Dazed and fuzzy—again and again—doo-ba-deh doo-doo-ba-deh.
Anyway, park everything else like leaves swept to the porch. Although Lingcai felt she’d forgotten something vital, she still took the Little Moon Sage shopping for clothes at her request.
As they walked, two shadows in sunlight, they drew eyes like iron filings to a magnet, far more than when Lingcai walked alone.
Especially that clash of the Little Moon Sage’s tiny frame and full chest, a contrast like mountains beside a sapling, earning near a hundred percent head-turns.
Each time a passerby looked back, Lingcai shot the stare of a small wildcat from under the eaves, and the gazes skittered like startled sparrows.
At that height, to the unknowing, the pair probably read as sisters, like two reeds of different length in one stream.
The Little Moon Sage had no sense of her own lines at all, swaying ahead like a willow frond, peeking left and right, looking ready to crumple like paper in rain.
At last she hit her limit. Sweat beaded on her pale face like dew on porcelain, and she sank to her knees like a folding fan, gasping to Lingcai.
“Um… can we rest a second? I think I burned my whole year’s exercise quota…”
Helpless first, then action. Lingcai looked at the collapsed Little Moon Sage, then back at the gate they’d just left, a stone’s throw of about fifty meters.
Hands tucked in, she watched the motionless “playing-dead” bundle on the ground, and she let the words fly like pebbles skipping water.
“Pardon my bluntness, but this is it? With this stamina, how do you even leave the house?”
It was only fifty meters. A normal run chews that in seven seconds. The venerable Sage took a full half minute—then face-planted like a felled sapling.
The Little Moon Sage lay there pretending to be dead, then lifted her ash-white little head like a moon from clouds and pleaded to Lingcai.
“…How about you carry me…?”
Huh?
Lingcai hadn’t expected that at all. But a master-ancestor’s request lands like a bell. Orders are orders, and the river leaves little room to swim upstream.
She helped the Little Moon up, draped that pale, limp arm over her shoulder, and braced to hoist her like a sack of cotton.
Weight crashed down like a millstone. Two soft, round weights pressed her back like twin clouds, unmistakable and merciless.
Lingcai gritted her teeth and staggered two, three steps. Her cheeks flushed like ripe cherries, and she surrendered with a white flag in her breath.
“Wait, wait! I can’t. I can’t carry you. Sage, wait here. I’ll go find… something.”
She propped the Little Moon Sage in a corner against the wall like setting a paper lantern out of the wind, then darted off like a puff of smoke.
Soon she was back. Something new rolled in her hands like a beetle of polished metal, and it squeaked a little like a sparrow.
The Little Moon Sage saw what she pushed and frowned, a crease on pale porcelain.
“…Lingcai, are you serious?”
It wasn’t about anything else. What Lingcai wheeled over was—
—a wheelchair.
Lingcai patted the handles like knocking on wood. “I admit it’s a lousy idea. But I really can’t carry you. Thinking it through, this might be the best fix. Or… another way?”
The Little Moon Sage stared at the chair with the eyes of a rainy day, then nodded, helpless as drifting foam.
“…Let’s do it…”
Soon she sat in the wheelchair like a moon in a cradle, and Lingcai pushed her toward the shops, wheels whispering like crickets.
Their turn-back rate hit a full hundred percent again, a tide of faces turning like sunflowers, only this time the eyes poured sympathy like warm tea.
Sickly white-haired beauty plus wheelchair. That combo was something else, like snow on a plum blossom.
“That little one already needs a wheelchair…”
“What illness is that? Is that what you call albinism?”
“Doesn’t look like she’s got many days… poor thing…”
“Shh, shh! Don’t say that where they can hear!”
We hear you—every word like rain tapping bamboo.
Every murmur drifted into Lingcai’s ears like wind through chimes. She just smiled and let them flow in one ear and out the other like a clear stream.
Care was a trap; mind it, and you drown like a stone in a pond.
