The revelation hung in the air like a death sentence.
"The Dragon-Locking Pool?" Yue Qingqian repeated, her voice barely audible. Her mind was instantly filled with the memory of that colossal, terrifying serpent and its suffocating aura. "Senior Brother, that's... that's impossible. It's a forbidden zone! Even if we could get past the sect's restrictions, the serpent demon is there! It's a Demon King!"
"I am aware," Lin Fan said calmly, though a muscle twitched in his jaw. "And you are correct. Fighting it is out of the question. That is the path of a protagonist, and we are not protagonists. We are thieves. We will go there not to conquer, but to steal, and we will do it without the serpent ever knowing we were there."
He had already spent the last two days of his seclusion planning for this contingency. He laid out several new, peculiar-looking gadgets on the stone table.
"Based on my research, I've created these." He held up a smooth, grey pearl. "A 'Breath-Concealing Pearl'. It doesn't just hide your aura; it actively absorbs the ambient energy of the immediate environment and replicates it. Submerged in the Dragon-Locking Pool, it will make you smell and feel like a part of the cold, stagnant water itself."
Next, he showed her a set of small, intricate tools made of bone and hardened wood. "Non-spiritual digging tools. They won't trigger any energy-based wards the serpent may have set up."
Finally, he displayed a small, folded disc of interwoven runes. "A miniature 'Pocket-Space Array'. When activated, it will create a tiny, temporary bubble of warped space just large enough for you to work in, shielding your movements from the surrounding water pressure and the serpent's passive senses. It will last for exactly one incense stick's worth of time before collapsing."
He had the tools. He had the plan for the heist itself. But the biggest problem remained.
"These are all useless if we can't get there," Yue Qingqian pointed out, her voice still shaky. "The entrance to the forbidden zone is guarded."
"Correct," Lin Fan agreed. "Which means we need a legitimate, undeniable, and utterly insane reason to be there. We need an official invitation. And there is only one person in this entire sect foolish enough—or rather, enlightened enough—to grant us one."
Yue Qingqian's eyes widened in realization. "Elder Liu..."
"Precisely," Lin Fan said, a cunning light dancing in his eyes. "It is time for another performance, Junior Sister. Perhaps your greatest one yet."
The new script was his most daring to date.
Yue Qingqian would go to Liu Changqing. She would not mention the Dragon-Locking Pool. Instead, she would present a new, profound crisis in her 'Dao of Harmony'. She would explain, with great sorrow, that her harmony had become... imbalanced. After "listening" to the loud, aggressive "song" of Jian Wuchen's sword, her own inner melody had become too high-pitched, too sharp. It lacked a foundational bass note.
A few days later, Yue Qingqian found Liu Changqing in his garden, meditating. She approached him, her face a mask of profound, artistic turmoil.
"Master," she said, her voice filled with a fragile confusion. "I have a problem with my Dao."
Liu Changqing was instantly at her side, his face etched with concern. "My child, what is it? Tell me everything!"
"After the duel," she began, reciting Lin Fan's words perfectly, "the song of the sword was too loud. It has made my own song... incomplete. I have tried to find balance by listening to the quiet songs of the herbs and the wind, but it is not enough. My harmony is missing a deep note... a low, ancient, slumbering song. A song of immense, sleeping power."
She looked up at him, her eyes wide with a manufactured, dream-like memory. "I saw it in a meditation last night, Master. I heard a slow, deep heartbeat from the very core of the mountain. A song that felt as old as the world itself. I feel... I feel that if I cannot listen to that song, my harmony will shatter."
Liu Changqing listened, his expression shifting from concern to shock, and finally, to utter, ecstatic comprehension.
A deep, ancient, slumbering song? A heartbeat from the core of the mountain? There was only one thing in the entire sect that fit such a profound, esoteric description! The Blackwater Serpent Demon!
He was horrified and thrilled at the same time. His disciple's Dao was so advanced, so attuned to the world, that she could hear the very life force of a slumbering Demon King! This wasn't a crisis; it was a sign of unparalleled genius!
"The Dragon-Locking Pool..." he breathed, the name spoken with a mixture of terror and awe.
"I must listen to the deep song, Master," Yue Qingqian whispered, her performance reaching its peak. "Just for a little while. From a safe distance. It is the bass note my soul is missing."
Any other elder would have thrown her out for such a suicidal, insane request.
But Liu Changqing was not any other elder. He was a patron of the arts, and his star artist was on the verge of creating her magnum opus.
"Unbelievable! Profound!" he declared, his eyes blazing with fanatical devotion. "To seek harmony in the heart of discord! To find a bass note in the slumber of a great beast! This is the Dao! My disciple, your courage and insight are boundless!"
He made his decision. "Do not worry! A master's duty is to help his disciple walk her path, no matter how perilous! I will go to the Sect Master myself! I will not ask for you to enter the forbidden zone, that is impossible! But I will petition, with all my authority, for you to be allowed to meditate at the very edge of the Dragon-Airlocking Pool, under my personal, watchful eye, to complete your 'symphony'! He cannot refuse such a sincere plea for enlightenment!"
With that, he stormed off, a man on a holy quest to facilitate the most dangerous art project in the sect's history.
Yue Qingqian watched him go, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm against her ribs.
The stage was set for their most impossible heist yet.