On the morning the pill furnace learned to run, the clouds above Azure Radiance Sect looked particularly innocent.
They swam across a sky washed clear by dawn rain, soft as the underbelly of spirit cat. Birds chattered in the peach groves, disciples chattered louder on the steps, and somewhere in the eastern herb terraces an extremely rare Moondew Orchid was slowly wilting yet still desperately clinging to life. It was, in short, the sort of morning destined for serenity.
Which was precisely why fate chose it for chaos.
He Yan stood in the Pillfire Hall, sleeves rolled to the elbows, hair pinned high with a white-jade stick, and eyes fixed on his furnace as if staring alone could coax perfection from stubborn copper. He was not tall, nor overtly intimidating, yet at just twenty eight years old had already reached the nascent soul a step away from the Immortal stage. The Elders of the Peaks were both proud and frustrated by him. And indeed, he could turn the most difficult task into an easy breeze and just as well, could turn the easiest one into a catastrophe.
Just like now, instead of following the conventional way to make things, just had to add his very touch!
“Third stir on the seventh breath,” He Yan murmured, voice calm, movements meticulous. “Color should shift from spring tea to pale honey. If it turns amber, we’re doomed.”
On the bench beside him, a small furred creature lifted its head: Snowball, a silver-furred, almond-eyed spirit ferret who had, over time, developed a cultivated palate for exploding pills and the patient disdain of a retired immortal.
“Chk,” Snowball observed with the gravity of a master reviewing a thesis.
“Yes, yes,” He Yan said, unbothered. “I know the orchid’s capillaries are temperamental. The stabilizer will—”
The door slammed open.
“—ruin everything,” finished a cool voice.
Shen Xun strode in as if the hall was a battlefield and the floorboards had personally offended him. Long-limbed, sword at hip, dark eyebrows drawn in a line that promised duels to anyone who dared breathe too loudly; Shen Xun had grown up on cliff edges and in the thick of drills, and it showed. He too, was part of the small handful of people in the Azure Radiance Sect who was in the nascent soul realm on the verge of the breaking to the Immortal realm just short of a tribulation. Though instead of entering seclusion, he had been punished by his Master, the Sect's leader to keep in check this troublesome junior of another Peak. He couldn't decide if he was happy to have someone to bicker with or annoyed to be delayed. So, there was a contained ferocity to the way he moved, all sharp lines and precise motion.
He stopped three paces from the worktable and crossed his arms. “What part of ‘do not use the main hall’ did you fail to interpret, He-shidi?”
He Yan didn’t look up. “The part where it applies to me.”
“That part applies especially to you.”
Snowball made a noise that could be translated as, He has a point.
He Yan finally glanced over, expression politely bland, which in He Yan-language translated to, Please evaporate. “Senior Brother Shen,” he said, voice smooth, “this is an emergency refinement for Elder Yao. The Moondew Orchid is near wilting. It will not last another day.”
Shen Xun tipped his chin at the furnace. “And if it explodes, Pillfire Hall won’t last another day.”
“It will not explode.”
“It always explodes.”
“Exaggeration.”
A beat of silence passed, in which the furnace burbled with what might have been enthusiasm or what might have been dread. Shen Xun exhaled slowly through his nose, the way one addresses a stubborn mount. “The Sect Leader is receiving envoys from Cloud Ladder Pavilion. If the main hall catches fire while he is offering tea, I will be blamed, for failing to stop you.”
He Yan suppressed the urge to notice the sun striking Shen Xun’s hair and turning it into beaten bronze. He also suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. He was, after all, secretly and catastrophically in love with the man, and such things require discipline. At the very least, he thought it was a secret.
“It won’t explode,” He Yan repeated, and just then, the furnace gave a low, speculative bloop.
They both looked at it.
The brew inside had, arguably, shifted from spring tea to pale honey. It had also, less arguably, begun to emit tiny silver sparks that weren’t in any manual He Yan had ever read nor had thought it would occur. The Moondew Orchid petals were supposed to dissolve with a sigh, not with a hiss that sounded like a cat meeting a dog in a narrow alley.
Shen Xun stepped closer. “What did you add?”
“Patience.”
“He Yan.”
He Yan pursed his lips. “A thinning whisker of lightning-tribulation iron, shaved so fine it measured in regrets.”
Shen Xun stared. “You put what into a healing pill?”
“It catalyzes the dew’s spiritual matrix. The text was… suggestive.”
“Which text?”
He Yan coughed lightly. “A marginal note on the back of a spirit beast care manual. The ink looked very authoritative.”
Snowball covered its face with both paws.
“You’re impossible,” Shen Xun said, but there was a line of worry between his brows now, and his gaze kept flicking to the furnace lid as if gauging the speed required to kick it out the window before it became a meteor. “How long?”
