Beyond the palace gates stretched a long corridor, and as Mu Qingyue passed beneath its eaves, wonders unfolded one after another like scenes painted on a scroll. Pavilions stood poised over water, their reflections trembling in the pools below; arched bridges connected islets of stone and blossom; carved railings and jade-colored tiles caught the light with quiet splendor. Everything was arranged with such exquisite balance that even the air seemed cultivated—fragrant, serene, and faintly luminous, as though this place had never known dust, decay, or the harshness of the mortal world.
The compound was not merely beautiful; it was complete.
There were chambers meant for rest—sleeping halls whose curtains drifted like mist. There was a library pavilion, its doors engraved with intricate patterns that suggested both scholarship and mystery. There was a practice room, a space that radiated a disciplined stillness, as if the very floorboards remembered the echoes of ancient footsteps. There were side halls and courtyards, storerooms and alcoves, gardens and terraces—an entire private world laid out with the meticulousness of an imperial residence.
Yet amid that splendor, a strange contradiction appeared.
Certain paths, certain gates, certain courtyards were swallowed by darkness—an unnatural, ink-black veil that clung to the edges of architecture like a living shadow. Mu Qingyue approached one such area and felt an invisible resistance, as if a barrier lay in the air itself. She could not step forward. She could not even properly see what lay beyond.
Xiaosu's earlier words returned to her: unlocked regions.
So this, then, must be what the little spirit meant—areas withheld until the "master of the space" grew strong enough, until her medical mastery rose to a level that could command access.
Mu Qingyue exhaled slowly, steadying her mind. The space had given her a gift, but it was not a gift without conditions. If she wanted more, she would have to earn it.
She glanced toward Xiaosu, who hovered nearby with the proud, eager expression of a child showing off a treasure. "Right now," she asked, "what kind of pills can I refine?"
Xiaosu brightened instantly, as if this were the question it had been waiting for. "At your current level? You can make Beauty Pills, a Grand Tonic Pill for strengthening the body, and Nourishing Qi Pills," it replied briskly. "The alchemy hall has enough raw materials for you to produce ten batches of each. After that, you'll have to rely on yourself—either grow the herbs inside the space, or go harvest them in places where spiritual energy is abundant."
Mu Qingyue's eyes narrowed slightly—not in suspicion, but in calculation. Ten batches of each. That was not limitless, but it was a beginning. A beginning was more than she had ever been given in her previous life.
"Take me there," she said.
Xiaosu bobbed upward and darted ahead, leading her toward a grand hall wrapped in drifting, immortal-looking mist. The closer Mu Qingyue came, the more the air seemed to change—thicker with herbal fragrance, denser with a subtle pressure that made the skin prickle. It was the sensation of stepping into a place saturated with something unseen yet undeniably present.
The doors opened, revealing an interior that made her pause.
At the center of the hall stood an enormous cauldron—an alchemical鼎—its surface etched with ancient, flowing inscriptions. Beneath it burned a strange blue-green flame, not the ordinary color of fire, but a cold, luminous cyan that flickered like a spirit's breath. Around the cauldron rose towering golden pillars several meters tall, their sheen catching and scattering the light so that the entire hall glowed faintly, like a sanctum from some myth.
It looked exactly like the kind of set one might see in a fantasy drama—except it was not a set. It was real. The air itself seemed to hum with it.
Mu Qingyue stepped forward, suddenly aware that she was about to touch something that belonged to another age.
Under Xiaosu's guidance, she arranged the ingredients—dried herbs, powdered roots, crystalline fragments that gleamed faintly, and other materials she could not fully name yet. She placed them into the cauldron in the correct order, hands steady despite the tremor of awe and uncertainty in her chest.
"Now," Xiaosu instructed, floating near her shoulder like a small and solemn tutor, "control the heat. Don't let the flame surge too violently, and don't let it weaken. Feel it—sense the balance."
