Lai Li’an watched her reaction, laughing secretly in his heart, but his face remained impassive: “Why wouldn’t you?”

Ruan Se turned her face away, the redness of her ears already spreading down her neck. “Senior, why ask when you already know the answer? Such… such a filthy thing, this junior has practiced the Alchemy Dao for over ten years and has never touched it, nor will I ever be willing to.”

“Filthy?” Lai Li’an asked calmly. “You don’t even know what will be refined from it, yet you call it filthy?”

“This is…”

Ruan Se was momentarily at a loss for words, stiffening her neck and saying no more.

Lai Li’an was in no hurry and slowly added, “This pill is a Sixth-Grade Pill. It uses the Azure Wood Spirit Fruit as the sovereign ingredient, with the other four acting as ministers and assistants. After it enters the furnace, it is not primarily refined by fire, but rather relies on the Wood Transformation Technique to stimulate its medicinal properties, making it most suitable for cultivators with a Wood Spiritual Root to refine. If you can refine this pill in the finals, a Sixth-Grade against a Fourth-Grade, who do you think the judges will give the top spot to?”

“Besides, this pill is a bit different from others; it’s relatively simple to refine, making it very suitable for you.”

Ruan Se’s lips moved slightly.

Sixth-Grade. Even if she compressed the quality to be extremely poor, a Sixth-Grade was still a Sixth-Grade.

At the Alchemy Conference, a pill’s grade was the most absolute truth; no judge would dare rank a Sixth-Grade pill behind a Fourth-Grade one.

She understood this truth, and it was precisely because she understood it that she felt even more conflicted.

She took a deep breath, raised her head, and tried to make her voice sound a bit calmer: “Senior is right, the probability of a Sixth-Grade Pill taking first place is indeed far higher than a Fifth-Grade one, but…”

“Even if it is Sixth-Grade, even if it can win first place, the ingredients for this pill are right here. Senior knows exactly what kind of thing would be refined from them. This junior wouldn’t go so far as to refine such a thing just to win. I ask Senior to take back this order and teach me another method.”

Lai Li’an’s gaze darkened. Ruan Se’s attitude was more resolute than he had anticipated; she couldn’t be brushed off with just a few casual words.

“Fellow Daoist Ruan, this Venerable will ask you a question.”

Ruan Se suppressed the emotions in her heart and stood up straight again.

“What do you think alchemy is?”

He had asked a similar question before, but this time, Ruan Se keenly sensed that the Senior wasn’t testing her, but rather wanted to tell her something.

She fell silent for a moment and gave a more sincere answer: “Using medicinal herbs as the foundation and Spiritual Fire as the medium, merging the Spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth with the medicinal properties of herbs in one furnace, and transforming the fortunes of the world for cultivators to use. This has always been this junior’s understanding.”

“Not bad, quite standard.” Lai Li’an nodded, then abruptly changed the subject, “But let this Venerable ask you again: how do you view every pill you refine?”

Ruan Se was silent for a moment and did not answer immediately.

“Healing a cultivator’s injuries or taking a cultivator’s life, in your eyes, which kind of pill is more noble?” Lai Li’an’s gaze fell on her face.

“Naturally… it is the healing pill,” Ruan Se replied, though she hesitated slightly, realizing that the question would not be so simple.

Lai Li’an shook his head gently. “To this Venerable, pills have never been divided into righteous or evil, noble or despicable. They are merely a mass of Spiritual Qi imbued with specific medicinal properties, possessing no will, no good or evil, and no purpose. If a Rejuvenation Pill saves an evil-doing Demonic Cultivator, is it still a good thing? If a poison pill kills a vicious thug who brings disaster to the world, is it still a bad thing?”

