“Elder Lin, will you accept the challenge?” The middle-aged man’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “If not, then hand over five mid-grade pills. Of course, we’ll pay market price for them.”

On the Chenyuan continent, spiritual pills were always in short supply and high demand. The only supply of spiritual pills came from pillmasters; the other noble houses would only ever purchase, not sell, these pills. 

In the past year, these two fellows from the Wang family had managed to forcefully purchase or challenge for large quantities of mid-grade pills, and they’d even acquired a few high-grade pills as well. Now that they were at the Lins, they naturally didn’t plan on returning empty-handed.

Lin Zainan clenched his fists, but he had no recourse. He was just about to speak when a clear, pleasant female voice came from outside the door.

“I accept this challenge.” Yun Ruoyan walked into the chamber in an emerald-green dress, her hands clasped behind her back and a bamboo-leaf gauze patch on her face.

The middle-aged man and grey-clad youth hesitated as they looked at the sudden interloper.

“Where did this girl come from? Don’t mess around!” The middle-aged man screeched.

The grey-clad youth looked toward Yun Ruoyan and smiled. “Little girl, you must be a young miss of the Lin family? I’m challenging Elder Lin to a match. Don’t act willfully, alright?”

“Ruoyan, when did you get here?” Lin Zainan asked.

Yun Ruoyan walked to her grandfather’s back. “Just now. Right when I arrived, I heard an egotistical fellow challenging you, Grandfather. With your reputation, wouldn’t it be lowering your status to accept a challenge from such an arrogant lad?” 

Yun Ruoyan turned and glanced at the youth in gray. “That’s why I accepted this challenge for you, Grandfather.”

Yun Ruoyan helped support Lin Zainan by the elbow, her calm and relaxed attitude managing to trick even Lin Zainan himself.

He immediately guessed that Yun Ruoyan must have had another breakthrough, but even so, surely she couldn’t best a fifth-rank pillmaster.

“Grandfather,” Yun Ruoyan squeezed her grandfather’s arm, looking at him with bright eyes. “Please, let Ruoyan do something for you and for the Lin family!”

Lin Zainan couldn’t help but smile. Throwing away all his worries, he said, “Alright. As my last disciple, Ruoyan, it’s perfectly reasonable for you to accept the challenge on my behalf.”

He turned to the youth. “Lad from the Wang family, I’m one generation older than even your father. You’re far too unqualified to challenge me. My granddaughter, however, has already received my personal tutelage. She will be the one to face you, as long as you’re daring enough to challenge her.”

“You must jest, Elder Lin,” The middle-aged man gave him a supercilious look. “Is there truly no one capable left in the Lin family? Isn’t it ridiculous to be shielding yourself with such a young girl? You must be—”

Before the man could finish, Yun Ruoyan suddenly extended her right hand at him. A burst of red mist seeped out of her hand, and it instantly became an orange flame which licked at his face.

With a loud Bang!, the flames dispersed, and the portly man was left open-mouthed with a half-blackened face.

“Uncle, I advise you to be more careful when you speak,” Yun Ruoyan smiled daintily. “Or there might be severe repercussions.”

When Yun Ruoyan produced a spiritual flame, Lin Zainan’s eyes gleamed before he hurriedly tried to hide all signs of his excitement in front of the two strangers. “Not bad, not bad, Ruoyan! You have my temperament!”

Even the grey-clad youth’s eyes lit up, and he no longer spoke to Yun Ruoyan with a patronizing tone. “I was blind not to see it earlier, but you must be a prodigy, Miss. I’ll naturally accept challenging you.”

“Good,” Yun Ruoyan answered, “But I get to choose when.”

“Naturally. When would you like to compete, Miss?”

Yun Ruoyan thought for a moment before revealing two fingers. “How about in two years and a day?”

“Two years?! Why not now?” The middle-aged man wiped at the dust and soot on his face before shouting angrily, “You ought to be punished now, you impudent girl!”

Having been caught unawares by Yun Ruoyan, the man rolled up his sleeve and made as if to hit her.

“Wang Gang,” the grey-clad youth commanded, “Stand down.”

The middle-aged man turned to the youth. The youth didn’t seem to be angry, but his gaze was flecked with granite.

“Yes, Young Master.” Wang Gang finally lowered his head and retreated to the side, like a rooster defeated in battle.

The youth turned toward Yun Ruoyan once more. “Isn’t two years a little too long?”

Yun Ruoyan sighed before responding in exasperation, “I’m only thirteen, and only when I’m fifteen will I be considered an adult. Young Master Wang, you don’t intend on challenging a child, do you?”

Yun Ruoyan’s words left the youth with no refutation. It was clear that he was arrogant and prideful, and there was clearly nothing to be gained from besting a child.

