Chapter 24: Chapter 24 - Corporate Kitchen Nightmares and the Private Consultant

BOOM!

A violent explosion of black smoke rattled the high-grade cauldron at workstation number four.

If the Verdant Peak alchemy furnaces weren’t forged from incredibly durable deep-sea steel, the cauldron would have shattered into a thousand pieces long ago.

Su Bai stood in front of the smoking workstation. His face was completely covered in black soot. He let out a long, heavy sigh.

Yes, it was him who caused the explosion.

And yes, he hadn’t even needed his Ashen-Frost Blight Flame to purposefully fail. He had caused the explosion completely naturally.

Su Bai had never considered that the mystical art of alchemy would be this structurally difficult. He had assumed it would be like auditing an Excel spreadsheet, just follow the formula, input the variables, and run the macro.

But it wasn’t data entry. It was cooking.

And cooking was a skill Su Bai fundamentally lacked.

In his past life, Su Bai had once come home early from the office and decided to treat himself to a home-cooked meal rather than ordering takeout. The resulting culinary disaster had given him such severe food poisoning that he was hospitalized for three days. It nearly costed him a major client presentation.

He had never touched a stove again.

From that day on, he had strictly adhered to a policy of dating women who were excellent cooks. He always maintained a deep, profound respect for their ability to control thermal dynamics without burning the apartment down.

Alchemy, as it turned out, required that exact same flame control. And he was terrible at it.

’Let’s review the post-incident report,’ Su Bai thought as he wiped the soot from his eyes.

Elder Qin was absolutely right. His Dead Wood root could feel the life force of the herbs. It was incredibly sensitive to decay. The moment an herb began to wither in the cauldron, his root sent an immediate error message to his brain.

The problem was the thermal regulation. He was channeling the standard Earth Fire array beneath the floorboards, and his adjustments were too heavy-handed. He would crank the heat up too fast, and before his Dead Wood root could even send the "withering" error message, the herbs were already reduced to a blackened crisp.

"I need better micro-adjustments," Su Bai muttered to himself. He grabbed a cloth to wipe down the cauldron.

Standing right beside his workstation, Liu Meng was watching him with a smile so wide it threatened to split her face in half.

She was absolutely thrilled.

It was the first time she had ever seen her Senior Brother struggle with something. He was always so detached, so professional, and so terrifyingly competent. Seeing him covered in soot, looking genuinely deflated and frustrated, was incredibly endearing. It completely shattered his untouchable aura and made him look delightfully human.

It added entirely new dimensions to his charms.

More importantly, she was overjoyed that she finally had the opportunity to use her own expertise to help him, rather than the other way around.

"Don’t worry, Senior Brother!" Liu Meng cheered. "Your timing was much better that round! You just applied too much Qi to the Blood-Clotting Grass. Let’s try again. I’ll guide your Qi flow this time."

"Alright," Su Bai nodded as he took a fresh batch of herbs.

Despite the constant failures, Su Bai was actually experiencing a strange sense of satisfaction.

He was cooking. This was entirely outside his job description. It didn’t involve spreadsheets or corporate gaslighting, and he was genuinely enjoying the challenge of learning a new skill. With a patient, highly competent teacher beside him, the experience was incredibly refreshing.

He followed Liu Meng’s instructions to the letter. When she told him to lower the heat, he eased off the Earth Fire array. When she told him to inject a burst of Qi to stabilize the mixture, he complied immediately.

Finally, after an hour of meticulous thermal balancing, the cauldron hummed with a pleasant, rhythmic vibration.

A puff of fragrant white steam rose into the air, and a perfectly round, pale-yellow pill rested at the bottom of the furnace.

It was a standard Lesser Qi-Gathering Pill. It was the most basic consumable in the cultivation world, but to Su Bai, it looked like a masterpiece.

He picked up the warm pill, beaming with genuine pride. He turned to the young alchemist beside him.

"Thank you for the guidance, Teacher Meng," Su Bai teased. He offered a playful bow. "It looks like I am the troublesome intern this time."

Liu Meng giggled sheepishly. Her cheeks flushed a light pink at the title. She playfully crossed her arms, leaning into her role.

"Oh, my dear student," Liu Meng sighed dramatically. "Why do you have to be so talented and learn so fast? You should be more troublesome so that I can teach you for longer!"

Both of them burst into warm laughter.

It was true. Despite his initial lack of "cooking" skills, Su Bai’s analytical brain had memorized the thermal patterns frustratingly fast. Now that he understood the variables, he could likely manage the basic recipes on his own.

But Su Bai didn’t see it that way. In his corporate philosophy, there was no such thing as an inherently bad employee, only bad management. He firmly believed that anyone could learn anything if they were given the right onboarding and a competent manager.

Liu Meng was a phenomenal manager. He silently credited all his success to her excellent leadership.

Furthermore, he deeply appreciated her attention to detail. Every time he naturally blew up a cauldron, Liu Meng didn’t just throw the ruined dregs away. She diligently scraped the highly concentrated, toxic black sludge into a neat little box, knowing full well that Su Bai "needed" the refuse.

She was essentially meal-prepping for him.

As the afternoon progressed, Su Bai began learning slightly more complicated refinement techniques. When he expressed concern about the sheer volume of expensive herbs he was burning through, Liu Meng simply waved her hand dismissively.

"Please do not worry about the herbs, Senior Brother," Liu Meng smiled. "The Liu Family Auction House can refill them. I can easily write off the wasted materials as research expenses."

Su Bai’s corporate heart soared at the phrase "write off." Having an executive insider managing his budget was the ultimate VIP perk.

"I appreciate it, Meng," Su Bai said earnestly. "But I do not accept things freely. Once my project is complete, I promise to pay you back with interest."

Liu Meng just smiled. She was happy to simply spend time with him.

As they cleaned the workstation for the day, Liu Meng finally asked the question that had been on her mind.

"Senior Brother, I know you want to help the sect, but why did you decide to learn alchemy so suddenly?" she asked curiously.

Su Bai didn’t see a reason to hide his primary objective from his logistics supplier. "To be honest, I want to manufacture Shattered-Soul Oblivion Pills. I need the recipe."

Liu Meng instantly turned deathly pale. She violently shushed him, then looked around the Alchemy Hall in a panic.

"Senior Brother! You can’t talk about that here!" Liu Meng whispered frantically. "We absolutely cannot make the Oblivion Pills on Verdant Peak! Master is deeply superstitious. He believes that manufacturing suicide pills generates bad karma and corrupts the Dao! If he catches us making them, he will punish me!"

Su Bai frowned. "That is highly inconvenient. I need those pills..."

Liu Meng bit her lip, thinking rapidly.

"I have a solution," Liu Meng whispered. "I usually manufacture the auction house’s supply of Oblivion Pills personally in the Liu Family’s private labs. We can go to the mortal city together once a week, and I will teach you how to forge them in my personal refinement room!"

Su Bai’s eyes lit up. Off-site manufacturing in a private, unregulated facility? It was the perfect solution.

"That sounds like an excellent proposal," Su Bai smiled warmly. "Then I will depend on you, Meng."