146. Helping head

"After all this time—shoving me in this less-than-affluent room like some forgotten trinket—you come crawling back, begging for my help to win an alchemy competition? You really are shameless,” Wang Jun said, huffing at him.

“First of all—yes. I’m shameless. Second—stop acting like an abandoned lover. You know why you were kept here. I told you before we left the sect.” Chen Ren folded his arms in front of him.

Wang Jun scoffed.

“It’s not like we’ve sealed you in a coffin. You can go out sometimes, but we can’t parade you around in a big city. You’re a severed talking head, not exactly subtle. Besides, Anji was here every day to keep you company.”

Anji, seated quietly to the side, gave a respectful nod. The head turned his sharp glare toward her.

“She’s my disciple. Of course she comes to learn. That doesn’t count as a company. I don’t remember seeing you or that mangy cat in here.”

“I had better things to do than chat with a decapitated ego.” Yalan drawled from her perch on the windowsill, lazily grooming a paw.

Chen Ren sighed. “I was busy setting up operations. You know that.”

But even as the words left his mouth, guilt stirred beneath his ribs. He had been avoiding the head. Not because he didn’t need him, but because every conversation was like chewing glass. Sharp tongue, endless judgment, and the head always acted as if he could say nothing wrong.

“And yet,” Wang Jun said with a mocking smile, “here you are wanting me to help with the competition. But unless you plan to wheel me out in a gilded cart, I’m not much use like this, am I? And what you’re planning… It reeks of cheating. Once it comes out—and it will—you’ll be neck-deep in trouble. And me?” He bared his teeth. “I’ll be snatched up by whichever bigwig cultivator wants to study the talking head with secrets from a forgotten era.”

“That won’t come to be,” Chen Ren said. “You’ll stay in a crate packed with herbs. We’ll lay concealment arrays around it to make sure no one looks twice. You just have to sit there and talk.”

The head blinked. “And no one will hear my voice, I suppose?”

“That’s easy to fix,” Yalan said. She turned her amber eyes on the head, and something shifted in the air—subtle, like a ripple beneath still water.

The head’s eyes widened a fraction. For a moment, he was silent. Then he muttered, “I thought you only knew one soul technique.”

Chen Ren watched and could guess what Yalan was doing.

“I’ve clearly underestimated you,” Wang Jun admitted almost bitterly, sounding as if he didn’t want to accept it.

Yalan purred cat-like, “Even if I revealed more of my cards, you still wouldn’t guess the extent of my power.”

From the side, Wang Jun scoffed. “We’ll see about that,” he muttered, then turned his attention to Chen Ren. “So this is it, huh? You’re really going to cheat your way through this competition.”

“Only in some rounds,” Chen Ren said with a shrug. “I’ll still be doing most of the work myself. But besides feeding me advice through Yalan, I need you to teach me a pill. One for the final round. Something simple but extinct. And it has to be unique, something no one else will think of.”

“Just make the flavored pills.”

“Those won’t qualify. They’re just altered versions of existing formulas. And do you really think I want to make something like that in public?” He exhaled slowly. “There will be special rooms for the final round—private ones to prevent recipes from leaking—but I can’t trust anyone. I need something obscure, hidden in plain sight. A pill that's easy to make and something that might be common back in your childhood, but no one remembers now.” He leaned in slightly. “I know you have something.”

The head’s grin slowly returned. This time, it was tinged with curiosity. And maybe, just maybe… a hint of pride.

“Why do you think that?”

“Because I know you’re crafty enough to keep plenty of cards close to your sleeve. No one gets to where you were without being stingy with their secrets. I’d even bet what you’ve told me so far isn’t even ten percent of what you really know.”

Wang Jun clicked his tongue, the sound echoing faintly against the stone walls. “Very perceptive, kid.”

“It’s just logical reasoning,” Chen Ren said with a shrug.

“Call it whatever you like.” Wang Jun’s eyes drifted upward for a second. “I might have something. A pill recipe. Nothing groundbreaking, but obscure enough that no one around here would recognize it. Easy ingredients too.”

“What is it?” Chen Ren asked without wasting a second.

“Before that, tell me. Why should I help you at all?”

Nothing is free,

Chen Ren thought to himself, reminding how the world works, and how it would always be.

“So you do want something out of it.”

“Of course I do. My charitable days are centuries behind me.”

“Fine. What do you want?”

Wang Jun’s grin curled upward like smoke. “What can you give me?”

