After I Failed to Reform the Female Lead of a Tragic Novel - Chapter 8

The system’s permissions were few and its “cheats” were lackluster, but when Gong Dongling had first activated the control panel, she noticed the time displayed on the Windows-style desktop interface. Although it wasn’t the time of this world, it could still serve as a stopwatch.

If she used it to record the exact duration of every successful refinement, she could quickly master the maturation timing for any pill.

Even the System admired her ability to find loopholes. It couldn’t do much about it—the desktop was there. It had assumed no one would care about a “fake” time display, never imagining it would be used for alchemy…

Following the instructions, she stuffed a handful of Celestial Spirit Grass into the furnace and checked the time.

The base containing the spiritual fire showed no change initially, but the moment she closed the lid, the fire released a faint red glow. It climbed up the inner walls of the furnace, eventually covering the ingredients. To the naked eye, the furnace looked as if it were wrapped in red plastic, obscuring the contents within.

However, a second later, a crystal-clear image of the furnace’s interior appeared in Gong Dongling’s sea of consciousness.

Her body felt as if it were within the range of the red light; she could sense the “temperature” of the spiritual fire. Only the “perfect” temperature felt warm; any deviation felt either freezing or scalding.

Thus, Gong Dongling could adjust the fire’s intensity through her own sensory feedback.

Being her first time, she didn’t know when the “heat was sufficient,” so she kept a close eye on the changes in the grass. She watched as it “cooked,” its color deepening from light green to a dark, ash-black hue common to pills, while the leaves dissolved into a formless mass.

It should… it should be about ready.

As if possessing foresight, her senses relayed this information. Fearing it would burn, Gong Dongling tried to gather the residue into a spherical shape using her will.

But no matter how she commanded it, the red light only flickered weakly. It had no intention of shrinking into a ball.

Seeing the color of the residue begin to turn suspicious, Gong Dongling practically wanted to reach in and roll the pill herself.

Predictably, the batch was scorched.

Gong Dongling even caught a whiff of a familiar scent—exactly like the traditional Chinese medicine she used to drink in her past life.

She wasn’t discouraged by this initial failure. The process had felt right; why had it failed so abruptly?

She picked up the ancient book and studied it again. At the end of the first chapter, she found a small footnote: All stages require the alchemist’s utmost concentration. The more complex the operation, the more focus is needed. Failure is often a result of a wandering mind.

Gong Dongling reflected. That was the issue. The initial steps were easy, so her mind had drifted. By the time she noticed something was wrong, her anxiety further affected her performance. Failure was only natural.

However, the attempt wasn’t a total loss. Despite the panic, she had remembered to check the time and noted it down.

Since it was just a basic Spiritual Herb Pill, and with the lesson learned, Gong Dongling succeeded easily once she focused her mind.

Looking at the formed pill in the furnace, her curiosity got the better of her. After a long moment of hesitation, she took a bold bite.

It tasted like absolutely nothing. Even the natural fragrance of the Celestial Spirit Grass had vanished. She put the half-eaten pill down, wondering how cultivators could treat this bland stuff as their daily sustenance.

Refining a basic pill wasn’t enough for Gong Dongling, so she continued to experiment.

She stayed shut in her room for three days, testing various formulas. Many didn’t succeed on the first try, but fortunately, her storage ring was packed with treasures and raw materials, allowing her to squander them on her experiments.

She had one major accident: she misidentified an herb and put two clashing ingredients into the same pot. The furnace couldn’t handle the strain and exploded, charring half her room black. Had it not been for her intuition allowing her to dodge in time, her sea of consciousness might have been damaged.

After that, she didn’t dare be careless for a single second.

By the third day, she had successfully produced over twenty types of common low-tier pills, reaching the level of a Primary Tier 3 Alchemist.

Of course, she wasn’t an official Tier 3 Alchemist yet. In this world, one had to pass an exam by the Alchemical Authority to be “licensed.”

Currently, she was working on a “Foundation-Stabilizing Pill”—an item that increased the success rate of breaking through to the Foundation Establishment stage—when an uninvited guest arrived at her door.