“In that case, two years it is,” the youth responded. He walked up to Yun Ruoyan and introduced himself. “I’m Wang Meng, the eldest son of the Wang household from the Yue kingdom, which leads the merchant coalition spanning the entire Chenyuan continent. May I ask who you are, Miss?”

“You’re Wang Meng?!”

“Yes, Miss,” Wang Meng replied, somewhat quizzically. “Have I met you before?”

This was the elder brother of Wang Kuang, whom she’d killed within the imperial territory! This was the man who had hurt Lin Zainan in her past life!

Yun Ruoyan’s eyes turned deathly cold for a fleeting moment before she smiled once more. “Famed pillmaster prodigy from the Yue kingdom, Wang Meng. I’ve naturally heard of you, and I look forward to competing with you in two years’ time.”

“I look forward to our duel as well, Miss,” Wang Meng held a palm up as he spoke.

“My name is Yun Ruoyan, the last disciple of Lin Zainan,” Yun Ruoyan responded, before slapping his palm with hers.

With the crisp slap, a startling killing intent flashed through Yun Ruoyan’s eyes.

When Wang Meng and Wang Gang finally left, Lin Zainan looked excitedly at Yun Ruoyan, his two hands shaking as he lay them on her shoulders.

“Ruoyan, you’ve already broken through again, and not just by one stage!”

Lin Zainan had told Yun Ruoyan that there were seven tiers of spiritual flame: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. 

At the beginning, Yun Ruoyan’s spiritual flame would be a dark red. As her cultivation improved, and the fire-attuned spiritual energy in her spiritual vortex became purer and purer, the spiritual flame would start changing colors to a vibrant orange.

Under the same principles, the flame would subsequently turn yellow, then green, and all the way through violet.

The red flame was too impure for refining pills, but the orange flame would suffice for low-grade pills. The green flame was sufficient for high-grade pills, and the violet flame, supposedly, for legend-grade pills.

At his peak, Lin Zainan was able to condense green spiritual flame.

“I can hardly believe that your talent’s so overwhelming, Ruoyan. In this short amount of time, not only have you condensed your spiritual flame, you’ve even managed to turn it orange!” Lin Zainan had been worried about the impending challenge, but now he could finally relax. “Ruoyan, I firmly believe that, in two years, even if you don’t surpass that Wang lad, you’ll at least be no weaker than he is.”

But Yun Ruoyan responded resolutely, “Grandfather, I will beat him without fail.”

Lin Zainan handed her a manual containing prescriptions and recipes for low-grade pills and tasked her with memorizing its contents and coming back again the next day. Then, he would teach her how to refine the most basic pills.

When Lin Qingchen and Lin Qingxue found out that Yun Ruoyan had finally managed to condense her spiritual flame, they were so happy for her that they began shouting and jumping up and down—and then their happiness quickly turned to pity when they realized that they had missed such a pivotal moment of her development.

Lin Qingchen tugged at Yun Ruoyan, wanting to show her around her little bamboo garden. Surprisingly, Lin Qingxue, who loved being in the know, ran off after claiming that she had to work on the homework that Lin Zainan had assigned.

Lin Qingxue was a rather bold girl, but whenever her sister brought up her little bamboo garden, she immediately became a scaredy-cat. Lin Qingchen’s bamboo garden hosted many a creature that would leave her scalp numb: a toad as large as her washbasin, a scorpion with a foot-long tail, a centipede with a pair of large, bulbous eyes, and a catfish that could laugh.

Any of these creatures would leave Lin Qingxue with nightmares. Unfortunately for her, her only sister loved these creatures and would often spend the entire day in her garden, so she couldn’t even pop in to have a quick chat even if she wanted to.

“Sister Ruoyan, look!” Lin Qingchen unveiled a black cloth and revealed a glass tank underneath.

Yun Ruoyan followed her finger and saw a white, three-inch long small magical snake amidst the dark, sandy soil.

“Is this from one of the snake eggs that you brought out of the imperial territory?”

“Yep! There were five eggs in total, but only this one hatched.”

The snake was as white as snow, and it looked almost like an ice sculpture as it lay on top of the soil.

Yun Ruoyan had seen green snakes and black snakes, but never a white snake like the one she was looking at now. It even looked a little cute.

“Has Grandfather seen its like before?”

“Of course!” Lin Qingchen put her face right by the glass tank as she peered in. “If not for Grandfather’s help, not even one would have hatched.”

“Does it have any special abilities? Can it breathe flame?” Yun Ruoyan tapped on the glass with her finger, and the little snake, as if sensing her, suddenly opened its eyes and looked over.

“Oh!” Yun Ruoyan glanced at the snake in excitement and began shaking Lin Qingchen’s wrists. “Qingchen, look, its eyes are even double-lidded!”