He paused, pointing a finger at the few medicinal herbs on the table. “Joyful Union Grass, the world knows it can arouse desire, but how many people know that this herb has been ranked by past Alchemy Dao Grandmasters as the ‘number one grade for unblocking meridians’? Dragon Yang Vine, street merchants use it to brew aphrodisiac wine for profit, classifying it as a vulgar herb, but its medicinal properties run through the Shaoyang Meridian. With just a little harmonization in the furnace, it can completely open up all the Meridians in the body, something ordinary cultivators couldn’t obtain even if they begged.”

His voice slowly rose a few degrees, carrying a kind of firmness. “These medicinal herbs inherently have no distinction between good and evil. It is their usage that endows them with good and evil. For those who practice alchemy, the greatest taboo is allowing worldly prejudices to bind one’s own Alchemy Dao. If you lack even the courage to look a herb straight in the eye, how can you speak of alchemy?”

Ruan Se stood in place, her lips slightly parted, but she couldn’t say a single word.

Every word the Senior spoke was like a precise knife, slicing open layer by layer the prejudices in her heart that even she herself had not noticed.

She had never thought about what exactly made those recipes classified as “evil pills” evil. She had merely been instilled with a concept since childhood, so she had lumped those medicinal herbs together into the category of “dirty,” never looking at them properly, let alone considering what their actual medicinal properties were.

Wasn’t this prejudice?

She remained silent for a long time. Lai Li’an thought she wouldn’t answer, and just as he was about to add more fuel to the fire, Ruan Se finally spoke.

“Senior.” There was now a trace of apology in her voice. “I have cultivated the Alchemy Dao for over ten years, and I consider myself diligent and second to none. Yet earlier, the moment you listed the names of the herbs, my first reaction was actually disdain. Not disdain for the pill recipe, but disdain for the medicinal herbs themselves.”

She took a deep breath and gathered the few medicinal herbs on the table together again. Her movements were much gentler than before, even carrying a hint of carefulness, as if she were touching something that had never been properly acknowledged.

“I lack the courage to even face a single medicinal herb directly, yet I still boast of being an Alchemy Dao Genius and wish to claim first place at the Alchemy Conference. It truly is… utterly ridiculous.”

She was not someone who did not know how to reflect on herself. On the contrary, precisely because she had delved deeply enough into the Alchemy Dao, she knew better than anyone else that what Lai Li’an had just pointed out was the deepest crack in her Alchemy Dao foundation.

She had cultivated for a long time and believed she had comprehended the Alchemy Dao thoroughly, but only today did she realize that half of her comprehension was built upon prejudice.

The Senior’s words were like a mirror, exposing the narrow-mindedness hidden beneath her glamorous surface in every minute detail.

This feeling was very unpleasant, like having her dignified outer garments stripped off in public, but she could not utter a single word of rebuttal because every word the Senior said was right.

Ruan Se lowered her eyelashes, suppressing those surging emotions bit by bit. A moment later, she raised her head again, her gaze having recovered its usual coldness.

“What is the name of the pill Senior mentioned?”

Lai Li’an’s lips curled up, and he slowly uttered a few words: “Azure Wood Qi-Harmonizing Pill.”

Ruan Se silently repeated the name of the pill recipe twice in her heart, then nodded solemnly.

She did not say any more unnecessary words. She turned around, picked up the Azure Wood Spirit Fruit she had just put down, and placed it together with those “filthy” medicinal ingredients.

“Senior.” She spoke seriously, her back facing Lai Li’an, “What you said just now, that pills do not distinguish between good and evil… this junior… has been taught.”

After speaking, she quickly turned away, keeping her back to Lai Li’an, and hurriedly gathered the medicinal ingredients on the table into a jade box.

The red flush at the base of her ears deepened a bit, but she didn’t turn her face away again. Instead, she stood straight, letting that redness hang frankly behind her ears, as if she were bearing the mark left by her earlier prejudice.

Lai Li’an leaned against the door frame, looking at her back, the corners of his mouth curling up uncontrollably.

This girl was actually much more interesting than he had imagined.