Chapter 233: The Garden Listens

Chapter 233: The Garden Listens

Moonlight stretched into dawn, dawn into dusk, again and again. With my cultivation rank at the Essence Awakening stage, my body worked in even greater harmony and allowed me to operate with less sleep than before, without compromising my limit within the Manifold Memory Palace.

I barely left the shop, except to check the greenhouse or tend to the more vulnerable elders. Everything else came second.

Tianyi and Windy hadn’t left the shop in nearly two days.

I’d confined them to rest, but it was no victory. Windy’s body curled tighter with each hour, his breath slow and uneven, his normally brilliant scales now mottled with purple undertones that wouldn’t fade. Tianyi slept more than she was awake. Her wings now drooped against her back like they were too heavy to lift. Her antennae twitched sluggishly even in dreams. Whether it was their innate nature or something else; the Amethyst Plague seemed to accelerate twofold within their body compared to that of a regular cultivator's.

And I didn’t know how to stop it. Not when my progress towards the cure felt days away.

I went to the greenhouse.

The greenhouse's door hissed as I pulled it open. The warmth inside was soft, earthy. Even in the face of plague, of exhaustion, of despair, this location was thriving.

The petals of the Calming Lotus were paler than I’d expected; but I didn’t need perfection. it was unrealistic for everything to go as I expected, when most of my calculations were focused on theoretical work.

If I could refine it into a tincture or incense, it might pacify the qi flows in Windy and Tianyi’s bodies. Slow them. Numb them. Maybe even give them a chance to endure the plague without exertion. A gamble of time versus decay. It'd be ideal to utilize the rest of them when the rest of the village who utilized qi faced more severe symptoms.

That one, I’d refine for the villagers who were suffering from the early stages of the illness. Fever suppressants, respiratory salves; Spirit Moss would be the foundation. It wasn’t a cure, but it could buy them comfort. Stability.

The hybrid kudzu was less elegant. Thick, tangled vines with bulbous nodules that tasted vaguely like clay no matter how I cooked them. But it grew fast. Needed little. Even the livestock could eat it without falling ill.

I stood there a while, baskets in hand, watching the rest of the greenhouse.

Other plants were still maturing; slowly, stubbornly, without any regard for urgency.

My qi stirred in my dantian, instinctively rising, and I nearly gave in to the temptation.

Just a little. Just enough to expedite their growth.

But the memory of yesterday’s coughing fit; of the wrongness twisting in my chest when I cycled too much, held me back. I couldn’t afford it. Not now. Not when even one slip might be enough to push me over the edge and doom everybody else. I sighed and checked the quest.

Quest: A Garden of Living Seeds

Cultivate five hybrid spiritual plants to aid Gentle Wind Village:

- A stamina-restoring root for those who toil beyond their limits. (0/1)

- A calming lotus to soothe the emotionally shaken. (1/1)

- A qi-dense herb to build the foundations of low-stage cultivators. (0/1)

- A plague-resistant moss for purification and medicinal use. (1/1)

- A memory-enhancing flower to sharpen minds. (0/1)

The wording of the quest was strange; albeit cultivating the plants, it only marked the requirements as complete when I harvested them after being matured. Not an inconvenience, but it would've been ideal if it had marked them as complete earlier. The heavens knew I'd need any help I'd get from the quest reward. As soon as I could receive them.

I moved on and closed my eyes, letting my other senses take hold.

Nature’s Attunement flowed gently, allowing me to sense the entire greenhouse and the life within.

Each plant responded differently. Some needed more shade. Others, less moisture. One batch had grown stunted due to an imbalance in the soil’s mineral content; too much copper essence.

I adjusted what I could. Shifted stones, redirected water flow, scraped out a portion of soil and replaced it with a lighter mix.

And then, I turned to the final bed.

The Bloodsoul Bloom.

Its petals had darkened since the last feeding.They had dulled to a deep vermilion, a burnished red, like coals cooling after flame. The pattern of its veining was less jagged now. More organic. They moved only when I approached.

Not dormant. But not feral either.

I didn’t know why it was working. Was it the Spirit Soil? The daily microdoses of essence? The slow starvation between meals that taught it to wait, to receive rather than seize?

I didn’t have answers. Only results.

I knelt by the plant, and took out an offering from my basket; an unfortunate bamboo rat, limp in the feeding tray.

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I watched.

A single tendril slid from beneath the bloom’s base, brushed the rat once like a whisper... and then drove through it. Fast. Silent. Efficient.

