Huichen

Chapter 4: The Hope Found in Despair

Her heart burned with hate for a moment, before stillness replaced it. She closed her eyes.

Thank you Li Haoli. Thank you for reminding me why I must only depend on myself, why I need to be stronger than any man in this world. Thank you, Li Haoli, for making my feet steady once more. Thank you for not saving me, but casting me into the pit of burning flesh, because now my heart is steady, and there is no more hesitation, and even as she hit the chemicals of the cauldron products, the mystic fire from the volcano's veins burning through the cauldron sides, threatening to liquify even her bones instantly, she opened her qi vessels and took in all that fiery qi around her before it could destroy her, took in all the medicinal ingredients before they melted her flesh and began to completely redefine her body even as it broke down into pieces, she built it up again, refining it in the depths of the cauldron meant to be her tomb. Using the little qi she had already stored in her body to do so.

Meanwhile, above, two men stood over the cauldron, looking into the majestic pit before them, watching hot lava boil up and around the bronze colored cauldron, the formations supplying it with vast quantities of spiritual energy on every side.

"That has to be one of the wickedest things I've seen you do in a long time!" Commented Hei Jingyi, in a bright tone.

"You think so?" Asked Li Haoli shyly. "I think when I married three sisters without each of their knowledge, and then fed the first child of each to themselves. Oh, and then tying them all up in a room together and eating pieces of their bodies I flayed off and grilled over a fire top in front of them, while talking about what I'd done with their other sisters and children, was probably worse. Well, even I hurt a bit with that one, the kid however, now that was great fun."

Hei Jingyi sighed, shaking his head. "Children can tell when your affections are honest, it wouldn't have been so evil otherwise." He quickly threw his arm around Li Haoli's shoulder. "Now, aren't you even a little bit curious about what I'm making?"

Li Haoli's eyes shined. "Oh? Is it a new invention?"

"Hardly!" Hei Jinyi's eyes glowed in excitement, as he waved his finger in front of Li Haoli's face. "But this pill is so difficult to procure the ingredients for and hard to refine, plus insurmountably expensive, so it hasn't been made in over a millennia! I had to give out 8 other batches of four children before you came, so it is lucky you did, because I was running a bit low!" Hei Jingyi blithely avoided Li Haoli's half hearted attempt to push him into the lava, as he walked forward, a skip in his step, leaving the cages of children to head to a lower spot where his lab lay. Strewn about, high and low, were multiple documents of varying types, along with random potions and pills sitting wherever there was a bit of space on the shelves and tables, or even where there wasn't. Li Haoli almost subconsciously frowned at the mess, before catching himself. Hui had long since learned about his OCD, and nothing had been out of place around him since, if it were within Hui's reach.

"So? Which God-tier pill are you constructing this time?" Asked Li Haoli curiously, as he walked over to take a glance at the many documents clothing the main tabletop. But Hei Jingyi picked up a paper from the ground, hidden beneath four other documents, bringing it over to show him instead.

"This one!" He displayed its occupants for Li Haoli to see. "The highest immortal-grade pill, one of the highest tiered demonic pills in existence!. Calls for the sacrifice of 9 groups of 4 young, and unblemished virgin females, along with the blood of 9413 completely whole people and 514 fingers and toes! Do you have any idea how hard it was to get that? Not to mention it must be cooked over a li fire flame and given consistent, overwhelming spiritual power equivalent to a Soul Formation expert! We only have two of those in our sect! And no one has seen them for hundreds of years! Plus, it asked for the Ice flame flower, that only grows on the tallest mountains, where snow never melts, and will only blossom once every thousand years, plus a total of 13 fruits of the Sunset willow, that only grows in the darkest caves, and whose poison is enough to kill an elephant with one breath of its scent! Plus!--"

And on and on he went, each ingredient more rare than the last, until Li Haoli began to doubt it was even possible to create in the first place. I mean, who had even invented such a ridiculous thing? How had they the ingredients to experiment for it in the first place? The upper world? What kind of demonic cultivators even lived there? Li Haoli sighed, breaking into Hei Jingyi's monologue. "..and what does this oh-so-great pill do?"

Hei Jingyi stopped for a moment, before realizing he'd forgotten to mention a piece of rather vital information.

"It makes a total of 4, 1st-tier, Immortal grade, highest level–"

"Just tell me the effects." Sighed Li Haoli, breaking in again.

"Ah, right, it completely revives a dead man, no matter how long he's been dead, or how weak or powerful, and brings them to peak health and strength and it will even cause them to rise a whole level if in the soul formation realm or below!"

"???" Li Haoli was in shock. No wonder Hei Jingyi was willing to sacrifice so many ingredients and effort for it. Hei Jingyi had a blood spirit root, and most would've found this a disadvantage, but once again, Hei Jingyi proved them wrong, going on to make this wonderous pill, completely based solely on his unique spirit root. The blood spirit root had terrible offensive power, unless you sacrificed yourself or another, but it was almost perfect for pill refining. Hence, Hei Jingyi had spent all his life in the depths of the Demonic fortress, forging pills for the higher ups since he had learned to speak. Just like his master before him, and the master before that, and the master before that. Li Haoli was once more reminded of Hui. Whenever Hui had looked at him, he could feel that she saw who he was beneath all the death and pain he brought to others, and that was a feeling he'd never felt before. He had felt he was one and the same to the torture he'd delt out, but she had clearly distinguished them, pushing down the blade from his mouth and cleaning his face. She had distinguished that he himself could be clean, and was separate from the evil he had wrought. That he had a chance of leaving it behind. He had loved that feeling as much as he had hated it. And now, staring at Hei Jingyi before him, a man born and raised to forge evil pills, he wondered if such a man, who had done evil since young, who didn't understand what evil even was, could ever distinguish himself from the job he had been forced to do his whole life. He let his mind push it away. It didn't matter anyway. Hui wasn't alive anymore, and He would never change. Neither would Hei Jingyi. They were forever destined to live and die with the blood they had shed.