The alchemy hall smelled of smoke and arguments. Cauldrons burped. Novices swore. Tang Yurou swept in like she owned the place. Perhaps she did, by force of personality.
She tossed Qin Mo a handbook. "Low-tier pills, spring trials. We'll do the Rain-Mending Pellet and the Beginner's Meridian Softener. Easy."
Qin Mo skimmed the pages. Flame control, herb timings, the music of mixture… his hands remembered holding stars over cauldrons that were worlds. He nodded and lit a small blue flame the size of a firefly.
Tang Yurou blinked. "You sure you don't need more heat?"
"Too much heat burns truth," Qin Mo said.
She stifled a grin. "Who taught you to flirt with fire like that?"
"Fire taught me."
They worked. His flame kissed the cauldron in sweet waves. Tang Yurou watched, then set her own blaze, larger, wilder; the room's scent shifted from smoke to spring rain and ginger. When they lifted their lids, her pellets gleamed plump and earnest. His… did not gleam. They rested in the tray like small, patient moons.
She plucked one, sniffed. "Huh. Quiet."
He offered her a cup of water. "Taste."
She did. Her eyes widened. "They vanish."
"Truth sits on the tongue," Qin Mo said. "Then enters the blood."
She laughed. "You talk like a drunk poet. Good. We'll win."
Back at the willow, as dusk softened the sky, the egg knocked once against the basket.
Qin Mo knelt, breath hitching, and set it down. Cracks formed, delicate as hair, then a chip fell, and a snout, tiny and defiant, punched the world.
A miniature dragon peeked out, eyes bright, scales wet and dark as midnight sky. It sneezed, blinked at Qin Mo, then at the willow, then at the way the stars swam in the water in his eyes.
"Hello," Qin Mo whispered. "Ao Ling?"
The dragonling puffed a thread of harmless mist and tried to roar. It came out as an indignant mewl.
Qin Mo held out his palm. Ao Ling put one claw in it, then both, then curled there, heart beating too fast and too brave. Qin Mo's eyes closed as the Myriad-Dao Wheel within him gave a single, tender chime.
Far above, in a palace woven of threads of moonlight, Luo Qingyi stood before a window that looked upon ten thousand rivers of light. She touched her lips, and they trembled. "You returned," she said to the night.
The Heavenly Net shifted around her like a crown and a noose, and an old judge dipped his brush in ink without looking up.