When they entered, Sen didn’t follow.

“Would you like to come in, Miss Li? I have some wonderful Oolong brewing,” said Zhilei.

“No,” said Sen. “I’ll stand guard. I’m to keep Ruyi safe—I promised the Mistress.” She scanned the sleepy town like any of the little thatched huts might be harboring a hive of demons.

***

The air outside had a morning chill to it but none of it seeped inside. A light fire rumbled in a stone hearth, casting a warm glow over a tea table and two leather sofas which still had a certain rubbery scent to them, like they were brand new. The walls were all bookshelves, save for a little space where windows peeked in. A fine log cabin, quite homely, and utterly bland, like a room in a hostel—like it’d been washed and cleaned and arranged to be presentable an hour before her coming.

“You don’t actually live here, do you,” said Ruyi.

“Good eye,” said Zhilei. He sank into a sofa and gestured to the one across; Ruyi made herself comfortable. “This cabin belongs to a friend. I’m not supposed to be here.”

He grinned like they were sharing a private joke. “I think quite a lot of people would be very upset if they knew.”

“You came all the way to visit me?” she said, flattered.

Zhilei chuckled. “Not just to visit you. I have certain other business in the region, shall we say? But I’m so happy you’re here, Ruyi. I’ve been an admirer of your work for some time now.”

“Really?” she breathed. Gao had told her this, but she still liked hearing him say it. This was Zhilei Zhen! He’d read dozens of entries on elixirs he’d pioneered in the Encyclopaedia; his soup-and-beans model of Mind Power was taught in every beginner’s textbook.

“Oh, yes,” said Zhilei, smiling playfully. “It’s not every day you meet the youngest Alchemist in history—and a golden crown winner besides. Why, I'm honored.”

“Psssh!” said Ruyi, grinning. “‘Golden crown winner’? Haven’t you won like thirty of the darned things? I should be the honored one!”

Zhilei laughed. He had that full hearty laugh that some old men have, utterly carefree, wheezing a little. The sort of laugh that made you smile too; you couldn’t help it.

She’d expected a snobby stuck-up old coot—puff up an Alchemist’s ego enough and they got positively bratty, Ruyi knew as well as anyone.

“Alright, alright. Enough of the buttering up!” he said with a fake-annoyed snort. “Let us speak of your work. But ah! I nearly forgot—would you like some tea?”

“I’d love tea.”

***

Zhilei’s tea made her head feel like a warm soup of good feeling. She couldn’t believe how good it was, even to her demon tongue.

“What did you put in this?” She gasped. “It’s incredible!”

Zhilei smiled; all his smiles felt at least a little whimsical. “It’s a secret. I mustn’t give it away—you’ll put me out of business.”

“You’ve been out of business for four decades,” she snorted. He laughed again, a little one this time, a chortle. He really liked laughing.

“Oh, me. Guilty as charged. You, on the other hand, have been quite busy. I especially enjoyed your work on blue ginseng as a hyper-fertilizer. Brilliant work—just brilliant.”

“Aww, stop it,” said Ruyi, by which she really meant, ‘please please please keep going.’

“I was wondering if you’d considered augmenting it with drake stool? I always felt the nourishing effect would pair quite nicely.”

“Oh,” said Ruyi, smacking her lips. She set the cup down. This tea really was good—it felt a little like when she tasted fresh lifeblood. “I’d never even thought of that.. I guess the mechanism is the same as how it augments bone broths? But at a much smaller level—you’d micro-dose it, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, yes, precisely,” said Zhilei. “Ginseng serves as the prima materia.”

“…Huh.” Ruyi took a breath to work it out. “But the ice-earth aspect differential would be immense, wouldn’t it? I meant for it to be mass producible, but you’d need some incredibly high temperatures and lodestone cauldrons to finish the brew… it seems impractical—” She caught herself. “Ah, unless you pair it with a catalyst like… blood of phoenix?”

The shapes and colors vaguely seemed to match up.

“Intriguing,” said Zhilei.