“Oh, so you don’t know either?”

“Oh, I know.” His eyes glinted. “I just want you to offer it to me. Without me asking. That’s how you earn a real favor from me.”

Chen Ren exhaled through his nose. Annoying. Predictable. And yet expected. He already knew the answer.

“I’ll get you the Stormbite Pills.”

The head lit up—well, as much as a head without a body could. “Not just that,” Wang Jun added with a groan. “I want out of this damn room. I’m bored out of my mind. Whatever she brings me to read feels like chewing gravel, and you do get tired of turning pages with your tongue.”

Yalan looked mildly disgusted. Anji looked like she was trying very hard not to laugh. Chen Ren pinched the bridge of his nose.

“You know you can’t come out except during the competition,” Chen Ren said. “But once it’s over, and I head back to the sect… I’ll bring you with me.”

Wang Jun gave a slow nod, clearly unsatisfied but willing to accept the compromise for now. “And the books?”

Chen Ren sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t know if there’s anything in the new library back in the sect that’ll actually interest you. But… Do you like storybooks?”

“What kind of stories?”

Chen Ren hesitated. “Fated lovers. I wrote one a while back for Qing He. I might have a few more still bouncing around in my head. I could write them down for you.”

There was a long pause.

An extremely long pause of just Wang Jun thinking to himself and the rest of them staring. If he agreed soon, then Chen Ren could get registration over with quickly.

But for that, he needed to agree.

It was daunting, the final minutes with just the head looking at nothing.

Finally, he spoke. “Well, alright. If they’re any good, I’ll do the job.”

Chen Ren let out a long breath of relief, some of the tension lifting from his shoulders.

Finally,

he thought,

something’s going my way.

He pushed himself up off the floor.

“Thank you.”

“Where are you going, Sect Leader Chen?” Anji asked, her arms tucked behind her back.

“With Wang Jun on board, I’m heading to register for the trials,” Chen Ren replied, brushing the dust from his robes. “Alongside the others. Better to get it done early. I don’t want the Darkmoon Sect pulling anything if we’re late.”

He paused at the door, glancing back. “There’s one more thing I want to do while I’m at the City Lord’s office.”

“And what would that be, kid?”

“I realized something,” Chen Ren said, slipping his hands into his sleeves. “One advantage the Darkmoon Sect has is their ties to the city officials. I’m going to try to even that.”

Yalan, still perched lazily on the windowsill, narrowed her eyes. “You gonna give them gifts?”

“Something like that.” Chen Ren smirked. “I have an idea. It all depends on whether they listen to me. But if they do… they might start liking Divine Coin Sect a whole lot more.”

***

A week passed by faster than Chen Ren had expected.

After registering for the trials, he threw himself into preparation with single-minded focus. If he was being honest, he would’ve preferred to avoid participating at all, but he didn’t have the luxury of choice. According to Hun Tianzhi, only two disciples from Jadefire Hall had any real chance of standing out in the competition. And only Chen Ren could make use of Yalan’s telepathic link—and Wang Jun’s sharp tongue—since the others either didn’t know about them or lacked the skill in alchemy to benefit.

So, for seven days straight, Chen Ren buried himself in refining his technique.

Days were spent at the Jadefire Hall’s compound, where Hun Tianzhi surprisingly stepped into the role of mentor. It was an awkward arrangement at first—one born more out of necessity than camaraderie—but the old man clearly knew his stuff. Mornings became a blur of herbs, flame control, and pill refinement. Evenings, meanwhile, were reserved for hours of biting commentary from a disembodied head.

He didn’t waste time chasing complexity. A week wasn’t enough to make him an Earth-grade alchemist, and he knew that. But it

was

enough to sharpen his foundation. His basics, honed quietly on his own under Qing He’s old notes, began to take real form under pressure. He didn’t spread himself thin experimenting—he focused only on the pills he’d be presenting during the competition aside from the one unique pill for the final round.

According to Hun Tianzhi, his talent was “adequate.” Chen Ren took that as a compliment. It didn’t have to be dazzling. It just had to be enough to win.

Of course, the moral dilemma hung at the back of his mind like a buzzing fly. Cheating—at least by traditional standards—was frowned upon. But this wasn’t a world where hard work alone took you places. The ones who rose fast were the ones showered with alchemical baths in their cribs, gilded sect tokens in their pockets, and entire clans smoothing the road ahead.

So what if he bent the rules a little?

