[Reward: Recipe - Nine-Severing Frost Pill]

[Description: An ancient, lost prescription. Cannot be forged with spiritual fire or orthodox cauldrons. This pill can only be successfully refined using the Cold-Forging technique.]

Su Bai stared at the glowing text. He knew the names of thousands of obscure pills. Yet, he had never once encountered the name Nine-Severing Frost Pill.

The system hadn’t just given him a recipe. It had given him an entirely proprietary product line tailored exclusively to his unique manufacturing method. It was a trade secret that no orthodox alchemist in the world could replicate.

He turned to Liu Meng.

"Junior Sister," Su Bai asked quietly. "Have you ever heard of a pill called the Nine-Severing Frost Pill?"

Liu Meng blinked. Her brow furrowed in concentration. After a long moment, she shook her head. "I don’t think so, Senior Brother. I have memorized a lot of pill catalogs, and I’ve never seen that name. Is it important?"

"It might be," Su Bai nodded.

Liu Meng smiled brightly. "Let me go ask Master! Please wait for me here, Senior Brother!"

Before Su Bai could stop her, the energetic Junior Sister had already sprinted off.

Su Bai smiled at her departing figure and turned his attention back to the public alchemy floor.

To his mild surprise, standing quietly at one of the cauldrons was Ji Ruyue.

It hadn’t even been a week since she last came, yet she was already back. Standing rigidly beside her were two young Junior Sisters from Silent Orchid Peak.

Su Bai immediately approached them.

"Congratulations on successfully forming your Golden Core, Senior Sister Ji," Su Bai greeted with a polite smile.

Ji Ruyue turned. Her beautiful face was completely devoid of emotion like a flawless porcelain doll. "Congratulations on restoring your Foundation Establishment, Junior Brother Su," she replied in a perfectly flat, monotonous voice.

The two Junior Sisters beside her nodded with synchronized, robotic stiffness.

Su Bai ignored the chilling atmosphere and watched as Ji Ruyue began her refinement.

Her personal method was incredibly harsh and dangerous compared to orthodox alchemy, and infinitely riskier than Su Bai’s Cold-Forging.

Bang!

Her cauldron violently detonated. It spewed scorched black ash all over the station.

Without missing a beat, Su Bai grabbed an iron scraper. "Allow me, Senior Sister." He swiftly scraped the toxic dregs out of her cauldron, slipping the most potent chunks into his sleeve for later consumption. He helped her clean the station in less than a minute.

This exact process repeated three more times. Ji Ruyue would blow up a cauldron, and Su Bai, acting like a highly supportive coworker, would happily clean up the "trash." 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

Finally, on her fourth attempt, Ji Ruyue successfully condensed a volatile Qi-Devouring Pill.

"If Silent Orchid Peak has no use for that highly toxic pill," Su Bai asked politely, "may I take them off your hands?"

"You may," Ji Ruyue agreed flatly.

"Thank you, Senior Sister Ji." Su Bai smiled warmly. He grabbed the pill and happily returned to his station across the room. He had just secured premium snacks for his cultivation.

However, back at Ji Ruyue’s station, the two robotic Junior Sisters began to converse.

Because they practiced the Heartless Sutra, their gossip was delivered in a horrifyingly flat, monotonous tone, completely devoid of giggles or whispers.

"Observation complete," the first Junior Sister stated blankly, then stared at Su Bai’s back. "Senior Brother Su of Clear Cloud Peak harbors romantic affection for Senior Sister Ji."

"Hypothesis confirmed," the second Junior Sister nodded rigidly. "He exhibited highly attentive, caretaking behaviors. He cleaned our station three times without being prompted."

Ji Ruyue slowly turned her head to look at them. She then looked back at Su Bai.

Her cold, analytical mind began to process the data. Su Bai had taught her his Cold-Forging technique when any other alchemist would have hoarded it.

That act of generosity had ultimately allowed her to reach the Golden Core stage. And like last time, he had rushed over to clean up her messes.

"Calculating probability," the first Junior Sister droned. "There is a seventy percent chance Senior Brother Su desires a dual-cultivation partnership with Senior Sister Ji."

"Correction," the second Junior Sister added flatly. "Factoring in his warm smile upon receiving our toxic waste, the probability increases to ninety percent."

They gossiped like two malfunctioning automated customer service bots.

Ji Ruyue remained expressionless. She practiced the Heartless Sutra. She was destined to become the next emotionless enforcer of the sect.

Since Su Bai had genuinely helped her, she calculated that it would be highly unethical to allow him to waste his time falling in love with a woman who literally could not reciprocate feelings.

Deciding to resolve this issue with maximum efficiency, Ji Ruyue turned and walked straight over to Su Bai’s station.

She stood in front of him.

"Junior Brother Su," Ji Ruyue called out flatly.

Su Bai looked up. "Yes, Senior Sister?"

"Do you like me?" she asked in a perfectly monotone voice.

Su Bai completely froze. His brain short-circuited. Out of all the things he expected the robotic genius to say, a direct romantic confrontation was absolutely not one of them.

He sat there in stunned silence. His eyebrows rose in utter bewilderment as he tried to process what HR protocol covered this specific interaction.

However, to Ji Ruyue, his stunned silence and raised eyebrows registered as a fearful admission of guilt.

"I apologize," Ji Ruyue stated flatly. "Your feelings are acknowledged, but I cannot return them. My path is severed from worldly attachments. We cannot be together."

Su Bai almost choked on his own saliva.

’What?!’ Su Bai screamed internally. ’Did she just assume I liked her, and then immediately reject me based on zero empirical evidence?! This is the first time I have ever been rejected in the cultivation world, and it is from a coworker I don’t even have feelings for!’

Ji Ruyue, sensing a sudden, massive spike in his internal Qi fluctuations, calculated that her blunt rejection might have been too harsh.

Wanting to assess the psychological damage she had just inflicted, she subtly activated a Mind-Reading technique.

The moment she tapped into Su Bai’s surface thoughts, she completely froze.

’I never thought Senior Sister Ji would be so incredibly narcissistic,’ Su Bai’s internal voice grumbled in profound annoyance. ’If she didn’t possess the unique ability to produce premium-grade toxic trash pills for me to eat, I wouldn’t even speak to her.’

Ji Ruyue’s eyes widened a fraction of a millimeter. He... he only talked to her because he wanted her garbage?

Before she could cut the connection, Su Bai’s internal rant shifted into a deeply embarrassed, frustrated tangent.

’Besides, I am a normal man. If I am going to date someone, I want a woman who at least moans! Dating someone who practices the Heartless Sutra would literally be like having sex with a robot!’

Ji Ruyue violently severed the mind-reading technique.

Her perfectly smooth, unfeeling brow twitched so hard she almost triggered a Qi deviation on the spot.

She stood there, absolutely speechless. She had never, in her entire life, heard someone describe her in such a vulgar, profoundly insulting manner.

Realizing that she was, in fact, the narcissistic one in this scenario, Ji Ruyue turned around without saying another word and rigidly marched back to her station.

"Senior Sister," the first monotonous Junior Sister asked as Ji Ruyue returned. "Did you successfully sever his worldly attachments?"

Ji Ruyue stared blankly at the cauldron. She decided not to inform her juniors about what had just transpired.

"The matter is resolved," Ji Ruyue stated flatly.

She looked the same, but no one knew what’s truly on her mind.

The two Junior Sisters nodded rigidly. They completely misunderstood the heavy, incredibly awkward atmosphere that had just settled over the room.

Just then, the grand doors of the Alchemy Hall swung open, and Liu Meng came rushing back in. She was completely unaware of the HR disaster that had just occurred.