“Let me think…” Ruyi brought the ingredients to boil in her mind, shapes and colors breaking and re-forming. Zhilei squinted at the ceiling, like he was seeing it play out on the logs.

“Ah,” he said almost instantly. “Yes—I think so. It would reduce the differential to about… three point seven?”

Two breaths later, Ruyi came to it. “Three point seven…” she muttered. “Sounds right… how’d you get there that fast?”

“Practice and shortcuts. It would be fairly depressing, I think, if after a century of Alchemy I was beaten by a teenager.” he said. There was that winky smile again.

He was being humble. No one was faster than Ruyi, not even Gao.

From there the conversation flowed. She felt like she stood at the top of a mountain; speaking to Zhilei, she was breathing rare air. Back at the Guild, even the Masters had insisted on squabbling at the theoretical bottom—they kept asking her basics, things you could pull out of reference texts, and cooing over her whatever she said.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

But when she spoke to Zhilei she wasn’t educating. She was discussing. You got the sense he was patiently listening, not the slightest hint of judgment; that he treated everything you said as a gift. He was pure curiosity and polite interest.

It felt a little like speaking with Gao sometimes—challenging in a good way. She had to work to keep up. Her mind sparked with new concepts, making leaps she had to be pushed to reach.

Hours passed in intellectual bliss.

***

“So what brings you to the mountains?” asked Ruyi.

“Sightseeing, mostly. This is a detour,” said Zhilei, pouring yet another cup of tea. By now, they'd both drank well over a dozen. “Though I do hope to collect a few ingredients before I leave.”

“Me too, actually. I was hoping to pick up some mandrake root, Moon Serpent venom, maybe some elderwood bark? A few more things. I’ve got a list.” She patted her cloth sack.

“Well, the day’s still young. How would you like a tour of the mountain? I know it well—all the best spots. Perhaps we can cross a few items off your list.”

The Zhilei Zhen was offering to give her a tour of the mountain?!

“Yes please!”

***

Sen insisted on coming along, even when Ruyi said it really wasn’t necessary. Sen looked put out.

“You don’t want me?”

“Oh, no, it’s not that!” said Ruyi hastily. “It’d just be very boring and technical--”

“I’m okay with being bored,” said Sen, grabbing hold of Ruyi’s wrists. She was very grabby, and she was also totally unaware of the effect it had on Ruyi. “I’m here to protect you. And I mean to do it—whatever it takes.”

“Wow,” said Ruyi. Sen was really close, so close Ruyi could smell her musk, and her hands were so soft… she blushed at her shoes. “Um. You must really care about me, huh.”

“Of course,” said Sen, confused.

A polite cough from Zhilei.

He smiled awkwardly. “Please, ladies—on your own time?”

“What?” said Sen, at the same time Ruyi said, “Yes! Sorry!”

***

They hadn’t gone half a li up the main trail, a windy streak of rocky brown between clusters of towering pine-leaved trees, when Zhilei gestured off the side. There was a smaller trail there, a not even dirt, just a trail of grasses that looked faintly trodden. It vanished into the thick of the treeline.

“This way.”

As they went he stopped them seemingly at random, only to point out some black-streaked vine curling out of a tree, or a cluster of glowing mushrooms at their feet. “That there’s the Dragonwhisker Mushroom,” he whispered, reverent. “See those tendrils on the underside of its cap? They’re said to resemble Dragon’s whiskers—I don’t see it myself, but it does tickle me every time I see one. Dragon’s whiskers! They say if you eat one, the next time you fall asleep you’ll speak to your ancestors in the spirit realm.”

“Really?”

“That’s the lore. I’ve only tried it once, as a youth, but all I got was a particularly nasty bout of diarrhea. And I’d only eaten one—if I’d tried the whole batch perhaps I truly would’ve spoken to my ancestors! But not in the way I would’ve liked.” He chortled. “Oh, dear—that was a little dark, wasn’t it? This way.”

The journey probably should’ve taken half an hour. It took double that long because Zhilei seemingly couldn’t help himself, but Ruyi didn’t mind. He was so excitable, and he just had this energy about him. It made you follow his every word.