“Three breaths to temper, nine to condense, a quarter-stick to stabilize.” He Yan placed his palm just above the lid, feeling heat and the jittery tremor of frantic qi. “It’s fine. It’s just— spirited.”
Shen Xun’s jaw tightened. “Stand back.”
“I am the alchemist.”
“I am your senior and most certainly the person who will be blamed!”
“Then we share the crime and the glory,” He Yan said, smiling before he could stop himself.
Which was unfortunate, because when He Yan smiled at him like that, Shen Xun’s ears sometimes—rarely—went faintly red, and then he scowled even more violently to compensate, and then he did things like this: he reached out and laid two fingers on He Yan’s wrist, steadying it with unstudied care.
“Fine,” Shen Xun said quietly. “I’m here.”
He Yan forgot the word breathing for a moment. It returned to him mostly intact when the furnace emitted a sound like a squeaky wheel reconsidering its life choices. The lid rattled. Sparks fizzed.
“Ah,” He Yan said. “We may have, in a technical sense, reached the ‘amber’ I mentioned.”
Shen Xun didn’t let go of his wrist. “Meaning?”
“Meaning… it's time to run!’”
The lid shot up.
A geyser of silver fire bloomed, harmless as fireworks and yet wildly, gloriously everywhere. It arced to the rafters, kissed the beams, cascaded down the walls in bands of glitter like a celebration banner rendered by a deity with no regard for safety regulations. Snowball dove into a sleeve with the practiced ease of a creature who’d long ago chosen survival over dignity.
Shen Xun yanked He Yan toward the door. “Move!”
They moved. The furnace—perhaps feeling abandoned—let out an indignant bong and lurched off its dais. Its legs—one did not recall giving the furnace legs, and yet here they were—unfurled like stubby bronze foxtails, and it took off after them with the single-minded devotion of a loyal hound.
“Oh,” He Yan said, running. “It is chasing us.”
“You think?”
“On the bright side,” He Yan offered as they swerved around an apprentice carrying a tray of lotus tea -“Senior Brothers?” the apprentice squeaked as they hurtled past, trailed by a furnace and a comet-tail of sparkling qi-, “the movement indicates its spirit has awakened. That’s very rare.”
“Put it back to sleep!” Shen Xun snapped. “Preferably before it sets the library on fire.”
They burst into the courtyard. Disciples scattered like dandelion fluff. The furnace thumped along the flagstones, lid clacking. He Yan threw three seals; they fizzled prettily and did nothing except convince the furnace to accelerate.
“Right,” He Yan said, “so perhaps tribulation iron is… enthusiastic.”
Shen Xun skidded to a stop, pivoted, and drew his sword in one smooth soundless arc that made the heart misbehaved. He placed himself between He Yan and the hall, point low, shoulders squared.
“Don’t you dare,” He Yan yelped. “That furnace is an heirloom of Pillfire Hall!”
“I am not going to break it,” Shen Xun said, affronted. “I am going to talk to it.”
“You don’t talk,” He Yan said, incredulous. “with a sword in hand!”
The sword trembled, then steadied, and Shen Xun’s aura poured out—cold mountain air, the hush at the cusp of first snow. He flicked the blade once. The edge traced a thin crescent on the flagstones.
The furnace, which had never been scowled at with this much martial intent, faltered.
“Good,” He Yan breathed. “Now, gently—”
A voice rang across the courtyard. “What,” said Elder Yao, who had the cheerful disposition of a thunderhead, “is that?” His eyes tracked the path of destruction, the glittering fire, the sprinting prodigies of sect, the animate furnace, and finally, with the pained resignation of a man adding a new entry to a very long ledger, came to rest on Shen Xun’s sword and He Yan’s wrists still caught in Shen Xun’s hand.
“It’s an experiment,” He Yan said quickly.
“It’s a mistake,” Shen Xun said at the same time.
Elder Yao pinched the bridge of his nose. “Put. It. Down.”
The furnace, hearing its beloved elder and perhaps realizing it had made a scene, wobbled. The silver fire collapsed in on itself like a tide reversing. The lid thunked shut with a meek hiss. The legs—wherever they had come from—retracted, as if embarrassed.
Silence fell, except for the faint panting of one alchemist, one martial artist, and one repentant piece of equipment.
Elder Yao surveyed the courtyard lawn, now decorated with glittering ribbons of condensed qi that, admittedly, made it look festive. He sighed. “He Yan.”
“Yes, Elder,” He Yan said, eyes lowered and cheeks hot. He noticed, too late, that Shen Xun still hadn’t let go of his wrist. Shen Xun noticed at the same exact too-late moment and dropped it as if it burned.
“Report to my study after lunch,” Elder Yao said, then looked at Shen Xun. “And you.”
“I did nothing,” Shen Xun said frankly.
“I don't want to hear it,” Elder Yao said, “Both of you. After lunch.”
