"Hic!... So what happened next?"
Without knowing when, the children who should have been sleeping soundly in their rooms had woken up and gathered in a circle to listen to Bai Fanxian's story. Tang Yeye, who had the most childlike heart among them, was deeply moved by this sad tale. Without realizing it, Tang Yeye had grabbed the Dragon Queen and pulled her into a hug — leaving Little Red with no choice but to sigh helplessly.
"My lady..."
Hui'er was another who was deeply drawn into this story. But the part that stirred her emotions was learning the truth that her lady, stronger than anyone, had grown up from a small slum just like her.
*If my lady could do it, then I can too!*
In that moment, Hui'er made one grand resolution in her heart.
Bai Fanxian looked around the room. Most of her followers were waiting with full attention for her to continue.
"...I woke up once more in an unfamiliar room."
Bai Fanxian took a sip of tea, her gaze drifting out toward the vast sea as if the memories of her childhood were returning scene by scene.
"Everyone I knew had disappeared. Even Haoyang, who carried me out of there, was nowhere to be seen. I ended up alone in an old wooden house just outside the city..."
"..."
"..."
At this point Bai Fanxian fell silent, and Liu Yianfei shifted closer with concern.
He knew better than most what a painful past felt like. He had lost his wife and his only daughter who was the apple of his eye all at once. On the nights he had nightmares, the images of those events would come back to torment him until sometimes he just wanted to forget everything completely.
"I didn't even know where I was or what I wanted to do. In my head there was nothing but the image of crimson flames swallowing my brothers and sisters until not even fragments remained."
"I started going out to explore the city and found it was different from where I'd lived before. Only much later did I learn it was a neighboring city—separated by a vast forest and a fierce rapid river."
"...That might have been lucky. Not a single group came looking for me. So I was able to spend five years climbing from Martial Artist level up to become a Transcendent—the seventh level of cultivation."
SPIT!
Liu Yianfei, who had just taken a sip of coffee, accidentally spat it out. The elderly butler wasn't in a position to scold him because his own reaction was barely any different. The old man simply flicked his hand and the coffee stains on the floor were cleaned away without him having to turn and look.
...It felt like the story had just skipped ahead in a single sentence, didn't it?
"My lady... Transcendent level is three stages above Grandmaster, correct?"
Liu Yianfei tried to compose himself, but his legs were trembling even as he sat — a clear sign he wasn't as composed as he appeared.
"Qi Gathering, Martial Artist, Martial Master, Grandmaster, Sage, Ancient Sage—and then Transcendent. Yes, it's three full stages beyond Grandmaster."
Bai Fanxian listed them all with a blank expression.
"...How old were you then?"
"Around fourteen or fifteen, I'd think?"
"...!"
It wasn't just Liu Yianfei who was speechless. The other followers all turned to look at each other and could only smile awkwardly.
Liu Yianfei wanted to ask about her methods, but it might have been too presumptuous. Even among close people, some things weren't appropriate to ask outright, so they all just stayed silent...
"My lady, how did you do it!?"
But it was Tang Yeye who asked the question lingering in many hearts with the pure candor of a child, prompting Liu Yianfei to secretly give her a thumbs up.
"...I refined pills to get by."
In those days, she had to keep a low profile.
She had learned that lesson the hard way. She found an abandoned hut and turned it into both home and workshop.
"I'd sell a portion of the less valuable ones... luckily the forest nearby was full of many types of high-quality herbs and ingredients."
She continued.
"During the day I'd stay in the forest. At night I'd come back to refine pills in the hut. That was how my days went for quite a long time."
"Then how did my lady get stronger?"
Tang Yeye was still curious. To her, going back and forth between forest and home was no different from going to work and coming home. So when did her lady find time to cultivate?
"...Going into the forest was what made me understand why no one from the previous city came after me."
Bai Fanxian looked back and found herself amused by her younger self. The image of that girl scrambling out of the forest in complete disarray was something her current self could only smile at now.
"It was full of wild beasts and demonic beasts, ranging from Martial Artist to Transcendent level. Even though they were called neighboring cities, they were practically cut off from each other. Without genuine necessity, almost no one took that route."
"To survive, I had to hunt for herbs while fighting off those beasts at the same time. That's probably how my Heaven Sense and combat ability developed."
"I want to train in the forest too..."
It was Hui'er whose eyes lit up, wanting to follow in her lady's footsteps right then and there.
But Bai Fanxian shook her head before that idea could go anywhere.
"No... I think what made me develop so quickly came from something else."
Bai Fanxian clenched her hand lightly. Immense power and authority spread out, and the children felt their skin prickle.
"I used my own body as a test subject for every single pill I refined, from childhood on. Known ones and unknown ones, poisonous and non-poisonous alike. In the end, everything merged and fused together inside me."
