Book 5: Chapter 30: Everything Right

Book 5: Chapter 30: Everything Right

While Sen had felt a little uncertainty about asking for help, Fu Ruolans reaction had caught him off guard. Her face lit up like hed just given her the best gift of her life. The woman seemed almost giddy at the prospect of helping Sen figure out what hed been doing wrong. Shed looked ready to get started immediately but had ultimately told Sen to get some sleep.

Better to start fresh, she said.

Sen had almost objected with a reference to the time limit that she had imposed on him. A moment or two of reflection told him that was the path of foolishness. He was in no fit state of mind to learn. Aside from his brief adventure in rock kicking, he wasnt even sure when hed last taken a break, let alone slept. With a nod to her, hed retreated to the galehouse, eaten something, and made himself go to bed. When he woke up in the morning after having dreamed about failing at pill refining over, and over, and over, he knew hed made the right choice. While he didnt consider himself an expert on the mind, it didnt take an expert to recognize that those kinds of dreams were a bad sign. When the waking mind was so fixated on something that it became the fixation of your dreams, Sen figured it was a short step to some kind of a breakdown. He'd made his way over to her house and found her waiting. He did his best not to give her sidelong looks as the woman almost bounced on her toes. She took him to a room he didnt remember from his previous visit. Inside, shed set up an alchemy lab.

She beamed around at the room before turning a more serious eye on him. Alright, I need to know what you already know so we dont waste time. So, take a seat and tell me what you know about alchemy.

Sen looked around and found a small stool. He glanced over at Fu Ruolan who waved an impatient hand at him. Dropping onto the stool, Sen gathered his thoughts. What did he know about alchemy? He rarely considered the total information he had at his disposal on the topic. Most of the time, he only needed little slivers of that information to finish whatever he was working on at any given moment. Only after being asked to sum it all up did he start to understand exactly how much hed learned. Realizing that there probably wasnt a right answer to the problem, he picked a spot and started talking. He talked, and talked, stopping occasionally to summon water from a storage ring and take a few sips. For the first three hours, Fu Ruolan stood there in near-total silence, neither interrupting nor even reacting. That came to an abrupt stop when he started talking about some of his personal insights into alchemy. Then, the questions came fast and furious. It was nearly nightfall before Fu Ruolan waved him to a stop, her eyes glassy and her expression a little slack.

Im not going to pretend that I understood everything you were talking about. Ma Caihong might, she said with a bitterness that Sen could hear, but I dont think thats your problem. You clearly grasp the fundamentals of alchemy itself and then some. Your problem must be somewhere in the pill-refining process itself. What have you been trying to make?

A basic healing pill, said Sen, trying to mask his own bitterness.

She frowned at that. What ingredients and reagents are you using?

He had to stop and consider that question. He used the same ingredients for it every time, but it had been a while since he named them to himself while using them. Closing his eyes, Sen took himself back to his countless repetitions over the damn cauldron.

Ginseng, angelica root, Eucommia Sen listed off ingredients and reagents as he mentally watched himself throwing them into the cauldron.

With a far lighter heart but no less exacting attention to detail, Sen repeated the process with similar results. Fu Ruolan had him do it four more times. She grew increasingly agitated with each failure, muttering under her breath. When the final attempt generated nothing but a gooey, half-charred mass in the cauldron, the woman threw her hands up in the air.

This is infuriating. The ingredients are fine. The heat is fine. Youre putting everything in when you should. This, she said through clenched teeth and gesturing into the cauldron, should not be happening. Its a basic pill. Students with two months of experience can make this pill with a little guidance.

Sen thought that last might be overstating things a little, but what did he know? Maybe for students who started out working with cauldrons, this was an achievable pill after a couple of months. The part that he cared about was that something strange was going on. Something that wasnt his fault, and something he couldnt have expected or bypassed was happening.

So, its not me? he asked, needing a bit of reassurance.

She looked over at him. Im quite confident that it is you, but its not a failure of technique. If anyone else had done the things that you did, they would have five minor healing pills sitting on this counter. No, whatever is happening here, its stranger than that. Im just not sure what it is.

Sen felt a fresh tightness take root in his chest.

If thats the case, said Sen, Im not sure that I can reasonably deliver the pill you want by the deadline youve given me.

Fu Ruolan blinked at him with a complete lack of comprehension on her face. He saw her mouth the word deadline. When understanding did dawn in her eyes, she just waved a hand like it was nothing.

Theres no point in giving you a deadline until we sort this mess out. I cant rightly expect you to make anything if following precise instructions generates only failure for you. Well revisit that after we solve this mystery.

It wasnt exactly the reprieve that Sen had hoped for, but it was a reprieve nonetheless. While they tried to figure out why it wasnt working for him, hed have time to study the primer. Even if he couldnt make any of the pills in the primer, he could at least study the techniques hed need to use for making the more advanced pills. It felt a little bit like cheating to him, but the pragmatic self that had helped him survive on the streets ruthlessly murdered that feeling. In the end, getting the manual shed promised him was all that mattered. If that took a bit of cheating, he was comfortable with it. It was his life on the line, after all.