He turned and stalked away, muttering about young people, furnaces, and the incomprehensible fashions of innovation.
The courtyard slowly remembered how to breathe. Disciples emerged from behind pillars, attempting not to look like they had just witnessed the best entertainment since the Winter Banquet. Snowball crawled out of Shen Xun’s sleeve, dusted itself off, and gave He Yan a look that said, We live by grace alone.
He Yan blew out a breath. “So,” he said brightly, because when in doubt it is best to pretend life is hilarious, “the good news is—”
“There is no good news,” Shen Xun said.
“—the batch condensed.” He Yan pointed at the furnace, where a faint, lovely fragrance had begun to seep through the seams, cool and sweet, like rain across jade. “That is the scent of the Moondew’s essence. If it smells like that, the pills inside are—”
The furnace burped delicately. Its lid cracked open a hair. A silk-thin ribbon of silver light slithered up, hovered, and tied itself into a neat bow in midair before dissolving.
“—playful,” He Yan finished, mouth curving despite himself. “And stable.”
Shen Xun’s stance loosened by a hair’s breadth. “You were lucky.”
“Luck is the disguise that diligence uses to move incognito,” He Yan said primly.
Shen Xun gave him a sideways look that, to the untrained eye, might have been annoyance but, to a person in love who had cataloged every micro-expression like scripture, included one-eighth of a smile. “You memorized that to say it to me, didn’t you?”
“I memorized it to say to anyone who accuses me of luck,” He Yan said, and did not add, but especially you, because you never praise yourself either and it enrages me. Instead, he cleared his throat. “Speaking of accusations, why were you looking for me?”
Shen Xun looked toward the main hall, where the Sect Leader’s tea reception had, miraculously, not turned into a barbecue. “Envoys from Cloud Ladder Pavilion brought news of the Twin Peaks Exchange. They proposed a joint trial this year—martial and alchemical teams paired.”
He Yan blinked. “Paired?”
“Bound by an oath token. Shared fate, shared score.” Shen Xun’s tone was even. “Sect Leader agreed. Elder Yao volunteered you.”
“Volunteered me for what?”
Shen Xun’s ears did the thing again. “For me.”
He Yan’s brain, which usually ran with the precise order of a well-kept apothecary, briefly became a box of kittens. “For— you?”
“We’ll be partners,” Shen Xun said. “At Twin Peaks.”
He did not say: I requested it.
“I see,” He Yan said, voice almost steady. “Then we shall avoid killing each other until after the trial.”
He Yan did not say: If there is an oath token, I will carve my name under yours and sleep with it under my pillow and pretend it is you.
Shen Xun’s mouth twitched. “After we win the trial.”
“Confidence looks well on you, Senior Brother.”
“Someone has to balance your… enthusiasm.”
He Yan tilted his head. “I prefer the term ‘visionary recklessness.’”
“Your visions explode.”
“They explode beautifully.”
As if in agreement, the furnace released another feather of silver light that hovered, formed a tiny cat—rounded ears, smug tail—and batted an invisible ball before popping out of existence. The entire courtyard, including three junior disciples peeking over a balustrade, made strangled noises of delight.
Shen Xun sheathed his sword. “Lunch,” he said, as if that sorted the universe. “Then Elder Yao. Then we plan for Twin Peaks.”
He turned to go, paused, and glanced back with that quiet, winter-sky gaze. “He-shidi.”
“Yes?” He Yan said, too quickly.
Shen Xun hesitated, which made He Yan’s breath catch. “When the furnace ran,” Shen Xun said at last, “you looked delighted.”
“It’s rare,” He Yan said softly. “When a thing that should not have life decides to have it anyway. It feels like… proof that we live in a generous world.”
Shen Xun’s expression shifted in a way He Yan could not decipher. “Hn.”
And then he was gone, heading down the steps with the measured lope of a man who would get from anywhere to anywhere he decided, no matter the wind.
He Yan stood alone in the bright wash of noon. Snowball climbed onto his shoulder and patted his cheek. “Chk.”
“I know,” He Yan said, cheeks aching with the smile he’d been holding back all morning. “It’s foolish.”
He reached out and laid his palm on the furnace lid. Warmth pulsed under his skin—steady, grateful. Inside, the pills were settling, their moonlight scent folding into the copper with quiet contentment.
“Partners,” He Yan whispered to the empty air, to the fluttering ribbons of condensed qi still clinging to the eaves, to the memory of a hand steadying his wrist. “For a trial. For a day. For as long as I can borrow fate’s inattention.”
Above Azure Radiance Sect, the innocent clouds drifted on, and if anyone had been watching with the right kind of eyes, they might have seen two threads of light—one cool, one bright—spooling closer across the sky, knotting with the absentminded certainty of the inevitable.
Some mornings were destined for serenity. Some were destined for disaster. And some—rare and perfect—were meant for beginnings.
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