Mu Qingyue focused, imitating what Xiaosu described. She adjusted her breathing, fixed her gaze on the shifting flame, and attempted to regulate it as if it were an extension of her own will. At first it felt impossible—how could one control fire? But gradually, as she concentrated, she sensed an invisible thread between her intent and the flame's rhythm. The cyan fire responded subtly, brightening, then easing, as though recognizing her as the space's master.
Xiaosu watched with widened eyes, impressed despite itself. "For a beginner, you're doing very well," it said. "But refining medicine for the first time usually takes a long while. I'll stay here and watch the cauldron. While you're waiting, go to the spiritual spring behind the hall and cleanse your meridians—wash your marrow and temper your bones."
Mu Qingyue nodded, accepting the suggestion without hesitation. "All right."
She left the alchemy hall and made her way to the rear, where the air turned cooler and damp, and the sound of water grew clearer. Soon she found it—exactly as Xiaosu had said.
A spring.
Its water was so clear it seemed almost unreal, as though it had been distilled from moonlight. Golden mist drifted above the surface, curling and unfurling in slow spirals, giving the spring the appearance of something sacred rather than natural. Even before she touched it, Mu Qingyue could feel a gentle, penetrating warmth emanating from it, like sunlight filtered through jade.
It was not ordinary mountain water.
It was the kind of spring that belonged in legends.
Mu Qingyue stared at it for a moment, then lowered her eyes to her hands.
In the village, she had never learned the rituals of skincare. There had been no time, no money, no guidance. When she later entered the Mu household, she had been desperate to "improve" herself, to look the way a wealthy family expected. Yet Mu Xiaonan had always been the one to "help" her choose products—products that, in retrospect, had been suspiciously cheap and harsh, disguised beneath pretty packaging and sweet recommendations. Her skin had suffered for it. It had become dry and rough, the texture closer to the callused hands of a housemaid than the smoothness of a sheltered young lady.
She ran her fingertips over the dead skin along her knuckles, feeling the unevenness, the coarseness.
Then, with quiet resolve, she stepped into the spring.
At first, it was merely warm—almost comforting.
Then—
Pain.
A sharp, searing agony ripped through her body like lightning.
Mu Qingyue's breath hitched. "H—!"
The sound that escaped her was half gasp, half cry. It felt as though countless tiny needles had pierced her skin all at once, sinking deeper and deeper. The pain was not limited to the surface; it seemed to burrow inward, reaching muscle, reaching bone, reaching something even more fundamental—like it was tearing impurities out of her marrow, scraping filth from the inside of her very soul.
"Ah…!" Her fingers clenched against the stone edge of the spring.
So this was "washing the tendons and cleansing the marrow."
It was not gentle. It was not pleasant. It was a kind of purification that did not ask permission, a ruthless refinement that demanded endurance.
Mu Qingyue shut her eyes and forced herself to breathe through the torment. Her whole body trembled. Sweat mixed with spring water on her skin. For a moment the pain was so intense it blurred her thoughts, and she wondered if she would pass out.
But then another memory surged up—stronger than the pain.
The rain-soaked alley.
The cold laughter.
The hands reaching for her.
The river swallowing her.
Compared to that night—compared to those wounds, those betrayals, that despair—this pain was nothing. This pain, at least, carried meaning. It was not inflicted by enemies for sport. It was the price of transformation.
For revenge.
For reclaiming what should have been hers.
For tearing back the life that had been stolen from her.
No matter what she had to endure, she would endure it.
She gritted her teeth and held on.
Gradually, the agony began to shift.
The sensation of a thousand ants gnawing at her bones faded little by little, replaced by something strange—something warm, enveloping, almost tender. It felt as though the spring had moved past its violence and now cradled her, soothing the raw places it had exposed. The golden mist hovered closer, and her body grew lighter, cleaner, as though some weight she had carried without noticing had finally been lifted.
Mu Qingyue's eyelids grew heavy.
She leaned back against the stone wall of the spring, her breathing slowing, her mind drifting.
And without realizing it, she fell asleep.
When she woke, the first thing she noticed was the smell.
