Xie Guanqi came—and just as quickly, he left again, carrying several freshly prepared bundles of medicinal herbs.
Lin Zhengdu could tell he was in a hurry. While he lounged in a chair waiting for her to finish measuring out the herbs, the Sword Sect token hanging at his waist flickered with a faint red glow. She glanced at it several times, clearly concerned, but Xie Guanqi acted as if he were blind to it—neither acknowledging the signal nor urging her to hurry.
After seeing him off, Lin Zhengdu cleaned up the toxic “cake” scattered across the preparation room floor. Then she stared at the porcelain bowl and pestle on the table, falling into deep thought.
This had just been an accident.
She reflected on herself: it had been far too long since she’d cooked properly. And that bowl—she’d used it last year to grind poison. No wonder she’d forgotten.
Slapping her thigh, she made a decision: she would go down the mountain and buy proper kitchen utensils.
At the very least, she needed a pot used solely for cooking—not one that alternated between reheating pastries and brewing cold medicine.
Braving wind and snow, she went down the mountain, bought what she needed, and even spent half the day seeing patients at the clinic. By the time dusk settled, she returned to her courtyard carrying pots, bowls, and fresh vegetables.
Considering it had been over twenty years since she last cooked seriously, Lin Zhengdu chose the simplest dish imaginable: shredded potatoes.
Slicing was no challenge for her. In fact, cutting the potatoes into even, delicate strips gave her a strange sense of familiarity—it felt a bit like handling certain… special corpses.
Plant corpses were still corpses, after all. She saw nothing wrong with the comparison.
She didn’t cut herself once, and the potato strips were perfectly uniform. Up to this point, everything had gone smoothly, and her confidence soared.
Lin Zhengdu took a bite.
Lin Zhengdu turned her head and spat it out.
She collapsed into her reclining chair, speaking peacefully to herself, “Tomorrow… I’ll borrow a few cookbooks from the library.”
After lying there in a daze for a while, she raised her right hand and examined the back of it. Her slender fingers spread open, revealing a perfectly fitted ring on her ring finger, its gemstone shimmering faintly.
The emerald accentuated her pale skin, and the slight prominence of her knuckles only made her fingers look longer and more elegant.
This storage ring was of high quality—it could automatically sort items, retrieve objects at will, and even store living beings. The gemstone embedded in it was of the ice attribute. Ice and water were closely linked, and Lin Zhengdu could even draw on its spiritual energy to create ice.
…Which meant she could make shaved ice in the summer.
She should return a gift of similar value… though she had already given Xie Guanqi the antidote to the epidemic ghost poison. That was worth far more than this ring—did that settle things?
But then again, he had helped her gather many materials without charging spirit stones.
No, of course he shouldn’t charge his lifesaver and friend!
Besides, he had already planned to enter the depths of the snowy mountains. Those medical cultivators he encountered—what sect were they from? Were they men or women? Strong or weak? What kind of tools did they use?
Lin Zhengdu narrowed her eyes, idly turning her wrist. The gemstone’s green glow flickered like butterflies across her nose and lashes.
The shifting reflections mirrored her restless thoughts.
She suddenly couldn’t lie still any longer. Leaping to her feet, she rushed toward the library—not for cookbooks, but for the cultivation notes left behind by senior disciples.
Thirteen days after Xie Guanqi left, a spirit bird delivered his letter. He had already reached the Snow Nation, just in time for the pufferfish hunt.
Lin Zhengdu wrote back, firmly telling him not to eat the pufferfish beneath the ice.
Throughout the winter, letters from the north drifted into her small courtyard like falling snow, piling up in her unused herb baskets. She was too busy to craft anything, squeezing every spare moment into cultivation.
Her diligence finally paid off. As the snow melted outside her courtyard’s protective array, her early-stage Second Realm cultivation began to loosen, inching toward the middle stage.
Her master, Immortal Peilan, noticed the progress and suggested it was time for her to choose a natal artifact.
“With a natal artifact,” Peilan said, “you can determine your cultivation path. Your progress will also accelerate.”
Lin Zhengdu understood. It was like choosing between academic tracks—or picking a university major. Most cultivators could only focus on one path. Those who tried to walk many rarely ascended.
Take Peilan herself: though her medical cultivation was only at the Sixth Realm, her overall strength was that of a true immortal. Because medicine wasn’t her main discipline—her natal artifact was a flowing silk ribbon, and she excelled at overcoming strength with softness, defeating many with few.
Medicine was just her hobby.
“The problem is,” Lin Zhengdu sighed, slumped over the table, twisting the silk ribbon around her master’s arm, “I don’t know what to choose. Honestly, I’m not interested in any weapon.”
Peilan considered this seriously. “Don’t you enjoy making those tinkering crafts? How about a hammer?”
Lin Zhengdu stared at her. “The point is the crafting, not the hammer! Why would liking crafts make me like using a hammer?!”
She imagined herself wielding a hammer in battle—and immediately rejected the idea.
“I refuse to use a hammer!”
Peilan nodded thoughtfully. “Then what about a scalpel? Like the one you use for dissections.”
