A month passed, and a new, tense equilibrium settled over the Unyielding Sword Sect.
In the Inner Sect, Su Linyue was a phenomenon. Her dramatic rise from "cripple" to "genius" was the talk of the disciples, but her transition into the Alchemy Pavilion was not a smooth one.
The alchemists were a proud, insular faction. They saw her as a "brute"—a sword cultivator whose miraculous recovery had given her power, but not the delicate refinement needed for their art.
She was an outsider, tolerated only because of her raw power, and she knew it.
Gu Xuan, in contrast, sank even deeper into his anonymity. He was the ghost of the archives, a name already forgotten.
This anonymity was his shield, allowing him to move unseen, his nights spent poring over the Primal Chaos Union Scripture and the sect's most obscure alchemical and biographical records.
They met in the dead of night, in a ruined watchtower on the sect's desolate border.
"They despise me," Su Linyue reported, her voice flat. She stood silhouetted against the broken window, the moonlight tracing the sharp, proud line of her jaw. "They see me as a warrior playing with bottles. They give me menial tasks—sorting herbs, cleaning cauldrons."
"It's perfect," Gu Xuan's voice came from the shadows. "They don't see you as a threat. They don't see you as a rival. It gives you the freedom to observe."
"I've observed her," Su Linyue said, a new coldness entering her tone. "Bai Xiaofei."
Her report was as precise as her swordplay. Bai Xiaofei was the undisputed prodigy of the pavilion, a genius who lived and breathed alchemy.
She was arrogant, obsessive, and utterly brilliant. She had no friends, only assistants she treated like servants.
Her entire life revolved around her personal refinement lab, where she was chasing a breakthrough to become a true Second-Grade Alchemist.
"But she has a flaw," Su Linyue continued. "You were right. Her constitution. She's a master of any ice- or water-attributed pill. But I've seen her try to refine three different fire-aspected pills. Every single one has failed. The last one... the cauldron exploded. She was furious. No one has dared speak to her for three days."
Gu Xuan stepped out of the shadows. The Veil of Mortal Dust was active, his face plain and unremarkable. In his hand, he held a single, yellowed piece of parchment.
"This," he said, "is your key."
Su Linyue took it. The parchment was covered in archaic script, detailing the formula for a pill she had never heard of: the "Ice-Heart, Fire-Core Pill."
It was an impossibly complex pill that, according to the notes, required the simultaneous refinement of a hundred-year-old Frost Jade Ginseng and a live, volatile Sunflare Lizard core.
Yin and Yang. Ice and Fire. It was a recipe for a bomb.
"This formula is incomplete," Su Linyue noted, her alchemical knowledge sharp. "The final stabilization sequence is missing."
"Exactly," Gu Xuan said. "It's a fragment I 'discovered' in a long-dead elder's journal. It's an unsolvable puzzle. And to a mind like Bai Xiaofei's, an unsolvable puzzle is an irresistible challenge."
He outlined the plan. It was simple, elegant, and cruel.
"She is arrogant," Gu Xuan explained, his voice a calm, strategic whisper. "But her arrogance is a shield for her greatest insecurity: this very flaw. You will not challenge her. You will not ask for her help. You will simply..."
Two days later, Su Linyue was assigned to the main refinement hall, tasked with grinding spiritual herbs—a job for an apprentice.
Bai Xiaofei was three tables down, her aura a focused, icy wall as she meticulously prepared for another refinement.
Su Linyue "tripped."
It was a convincing stumble, one that sent her and her tray of herbs sprawling. The yellowed parchment Gu Xuan had given her flew from her sleeve and skidded across the floor, landing directly at Bai Xiaofei's feet.
"Clumsy fool," one of the senior alchemists sneered. "A sword hand has no place here."
Su Linyue ignored him, her face flushing with "embarrassment" as she scrambled to pick up her things.
She reached for the parchment, but Bai Xiaofei's boot was already on it.
Bai Xiaofei bent down, her movements graceful. She picked up the parchment, her eyes scanning the formula.
A flicker of disdain crossed her perfect, porcelain features. "This is... absurd. A child's fantasy. Combining these two elements is impossible."
She tossed the parchment back at Su Linyue's feet. "Stop carrying trash with you, Junior Sister Su. It clutters the pavilion."
She turned back to her cauldron as if nothing had happened.
Su Linyue quietly gathered the parchment and returned to her station, her head bowed in "shame."
But as she ground the herbs, a tiny, hidden smile touched her lips. She had seen it—the flicker deep in Bai Xiaofei's eyes.
The obsessive, hungry gleam of an alchemist who had just been told something was impossible.
The bait was set.
That night, the entire Alchemy Pavilion was shaken by a violent, muffled BOOM.
A plume of thick, black smoke poured from the chimney of Bai Xiaofei's private lab. Disciples ran to see what had happened, only to be met by the lab door flying open.
Bai Xiaofei stalked out, her face covered in soot, her silver robes scorched, and her hair frazzled.
Her chest was heaving, and her eyes, usually so cold and controlled, were wide with a mixture of pure, unadulterated fury and a terrifying, obsessive curiosity.
She had failed. The Ice-Heart, Fire-Core Pill was impossible.
And yet... that clumsy, brute-force sword cultivator had been studying it. Why? How?
For the first time in her life, Bai Xiaofei, the untouchable genius, was confronted with a puzzle she could not solve. And she was absolutely, incandescently enraged by it.