"L-Lady Bai... what's happening here?"
Once Luo Qingyan had steadied herself, she asked in obvious confusion. She was not the only one. Everyone standing in the courtyard was thinking exactly the same thing.
What in the world was going on here!?
"Luo Qingyan... since when have you let people come cause this much chaos inside the Palace?"
But Bai Fanxian did not answer her. Instead, she swept her cold gaze down over the crowd that had gathered because of the medicine incident.
"That's—"
But before Luo Qingyan could finish, Sage White-Beard hurried to cut in, his face pale as a sheet.
"Lady Heroine, please, calm down! His Majesty isn't doing well. Could we perhaps bring him down first...?"
It was hard to fault him for asking. After hearing that King Jongliean's condition had taken a turn for the worse and was about to be looked in on inside the palace that day, Bai Fanxian had simply appeared, without so much as a whisper of warning. Not even the palace's heaviest defenses could stand against her. One flick of her hand sent the royal guards scattering in every direction, and even Yang Fujiu, who served closest to King Jongliean's side, had no choice but to let her carry his master off unopposed.
But letting her take him did not mean they were willing to simply let it go. Both the palace guards and the soldiers hastily summoned had all gone running after Bai Fanxian as she flew back to the Goddess Alchemy Palace, utterly unconcerned with the eyes of the onlookers. Which meant that right now, surrounding the Palace, there was not only the crowd gathered over the medicine incident, but an entire army stationed there as well, every one of them strung tight with tension!
They were nothing like the ordinary people of the city. In the last war, every soldier there had witnessed Bai Fanxian's power with his own eyes, and none of them could ever forget it. Just the thought that a woman stronger than Demon General Marsosius — a man they had not even been able to resist — could turn into their enemy at any moment was enough to turn their stomachs!
"Hmph!"
Bai Fanxian scoffed and flicked her hand. King Jongliean's body floated safely down to the ground. Fortunately, nothing was damaged, since Bai Fanxian had brought his entire bed along with him. This left everyone standing there now in the strange position of having no idea what was supposed to happen next.
The gathered crowd exchanged glances, unsure what to say. Shouting condemnations at the Alchemy Palace while King Jongliean lay there at death's door hardly seemed fitting anymore.
Besides, if they had heard correctly, Bai Fanxian had just said that the one who had refined the medicine was—
"Ho-ho... your alchemist is far more interesting than I expected."
That distinctive laugh rang out ahead of him, and more than a few heads turned.
The gate had been left open, and people had already begun filing in through it. Among them was the Greybeard Alchemist, hands folded behind his back, who walked over to check on King Jongliean's condition while giving Luo Qingyan a soft chuckle in passing.
He himself had been on his way to deliver a medicine formula to King Jongliean, as it happened — if not for the fact that Bai Fanxian had beaten him to it and carried the man's body back here first.
The old man raised a hand to stroke his chin, studying Bai Fanxian from below. He watched the aura of power radiating off her and muttered, nodding to himself again and again, paying no mind to anyone else around him.
"Interesting... Truly interesting..."
The Greybeard Alchemist had seen more than his share of people in his long life. He had even personally known several alchemists who had since died and passed into legend. Each of them had always carried a presence entirely their own. But not one of them had ever carried a presence quite like the young woman standing before him now!
"Little miss, whose disciple are you?"
It was not strange that the old man would address her that way. Bai Fanxian's outward appearance was that of a woman in her early twenties, however one looked at her. And standing beside Luo Qingyan, she would ordinarily have looked even younger still.
"...I've never had a teacher."
"...Oh?"
The Greybeard Alchemist raised his eyebrows and said nothing more. He watched as Bai Fanxian drifted down from the sky to stand face-to-face with the whole crowd that had come to stir up trouble.
"I'm the one you're looking for. Say whatever business you have."
"Um..."
"Is that really the Battlefield's Lady Heroine?"
"It's really her! I've seen her before."
"Then... what about what she just said?"
Whispers broke out in every direction. Everyone who had gathered seemed unsure how to carry themselves. None of them had expected the situation to turn into this. In the end, one man stepped forward as their representative and spoke to Bai Fanxian, his voice wavering.
"Lady Heroine... are you saying you're the one who refined those medicines?"
"Yes."
"...That's... a little hard to believe."
It was not strange that he would think so. Since arriving in the Myriad Demon World, Bai Fanxian had never once refined medicine in front of anyone. Coming from someone none of them even knew, it was all the harder to accept.
The Battlefield's Lady Heroine could only be a cultivator of rare, formidable skill. There was no accounting for how someone like that could also have turned out to be an alchemist.
Alchemy and cultivation might share plenty in common, even overlap here and there, but they were not the same discipline. Would someone devoted enough to alchemy to refine Grade-6 medicine in this era also be skilled enough in combat to bring down a Demon General in a single move?
"Believe what you want. That's your business."
