"An order from the Heavens! Hit them with a spatula!" Jiu Zui wheezed, wiping a tear of mirth from his eye. "Oh, kid. You are exactly like him. You are exactly like Bai Hao. That stubborn, arrogant glutton used to tell the previous Sect Leader to go eat dirt if a sect meeting interrupted his dough-proofing schedule."

The Drunken Sovereign slammed his hand on the table, a wide, fiercely doting grin spreading across his face.

The intimidating aura of the Second Generation elder completely vanished, replaced by the energy of an incredibly indulgent, slightly unhinged grandfather who had just decided his new grandchild could do no wrong.

"Kid, you listen to me," Jiu Zui declared, his voice ringing with absolute, enabling conviction. "You are the sole heir to the Drunken Peak. You are a Sect Martial Uncle. You answer to no one but me, and half the time, I’m too drunk to care what you’re doing. You want to sleep until noon? Sleep until noon. You want to turn the meditation gardens into a cabbage patch? Grab a shovel."

He leaned across the table, his amethyst eyes shining with a protective, fierce light.

"You are going to soar freely on this mountain, Ji’an. I didn’t take you as my disciple to turn you into another mindless, sword-swinging drone. I took you because you have fire. You cook what you want. You fight who you want. If any of those stuffy, tight-lipped elders from the other peaks try to order you around, you tell them to take it up with me. I’ll throw a wine jug through their roof."

Ji’an blinked, entirely disarmed by the sheer, overwhelming wave of unconditional support.

She had expected to fight for her autonomy tooth and nail. Instead, she had just been handed a blank check to cause absolute chaos.

"Well," Ji’an coughed, feeling a strange, unfamiliar warmth in her chest that had nothing to do with the hearth fire. "Okay then. Glad we’re on the same page. But that brings me to my second demand."

"Demand away, kid! The sky is the limit!" Jiu Zui cheered, taking a celebratory swig from his gourd.

"It’s about the cultivation manual," Ji’an said, her tone turning deeply serious. "The Dao of the Iron Wok."

Jiu Zui nodded proudly. "Ah, yes. The ultimate physical refinement technique. Bai Hao’s masterpiece. It turns the body into a living, breathing forge. It allows you to process toxic beast meat and condense the kinetic energy of a falling mountain into a single swing of a cleaver!"

"Right. About that," Ji’an narrowed her eyes, pointing a stern finger at her Master. "You said Bai Hao fought with a three-hundred-pound cast-iron meat cleaver. You said he waded through demon corpses. Master, I need you to be completely, one-hundred-percent honest with me right now."

Ji’an stood up, gesturing broadly to her own slender, agile frame.

"Does this cultivation technique make you look like a bear?"

Jiu Zui paused. He looked at Ji’an. He looked at the ceiling. He took another, much slower sip of wine.

"Define... bear," Jiu Zui hedged.

"I mean built like a brick outhouse!" Ji’an exclaimed, her voice rising in panic. "I saw Senior Brother Kuang in the arena today! He was eight feet tall, and his biceps had their own gravitational pull! Does the Dao of the Iron Wok cause extreme, unnatural muscle hypertrophy?! Because if it makes me look like a gorilla, I am returning the manual and going back to Class 9!"

Jiu Zui groaned, rubbing his temples in exasperation. "Kid, what is wrong with a strong, imposing physique? Bai Hao was a mountain of a man! When he walked into a room, people respected him! They feared him! A massive frame is the ultimate display of martial dominance! It allows you to intimidate your ingredients and your enemies simultaneously!"

"I don’t want to intimidate my ingredients with my pecs! I want to intimidate them with my knife skills!" Ji’an shot back, slamming her hands on the table. "Absolutely not! No gorilla bodies! No bear shoulders! I demand a cultivation method suitable for my current physique!"

"But the sheer kinetic force required to wield the heavy iron techniques—" Jiu Zui tried to argue, gesturing wildly with his gourd.

"I will figure out the physics! I will use leverage! I will use centrifugal force!" Ji’an interrupted, completely unyielding. "I am drawing a hard line in the sand, Master! If I wake up tomorrow and my neck has fused with my shoulders, I will stop making the hangover soup. Permanently."

The threat hung in the air, heavy and lethal.

Jiu Zui stared at the empty wooden bowl on the table. He remembered the miraculous, soothing warmth of the broth.

He remembered the fact that his head currently did not feel like it was being split open by a rusted axe for the first time in a century.

The Drunken Sovereign visibly deflated. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

"Fine," Jiu Zui grumbled, crossing his arms and pouting like a petulant child denied a toy. "We will adjust the circulation pathways. We won’t use the external muscle expansion route. We’ll use the internal meridian compression method. You’ll keep your skinny, un-intimidating frame, but your muscle fibers will be condensed to the density of spirit-steel. Are you happy now, you vain little brat?"

"Ecstatic," Ji’an smiled sweetly, sitting back down. "Thank you, Master. You’re the best."

Jiu Zui grunted, taking a long, resentful drink of his wine. "I don’t understand the youth today. In my time, we wanted to look like warlords. You kids just want to look pretty for your little sword dances."

As Jiu Zui grumbled into his wine, Lin Ji’an let out a quiet, profound sigh of relief, leaning back against the wooden wall of the kitchen.

Her Master thought she was just being vain. He thought she was a teenage boy overly concerned with maintaining a sleek, elegant aesthetic to impress the junior sisters.

He had no idea about the absolute, terrifying web of secrets and plot-related paranoia currently spiraling out of control inside Ji’an’s head.