The week leading up to the public seminar transformed Xiao Xiao Peak into the strangest, most exclusive, and most stressful theater workshop in the entire cultivation world.
Lin Fan had officially shed his persona as a lazy senior brother and fully embraced his new role: a tyrannical, perfectionist director on the verge of a nervous breakdown. His rocking chair gathered dust in a corner, replaced by a frantic pacing pattern worn into the courtyard dirt. He held a bamboo slip covered in his own frantic scribbles—the master script for their upcoming performance.
Yue Qingqian was his sole, beleaguered actress.
"Wrong! Completely wrong!" Lin Fan's sharp voice cut through the morning mist. He pointed a trembling finger at the small, perfectly stable flame hovering over a bowl of water in front of Yue Qingqian. "The flame control is flawless, but there's no emotion in it! It needs to flicker with the profound melancholy of a thousand-year-old spirit turtle contemplating the transient nature of existence! Again!"
Yue Qingqian, her face pale with exhaustion, wanted to scream. A thousand-year-old turtle? How am I supposed to know what that feels like?! But she didn't dare. She took a deep breath, tried to imagine herself as a very old, very sad turtle, and focused on the flame again. It wavered slightly, a little more erratically this time.
"Better!" Lin Fan conceded, though he still looked dissatisfied. "But the poetry! The poetry is the soul of this performance! Let's hear the second stanza again. From the top!"
Yue Qingqian cleared her throat and began to recite the lines Lin Fan had written for her, her voice trying its best to sound ethereal and detached.
"The dust... remembers the mountain's dream... The silence... drinks the fallen moonlight..."
"No, no, no!" Lin Fan interrupted, clutching his head in frustration. "There's too much 'you' in the voice! It needs to be less like a person speaking and more like a whisper from the void itself! Imagine your vocal cords are made of mist and regret! Again!"
For seven days, they rehearsed like this from dawn until dusk. Every gesture was choreographed, every word's intonation was scrutinized, and every flicker of the flame was assigned a specific, absurd emotional weight. Yue Qingqian had to learn how to sprinkle a handful of dirt onto the ground with an expression that conveyed "the sorrow of a fallen star returning to cosmic dust." She had to learn how to make a single leaf spin on the water's surface in a way that suggested "a joyful reunion with a forgotten memory."
By the sixth day, she was so mentally drained that she was sure she was actually losing her mind. She started seeing Dao-related meanings in everything. A passing cloud wasn't just a cloud; it was a "symphony of impermanence." The chirping of a bird was a "manifestation of the world's vibrant, yet fleeting, life force."
Seeing this, Lin Fan finally nodded in approval. "Good. You're getting into character."
On the morning of the seminar, the atmosphere on Xiao Xiao Peak was as tense as the eve of a great battle. Lin Fan did a final inspection of Yue Qingqian's "costume"—her purple Quasi-Saintess robe, which she now wore with a practiced, otherworldly detachment.
He then presented her with his latest inventions, created specifically for this mission.
"First, this 'Pill of Profound Calm'," he said, handing her a small, white pill. "It will not affect your spiritual energy, but it will completely numb your stage fright and regulate your heartbeat. No matter how many people are staring at you, your body will show no signs of panic."
"Second, this." He carefully placed a tiny, almost invisible object made of spirit silk into her ear. "A one-way, short-range communication device. I will be in the audience, hidden. If you forget a line, if you panic, I will feed you your script. Do not, under any circumstances, acknowledge it. Just listen."
This was his ultimate fail-safe, the final expression of his control-freak nature.
He did one last check of the arrays around the peak, convinced that someone, somewhere, was trying to spy on their final preparations. Finally, satisfied that all precautions were in place, he looked at his Junior Sister.
"It's time," he said, his voice grim. "Remember the script. Remember your character. You are not a disciple. You are not a sword prodigy. Today, you are an enigma. Now, let's go."
Their journey down to the main lecture hall was a trial in itself. The entire sect was buzzing with anticipation. The news of Elder Liu's "great enlightenment" and the mysterious new disciple who had inspired it had spread like wildfire.
"Look, that's her! The Quasi-Saintess from the Ninth Peak!"
"I heard her theories are so profound that three alchemy masters fainted from shock after hearing them!"
"They say she doesn't concoct pills; she composes them, like music!"
The rumors had spiraled into myth, creating a level of hype that made Lin Fan's stomach churn with acid. They passed a group of disciples from Bai Cao Peak, led by a smug-looking Wang Teng and a composed, yet curious, Li Haoran. Their expressions clearly said, "Let's see what this fraud is really made of."
Finally, they arrived at the grand lecture hall. It was packed to the rafters. Hundreds of disciples filled the seats, with elders and deacons occupying the front rows. On the grand stage stood a single lectern, a table with a bowl of water, and a beaming, proud Elder Liu Changqing.
Lin Fan slipped away into the crowd, finding a dark, inconspicuous corner from which he had a clear view of the stage, melting into the shadows like he was born there.
Yue Qingqian took a deep, shuddering breath. The pill was working; her heart was steady, but her mind was screaming.
Elder Liu stepped forward, his voice booming with enthusiasm. "Brothers and sisters, fellow seekers of the Dao! Today, we are not here to discuss formulas or techniques. Today, we are here to witness a miracle! To share a glimpse into a Dao beyond our mundane comprehension, it is my supreme honor to present my disciple, the inspiration for this seminar... Quasi-Saintess Yue Qingqian!"
A wave of applause, mixed with murmurs of intense curiosity, filled the hall.
Yue Qingqian felt a gentle nudge from Elder Liu. This was her cue.
She took one step, then another, walking out from the shadows of the backstage area and into the blinding light of the stage's central spotlight. She faced the sea of hundreds of expectant faces, the crushing weight of their collective gaze pressing down on her.
She was alone. The show was about to begin.