The morning air inside Obsidian Manor was perfectly still. Elena woke up at six o'clock and immediately looked at the man beside her. Alexander was still asleep, but his breathing was different than it had been for the last decade. It was deep, silent, and rhythmic. The blue-black star on his chest had transformed into a pale, golden mark that seemed to be part of his skin rather than a scar.
Elena reached out and touched his arm. His skin was warm. The unnatural cold that had defined his existence was gone, replaced by a steady heat that radiated from his core. She felt his pulse without needing to press hard. His Qi was no longer a turbulent river; it was an ocean in high tide—vast and powerful, but contained.
She stood up and walked to the window. Outside, the city of Jiangcheng was partially obscured by a thick, orange-tinted fog. This was not a natural weather event. Elena recognized the atmospheric shift. It was a high-concentration of Yang energy suspended in the moisture of the air.
"He is here," a voice said from the doorway.
Elena turned. Her mother, Sarah Lin, stood there. She was dressed in a simple grey robe and held a cup of herbal tea. Though she was still recovering from the Soul-Locking Seal, her eyes were clear.
"Who is here, Mother?" Elena asked.
"The First Sun of the Valley," Sarah replied. She walked to the window and pointed at the orange fog. "In the Valley of the Sun, there are three Grand Alchemists. They are the masters of the three levels of the Triple Burner. The man outside is Yan the Scorcher. He controls the Upper Burner—the heart and the lungs. He does not use needles to kill. He uses the air you breathe."
Elena looked at the fog again. If the air was saturated with Yan's energy, every person in the city was currently inhaling his influence. "Why hasn't he attacked the manor?"
"Because he wants the Vessel," Sarah said, looking at the sleeping Alexander. "He wants to see if the integration survived the night. To the Valley, Alexander is no longer a human being. He is the most valuable alchemical ingredient in existence."
Alexander stirred and sat up. He did not look tired. He looked at Elena and then at the fog outside. "I felt him at the gates five minutes ago. He is waiting for an invitation."
"You shouldn't give it to him," Elena said, walking to his side. "We need to stabilize your Middle Dantian before you face a Grand Alchemist. Your body has just finished the Harmonizing Cycle. You are like a new blade that has not been tempered."
"I am tempered enough," Alexander said. He stood up and dressed in a black turtleneck and charcoal trousers. "If I hide in my own house, I concede that he has power over me. Leo!"
Leo entered the room a moment later. "Sir?"
"Open the front gates," Alexander ordered. "Tell the security team to stand down. They cannot stop what is coming, and I do not want useless casualties. Bring the guest to the South Terrace."
"Sir, the sensors are reading a temperature of one hundred and forty degrees at the gate," Leo reported, his voice tight. "The pavement is melting."
"Open the gates, Leo," Alexander repeated.
Ten minutes later, Elena and Alexander stood on the South Terrace, overlooking the manicured gardens of the estate. The orange fog rolled over the stone walls, thick and smelling of ozone and dried sulfur.
A man walked out of the fog. He was tall and thin, wearing robes of a deep, burnt orange. His hair was stark white and tied back with a gold wire. He did not carry a staff or a bag. His hands were tucked into his long sleeves. As he walked, the grass beneath his feet turned brown and curled into ash.
He stopped ten feet from the terrace. He looked at Alexander with eyes that were a solid, glowing amber.
"The Vessel is complete," the man said. His voice sounded like the crackling of a dry forest fire. "Elena Lin, your father was a dreamer, but you are a technician. To achieve a perfect integration without the Solar Cauldron is an impressive feat."
"I am a doctor, Grand Alchemist Yan," Elena said, stepping forward. "And this 'Vessel' has a name. He is Alexander Blackwood. He is not an ingredient for your experiments."
Yan laughed, a dry, rattling sound. "Names are for mortals who fear oblivion. He has transcended that. He is now a container for the Supreme Yang. However, he is a container that belongs to the Valley. We planted the seed of the Cold-Yin in his bloodline four generations ago. We waited for the frost to reach its peak so we could harvest the result."
Alexander's expression did not change, but the air around the terrace began to drop in temperature. "You admit to poisoning my family for a century?"
"Poisoning? No," Yan said, taking a step closer. The stone of the terrace steps began to glow a dull red. "We were cultivating you. We gave your ancestors a gift that made them cold, calculating, and successful. The Blackwood empire was built on the focus that the Cold-Yin provided. Now, it is time for the Valley to collect the interest on that loan."