The Little Moon Sage, as if deaf to the circling starlings, found the chair not bad at all. At least she didn’t have to walk. Between two light coughs, she chatted Alchemy.
“Your knowledge is solid now. But Alchemy is a craft of hands. The next steps are all practice. When we’re back, I’ll pass you some lab journals. You’d better repeat the phenomena yourself. Only what your hands feel sits in your bones…”
To the crowd’s eyes, though, the scene shifted like a painted screen.
They saw a slightly older sister pushing a delicate young miss out for air, all porcelain and sighs.
Each time the Little Moon Sage laughed and then coughed in the chair, pity swelled like a tide, and sympathy rippled like a silk fan.
“See? I told you the child might not have long…”
“Don’t talk nonsense! …Sigh, such a pretty child. What a waste…”
“Maybe she’s just recovering from a serious illness…”
“Who’d wheel out someone not yet cured? They’ve probably given up…”
Their words pricked Lingcai’s ears one by one like pine needles. Who could blame them? Sickly beauty plus wheelchair points one way like a weather vane.
The Little Moon Sage either didn’t care for the world’s eyes or didn’t hear them at all. She kept her face calm as still water and kept talking.
“Are you planning to sit the Alchemy rank exam this year? With a higher rank, jobs open like doors. You’ll meet more upper-tier Alchemists. That feeds your future.”
Lingcai hadn’t thought that far. Graduates of formal schools get an Upper 6-Star rating, like a lantern already lit.
Only folk Alchemists without formal schooling start at Lower 1-Star and climb step by step like a ladder.
In the ratings, 1–5 Stars are Lower. 6–9 Stars are Upper. Upper Alchemists are the backbone, roots reaching every corner.
Cut away the Lower small fry, and even Upper 6 and Upper 9 don’t live in different worlds. Not until you break past Upper and step into the Master tier.
It’s only one level and one exam, yet the gap between Upper 9 and Master 1 is heaven and earth, like ravine and sky.
Those who reach Master are dragons among men. Most Alchemists spend a lifetime and can’t touch even the shadow of that gate.
Within Master, ranks run 1–6 Stars. Each climb grows harder like snow piling steeper, the difficulty rising by powers, not steps.
In all Ariex, there’s only one Master 6-Star: the Great Sage of Seven Hues and Seven Luminaries—who happens to be this very person.
Of course, she’s the Little Moon now.
Hesitation tugged at Lingcai like a fishhook. She’d wanted to learn and then go home, like a swallow returning to its eaves.
But as skill grows, duty gathers like clouds on a mountain. Sometimes the world is a river, and you’re the leaf it carries.
Seeing her silence, the Little Moon Sage went on, voice light as mist.
“You can think on it. The exam’s in December. With your skill, Master tier shouldn’t be a problem… cough, cough…”
Her words broke on a rough cough, and Lingcai fell quiet like a pond under moon.
Master tier opens doors to stronger Alchemists and the state’s rich support like granaries opened wide. The bill comes due.
Every Master-tier Alchemist gets listed as national war-readiness, like steel filed in the armory. With the stipends comes a chain on freedom.
Sensing what weighed on her, the Little Moon Sage veered the boat of talk with a small smile.
“Cough… Still, I think freedom is good. Life should do what the heart wants. Cough, cough…”
Lingcai’s thoughts circled like swallows. If she rose to Master tier, she might see Scarlet Leaf less.
What if she brought Scarlet Leaf to live by her side like two trees sharing shade?
No good. Then no one would mind Scarlet Leaf’s family business, and the roots would dry.
Wait. She really had forgotten something.
…Ah!
Realization burst like a firecracker. Lingcai clapped her hands, and the Little Moon Sage flinched like a cat at thunder.
“I have to change back! How did I forget I’m meeting Scarlet Leaf tomorrow!”
Lingcai hugged her head and howled to the sky like a lone wolf, cursing herself as the echo rolled down the street.