She frowned. She allowed herself only a moment’s distraction before refocusing on the pill. This was her third attempt; she couldn’t fail again.

Being able to refine a Foundation-Stabilizing Pill was a hallmark of “graduating” from the Primary Tier to the Intermediate Tier. Among all pills, those that increased breakthrough rates were the most precious.

Furthermore, there was another reason she was determined to make this pill: someone needed it.

The difficult stage of balancing the fire had passed. It was time for the final condensation.

Gong Dongling shut her eyes tight, biting her lip. Fine beads of sweat broke out on her forehead as she poured every ounce of her will into the process. The pressure from the ingredients was immense, and for a moment, it felt like a tug-of-war.

Ultimately, her strength prevailed. The red light slowly pulled the residue together, and the pill’s shape began to form, even emitting a faint golden light.

“Just a bit more… the last bit!”

Finally, at the moment of completion, golden light radiated outward, leaking through the gaps of the furnace lid.

But simultaneously, before she could even see what this legendary pill looked like, she felt a hauntingly familiar dull pain in her heart.

It was the feeling of a heart attack from her past life… She clutched her chest and collapsed to the floor, curling up and gasping for air.

Fortunately, the agony only lasted a moment. She remained kneeling on the floor, her face deathly pale and drenched in cold sweat, looking as if she had just been pulled from a river.

[Warning! Heroine’s Blackening Level has increased! If you allow the Heroine to continue blackening, the punishment will become more severe!] The System blared its warning.

“That pain just now… was the punishment for Xie Yu’s blackening?” Gong Dongling asked weakly.

It made sense. The reward for success was returning to the real world with a healthy body; failure naturally came with penalties. But this sensation was far too similar to her previous life.

Once she recovered, Gong Dongling carefully placed the Foundation-Stabilizing Pill into a small box and tucked it into her sleeve. Without even cleaning up the room, she went to open the door for the uninvited guest.

Standing outside was the male lead of the original novel, Ji Yuran, whom she hadn’t seen in a while. Gong Dongling was momentarily stunned; she had almost forgotten he existed.

With the sudden crisis and her urgency to find Xie Yu, she had no time to deal with this “Black Lotus.” She just wanted to get rid of him quickly. Leaning against the doorframe, she spoke with cold detachment: “Is there something you need?”

Ji Yuran stared at her in silence, suddenly at a loss for words.

He and Gong Dongling were childhood friends. Although he was originally a Golden Lotus under a Buddha—naturally emotionless—his demonization had given him human desires. When he first took human form, he met Gong Dongling and naturally viewed her as his “White Moonlight.”

However, since her return from the Far North, she was no longer as close to him as before. During their last confrontation, he felt a distinct hostility from her.

Haunted by this doubt, Ji Yuran had brooded for days. Finally, he used the news of the Xuanji Grass as an excuse to probe her attitude.

To his surprise, Gong Dongling didn’t even bother to pretend anymore; her total disregard for him was written all over her face.

Putting aside his questions, Ji Yuran suddenly noticed how unwell she looked—as if she had just suffered a major illness.

“Senior Sister Ling-er, what’s wrong? Has the Cold Qi flared up again?”

“I’m in a hurry. Don’t waste my time.” Gong Dongling frowned, her patience thin.

Ji Yuran quickly said, “I heard you’re going to the Ruoxu Illusion Realm for the Xuanji Grass. I have a natural affinity for plants, so I thought I could go with you. I came to ask if you’re willing.”

“Thank you, but no,” Gong Dongling refused politely before gesturing for him to leave. “If that’s all, please go. I really am in a hurry.”

Faced with such a direct rejection, Ji Yuran didn’t have the face to stay. He awkwardly said his goodbyes and left, though a flash of demonic ruthlessness crossed his eyes.

At his core, Ji Yuran only cared about being the center of attention. When someone was good to him and treated him as their salvation, he ignored them. But once they turned their gaze away, he would shamelessly crawl back to beg for notice.

Gong Dongling didn’t care about any of that. She immediately set off, flying on her sword in the direction indicated by the System.

