“Feng Wu!” I shouted, voice breaking before I could stop it.
The green-robed figures all turned as one. Torches flared. Hands moved toward weapons.
“Hold!” one barked. “Who goes—”
Feng Wu stepped forward. His eyes locked with mine. Narrowed. Cautious.
Then they widened.
“…Kai?”
The na left his mouth in disbelief, quiet enough I almost missed it. But I didn’t.
I stumbled forward, the harness slipping off my shoulders as I let go of the carriage. The wood thudded against the dirt. My knees nearly buckled from exhaustion; but I didn’t fall.
Feng Wu approached, hesitating only for a breath before breaking into a run.
I t him halfway and threw my arms around him, too drained to care if it looked desperate.
"You're alive."
He was stiff at first, caught off guard. Then his hand clapped against my back.
“I thought you—” I pulled back. “With Crescent Bay under siege, and the reports about the Silent Moon… no communication for months... I thought the worst.”
Feng Wu blinked twice, as if still trying to make sense of . “What are you doing here?”
“I ca to help,” I said, gesturing to the carriage behind . “To bring the cure. And supplies. For the Athyst Plague.”
I looked past him. The village square was quiet, torch-lit. n and won leaned against railings, wrapped in blankets. The symptoms were clear: pallid skin, sunken cheeks, faint tremors in their limbs. All of it familiar.
I scanned the crowd for one face.
“Hua Lingsheng. Is he—?”
Feng Wu touched my arm, bringing back. “He’s alive.”
“You managed to distribute the Violet Bloom Antidote as well?”
Feng Wu gave a tired nod. “Barely. The Alchemy Association and Verdant Lotus have been pushing it to as many places as we can reach. Gentle Wind was next on our list. Guess you beat us to it.”
That stunned more than it should have. I knew the Violet Bloom Antidote wasn’t so guarded secret. The Association had even shared the formula during the Gauntlet. But for Verdant Lotus to be distributing it here, to a village this far out, ant they had to be producing it at scale.
“But how?” I asked. “I know what’s in it. Bloodthorn Seeds are hard to grow, not produced at this scale. Not for this many. You’d need tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of doses.”
Feng Wu tilted his head, studying . “How did you manage it?”
I blinked.
He gestured to the carriage. “If you managed to cure Gentle Wind, it couldn't have been with the antidote; Bloodthorn Seeds take months to grow. Did you find a substitute? And you didn’t carry all this down, did you? Where's your horse?”
“No horse,” I admitted. “I ran.”
That got a few stunned glances from the other disciples. I didn’t explain.
“I modified the formulation,” I said instead. “The original antidote was brilliant, but it had weaknesses. It cured the person, yes. Even gave them so resistance. But it didn’t fix the damage. The crops remained spoiled. Water still tainted. People would live only to die later from what the plague left behind.”
Feng Wu frowned. “You’re saying yours fixes that?”
I didn’t answer. I stepped to the side and drew out the Dawnsoul Mist Bloom from my satchel. The vial glimred under torchlight, pink-gold essence swirling like a calm storm.
Then I activated the Refinent Simulation Technique. Currents. Wind direction. I turned slowly, eyes narrowing.
“The wind’s coming down from the northeast,” I said aloud. “It should catch in the main square if we deploy it here.”
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Feng Wu blinked. “Deploy?”
I nodded once.
“Gather everyone. As many as you can. I’ll show you.”
Without waiting, I stepped into the center of the square. My arm raised high.
The vial trembled faintly in my grip.
Then—I shattered it against the stone.
The Dawnsoul Mist Bloom erupted into a shimring mist. Not a loud explosion. No theatrical burst of light. Just a bloom of fine, glimring vapor, rolling outward on the breeze like breath in winter air.
People gasped. So staggered.
But the mist passed through them. Around them. Into them.
And then the change began.
The trembling slowed. Shoulders relaxed. The pallor faded from their skin.