“…That’s worth considering,” Lin Zhengdu admitted. “But that’s a close-range weapon, right? I don’t want to fight people face-to-face!”
Frowning, she cupped her cheeks. “If I had a metal or earth spiritual root, I could control swords at a distance. But I’m water and wood… Water is hopeless. As for wood…”
Peilan suddenly slapped the table. “I know where to find wood perfect for a scalpel. Wait here.”
“Huh?”
Peilan moved with startling efficiency. One moment she stood, the next she had already vanished—reappearing at the Sword Sect’s Yan Chou Mountain Pavilion.
Less than the time it took to burn an incense stick later, she was back, holding a pitch-black log over three meters long.
“A thousand-year thunderstruck wood,” she said eagerly, handing it over. “Durable, perfectly aligned with your attributes—wood with lightning properties. It’ll also work with your water root.”
“…Where did you even get this?” Lin Zhengdu asked cautiously. “I’m pretty sure our sect doesn’t have thunderstruck wood this old.”
Peilan smiled. “From Elder Yunsheng of the Sword Sect. He’s a workaholic—loves pushing himself and his disciples. Their faction travels the most, hunting demons, so they have the richest stockpile.”
Lin Zhengdu hesitated. “But something this valuable… why would he just give it to us?”
“Because we’re friends,” Peilan replied matter-of-factly. “That’s not important. What matters is you refine it first—turn it into a scalpel. Then find a smith to forge it further.”
There were plenty of disciples in the Medicine Sect who knew forging. Natal artifacts could be refined and reshaped multiple times anyway—she just needed to find someone she trusted.
Though she hadn’t yet decided who to ask, Lin Zhengdu carried the thunderstruck wood back and began refining it.
Refining a natal artifact was a long process. One had to envelop the material with spiritual energy, gradually assimilating it—like kneading dough, blending energy and matter into one.
Only then would the artifact recognize its master and obey no one else.
Balancing cultivation and refinement left Lin Zhengdu exhausted. She barely slept, and her hair began falling out more than usual. At times, she felt like she’d returned to high school—except studying had been replaced by cultivation.
The weather grew hotter. The Medicine Mountain returned to lush greenery, cicadas singing endlessly.
In the blink of an eye, it was the fourth day of the sixth month.
Her birthday.
Lin Zhengdu decided to give herself the day off.
She slept until the sun was high, ate boiled eggs, and dressed in a pomegranate-red robe with peacock-blue ribbons. She tied her hair into the only style she knew—a bun that, thanks to her thick, long hair, resembled a proper ancient coiffure.
Afterward, she picked through her jewelry, selecting a pale yellow tassel hairpin and a soft blue velvet flower ornament.
The colorful outfit brought a lively brightness to her otherwise gentle features.
A beauty didn’t need to worry about mismatched styles.
She studied herself in the mirror, then dabbed a touch of cherry-red rouge onto her lips.
No one would come looking for her today. She had never told her fellow disciples her true birthday. They celebrated the day Peilan found her instead—so she effectively had two birthdays.
That hadn’t been her original intention.
It was simply because she knew—she could never go back.
Time would erase much of her past. Her memories were slowly filled with her master and fellow disciples. But her birthday… she wanted to keep it for herself, and for those she could never see again.
She went down to the town, ate her favorite meal, wandered aimlessly through the crowds, buying snacks and fireworks.
At night, by the farewell pavilion outside town, she lit all the fireworks at once. They burst into dazzling colors across the sky, so bright that even the stars and moon faded in comparison.
The explosions rang in her ears, leaving only a dull buzzing behind.
Gathering her skirt, she released a wish lantern onto the water.
The summer night was still. She blew a breath of spiritual energy across the surface, turning it into a cool breeze that carried the lantern farther away. Its reflection shimmered on the rippling water, illuminating her face.
She watched it for a long time before sighing softly. “Good thing I’m a cultivator. At twenty-five, I’m still young—no one’s pressuring me to marry.”
The fireworks burned out.
The lantern drifted beyond sight.
She walked home slowly, her storage ring holding a steaming bowl of longevity noodles—bought fresh from the town, along with a full feast. She never treated herself poorly when she had the chance.
Passing the river she always crossed, she grew tired. Slipping off her shoes, she stepped into the cool water and sat on a rock, letting the breeze wash over her.
The riverside grass had just begun to grow, swaying gently and slicing the moonlight into fragments.
She stared at the reflection of the moon, lost in thought. Without noticing, her grip on her skirt loosened—the red fabric slipped from her knees, about to dip into the water—
When it was caught.
By a sword sheath.
The soft, wrinkled red fabric draped over the cold black sheath like a vivid creature trying to swallow it whole—but it could only cover, not consume. The sheath held it steady, not a single corner touching the water.
Startled, Lin Zhengdu looked up.
Xie Guanqi stood before her, holding the sheath.
His lashes were lowered, his gaze fixed on her. The scar on his cheek had faded so much it was nearly invisible under the moonlight. Shadows traced along his jaw and throat, his Adam’s apple shifting slightly.
After a moment of silence, he spoke.
“Doctor Lin… are you sick?”
“Your lips… are very red.”