Xiao Hong stared down at the sulphurous yellow mixture and smiled wryly.
"Senior Brother Chen wasn't wrong," she had no choice but to admit. "Any random kid could concoct the Body Refining Liquid."
It was just that easy. No measurements, no fires, no refining; just mix a few herbs and bam! - You have a bowl of Body Refining Liquid. And after a mere two days and ten tries, she had mastered its preparation and could now concoct it in under four minutes.
Unfortunately, that did not make her an Alchemist.
Not even close.
She was, in fact, so far away from becoming a true Alchemist; it was despairing.
In Senior Brother Chen's words: "I don't know what Ruoxi was thinking, but becoming an Alchemist in this short a timespan is nigh impossible - unless you're some sort of genius seen once a millennium."
"Six months." She closed her eyes. "That's how long I have."
Because that was when the Compulsory Missions would start, and once Mo Tong realised that she wouldn't bend, he would come after her aggressively. And unfortunately, he had leverage over her.
Even though she didn't really have involvement in Lin Fan's death, she was in the Sect when Lin Fan fell, and her Cultivation Base was a fraction of Lin Fan's; she still wasn't safe. She didn't doubt for a second that he could somehow twist the whole situation against her. More absurd things have happened in her old world, much less this one.
Unless Lin Fan miraculously came back alive, that was the Sword of Damocles hanging over her neck. Though that would open another can of worms she didn't want to deal with.
So, she had to become a Grade 1 Alchemist within these six months.
Only, it didn't seem possible to achieve.
"Stop. Don't overthink it." She muttered, pressing her temples. She pumped herself up, "You can do it. You just need to work your jade butt off!" Her gaze fell on the stack of jade slips that lay on the table. "...And your jade brain too, it seems."
***
In the infinite red void of the Enlightenment Palace.
Xiao Hong sat cross-legged, eyes squeezed shut in fierce meditation. A faint golden aura clung to her like a cloak, flickering unstably like a candle in the wind.
Suddenly, her eyelids flew open, revealing bloodshot eyes!
"Aaaaargh!" Hands flew to her temples as an agonised scream burst from her throat. Streams of crimson leaked from her eyes, ears and nose, streaking down her fair cheeks in grotesque rivulets, meeting at her chin like little tributaries of gore.
The golden aura flickered and dissipated. The light in her eyes dimmed, and she fell forward. Within moments, her breath stilled, her heart faltered, and Xiao Hong was no more.
Then.
Another Xiao Hong appeared standing behind the fallen Xiao Hong, breathing heavily. Her eyes shook as she stared down at her own 'corpse'. "... 459th time," her voice cracked, brittle with exhaustion. She closed her eyes and waved a trembling hand, causing the 'corpse' to dissipate into motes of light.
Her shoulders sagged. With a quiet sigh, she sat down cross-legged once again.
How long had it been? Weeks? Months? Years, even? She no longer had any idea. Stuck in this endless red void, she had long lost her sense of time.
How had this even started? She recalled the first time she'd achieved the late-Second Stage.
***
Xiao Hong sat cross-legged, drenched in sweat, the faint golden aura flickering like a candle about to give up on life.
She inhaled deeply. "Finally."
Her Qi circulated, slow but steady, threading the paths she had mapped out.
Within the perception of her Spirit Sense, she sensed three tubular circuits extending from her Dantian - one weaving through the remaining two major Qi Acupoints - the Heart Space and the Soul Gate; one travelling up to the shoulders, splitting into her arms; and another one travelling down and dividing into her legs.
Her Qi circulated, slow but steady, threading the paths she had mapped out. They were stable, mostly smooth, and though not flawless, they worked. By all conventional standards, she had reached late-Second Stage: Earthen Origin. Her Zhenqi was refined, her foundation stable, her meridians functional.
The remaining errors? Inefficiencies? They didn't matter. With enough time, her body would adapt and things would fall into place. Besides, with the Enlightenment Palace, she would tread this path many times.
So, she was understandably shocked when the familiar infinite red void greeted her.
Her left eye twitched. "I broke through, alright? Broke. Through. You're supposed to spit me out now.
The void didn't deign to answer.
It didn't take her long to figure out (after reconstructing her meridian system slightly more efficiently) that when the Enlightenment Palace meant 'late-Second Stage: Earthen Origin', it meant the 'perfect late-Second Stage: Earthen Origin'.