And the earth changed with them.
Flowers at the square’s edge straightened. Grass, once pale and crumbling, deepened to healthy green. The water bucket by the well began to lose its iridescent sheen.
Feng Wu stood frozen.
One of his fellow disciples whispered, “That… That purged the field.”
“Impossible,” another muttered. “Even the Alchemy Association hasn’t—”
“How?” Feng Wu asked, voice low.
I turned to him. “The Bloodsoul Bloom.”
Silence and confusion reigned for a mont. But as Feng Wu's expression searched my face, it clicked. His face twisted in astonishnt.
“You used it?” he whispered
I nodded. “The sa power the cultists drew from. We encountered cultists. Found seeds, what they used it for. I transford it. Refined it into a counteragent.”
Feng Wu ran a hand through his hair, dazed. “Disregarding that last part, where you said you encountered cultists... This is incredible, Kai.”
I stared at him.
And asked, “How did the Association keep up with demand? If what you said was right, then did you guys find a solution? To deal with the shortage of ingredients?”
Feng Wu hesitated.
Then, reluctantly, he glanced over his shoulder.
“Well…”
Sowhere far from Qingmu, in a village blanketed by fog and fatigue, a hush had fallen.
Until violet mist poured across the square like perfu uncorked from heaven.
“Alright!” a flamboyant voice rang out. “Step forward, step proud, and breathe deep!”
Villagers blinked, hesitated—then the speaker erged through the mist, arms spread wide.
Bai Hua.
Heir to Sumr Sun Costics. Now draped in silk robes that shimred with gold thread, embroidered with magnolias and lotuses.
“This mist won’t just banish that nasty Athyst Plague,” he trilled, “it’ll leave your skin radiant. Like spring dew on glazed porcelain!”
Several villagers gawked. One coughed uncertainly.
Bai Hua didn’t flinch. He drew a second vial from his sash and flung it into the wind. The mist doubled, catching in the light like spilled moonlight.
“And if you’re wondering who to thank…” He struck a pose, chin tilted. “Don’t worry. I’ll be here all week. But do avoid eating fernted soy or taking qi-circulation boosters for the next twelve hours. Interferes with the reagent bonding and renders the mist completely inert.”
Miles away, in the outer courtyard of a mid-tier sect built into the side of a crumbling cliff, a massive pair of doors slamd open.
“CLEAR A PATH!” a voice roared. “Violet Bloom Antidotes incoming—and if your weapon’s chipped, I’m taking commissions too!”
Disciples scattered as Tao Ren strode through the gate like he owned it. Soot sared his jaw, his sleeves were scorched from the forge, and a crate full of vials bounced on one shoulder. Behind him, a squad of Alchemy Association mbers followed in a far more dignified procession; robes neat, hair tied, expressions tight.
And at the rear of the group, an older man with silver-threaded hair and a permanent scowl muttered under his breath, “Ren, for heaven’s sake—focus. We’re here to distribute dicine, not peddle forge work.”
Tao Ren didn’t even turn. “I am distributing dicine, Dad. While also stimulating the local economy.”
Master Lei Ren exhaled through his nose. “You’re stimulating my patience.”
Tao Ren planted the crate down with a thud in the center of the sect’s square. “Step up if you're sick! Coughing blood? Shaking limbs? Vision of your ancestors? This’ll sort you out.”
He flung a vial to a dazed third-class disciple. “Down the hatch. Spit to the left if it burns. If it doesn’t work, complain to the heavens, not .”
A confused cultivator raised a hand. “And, uh… what was that about commissions?”
Tao Ren’s grin spread. “Jade Fla Foundry’s open for orders. Weapon reforging, armor repairs, and everything in between. I’ll bring your requests back. But,” he added, raising a finger, “backlog’s growing. Saving lives takes priority. You want fancy etchings on your blade, you wait your turn.”
And at the very heart of it all—
Crescent Bay.
