fell silent, nervously waiting for Senior’s guidance.
Lai Li’an clasped his hands behind his back, slightly raising his head to look at the flowing spirit lamps on the ceiling.
“In the Primordial Beginning, heaven and earth were not yet divided, and all things coexisted in chaos. At that time, there was no distinction between Monarch and Minister, no order of before and after. There was no barrier between herbs—they were originally one. Later alchemists divided them into Monarch and Minister, set order, and delineated heat levels. While this pushed the Alchemy Path to a level that could be passed down, it also invisibly severed the most fundamental resonance between herbs.”
He paused, gently placing one hand on the furnace wall.
“Adding herbs one by one in order, refining their properties sequentially, then forcibly merging them—that is ‘technique.’ Throwing all herbs in at once, letting them compete for heat, collide, and merge on their own—that is ‘Dao.’ Technique uses human power to control the herbs; Dao uses herbs to control herbs.”
Ruan Se stood in the corner, momentarily at a loss for words.
She had read many Daoist alchemy classics, but she had never heard of such a concept as “using herbs to control herbs.”
This theory was too heretical.
If his words were wrong, then only someone with no knowledge of alchemy could fabricate such nonsense.
If someone else had said this, she would have scoffed, taking them for a liar ignorant of the Dao of Alchemy.
But the one saying this was the senior who had slain a Late Core Formation cultivator with a single sword strike.
Would someone with such strength joke about alchemy?
As she was mulling over these words in her mind, Lai Li’an did not give her time to keep thinking.
He had the prescription in his head, but he had no idea what to do next.
The furnace was closed, but the spiritual flame hadn’t been lit yet.
His eyes wandered around the alchemy room, finally landing on Ruan Se.
Suddenly, he had an idea.
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