This shouldn’t be happening… According to the original plot, there shouldn’t be a “blackening point” here. That wasn’t supposed to happen until the Xuanji Grass arc. Gong Dongling suspected that because she had altered the plot, the entire story had shifted.

As her sword approached a high peak, a memory surfaced. This place… seemed to be the residence of the Eldest Senior Brother, Qiu Yan.

Gong Dongling landed in a panic. Before her feet touched the ground, another wave of dull pain hit her—more severe than the last. She coughed up a spray of blood and stumbled off her sword.

[Warning! Warning! Heroine’s Blackening Level is deepening! Warning…] The System’s voice exploded in her ears.

She knew she looked a mess, but she couldn’t care. She wiped the blood from her lip with her sleeve and ran to the door, pushing it open without a second thought.

As she saw the scene inside, she cried out: “Stop!”

After Xie Yu heard from Gong Dongling that the mysterious person might be Qiu Yan, she didn’t fully believe it, but she kept it in mind. Upon returning, she began to investigate.

Qiu Yan traveled extensively and rarely returned. His residence was on a nameless peak to the south; it was unguarded and almost never visited.

With this in mind, Xie Yu developed a daring idea: she would sneak in and see if she could find the rice paper the mysterious person used.

She spent two days scouting the route. For forty-eight hours, she didn’t see a single soul on the peak. This gave her the courage she needed. On the third day, she finally slipped in through an unlocked back door.

Qiu Yan’s residence wasn’t cluttered, but everything was understated and luxurious—likely items he had brought back from his travels.

Xie Yu found nothing in the outer rooms, so she moved toward the inner study.

She never expected that upon opening the door, she would see a portrait of herself hanging high on the wall. However, the person in the painting had a haughty, disdainful expression—a look that had never appeared on her face.

Xie Yu’s heartbeat quickened, sounding exceptionally loud in the silent room. It snapped her out of her daze, and she realized she was reaching out to touch the cheek of the girl in the painting.

She yanked her hand back as if struck by lightning. Her gaze turned somber. Why was a portrait of her hanging here?

Even more shocking was the discovery of more paintings on the desk, a thick stack pinned under an inkstone.

Xie Yu took a deep breath, lifted the inkstone, and opened them one by one.

They were all portraits of her.

The poses and gestures varied, but that world-disdaining gaze remained constant, as if looking into one’s soul. Qiu Yan seemed dissatisfied with these paintings; messy ink strokes ruined the beauty of many of them.

Seeing this, Xie Yu felt more certain that while the face was identical, this wasn’t her—or at least, not the current her.

Flipping to the very last page, she found a pad of rice paper at the bottom. It looked incredibly familiar.

Xie Yu took out the folded square of rice paper from her sleeve and compared them. The texture and grid pattern were identical. They came from the same pad.

The person who had been sending her messages was indeed Qiu Yan. And he seemed to be paying an unsettling amount of attention to her…

She opened the rice paper pad in silence. Inside were dense notes on many events, every single one related to her. The earliest entry dated back to two months after she first arrived at Mount Buzhou.

For the first time, Xie Yu learned:

The reason the Xuanling Sword had recognized her was because Qiu Yan had secretly taken her blood and dripped it onto the blade.

The reason she was isolated by so many inner-sect disciples was because Qiu Yan, as the Eldest Senior Brother, had gathered the mountain masters to arrange those tasks.

Even those who had shown her kindness only to betray her soon after—all of it bore Qiu Yan’s handiwork.

It turned out that most of the “destined” pain she had experienced on Mount Buzhou was nothing more than a deliberate orchestration by another person.

Xie Yu fell into an eerie calm. She stood there, her ink-black eyes dilating as the darkness within began to spread like a violent storm.

The demon inside her seemed to wake up, greedily devouring her emotions, whispering low words in her ear.

As if sensing something, she turned around and calmly met the eyes of the man entering the room.

“Oh dear, I’ve been caught. I wasn’t finished playing yet,” Qiu Yan said. Seeing his secret discovered, he merely gave a bright, carefree laugh, as if he didn’t care at all.