The door to the small hut creaked on its hinges.

Chen Ping dragged his feet across the threshold and gently closed it behind him.

Outside, the daylight was bright, a rare clear and sunny day.

But Chen Ping… his eyes were sunken, a web of red veins stubbornly clung to the whites, and even his steps seemed unsteady.

Three months. A full ninety days. He had been like a prisoner nailed before the Alchemy Furnace.

Not a moment of rest.

The crackle of flames licking the furnace chamber, the acrid smell of failed medicinal liquid evaporation—these had long been seared into his bones, becoming part of his very breath.

Chen Ping walked straight to the corner where an unremarkable earthenware jar, specifically for holding Waste Residue, was piled.

Lifting the lid, a thick, choking odor of charred bitterness rushed out, making him instinctively turn his head aside.

The jar was almost full. Layers upon layers of dark brown residue piled up like a miniature mountain of failure.

Expressionlessly, he lifted the heavy Alchemy Furnace.

A few new scorch marks marred its surface, and the chipped edge seemed even more pronounced.

He tilted the furnace mouth toward the jar’s opening.

The remaining ashes inside the chamber, a sticky black paste, slid out silently.

This was the one-hundredth furnace.

The one-hundredth failure.

Chen Ping sighed helplessly.

His naive self had still underestimated the difficulty of Alchemy.

A stubborn bit of residue clung to the furnace mouth’s edge. He scraped it off forcefully with his thumb pad. The bit of residue tumbled down, merging into the deep brown sea of stillness.

He placed the furnace back in the center of the hut, on the stone floor long blackened by charcoal fire.

The soft clink of the furnace base meeting the stone slab was unusually clear in the overly quiet room.

He sat down cross-legged, his spine ramrod straight, and began circulating the Evergreen Art.

Faint Qi struggled to move through his parched Meridians.

Chen Ping once again replenished the Qi within his body, preparing to continue Alchemy.

Subtle footsteps sounded outside, stopping before the stone door.

Tap, tap, tap. Three light knocks.

Chen Ping slowly ended his Cultivation session and opened his bloodshot eyes.

Bai Zhi stood outside.

Today, she actually wore a form-fitting red dress. The vibrant color set off her snow-white skin and graceful figure. The skirt outlined smooth lines—a slender waist, and curves at her chest and hips that rose and fell beneath the fabric with a breathtaking elegance usually hidden by her loose clothing.

“Chen Ping?”

Bai Zhi’s voice held a trace of confusion as she knocked on the door again.

“What took you so long to open? Hiding treasures in there?”

Chen Ping collected himself and stepped aside from the doorway.

“It’s nothing. Just now… I was meditating and got a bit lost in it.”

He moved aside to let her in, his gaze sweeping over the heavy, steaming clay pot in her hands.

Bai Zhi’s eyes swept over his haggard face. The spiderweb of red in his eyes was glaringly obvious. Her brow furrowed almost imperceptibly.

She didn’t press further, just carefully pushed the clay pot into his hands.

“Here, take it.”

The pot walls were scalding hot and heavy.

A wave of warm air, thick with the scent of medicinal herbs and meat, rushed straight into Chen Ping’s face.

“This is my specially brewed Ten Complete Great Tonic Soup.”

Bai Zhi’s voice was a bit faster than usual.

“You look… terrible lately. If you keep pushing yourself like this, even an iron body won’t hold up.”

She paused briefly. Her gaze flickered over Chen Ping’s face again before darting away as if burned. Two faint blushes colored her cheeks.

“You… make sure to rest more. Don’t always shut yourself away alone.”

Before her words fully faded, she had already turned and hurried out like a startled rabbit. The flash of bright red skirt disappeared beyond the doorframe.

The stone door cut off both the outside daylight and that brief intrusion of vibrant color.

In the small hut, only the faint bubbling sound from within the clay pot remained.

Chen Ping stood there holding the pot. His thumb pads clearly felt several warm fingerprints lingering on its surface.

Bai Zhi had probably been afraid it would get cold. She must have carried it all this way with her hands pressed against it until her fingers turned red from the heat.

He lowered his head to look at the steam gently rising from the pot’s opening.

He had made desserts for Bai Zhi to trade for information. But she brought this heavy pot of soup simply because she saw he looked unwell.

The difference in weight between these two acts pressed heavily on his heart.

An unfamiliar warmth—like that from the clay pot—slowly seeped from his fingertips up along his arm, trying to dispel that bone-deep weariness and chill.

Ever since his parents left him…

This was the first time he had felt concern from another person.

He silently walked over to sit at that simple stone table and lifted off the clay pot lid.

The soup was thick and milky white. Inside floated pieces of meat stewed until tender along with medicinal herbs.

He scooped up a spoonful, blew on it gently, and slowly brought it to his mouth.

The scalding broth slid down his throat carrying that characteristic slight bitterness followed by sweetness from medicinal herbs warming him all the way down into his stomach; it seemed even his stiff limbs began to loosen slightly too.

He drank slowly, spoonful by spoonful.

Warmth from the soup along with those words “Don’t always shut yourself away alone” circled within his mind.

After who knows how long, the bottom became visible inside the clay pot.

He put down the spoon, looking at the empty bottom, eyes gradually settling into calmness.

Bai Zhi was right.

He was too tired.

Like a bowstring drawn taut to its limit, if not loosened soon, it would snap.

Chen Ping stood up, not heading toward the silent Alchemy Furnace in the center of the room, but turning instead toward the stone bed covered in cotton padding.

The instant his body touched the warmth, all the accumulated exhaustion, like bursting floodwaters, suddenly overwhelmed him.

He didn’t even have time to adjust to a comfortable position before his consciousness sank into the clouds.

When he opened his eyes again, the light coming through the sole small window in the stone wall was already a dusky yellow hue.

He had actually slept from yesterday evening straight through until the next afternoon!

Chen Ping sat up, moving his stiff neck joints, emitting slight cracking sounds.

A long-absent sense of relaxation spread throughout his limbs, his mind clearer than it had been in a long time, as if accumulated dust had been washed clean by torrential rain.

Within his Dantian, the originally parched Qi was now restored to full, even more active than before, flowing slowly through his Meridians and bringing a warm, comfortable sensation.

Remembering yesterday’s flash of red and the graceful figure, he couldn’t help but chuckle softly aloud.

Feeling cared for was truly a wonderful thing indeed.

If possible, his future self would definitely repay Bai Zhi… with a ‘Yongquan Node repayment’!

His gaze subconsciously turned toward the center of the room.

That small bronze Alchemy Furnace, covered in scratches and chipped at the edge, was still silently squatting atop the charcoal-blackened stone slab.

No disgust, no tension, not even an urgent impulse remained now.

A strange calm enveloped him as if he had reached some new tacit understanding with this furnace itself.

It was merely a tool; the key to success or failure lay in the person using it.

He walked over beside the Alchemy Furnace and sat down cross-legged, movements steady and focused.

Silver Thread Charcoal reignited, orange-yellow flames at the bottom of the furnace dancing, emitting stable heat energy.

No longer forcing himself to recall those obscure Fire Control techniques, relying solely on three months of accumulated, nearly instinctive physical sense, he adjusted the position and quantity of charcoal pieces, letting heat energy envelop the furnace body as evenly as possible.

Qi merely served as an auxiliary, carefully sensing temperature changes in the furnace walls.

A new round of refining officially began.