There was no blood. No mess. Just stillness as the bloom absorbed everything; muscle, marrow, even the bone.

Until nothing remained but a faint shimmer where flesh had been.

It wasn’t plant or beast.

It hovered somewhere in between. Teetering on the edge of sentience, hunger, and obedience. Like a predator trained not to bite, yet never forgetting how.

I stood, gathered the hybrids I’d harvested, and stepped out of the greenhouse.

Time was short.

And now, at last, I could begin.

The door to my shop closed behind me with a dull thunk, muffling the world once more.

Lan-Yin had already agreed to handle the preparation of the kudzu. She’d been rationing what little food we had to keep everyone stable, and even managed to turn the hybrid’s bland, starchy flavor into something passable. I didn’t ask how. She had her own arts.

A few of the refugees; some former cooks, others simply willing hands, had begun assisting. More than a few had run-ins with the Interface of their own. Cooking. Construction. First aid. A refugee from Crescent Bay had awakened something akin to Brewing, and was now working on making spirit-soothing tonics with Verdant Lotus guidance.

Jian Feng and the other disciples had taken up the role of guides more than warriors, helping people understand the boundaries of their new skills and making sure they didn’t overdraw on qi. That kind of steady, measured leadership was exactly what we needed.

The Heavenly Interface wasn’t just granting power anymore.

"It's helping us fight back." I whispered to myself.

Maybe the system wasn’t perfect. Maybe it didn’t always make sense. But this felt like a response. A retaliating act against the demonic plague that sought to consume everything.

And I was determined to meet it halfway.

To go beyond the quest’s parameters.

I moved quickly, setting the lotus petals and supporting ingredients on the table, lining them in careful arcs around the pill furnace. First was making the potion to slow the Amethyst Plague within Tianyi and Windy.

With practiced ease, I unfurled the Alchemical Nexus, weaving my thoughts through its guiding rings and adjusting the sigils for maximum potency.

The formation responded at once. The air shimmered slightly around the furnace, stabilizing the heat distribution even before I ignited the first flame.

The Refinement Simulation Technique activated soon after. At once, a cascade of ghostly symbols flooded my inner vision. Potential issues. Optimal heat timings. The lotus had gained unpredictable qualities after being infused as a seed, so I’d need to adjust mid-process as I fully uncovered it's intricacies. I nodded, familiar now with every projected outcome.

"Let's go."

I'd run this formulation in my head a dozen times. Optimized it to within a sliver of failure. I’d written and rewritten the recipe until it practically engraved itself into the walls of my Manifold Memory Palace. I started with the supporting ingredients first; mixing, grinding, slicing, and tossing them in one by one.

As I laid the Calming Lotus on the preparation slab, a ripple moved through my body. Not from the Interface. Not even from my Refinement Simulation Technique. I struggled to understand where it was coming from.

A subtle pull, like a thread tugging at my fingertips, at my gut.

Not hostile. Not a command.

But a request.

From the... Nature's Attunement skill? And more specifically, from the Calming Lotus in front of me.

I paused. Hesitated. Then placed my hands flat on the table and breathed.

I knew better than to ignore instinct. Especially the unfamiliar kind.

Instead of going with my initial plan of extracting the Calming Lotus' essence, I went with my gut.

'Separate the root, and crush it.'

The thought came unspoken, but absolute.

So I did. Gently, with the flat edge of my bone-carved pestle, grinding it in measured circles.

'Slice the stem. Finely. Paper-thin.'

Again, I followed.

Only then did I return to the petals; I extracted it's essence, and my gut followed along, seeing this was the right move to make. As I gathered my ingredients, the Refinement Simulation Technique shifted.

Volatility dropped. Error margins shrank. Complications vanished.

And when I brought it all together, when I finally poured the roots, stems, and essence into the crucible; it didn’t turn pale blue like I'd expected. Like how my recipe intended.

The mixture glowed faintly; ethereal, translucent. Like starlight woven into dew. The lotus didn’t just blend with the other ingredients.

It synchronized.

More than that, it adapted. I watched as faint pulses ran through the fluid, neutralizing the pockets of instability before they ever had a chance to form. The concoction pulsed in harmony with the Nexus, like a second heartbeat.

The Refinement Simulation Technique flared once, then went still.

All variables… clear.

I stared, breath caught as I stirred the mixture carefully.

My original model told me it’d take at least two hours for full refinement.

But now?

The concoction glowed once, and my Nature's Attunement twinged once more.

'Done.'

I didn’t question it.