Zhi Ruo burst through the door of the Whispering Wind's Alchemy Pavilion, panting. He ran past other disciples, weaving in between crates, until he reached the eastern wing.
“Pavilion Leader!” he gasped. “I— I found a reduction pathway! I completed the Interface quest!”
In the corner, the head of the room looked up, calm as ever.
Jingyu Lian. Silver hair in a tight braid, robes crisp as winter snow. Her expression did not change.
Zhi Ruo slapped a scroll onto the table. “If we re-sequence the Bloodthorn component and cut the Red Mallow base with diluted Lunar Salt, we can reduce the base consumption by a third. And retain eighty-five percent efficacy.”
For a mont, silence.
Then Jingyu Lian nodded. “Give it to .”
She didn’t thank him. She just moved.
Circles of golden script flared across her workbench as she activated a preset formation. Her fingers moved faster than Zhi Ruo could follow—having achieved an entirely new level since her participation in the Gauntlet.
And in seconds, a new antidote blood in the cauldron’s heart, pulsing with refined qi.
Zhi Ruo swallowed.
Lian finally spoke again.
“Go. Get this to distribution. Disseminate the information to the other alchemists.”
He nodded and ran, scroll in hand, heels echoing down the stone halls.
Behind him, Jingyu Lian stood motionless, watching the antidote swirl.
I stood there, blinking like an idiot.
Because I realized how narrow my thinking had been.
All this ti, I thought I was alone. That Gentle Wind was a fluke. That the Interface had chosen as so kind of exception.
But it wasn’t just us.
The Interface had awakened an entire province.
Alchemy was evolving. The Violet Bloom Antidote had spread. And with it, ingenuity had followed. Bai Hua, Tao Ren, Zhi Ruo, Jingyu Lian... all of them were finding ways to adjust, adapt, reduce reliance on rare ingredients like Bloodthorn Seeds. The Association had seeded a wave of distributed progress.
The plague had returned, but so had we. And the Interface had beco a vessel upon which we prevented repeating the mistakes of the past.
Stronger. Faster. Smarter.
But from their words, it was clear mine was still the only formula that could cleanse more than just flesh.
Feng Wu glanced my way, reading the look on my face. “I appreciate it, but don’t offer up that sample yet.”
I nodded slowly. “I can write down the formulation. The thod I used to temper the Bloodsoul Bloom; how I reshaped it into a counter-agent. It might not be easy, but I'm certain soone could replicate it to an extent.”
“Perfect,” he said. “Give us that process. We'll send it to the Association when we return.”
“Return?” I tilted my head.
He motioned to the other disciples, who were still watching the square in a stunned hush.
“We were ant to continue on to Gentle Wind, but clearly, you’ve already handled that. We’ll reroute. Hit the other villages nearby; ones even further out that haven’t received the Antidote yet.”
That snapped into motion. It made think of how little information passed through. Feng Wu probably hasn't even realized Pingyao had fallen.
“Wait. Take these, then.”
I gestured to the carriage, unstrapping one of the containers.
“There’s a few batches of salves and cures I made. Grain, too. Take what you can carry. And in case it helps…” I paused. “I’ll take a few of your Violet Bloom Antidotes too. Just to have options.”
Feng Wu smiled faintly. “Smart. Covering both paths."
I nodded, turning to follow him.
But before I could take a full step—
“Elder Brother Kai!”
I turned just in ti to catch a blur of motion as Hua Lingsheng barreled into , nearly knocking over.
I laughed, arms wrapping around the boy instinctively.
“You’re alright,” I murmured, sinking to one knee.
He bead up at , eyes red-rimd but bright. “You said you’d co back.”
“I did,” I said. “Sorry it took so long.”
His parents stood nearby, thinner than I rembered, but alive. The sight hit harder than any breakthrough ever had.
“Co on,” I said, rising. “Let’s get so food in our bellies. We’ve got a lot to catch up on.”
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