Not the clean herbal fragrance of the spring, but something faintly bitter, almost acrid.
She opened her eyes and looked down.
The water around her had turned black.
Not merely murky, but dark as ink, as though every impurity inside her had been forced out and poured into the spring itself. It was an unsettling sight—yet also, unmistakably, proof. Proof that the cleansing had done what it promised.
Mu Qingyue lifted her arm and examined it closely.
Her skin—her skin—
She almost laughed.
It was pale, luminous, and astonishingly smooth, finer than tofu, like polished jade. But it was not the sickly, bloodless pallor of illness. There was a faint blush beneath the whiteness—a delicate peach-toned warmth, the kind of healthy glow that made a face look soft and alive. Even in the misty light, it seemed to radiate a quiet allure.
She pushed damp hair away from her shoulder, and her fingers paused.
The garish rainbow mess—those ridiculous streaks of color, that outdated "explosion lion mane"—was gone.
In its place flowed long black hair, rich as ink, glossy as ebony, falling in smooth sheets over her shoulders. It framed her face with an elegance she had almost forgotten belonged to her. Wrapped in drifting mist, with skin like snow and hair like lacquer, she looked—briefly, impossibly—like a girl who had wandered out of an immortal painting.
Her heart tightened.
Hope flared, sharp and sudden.
She raised her hands to her face, fingertips trembling as she traced her cheek—
And then her expression faltered.
The scar was still there.
That long, ugly mark had not vanished. The spring had refined her body, cleansed her skin, transformed her outward appearance, but it had not erased the wound carved into her cheek. It remained, stubborn and cruel, like the imprint of an old humiliation.
Disappointment cooled her excitement.
At that moment, Xiaosu came darting in, floating through the doorway with a small lacquered box clasped in its arms. Its face was glowing with pride, and it practically vibrated with enthusiasm.
"Master!" Xiaosu chimed, almost singing the word. "Your medicine is finished! It's done—it's successful!"
Mu Qingyue turned her head.
Xiaosu hovered closer, eyes sparkling. "Truly, you're worthy of being chosen by the space! A beginner who succeeds in refining pills on the first attempt—do you know how rare that is? Even in the immortal realm, there are only a handful!"
Mu Qingyue accepted the praise with a calm nod, but her mind remained focused on what mattered most. She lifted her chin slightly and asked, "Is there a medicine that can heal the scar on my face?"
Xiaosu blinked, then waved a chubby hand as if the problem were trivial. "That's easy. Just make Qingrong Ointment. The formula is recorded in the medical texts."
Mu Qingyue's gaze sharpened.
Easy, Xiaosu said. Perhaps for a spirit who had existed in this realm for who knew how long, it was easy. For her, it would mean study, practice, and discipline—yet those were things she could control. Those were things she could do.
She rose from the spring and stepped onto the stone bank. Nearby, neatly stored in an elegant cabinet, were ancient-style garments—flowing skirts and layered robes that looked as though they belonged in another dynasty. She chose a simple yet graceful set, pale and refined, and dressed herself, the fabric cool and light against her newly softened skin.
Then she went to the library pavilion.
The moment she entered, the scent of old books met her—dry paper, ink, and the faint, lingering bitterness of herbs pressed between pages. Shelves towered around her, filled with volumes that radiated an ancient authority. Titles written in elegant script lined the spines—texts that had been lost to the modern world, knowledge that no ordinary physician could access.
Mu Qingyue sat down, composed herself, and reached for a book.
Among them was the Ziyuan Scripture, and other vanished medical classics whose names alone made the heart tremble. She opened the pages carefully, eyes scanning the lines, and began to read.
In the quiet of the library, with mist drifting beyond the windows and the weight of ancient wisdom before her, Mu Qingyue felt something settle into place within her.
This time, she would not be helpless.
This time, she would not be mocked, ruined, discarded.
She would learn.
She would grow.
And she would take back every last thing that had been stolen from her—piece by piece, breath by breath, step by step—until the world itself was forced to acknowledge what it had once tried to erase.