Strange Sight

"Good wine!"

Chen Lin praised.

Zhao Zhengyuan smirked proudly. "Of course. This is my family's bread and butter—the only reason I can survive in this city is this craft."

"Mm, Brother Zhao's brewing skill is truly unmatched."

Chen Lin nodded, then turned to him. "By the way, wasn't Brother Zhao planning to refine some pills a while back? How's that going?"

Zhao Zhengyuan's face fell.

His smugness vanished in an instant.

"Ah, don't even mention it."

Zhao Zhengyuan sighed heavily, shaking his head repeatedly.

But then he lifted his chin high again, squinting with a cold laugh. "A trivial little art like alchemy can't stump me. I, Zhao Zhengyuan, come from an Alchemy Aristocrat Family!"

The corner of Chen Lin's mouth twitched involuntarily. He returned the squint and cold laugh with a smirk. "Right, right. With Brother Zhao's perseverance and talent, you're bound to succeed sooner or later."

Zhao Zhengyuan gave a bitter smile and returned to normal. "I'll take your good words for it. Pity my inheritance is incomplete—otherwise, there might actually be a sliver of a chance."

Chen Lin grinned wryly and said nothing more.

Talking to the people here was pure torture.

Because they themselves didn't seem aware of their own oddities.

The two began drinking in silence.

"By the way, Brother Zhao, everyone says alchemy is hard. Is it really that difficult?"

Seeing that half the bottle of wine was gone and the meat and porridge were nearly finished, Chen Lin finally started asking for the information he wanted.

Though the other's demeanor could shift at any moment, since he couldn't leave, he had to blend in. And when they weren't "having an episode," everyone was normal.

Resources here were extremely scarce. With his status, he couldn't buy any pills for cultivation breakthroughs.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have had the wild idea of using Spirit Rice Porridge to break through his bottleneck.

And he didn't want to stay a moment longer in this bizarre place. His only thought was to break through to Qi Refining Mid-stage and escape.

But without Qi Refining Mid-stage, he couldn't learn spells. The wilderness was overrun with beasts, and leaving rashly would only get him killed faster.

So, he decided to refine pills himself.

With the Ten Times Certain Hit ability, as long as he had the tools, materials, and a Pill Recipe, he was sure he could succeed.

Zhao Zhengyuan was a bit tipsy too. He exhaled a breath of wine and said, "What do you think? If it weren't hard, would even the cheapest Qi Replenishing Pill cost so much?"

"That's true. I heard that even among the Foundation Establishment families, each one only has a single alchemist. If Brother Zhao could succeed, you'd be living it up in the Inner City right away. Don't forget your little brother then!"

Chen Lin refilled the other's cup.

Then, as if casually, he said, "Brother Zhao, since you've already started trying to refine pills, you must have a Pill Recipe. What kind of pill is it? Could you tell me?"

Zhao Zhengyuan paused, gave a normal cold laugh, and glanced sidelong at Chen Lin. "What, you want to try alchemy too?"

Before Chen Lin could respond, he continued, "Alchemy isn't that easy. I suggest you stick to Talisman Crafting."

His intentions seen through, Chen Lin wasn't bothered.

Plenty of people wanted to learn alchemy. It was perfectly normal for him to be interested.

But since it was out in the open, he decided to cut straight to the chase.

"That's right, I do want to learn alchemy. My talent is too poor, and my cultivation has been stuck at Qi Refining Level 2 for years. Without pill assistance, I doubt I'll ever break through. But you know, the pills in the city are all controlled by the big families. Low-level Rogue Cultivators like us can't buy them at all. That's why I got the idea of refining my own pills. No matter what, trying won't leave me with regrets."

Chen Lin's words made Zhao Zhengyuan sigh in sympathy.

He felt the same.

Rogue Cultivators, especially low-level ones, had it too hard.

After hesitating a moment, he shook his head. "I do have a Pill Recipe. If you want it, I can sell it to you. But I'll warn you now—this recipe has a flaw. Don't say I cheated you."

"What flaw?"

Chen Lin pressed immediately.

Zhao Zhengyuan fumbled in his robes for a bit and pulled out a yellowed Scroll. He pressed it under his hand and said, "Pill Recipes all come from Ancient Cultivator traditions. But as the Cultivation World changed, some ancient spiritual herbs went extinct. Modern recipes are modified by alchemists after many attempts, substituting new herbs. That's why recipes are so rare."

