Several days later, a thick stench of scorched herbs lingered in Xiao Yan's room. Together with the heap of blackened medicinal dregs on the table, their original forms beyond recognition, it formed an impressionistic painting titled "Failure."
Xiao Yan stared gloomily at the last scraps still trailing black smoke inside the Medicine Cauldron, his shoulders slumping in defeat. This was his fifth attempt that afternoon at making the most basic Healing Pill Yao Lao had taught him.
Yet no matter how carefully he controlled the heat or how precisely he added the herbs, every attempt ended in waste fit only for fertilizer. He had money now, but a talent for alchemy still seemed a hundred and eight thousand miles beyond his reach.
Just as he lost heart and began to wonder whether he had any talent as an Alchemist at all, a sentence drifted leisurely out of the ancient ring, its pronunciation crisp and clear, even carrying a hint of a professional broadcaster's cadence.
"Failure is the mother of success."
Those utterly familiar words in his "native tongue," which sounded utterly bizarre at this moment, made Xiao Yan shudder so violently that he nearly fell backward.
"T-Teacher? C-could you please stop showing off your half-baked language skills? You're giving me goosebumps!"
Yao Lao seemed quite pleased with his reaction. Obvious pride and satisfaction colored his aged voice.
"Heh, how is this showing off? I'm working hard to learn. Don't you and that sworn elder brother of yours often say all sorts of strange things? After hearing enough of them, I naturally remembered a few. We should use this 'secret language' more often from now on. Outsiders won't understand a single word. Wouldn't that be wonderful?"
Xiao Yan opened his mouth, but for a moment, he could think of no rebuttal.