Not 'late-Second Stage: Earthen Origin.' Not 'stable breakthrough.' The Enlightenment Palace would only release her once she had reached the absolute, flawless perfection of the stage.
Which meant crafting her meridians with not just stability but mathematical, Heaven-defying precision. No crooked paths. No wasted turns. No shortcuts. Every line must be perfect, every connection flawless, every cycle smooth enough to make Ancestor Bu NuoLi weep tears of joy.
"…Oh no." Her breath caught. "Oh, no, no, no… Please tell me I'm wrong. Please?"
The scarlet void remained as still as ever.
That's when she knew.
She'd fucked up.
***
The Enlightenment Palace was utterly silent, like the suffocating stillness of a coffin buried six feet under.
And red. Always fucking red.
No sky, no ground, no horizon. Just the infinite scarlet void.
And there was Xiao Hong, sitting cross-legged, sweating, bleeding, dying. Again. And again. And again. At this point, she had no idea how many times she'd died. After five hundred, she gave up counting.
"Why don't I just rename you Enlightenment Coffin, instead?" she mocked the void.
And as usual, no one bothered to respond to her.
"... Fucking fuckitty fuck." she cursed before proceeding to die again.
It had become a mantra at this point. Cultivate. Die. Curse. Repeat.
Great graphic for a T-shirt, by the way. Some stray corner of her mind noted it down for when she started selling T-shirts… for whatever reason.
***
"…Alright. Once more."
Her Qi threaded carefully through the rebuilt meridians. She'd spent what felt like years correcting the smallest flaws: widening a junction here, smoothing an angle there. This time, she was meticulous enough to make even the Sect's elders weep with pride.
Her Qi flowed. Once. Twice. Thrice. Smooth.
Smoother than ever, her lips curled up.
And then-
On the fourth lap, a hiccup. Barely there, but present. Like a violin string just slightly out of tune.
Xiao Hong's eyes opened.
Silence.
Her hands trembled in her lap. "That's… not fair."
Her lips twisted into a mockery of a smile. "I fixed you. I know I fixed you."
Her teeth ground together so hard, her temples ached, "So, why the hell are you still here?!" She screamed.
No one responded. Her voice did not even echo back.
Gripping her robes tightly. "I must have miscalculated. That's all. Just a misstep. Just a bug in the code. Probably written by some dumb intern. Easy to fix."
***
Sitting in meditation, she caught herself whispering under her breath.
"…If I connect this one straighter, maybe the flow smoothens. But then the angle at the junction gets worse. Haaah. Those dumb interns are probably laughing at me right now." She snorted faintly at her own joke. It wasn't funny, but in the eternal silence, even her own voice was a relief.
Other times, when dissolving her corpses, she murmured small comments.
"You didn't last long, did you?" A wry smile tugged her lips. The words weren't madness. Just something to break the monotony of talking to nothing at all.
Once, she'd even composed a grand epitaph for her fallen self.
"Here lies Xiao Hong," she intoned solemnly, waving her hands like a priest at a funeral.
"Gorgeous beyond reason. Genius beyond compare. Tragically murdered by one rebellious hiccup in her Qi circulation.
"She died as she lived: cursing loudly and blaming the interns, cause who else could she blame?"
She paused, then added in a quieter tone, "…May future generations learn from her stupidity and always triple-check their meridians."
A moment later, her brain cooked up random thoughts, "Could Jesus Christ be considered a True Immortal here? And Zeus, an Immortal King of some sort? Hmm…"
***
Time here was the worst. Not in the sense that it didn't exist. It did. It was just not measured by the rising and setting of the sun, nor by the cycle of seasons. It was measured in how her sanity slipped just a little further with each death.
"Should I just leave you like this?" She casually stared at the previous Xiao Hong, who lay crumpled. "A corpse may not be the best company. But beggars can't be choosers, right?
"Or maybe, I could collect them? How many different poses could a dead Xiao Hong take?" She muttered, her eyes flickering with an unsettling curiosity. "Statistically, there is a finite number of possible poses."
The words hung in the air.
She blinked.
She quickly waved her hand, dissolving the body into motes. "No, no, that's just fucking lunacy..."
Yet, the thought lingered at the back of her mind.
***
She set her corpse down - this one had died clutching its chest, eyes wide and blood frothing at the lips. How charming.
"Alright, Xiao Hong the Five-Hundred-and-Somethingth," she said, arranging the limp hands neatly over its stomach. "Tell me about yourself. Hobbies? Dreams? No? Ah, silent type, I see. I respect that."