Her voice had dropped low all at once, and it made more than a few people flinch. Bai Fanxian swept her gaze across the crowd, person by person, before it caught abruptly on the Greybeard Alchemist. She walked straight toward the old man, who had already begun to grow uneasy, wondering if he had done something a moment ago to upset her.
Or perhaps she disliked him calling her "little miss"?
But before he could brace himself, Bai Fanxian flicked a finger lightly, and something tucked away in the Greybeard Alchemist's sleeve floated free and flew straight into her hand, the old man powerless to stop it.
"Th-that's—"
It could only be the ancient medicine formula he had shown Luo Qingyan just yesterday. He watched, baffled, as Bai Fanxian's eyes swept over the paper for a few seconds. But when her next words left her mouth, they made the old man's eyes go wide with shock.
"Thought it was something... Just a Celestial Path Elixir."
"...!"
"Th-that's... the name of this medicine?"
"You didn't know?"
Bai Fanxian frowned and handed the ancient formula back to the Greybeard Alchemist, who took it with trembling hands. He turned the paper over and over, searching every inch of it, but there was no text anywhere on it naming the medicine at all.
Which meant there was only one possible explanation...
"Little miss, you recognize this Grade-6 medicine?"
"Grade-6? You must be blind. That's a Grade-7, actually."
"...!"
Bai Fanxian's answer sent a shudder through the Greybeard Alchemist's entire body. The hair on his arms stood on end, and his two hands, still holding the ancient paper, began to lose their steadiness.
"Greybeard Alchemist, isn't that formula—"
Sage White-Beard, who had remained at King Jongliean's bedside the whole time, raised his eyebrows in shock. He was one of the few who knew that formula might be able to treat His Majesty's condition. But surely the Greybeard Alchemist himself had said, at first, that no one capable of refining it could be found...
Unless—
"Elder, can that medicine really cure His Majesty's condition?"
"...I believe it can! And if it truly is a Grade-7... then I'm even more certain of it!"
Hearing that, Sage White-Beard drew a deep breath. He turned to Bai Fanxian, his whole body tensing without his realizing it.
"...Lady Heroine. Can you refine this medicine?"
"Of course."
Bai Fanxian's unhesitating answer made Sage White-Beard's heart leap with joy. To him, it was as though a light of hope had suddenly begun to shine before him. He hurried eagerly toward her and pleaded without a moment's hesitation.
"Then would you please refine it for us...? Whatever you need..."
"..."
"Why would I do that?"
Bai Fanxian's cold refusal froze Sage White-Beard where he stood. He stared back at her flat, indifferent gaze, his face draining white.
Was she still angry about what had happened before?
What Sage White-Beard suspected was, at best, only half right. He believed Bai Fanxian was still angry over King Jongliean's attitude the day they had first met. But what had actually upset her was his past treatment of the Goddess Alchemy Palace.
This habit of hers, playing favorites for her own people without exception, was one she had never managed to shake — and one she had no intention of shaking, either. Ever since she had arrived in this world, she had heard no end of the injustices the Goddess Alchemy Palace had suffered. On top of that, this man had once even ordered Luo Qingyan imprisoned, leaving her to suffer for it. That alone would have been reason enough for Bai Fanxian not to spare him so much as a glance, even if he were dying right in front of her.
But this time was different.
...Otherwise, why would she have gone to the trouble of dragging King Jongliean all the way out here?
She was simply waiting for the right moment...
"Wait... I heard everything..."
No one had expected King Jongliean, who had lain unconscious this entire time, to come to now. With Sage White-Beard's support, he managed to pull himself up to sit at the foot of the bed.
"You... can really refine medicine that heals wounds like this?"
"Even if the condition were worse than this — on the verge of death, even — it wouldn't be a problem at all, not with a Celestial Path Elixir."
Bai Fanxian glanced at King Jongliean's condition from the corner of her eye. But in the next instant, he did something unbelievable. The man known as one of the Three Kings used what little strength he had left to push his own companion away, and before anyone could react, King Jongliean had already dropped to his knees before Bai Fanxian!
"..."
"Y-Your Majesty—"
"I beg you... please, refine that medicine for me..."
For someone of King Jongliean's standing to kneel and beg another person was an extraordinarily rare sight. The townspeople stared in stunned disbelief, rubbing their eyes again and again, as though refusing to believe what they were seeing.
"..."
They had not expected their own king to abandon his dignity so readily. A small disappointment began to take root, the kind that might, from here on, erode trust in their leader and make governing all the harder in the future.
But—
"Didn't I already say... that I—"
Before Bai Fanxian could refuse, King Jongliean lifted his head and met her eyes. There was not the faintest trace, in his gaze, of a man clinging to his own life.
"...It's not medicine for me."
Instead, what filled his eyes was a look of overwhelming pain and sorrow!
"I beg you, as a father... please help my eldest son!"