"...!"
It sounded simple when said aloud, but it was filled with madness.
Anyone could say they would do such a thing. But any cultivator knew what terrifying results just two pills with opposing effects could bring — and that wasn't even counting failed batches or outright poisons, which must have appeared at roughly a fifty-fifty rate.
What Bai Fanxian had done was no different from indirect suicide. Those who hadn't known this before could now imagine the torment without needing to try it themselves.
"My lady..."
"That's all in the past. Why are you worrying over it?"
Bai Fanxian waved her hand and sighed. Though even she had to admit, looking back, that what she had done as a child was far more reckless than anything a child her age should ever attempt.
But that was her very essence — the will to survive, and the will to grow stronger.
Those two things had sustained her and carried her to become what she was today. Standing at the highest point, looking down upon all living things.
The Alchemy Empress had been forged by pills, after all. No one in this world knew pills the way she did.
"...My lady, there's something I've been wondering about."
"...Go ahead."
"...How old are you, exactly?"
The one who noticed the inconsistency and spoke up was Huang Zihuan. To look at him, he was certainly the oldest person in the room. But after hearing so much from Bai Fanxian, he felt as though she came from another world entirely — one he had never known.
"Ten thousand years... and a little more."
"..."
"Ha ha, my lady, you must be jok—"
Before he could finish, Bai Fanxian cut him off in an even tone.
"What allowed me to cross through time was a pill called the 'Eternal Myriad Heavens.'"
*RUMBLE...*
A powerful aura rose from Bai Fanxian. And at the same time, everyone in the room felt a sudden surge of vitality. The Dragon Queen, who carried the same thing within herself but in incomplete form, stared at Bai Fanxian with longing.
She was the one who understood best just how precious this was.
"This is..."
Those who had been with Bai Fanxian the longest recognized it at once. The seaside residence and this island were saturated with it.
It was the life force that allowed them to cultivate so rapidly.
"Before I knew it, ten thousand years of my time had passed... I woke up once more in an underground cave deep within the mountain on the day Zheng Renyi clashed with another general above."
"That's why my lady appeared there that day?"
Liu Yianfei had heard parts of the story from Marshal Zhang Xianyuan before. At that time, a mysterious figure had appeared in the middle of the sky and released a power that overwhelmed everyone present without exception — not even Zhang Xianyuan himself.
And he had learned afterward that it was their own lady. Bai Fanxian.
He was also one of those who had wondered about the reason she had done that.
Hearing it laid out like this, everything clicked into place.
"I remember, my lady! The day I first met you, you brought me into the cave beneath the mountain..."
Hui'er, who had been with Bai Fanxian the longest and had even spent two or three nights sleeping in that very cave, blurted it out before she could stop herself.
That was the best confirmation of all.
And it also helped explain why Bai Fanxian's name appeared in no population database. Before this, they had simply assumed she might be a disciple of some master who had withdrawn from the world, living in forests and mountains, so removed from civilization she seemed unlike anyone of this era.
But who could have imagined that she had actually crossed through time from another age entirely!
"Whew... is this really real?"
"It's hard to believe... but it does explain my lady's monster-level strength better than anything else could."
The two adults in the house were still trying to come to terms with reality.
At that moment the little black kitten leaped out from the bedroom. It yawned and stretched lazily before jumping up to sit and watch the group of humans deep in conversation, with curiosity in its eyes.
"What are you all doing, meow?"
"...Looking for a way to open a portal from this side."
"Really, meow! That's great, meow. Kuro wants to go home soon too."
The little kitten jumped over to nuzzle against Bai Fanxian's hand happily. It did its best to pretend not to notice the Dragon Queen's irritated glare.
"Let's leave it at that for today then."
Bai Fanxian wrapped up the story. It was nice to look back on her own past once in a while.
"The reason you want to get to that world quickly... is it because there might be clues connecting back to people you knew ten thousand years ago?"
Having heard everything, Liu Yianfei could quickly connect it to her earlier uncharacteristic state.
"..."
Bai Fanxian neither confirmed nor denied it.
Before everyone started to go their separate ways, Hui'er and Tang Yeye, still curious, reached up and tugged at the hem of Bai Fanxian's sleeve.
"My lady, what happened to those people?"
Those people: the thugs who had slaughtered her brothers and sisters, the corrupt officials and Guards, and the high-ranking figures who had governed that city.
"..."
"You all know my character well... I protect and love my own people fiercely."
Both children nodded vigorously. Even in this era, their lady was still exactly the same.
"So even if they were kings or royalty..."
"If they had even the slightest connection to what happened that day..."
"...Every last one of them was dragged down from their throne and judged by my own hands."
"..."