It wasn’t cheating unless he got caught.

And Chen Ren had no intention of getting caught.

Like that, the day of the Flames of Merit Trials.

finally arrived, and it felt as though the entire city had come to a halt just to witness it.

Shops closed early. Market stalls emptied. Even the outer patrols of the city guard increased to keep the ruffians in check. Everyone—from street vendors to cloaked cultivators—seemed to be heading toward the massive arena built beside the City Lord’s estate. It wasn’t just a field with a few seats—it was a coliseum in the truest sense, its stone seats rising in concentric circles, high enough that the top rows caught the wind.

Chen Ren stood at the edge of the participants’ staging area, eyeing the crowd. Tens of thousands, at least. Laughter, shouting, chants—the noise alone made his robes feel heavier.

Would’ve made a killing with a noodle stall here,

he thought with a grim smile. But still, there was a silver lining. Events like these pulled in not just mortals, but wandering cultivators, rogue pill masters, and merchant factions looking for talent. And thanks to that flood of attention, the Divine Pill Apothecary had doubled its daily sales in the last few days.

If things continued like this, his debt would be dust by the end of the tournament.

The competition hadn’t even begun yet, and already the stands were filled. Cheers roared from every direction, even as the participants—over a hundred of them—stood lined up on the ground under the blazing sun, forced to endure the ceremonial wait.

Because before any pill was made, before any fire was lit, came the speeches.

It took nearly half a day.

One by one, officials arrived—riding in on carriages, clouds, beasts, and in one case, an actual flying palanquin. The City Lord came last, taking his seat beneath a golden canopy. Trumpets flared. Flags waved. And then the announcer stepped up onto a raised platform in the middle of the field, projecting his voice with a wind-based technique.

“—As you all know,” the man boomed, “Broken Ridge City is the bastion of the empire! For centuries, it has held the line against the foul tide of the insectoids!”

The audience erupted with cheers.

“And while we are grateful to the brave hunters and noble sects who risk life and limb to keep our borders safe, they—” the announcer gestured dramatically to the lined-up participants “—are only as strong as the pills they take! The medicines that bind their wounds! The flames that push back the infection!”

Chen Ren tried not to fidget. His legs were already stiff.

“These pills—our salvation—are born in the crucible of minds like these! Talented alchemists, nurtured by years of study, supported by the finest cultivators in the empire… and all of this is possible thanks to the wisdom and patronage of our own City Lord, Lord Bai Huiqin!”

The people erupted into more cheers, much louder this time.

Chen Ren stood at the back of the long line of alchemists, flanked by Tau Liu, the only disciple from his sect that stood an outside chance to win the trial, and Jie Foong, another sect member he’d only had passing interactions with. She looked calm, almost bored, but Chen Ren could tell from the slight tension in her jaw that she was just as on edge as the rest of them.

At the center of the arena, the announcer stood on a raised block of earth as he danced expertly between praising the alchemists and periodically heaping praise on the City Lord, like a well-rehearsed performance.

Chen Ren barely listened.

Instead, his gaze lifted toward the elevated seats at the side of the grounds where the City Lord Huiqin and the rest of the high officials sat, shaded beneath silk canopies. Most of them looked mildly interested or politely amused.

But Chen Ren’s eyes found only one man—the leader of the Darkmoon Sect, Gao Moyue, wearing deep violet robes. He was easy to identify due to the color of his robes, and he understood why he was so influential. Even seated, he looked as if he owned the entire arena.

Their eyes met. Just for a second. The man smirked.

Chen Ren looked away without reacting, fixing his gaze back on the announcer, whose voice was now reaching its climax.

“…These alchemists, with their pills, have ensured that every broken bone, every clogged meridian, and every poisoned core is healed. Thanks to them, our warriors rise again, stronger each time!”

The crowd roared in approval.

“And this is what the Flames of MeritTrials celebrate! The alchemists—our city’s supporting beam—are here today to show their talent, their worth, and their brilliance!”

He raised his hands high.

“This is the

one

event that brings the entire city together! That shows the empire why Broken Ridge is home to the best alchemists in the land!”

Another cheer thundered through the coliseum like a wave, rising from every tier of seats. Chen Ren could feel the buzz in his bones and nerves, excitement, pressure, all swirling together.

The announcer grinned, clearly enjoying the attention.

Then, as the volume died down, he raised one hand dramatically and declared, “Now let us begin with the first round!”

***

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