With that, he unrolled the Scroll, revealing dense, tiny handwriting.

He traced the characters with a sigh. "The recipe I got was modified too, but it's probably very old. One of the herbs is now extremely rare—its value far exceeds the pill itself."

He stroked the Scroll gently and continued, "Out of necessity, I replaced it with a cheap herb based on medicinal properties. Whether I can actually refine the pill is still unknown."

"You replaced it yourself?"

Chen Lin tapped the table, his face full of doubt.

"Heh."

Zhao Zhengyuan's demeanor shifted. He squinted with a cold laugh. "Fellow Daoist Chen, don't think that just because I've never refined a pill, I'm clueless. I come from an Alchemy Aristocrat Family. I have deep knowledge of pharmacology and effects. Improving a Pill Recipe is a piece of cake!"

"Is that so? Then let me see what you replaced it with."

Chen Lin ignored the man's sickly boasting and reached for the Pill Recipe.

But the other blocked him.

Zhao Zhengyuan rolled the Pill Recipe back up and said, "Want it? Three hundred Spirit Stones!"

"Too expensive."

Chen Lin withdrew his hand and slurped a mouthful of porridge.

"This is a Pill Recipe—and one for cultivation-boosting pills at that. Three hundred Spirit Stones is too expensive? Through normal channels, you couldn't buy this even if you had all the Spirit Stones in the world!"

Zhao Zhengyuan's eyes bulged as he fumed.

Chen Lin shook his head. "What you're describing is a proper Pill Recipe. Yours is basically a waste. Who'd buy it? Tell you what, I'm just taking it for research anyway. I'll give you twenty Spirit Stones, consider it a hobby purchase."

"Twenty Spirit Stones? Are you joking? What Pill Recipe can you get for that price? You think this is one of your Great Strength Talismans?"

Zhao Zhengyuan shouted angrily.

But Chen Lin said nothing more, just buried his head in his porridge.

If the other man truly didn't want to sell, he'd have stormed off by now. Since he hadn't, it meant he was eager to make the deal.

And Chen Lin couldn't be sure his Talent Ability would work on such a flawed Pill Recipe, so he wasn't willing to invest too much.

Most importantly, he was also poor. The savings he'd scraped together over years of frugal living hurt to spend.

Sure enough, after grumbling for a while, Zhao Zhengyuan relented.

"Add a bit more. Fifty at the very least, and you have to swear not to spread it around."

Chen Lin could accept that price. He nodded. "Fine, but I'll need you to explain some basic alchemy knowledge and precautions, Brother Zhao."

One incense stick's time later.

Zhao Zhengyuan left looking like he'd been taken advantage of, thoroughly disgruntled.

Chen Lin, meanwhile, held the Pill Recipe and studied it closely.

He didn't know how long he'd been immersed when the Bronze Bell in the corner of the room let out a low sound. His expression shifted, and he immediately stood, went to the window, cracked it open, and peered outside with a grim face.

It was now midnight.

Aside from the howling of snowflakes whipped about by the bitter wind, the city was utterly silent.

Suddenly.

A red light shot up from a courtyard not far away.

Straight into the sky!

Then a second, a third, a tenth.

In the blink of an eye, countless Fine Lines appeared above the entire city.

Dense yet orderly, they surged into the pitch-black sky, vanishing without end.

Such a spectacular sight—even the blizzard was swept clean—yet not a single cultivator in the city came out to check.

Still, utter silence reigned.

It lasted nearly a quarter of an hour before these Red Threads slowly faded and disappeared.

The wind rose again. Snowflakes drifted.

Chen Lin stood there for a while, then closed the window and returned to the table.

Ever since he'd crossed over, this scene had persisted.

Every day at midnight, it played out.

The rest of the time, everything was normal.

After a month of investigation, he'd discovered that each of these red Fine Lines was connected to a person. What they did, he had no idea.

Moreover, the people connected by the lines seemed completely unaware. He'd tried probing several of them indirectly, but they all looked baffled.

Even the original owner's memories contained no record of this phenomenon.

So he suspected that the people here—including the original owner—simply couldn't see this eerie sight, just as they couldn't notice that they always smirked sideways.

His meager knowledge left him unable to deduce the cause, and with his current cultivation, he had no means to investigate.

All he could do was quickly raise his cultivation to Qi Refining Mid-stage, gain some ability to survive in the wild, and then escape.