Mu Qingfang rarely taught personally.

Not because he disdained instruction, but because Qian Cao Peak rarely allowed the luxury. Illness did not pause for lessons, and poisons did not wait politely for lectures to conclude. Most disciples learned by observation—by watching senior physicians work, by assisting, by making careful notes and even more careful mistakes under supervision.

Today was an exception.

The new disciples stood in neat, anxious rows within the main hall, their backs straight, eyes bright with a mixture of excitement and dread. Entering Qian Cao Peak was an honor, but it was also widely known to be unforgiving. Errors here were not theoretical. A mismeasured herb, a mistimed circulation of qi, a moment of carelessness—any of these could cost a life.

Mistakes were not coveted on a healing peak.

Mu Qingfang stood at the side of the hall, half-seated at his worktable, stacks of bamboo slips and documents spread before him in disciplined chaos. He had been awake for far too long. Dark circles faintly shadowed his eyes, though his posture remained immaculate, his hair bound neatly as always. His hands moved steadily as he reviewed prescriptions, approved supply requisitions, and corrected dosage records with precise strokes of ink.

His head disciple handled the introductions.

Mu Qingfang listened without looking up.

He heard the careful explanation of Qian Cao’s principles—neutrality, restraint, responsibility. He heard the warnings delivered gently but firmly: a healer’s bias could kill as surely as poison. He noted the slight tremor in the younger disciples’ breathing, the way some clutched their sleeves too tightly, others leaned forward unconsciously, eager to impress.

Occasionally, he lifted his gaze.

He observed posture, composure, attention. He catalogued which disciples flinched at the mention of blood, which ones relaxed too quickly, which ones nodded without understanding. These details mattered more than enthusiasm. Enthusiasm could be shaped. Carelessness could not.

His head disciple demonstrated the handling of basic medicinal tools. One novice fumbled a pestle—caught it at the last moment, face flushing crimson. Mu Qingfang’s pen paused for a fraction of a second, then continued moving. No rebuke came. Not yet. There would be time for correction later, privately, where humiliation would not poison learning.

He was tired. Deeply, bone-achingly tired.

For days, he had moved from one crisis to another without pause—stabilizing a qi deviation at dawn, neutralizing a rare toxin by midday, operating through the night on shattered meridians. Meals had been forgotten. Sleep had been postponed. Paperwork accumulated like sediment, and he cleared it the same way he cleared everything else: methodically, without complaint.

This—standing in the hall, listening to young voices full of hope—felt strangely distant. As though he were observing something from behind glass.

Then, at the tail end of the instruction—just as his head disciple began to explain lodging assignments—a hurried footstep sounded outside the hall.

A senior disciple entered, bowed deeply, and announced the arrival of the Qing Jing Peak Lord.

The words had barely settled before the doors opened.

Cool air flowed in, carrying with it a familiar, clean scent—bamboo and rain, soft and unmistakable.

Mu Qingfang’s brush stilled.