In Pan Gate's courtyard.
The tightly shut door of the alchemy room creaked open, and Xiao Yan emerged looking rather weary, his furrowed brow relaxing.
Xiao Fan happened to glance over. Seeing Xiao Yan's expression, he asked with a grin, "Well? Well? Did you fail again?"
Feigning indifference, Xiao Yan pushed Xiao Fan aside and raised his chin as though it had been nothing. "Just a single pill. How difficult could it possibly be?"
"Oh, really?"
Xiao Fan regarded Xiao Yan with a half-smile, his voice full of teasing.
"Then who came running out of the alchemy room yesterday covered in soot?"
"Ahem..."
With Xiao Fan dredging up his embarrassing past, Xiao Yan coughed twice and skipped over the subject.
He had not expected the pill Lin Yan needed to be so complicated. He had failed twice in succession.
The first time, while adjusting the flame's temperature, he had failed to heat one of the medicinal ingredients properly, causing the refinement to fail.
After resting and reflecting on his mistake, Xiao Yan had thrown himself into a second attempt.
Unexpectedly, although everything had gone smoothly the second time and the pill was nearly formed, the medicinal properties that had been balanced within it suddenly surged against one another during condensation. Their balance collapsed, causing his second attempt to fail.
Worse still, Xiao Yan had already formed the hand seals to condense the pill when its power exploded, leaving him covered in soot.
Fortunately, only Xiao Fan and a few others had been in the courtyard at the time. The other Pan Gate members had not been there to witness Xiao Yan's sorry state.
But because of that, Xiao Fan, Hu Jia, and the others had spent the past two days teasing him about it.
Xiao Yan had almost thought he