I moved quickly, siphoning the liquid into a-sealed vial and setting it aside, still warm to the touch.

The vial was warm in my palm. I stared at it a moment longer, then took a single drop.

Just one.

The effect hit instantly.

Like warm mist curling through the creases of my body. Every muscle that had been drawn tight for the past week loosened. My shoulders slumped. I exhaled, and it felt like I’d been holding my breath since the start of the plague.

I nearly dropped the vial, not from dizziness, but because my fingers forgot what gripping was.

“Oh,” I muttered.

And then, half-laughing, “Oh no.”

The concoction was potent, bringing me peace. The kind of peace that made you forget war existed. That made you forget how to care about anything at all.

Despite the alarm within my head at it's sheer potency, it was… calmly ignored by my own mind.

'Wow,' I thought mildly, 'I’m horrified. But that’s okay.'

Still, it worked.

Most importantly, it slowed my qi. Like my qi circulatory system had entered a meditative trance. The chaos of internal pressure was subdued, regulated. Exactly what Windy and Tianyi needed.

I moved fast.

The concoction was still warm when I reached their bedside.

Windy stirred slightly, his coils tightening in his sleep. Tianyi looked like she hadn't moved in hours.

“Hang in there,” I whispered.

I measured the doses carefully. Just a few drops on the tongue. Enough to slow qi movement, not halt it.

I administered Tianyi’s first. Her breath caught.

A moment later, color bloomed into her cheeks.

She blinked, slowly, then turned her head to look at me as I administered a smaller dosage to Windy.

“…Tasty,” she said, voice feather-soft. “I feel like I am... drifting. Like when I was a caterpillar.”

Windy’s tongue flicked once, his eyes cracking open as he hissed softly. Tianyi, still sluggish, interpreted with a lazy smile.

“He says he feels better. But also… very lazy.”

I laughed.

And nearly cried. If it weren't for the Calming Lotus, I would've.

“That’s fine,” I said. “Rest. Be lazy. All you want. I’ll do the hard part now.”

I tucked the blanket tighter over Tianyi, gave Windy’s scale a gentle stroke, then returned to the pill furnace.

The next hybrid plant was the spirit moss. My best bet for mass treatment.

The moment I touched the stems, something sparked again.

I’d planned to dry and grind it into powder. That was what made sense. That was what the recipe called for.

But my hands paused. I stared at the moss.

And felt it.

Nature’s Attunement hummed softly. Not as a skill activation. But as a presence. The moss pulsed faintly under my fingers, not resisting, but… guiding.

'Steam.'

I followed my gut once more. Instead of drying it out, I placed it into the pill furnace with distilled water and ginger, letting it steam. However, my gut didn't ease up, and I repeated the process nine times, deviating from my original recipe. Slowly, I added in the supporting ingredients, and began to work.

‘Longer,’ it seemed to say.

Not in words. Not even emotions. Just knowing.

I trusted it.

Refinement took twice as long. But I monitored everything carefully. Stirred slower. Let the fumes rise and settle. But again, the Refinement Simulation Technique stayed quiet; despite working with an ingredient that never existed outside of my own mind, it had no volatility. It was as though I was cooking.

And as I worked, I split off a thread of thought, allowing myself to think properly while I maintained a constant stir of the contents inside the pill furnace.

'Why?'

Why did the lotus guide me? Why does the moss respond?

After some time, in the quiet of my shop where the only sound was Tianyi's light breathing and the soft bubbling within the pill furnace, I came to a conclusion.

These hybrids, born from seeds I’d personally infused with essence. Grown in Spirit Soil I’d personally cultivated. Watered, tended, spoken to, day by day.

They weren’t just potent ingredients.

They were attuned to me.

They remembered my touch. My breath. My rhythm.

And with it, working with them became like extensions of my own will; as though i were manipulating my arms and legs within the refinement process.

By the time the Spirit Moss was fully refined, the potion shimmered with a dark green hue and let off a faint, comforting scent; like forest rain.

I turned to the kudzu, testing the theory.

It sat in the bowl, thick and ugly and dull-smelling. But when I placed a hand on it and reached through Nature’s Attunement—

I felt it.

Not thought. But… something.

A whisper. Faint. Crude. A desire to grow. To serve. To be useful. Like a child holding out their drawing, hoping it’s enough.

I swallowed.

If the kudzu could whisper—

Then what about the Bloodsoul Bloom?

What was it whispering?

I turned my gaze toward the greenhouse.

And suddenly, I wasn’t afraid of what it might say.

I wanted to hear it.