"The loan is cancelled," Alexander said.
He raised his hand. A blast of blue-gold energy shot forward. It was not a chaotic burst; it was a concentrated beam of pressurized Qi. Yan did not move. He simply breathed out. A wall of shimmering heat distorted the air in front of him. Alexander's energy hit the heat-wall and dissipated into steam.
"You have the power, but you do not have the technique," Yan said. "You are using the energy like a blunt instrument. I have spent eighty years refining the fire in my blood. I can make your blood boil inside your veins without touching your skin."
Elena saw Alexander's neck turn a sudden, bright red. She moved quickly, striking a point on his shoulder to redirect his internal circulation. "Alexander, do not fight his heat with force! Use the Water-Wood cycle to cool your internal organs!"
"Correct advice, little Phoenix," Yan said, looking at Elena. "But can he do it while I increase the pressure?"
Yan raised his own hand. The orange fog in the garden began to swirl, forming a massive vortex with the terrace at its center. The temperature rose to a point where the wooden railings of the terrace began to smoke.
"Stop!" Elena shouted. "If you kill him, the energy will dissipate! You will have nothing but a corpse!"
"I do not intend to kill him," Yan said. "I intend to break his will. Once he realizes that his 'empire' and his 'wealth' are nothing against the power of the Sun, he will come to the Valley willingly to learn how to control his new life."
Alexander stepped off the terrace, walking directly into the heat. His black shirt began to singe at the edges, but his eyes were fixed on Yan.
"You think I care about the empire?" Alexander said. His voice was a low resonance that cut through the sound of the swirling wind. "I spent thirty years in a body that was freezing to death. You cannot break a man who has already lived in hell."
Alexander pushed his hands forward, palms open. Instead of a blast, he released a slow, steady flow of the integrated Golden-Ice energy. It hit the ground and spread out like a liquid. The melting pavement froze instantly. The glowing red stones turned black and cracked. The blue-gold frost moved toward Yan, fighting the orange heat for every inch of the garden.
Yan's amber eyes widened. "Integration at the bone-marrow level? How?"
"The Secret Oriental Touch," Alexander said, quoting the title the media had given Elena. "My wife didn't just heal me. She rewrote my blueprint."
The two energies clashed in the center of the garden. The sound was like a continuous peal of thunder. The garden was divided: one half was a scorched wasteland of orange fog, the other was a frozen landscape of blue-gold ice.
Yan gritted his teeth, his thin face tightening. "A stalemate? Against a Grand Alchemist? Impossible."
"It is not a stalemate," Elena said, watching the energy flow. She saw the flaw in Yan's technique. He was drawing too much from his Upper Burner. "Alexander, strike the Tanzhong point! The center of the chest! He is over-ventilating!"
Alexander didn't use a needle. He focused his intent. A spike of ice, tipped with golden fire, erupted from the frozen ground directly beneath Yan.
Yan leaped back, his orange robes fluttering. He landed twenty feet away, his breathing ragged. The orange fog began to thin, the pressure in the air dropping. He looked at his hands; they were shaking.
"You have won this exchange," Yan said, his voice no longer laughing. "But the fog will not lift from this city. I have seeded the clouds. By sunset, every citizen of Jiangcheng will have the 'Sun-Fever.' Their hearts will beat too fast. Their blood will thin. If you want the antidote, Alexander Blackwood, you will bring your wife and the Phoenix Needle to the Valley's temple at the summit of Mount Tai by the lunar new year."
"I don't negotiate with terrorists," Alexander said.
"This is not a negotiation," Yan said, his body beginning to dissolve into the remaining fog. "It is a prescription. You can save yourself, or you can save your city. Choose wisely, Vessel."
Yan vanished. The orange fog remained, hanging low over the trees, a silent, toxic reminder of the Valley's reach.
Alexander stood in the garden, his chest heaving. The golden mark on his chest was glowing dimly. He turned to Elena, his face pale.
"He wasn't lying," Alexander said. He looked at his hand; it was trembling. "The air... I can feel the toxicity in it. It's a slow-acting combustion agent."
Elena ran to him, checking his pulse. It was rapid. "We have to find a way to neutralize the fog. If it reaches the city center, the hospitals will be overwhelmed in hours."
"We won't just neutralize it," Alexander said, his eyes turning cold and dark again. "We are going to Mount Tai. But we aren't going as patients. We are going as the cure."