Finally, he put a finger to his lips. “Quiet…” he whispered. The trees had gotten so high they crowded out the sun; little bright streaks broke through the canopy, but the rest was bathed in darkness. Shrubs and ferns coated the ground, so a soft sh-sh trailed every step. He stopped them again, but rather than launch into one of his excited explanations he simply pointed.

Ruyi could see why. ‘Hairy barn-sized spider hugging tree trunk’ was fairly self-explanatory. She’d thought it was—she wasn’t sure what, really, just a blob in the upper darkness until she really looked at it.

Strange thing. Once you see it you start seeing it everywhere. She peered around in the canopies and there they were. You could just make out the glints of their blinking eyes in the gloom. Most of them just hung there, their bodies rising and falling with sleep.

“Get back,” growled Sen, grabbing Ruyi and yanking her really close, so close their faces nearly touched.

“Eh heh heh,” said Ruyi.

“Woah!” whispered Zhilei. “They don’t bite! They’re very friendly, actually. These are Cloud Spiders—they feed mostly on tree sap, and they keep the trees free of harmful pests. They can sense emotions—such curious creatures… I’ve always wondered if it was telepathy, or if they were simply excellent readers of body language…here.”

Massive webs hung above them, nearly invisible unless you looked for them when the sunlight caught the strings just right. They linked the trees like a second canopy. Some trailed down the trunks, spooling on the forest floor.

“Cloud spiders produce an excess of silk. One can harvest them as one harvests a chicken’s eggs,” said Zhilei. “This is one of your ingredients, no?”

***

They burst upon a sea of windswept grasses dotted with white and yellow flowers. Zhilei picked his way to a clump at its center. “See this one?” he said, crouching down. “See how the stem is doubled? That is the mark of a Twice Lucky peony. It’s no different than a normal peony, save for its extreme Yin aspect, which makes it a nifty ingredient in certain brews. Like yours.”

***

As they trudged along, collecting ingredients—it was mostly Zhilei rambling, Sen silent, Ruyi listening—Zhilei stopped them for snacks. He’d packed raw beef, a little bloodied, wrapped in bread. Sen declined.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” he said, gesturing to their bulging cloth sack, stuffed with ingredients. “What’s all this for?”

“Just a recipe,” said Ruyi through a mouthful of meat. She swallowed. “It’s missing a key piece. Hopefully one of these is it.”

“I could swear I remember a recipe with a prime ingredient such as these…” muttered Zhilei, scratching at his chin. “But it has been so long…was it in one of the Infernal Codices?”

Ruyi froze.

“You’ve read the Tartarus Codex?”

“Ah, yes! That’s the one. I may have come across a copy in my youth.”

“How’d that happen?”

“I was a wild boy,” said Zhilei, waving airily. “Raiding demon strongholds, going on stupid dungeon crawls… you know.”

“No,” said Sen.

“Sorry?”

“No, I don’t know—demon strongholds? Dungeon crawls?” she said, frowning. “That isn’t normal. Aren’t the Infernal Codices meant to be forbidden?”

Ruyi stroked Sen on the arm like she was calming a growling hound. She wasn’t sure what was up with the girl. “We alchemists come across strange texts all the time! It’s nothing, really.”

It worked, weirdly. “…If you say so…” Sen looked disappointed when she pulled her hand away.

“I appreciate the concern,” said Zhilei. “One can never be too cautious.”

Ruyi was conscious she had to choose her words carefully. “Say I came across a similar fragment. A fragment which promised a certain effect akin to… flesh-purifying?”

“Sounds like the very one,” he said.

“Which ingredient would you say fits best?”

He squinted at the sky. He did that a lot when he thought—sometimes he stared at trunks, at ceilings, even at floors, like he could see his thoughts play across whatever blank surface he stared at.

“I would say,” he said at last. “The king of poisons. A poison so potent, so possessive, it even consumes other lesser poisons in one’s body. Moon Serpent venom.”

Then he looked like an eager child in an old man’s body. “As it so happens I’m good friends with Kunlun Mountain’s Moon Serpent. If you’d like, we can retrieve it now?”