Plants are the root of Alchemy, like hidden roots threading under a forest floor—so spoke some nameless Alchemist.
For Lingcai, waiting to die felt like sinking into a cold pond; she wouldn’t drown, she’d kick for shore.
As an Alchemist, her shield wasn’t fists or spells; it was tools, clever as foxes darting through bamboo.
Back then she’d left the public Alchemy school as valedictorian, a bright kite against a clear sky.
If not for the accident that turned her into a girl, she’d be a professor or a front-line researcher, racing like a hawk on the wind.
Instead she lived on thin ice, heart tight as a fist, counting survival like beads on a rosary.
Luckily, the palace courtyards grew many kinds of plants, green as a small jungle; plucking weeds felt like harvesting dew-soaked herbs.
“Tongcao and long-neck tongcao… next is a neutralizer?” Her voice slid like a reed flute through the room.
Lingcai studied the gathered plants, eyes weighing them like scales under moonlight.
“The quality’s too low… I need a better neutralizing agent to keep the effect steady,” she muttered, like rain measuring its own drop.
With only plants on hand, she couldn’t forge a thunderbolt; she’d squeeze use from leaves the way a traveler squeezes the last light from dusk.
She bent over the table, thoughts clicking one bead at a time; then Xueyu’s face popped up like a sudden moon over a ridge.
“Whoa! What are you doing? You scared me!” Lingcai jolted like a spooked deer; her chair tipped back and fell with a crisp snap.
“No harm. I was passing by. Keep working,” Xueyu said, calm as still water, dragging over a chair like a cat claiming sun.
“I swear you came to watch me,” Lingcai grumbled, steam rising like a tea kettle; she set the chair and stomped twice, drumbeats on a wooden shore.
“Pretty cute,” Xueyu slipped out, the words light as a drifting petal.
“What did you say?” Lingcai turned, eyes flashing like polished steel.
“Get on with it. I’m just looking.” Xueyu hummed, unclasping her scabbard like a sash of night and leaning it against the bookcase.
Lingcai was preparing an adhesive, a glue made for battle—like sap turned into a snare by winter’s hand.
Xueyu watched her bustle, a complicated fondness rising like an old father’s sigh over rice steam.
“What are you making now?” Xueyu asked, as white syrupy liquid slid from a cauldron like milk and filled a round-bottom flask like a glass moon; a pump hissed, sealing air like a cork on a lake.
“Done! This is a viscous resin bomb!” Lingcai’s eyes burned like coals. “A hard impact triggers it. The white strong glue meets air, cools, solidifies like frost, and sticks to anyone nearby, locking their joints like ice. It’s my own formula! How’s that?”
She lifted the filled flask, proud as a rooster at dawn; Xueyu answered with slow claps, leaves tapping in a lazy breeze.
“Mmm—so amazing—so impressive,” Xueyu drawled, praise thin as rice paper.
“Want me to test it on you?” Lingcai bristled, quills up like a startled porcupine.
“Fine, fine. I’m scared,” Xueyu said, still a lake with one ripple; curiosity flickered like a firefly. “Alchemy—what do you mostly do?”
“Everything,” Lingcai said. “If it’s a chemical reaction, it’s Alchemy,” her tone steady as a mortar under a pestle.
Seeing Xueyu still blink like a puzzled crane, Lingcai stuck out her hand, palm soft as silk. “Too hard to explain. Give me your treasure and I’ll show you.”
Xueyu laid both hands over Lingcai’s, heat like summer peaches; she gave a small squeeze, as if testing silk spun over water.
“What are you doing!” Lingcai flinched, shaking her off like rain. “I meant your sword!”
“Oh, the sword… so you meant the sword,” Xueyu said, drawing back like a tide.
“What else did you think I meant?” Lingcai shot back, but Xueyu’s easy laugh blurred the moment like mist.
“Here. What’ll you show me?”
Xueyu drew the blade and passed it, steel balanced like a crane’s beak.
Lingcai pulled a ceramic jar with a linen-stuffed mouth, like a clay gourd under burlap; she spread the oil over the blade, thin as lacquer over a zither.
The sword wasn’t famous, but it was forged from good native iron, river-dark and mountain-strong; even mass-made, it beat most market iron like a drum.
The oiled surface breathed thin white smoke, threads rising like ghost silk; the reaction settled, and the blade shone clean as new ice, cold light pricking like needles.
“This is Keen Edge Oil. For exactly 8 minutes 41 seconds, landing a vital strike gets easier,” Lingcai said, handing back the frost-bright blade.
“Why 8 minutes 41 seconds?” Xueyu frowned, the number odd as a crooked twig.
“Because that’s science,” Lingcai said, hands on hips, pride like a banner in wind. “You’ll feel it yourself.”
Xueyu spun the hilt twice, motion smooth as water around stone; she slashed the birch tabletop, expecting a hair-thin scratch like cat whiskers.
Instead the tip slid in like a knife through tofu, clean as a crescent moon; there wasn’t even a snag, just silent snowfall into wood.
“Feels like it’s got something,” Xueyu murmured, fingers tracing the cut like reading grain lines on bamboo; then a sly thought flicked like a fish.
“If it’s that good, why has nobody used it?”
The question lit Lingcai’s show-off spark, pride rising like incense smoke; she started explaining, bead by bead. “Civilian weapons aren’t like your official ones. The materials and craft lag by a canyon. So to boost power, folks use edge oils that—”
Xueyu jolted like a thunderclap. “That do what? Say that again!”
“That—ha ha ha…” Lingcai clapped her own mouth like a fan. “I… I’m joking…”
Realizing she’d slipped, she grimaced, then smiled thin as a crescent. “I’ll pay you back with a better sword later…”
Xueyu eyed the silver-tongued girl, half angry, half amused, storm and sunlight chasing like spring weather.
“You little genius! I’ll set you straight today!”
“Spare me! Sister, I’ll do anything! Don’t use the blade!” Lingcai pleaded, palms up like a monk begging rain.
They chased each other around the table, a circling dance like sparrows skimming a pond; Xueyu’s blade nicked a table leg, cutting two neat faces like carpentry lines in fresh birch.
The tabletop lost balance, tilting like a seesaw; the bottles wobbled, glass moons shivering on a wind-blown shelf.
Lingcai’s heart plunged like a stone into a well. “Stop chasing! The bomb— the bomb’s falling!”
It was too late. As Xueyu grabbed Lingcai, the glass flask tumbled and hit the floor with a crisp snap, bamboo cracking in frost.
In a breath, white sticky mass bloomed like spilled rice paste, wrapping them like chewing gum; the air cooled and set, hard as winter glaze.
They froze in a tangled knot, two figures cocooned like insects in amber, breaths shallow as mist.
“Great… I told you to watch the bomb,” Lingcai said, voice soft as a bruised reed, full of grievance.
“Whose fault do you think this is!” Xueyu shot back, indignation bright as a struck gong.