She leaned back, studying the vacant face.
"…You'd probably call me insane for talking to you like this. But then again, you're me. So maybe that makes it fine."
She laughed quietly, the sound dry as sand.
The corpse stared back, unblinking.
A moment later, she dissolved it into motes. The glittering lights faded all too quickly, leaving her alone again.
Her shoulders slumped. "Right. Back to being one Xiao Hong again."
***
For whatever reason, every time she… respawned, she sat down cross-legged and began cultivation. It wasn't until the very end, when she inevitably failed, that the previous iterations caught up to her.
Even after innumerable respawns, there wasn't a single time that she did not cultivate.
"... The Palace is even recreating my initial motivation." She pursed her lips. Every cycle, the same spark flickered to life within her chest - the same cheerful, expectant burst of motivation that carried her through a death. Cuz, what is motivation, but a chemical cocktail of hormones tap dancing on her neurotransmitters?
It was like those wind-up puppets - turn the key a few times and they walked, clapped and sang. And Xiao "Puppet" Hong sat down and cultivated.
She wasn't sure if she should be terrified or grateful. For now, she decided to be grateful.
Her eyes burned. Not with tears. With defiance.
"…I'll walk out of here on my own two feet."
***
She straightened, ignoring the sharp stab of pain that lanced through her head. She ignored the warm liquid dribbling down her chin.
Qi flew through her meridians like F1 cars. Fast, yet precise.
A slight snag, and a car went flying out of the track, crashing and burning. The side-effects propagated through her Qi, slamming into her Soul Gate.
Another knife stabbed into her mind, and the rivulets of red thickened. Yet, she didn't stop. She noted it down and stepped on the gas, pushing her Qi harder still.
Then something went catastrophically wrong.
And she died instantly.
When she reappeared behind the corpse, she didn't flinch. Didn't scream. Didn't curse.
"Gotcha," she smiled triumphantly.
And she sat down again. Cross-legged. Hands weaving into a complex hand seal with the finesse of a master.
The spark of motivation that respawned with her blazed brighter than it ever had.
***
Perhaps she'd already gone cuckoo. But she didn't stop hammering out the inefficiencies.
She didn't curse at the first sign of her Qi staggering. Not anymore.
She just noted it and continued pushing her Qi. The headache, the blood, the silence… that only drove her to push her Qi even harder. It was almost as if she were orchestrating a symphony as it tore through her meridians.
It felt like she was a machine, yet… she also felt so much more. She couldn't quite put her finger on it. But she knew something had changed within her.
A change that she wasn't sure about. But this change seemed to be the only way out of this damned coffin.
***
She sat cross-legged as usual, pushing Qi through her meridians at speeds so insane, it was a wonder she didn't spontaneously combust.
"Heh~" A quiet snicker escaped her lips. "Look at that. I invented a brand new form of Qi Deviation - Immolation through Qi Circulation! What an achievement!"
She exhaled, slow and steady.
Then she closed her eyes and began again.
***
In the infinite red void of the Enlightenment Palace, Xiao Hong sat cross-legged.
Sweating. Bleeding. Dying.
And rising again.
Again. And again. And again.
This time, no matter how hard she pushed her Qi, no matter how erratically she did it, no matter how she tried to affect it, her meridians did not rupture; they did not even hurt.
Then, she changed her position a bit.
Pop! Her left eyeball bloomed in a malevolent flower of blood and gore, and she fell forward.
A moment later, a resigned Xiao Hong appeared behind Xiao "Cyclops" Hong's corpse. She massaged the bridge of her nose, "Even poses can affect my Qi Circulation? Then, how the hell does Dual Cultivation even work?!"
A quiet voice nagged at the back of her mind. No one's pushing their Qi to FTL speeds in the bed, you know?
***
Then, one day, something strange happened. No matter what pose she took, no matter how she moved, her Qi circulation remained stable, fast and accurate. Standing, sitting, running. Even when she did handstands, finger push-ups or even tap-danced, nothing went wrong.
The golden aura of her Qi - now tinged with a hint of red - cloaked her perfectly, stable and bright.
Xiao Hong opened her eyes.
A familiar, yet unfamiliar wall greeted her.
She stared at it, unmoving. After a long time, a wan smile graced her lips, "... I'm back."
Then, her eyes rolled back into her head, and she fell forward.