Love Burning Amidst the Ashes. - Chapter 22 - Secret Messages from the Black Market

Outside the outer gates of the Tianji Pavilion, in Medicinal Slag Alley.
Rotting medicinal residue piled up on both sides of the narrow passageway. In the damp, shadowed corners, it exhaled waves of yellow-green miasma, mingling with the sickly sweetness of low-grade pill remnants and the biting stench of sulfur. Every breath felt like swallowing rusted mud.
Inferior luminous stones were embedded in the mottled brick walls, their light fractured and distorted by the filthy air, barely illuminating the slick stone path beneath—covered in dark green moss.
Xu Qingxuan moved like a silent wraith, wrapped in a loose coarse-hemp cloak stained with brown medicinal blotches. The brim of his hood was pulled low, revealing only the sharp line of his chin.
His gaze swept over the figures deep within the alley—gaunt old men peddling so-called “ancient pill formulas” of dubious origin, and brokers with wandering eyes and bulging waist pouches.
This was the backside of the outer market. The place where sunlight never reached—Medicinal Slag Alley—where the black market’s tendrils grew unchecked, spewing forbidden intelligence and blood-stained resources.
The air, beyond its rot, carried a silent tension, like a bowstring pulled to its limit, ready to snap at any moment under greed or fear.
The target was at the deepest end of the alley.
At an unremarkable corner, beside a pile of half-human-height discarded medicine baskets covered in mold, a figure squatted. He wore a faded coarse short robe and was idly toying with a copper-wire mouse at his feet using a straw stem.
—Chen Lao Jiu.
His face always bore the shrewd, ingratiating smile of a merchant, yet at this moment it carried a trace of exhaustion and vigilance that was hard to hide.
With his rough fingers, he pinched a low-grade Qi-Blood Pill, broke off a small piece, and flicked it with precision into the copper-wire mouse’s open mouth.
The mouse let out a satisfied “squeak,” its crimson eyes darting restlessly as it scanned the mouth of the alley.

Xu Qing Xuan’s footsteps halted three paces away from the medicine baskets. He did not speak. Instead, he extended a hand from beneath his cloak, palm facing upward.
Faint traces of green herbal juice stained his fingertips, and fine powder from medicinal residue was embedded beneath his nails.
In his palm lay three blades of grass, entirely jade-green, their edges faintly serrated—Snake Saliva Grass.
The herb itself was non-toxic, but its scent closely mimicked the highly lethal “Seven-Step Drop.” It was often used by low-tier cultivators to bluff or set up false traps.
Chen Lao Jiu’s hand, which had been teasing the mouse, froze mid-air.
His murky little eyes flicked quickly across Xu Qing Xuan’s palm, then to the mouth of the alley, and finally back to the face hidden beneath the hood’s shadow.
The ingratiating smile on his face faded, replaced by a shrewd, measuring look.
Slowly, he stood up, brushing dust and dried herb scraps from his short robe. His voice dropped to a near whisper, yet carried the unmistakable tone of a merchant who would not be denied.
“Xuan little brother? These three stalks of ‘Seven-Step Drop’… don’t look like much, do they?”
He deliberately misnamed the herb—both a probe and a confirmation of identity.
“They are not Seven-Step Drop. They are Snake Saliva Grass.”
Xu Qing Xuan’s voice came from beneath the cloak, cold and clear like an ice spring, though carrying a faint, suppressed hoarseness.
“Their potency is weak, but their form is similar enough to confuse an enemy.”
“A trade: one transmission via ‘Copper Thread.’ Southern Wasteland. Thunder Prison Gate. War Slave Camp.”
He stated his purpose plainly. Each word was steady, precise—like ice beads striking the floor of Chen Lao Jiu’s heart.
Chen Lao Jiu’s pupils contracted sharply.
Thunder Prison Gate. War Slave Camp.
A demon pit that devoured people without spitting out bones.
He unconsciously rubbed his fingers together; the thick calluses scraped softly, as if weighing the risk against the profit.
His gaze flicked again to the copper-wire mouse at his feet, then nervously swept the alley shadows.
The darkness seemed deeper now.
“Thunder Prison…” he rasped, voice thick with reluctance and greed. “That damned place… even if you send ten Copper Thread mice in, maybe only one crawls back…”
His tone lowered further.
“And this price… three stalks of Snake Saliva Grass… might not even be enough for mouse feed.”
Xu Qingxuan’s hidden hand slowly tightened beneath the cloak.
As expected—the man’s greed.
Without hesitation, he reached into his robe and produced a smaller bundle wrapped carefully in oiled paper.
He opened it.
Inside lay a pinch of pale gray powder, emitting a faint yet astonishingly pure chill. The moment it appeared, it seemed to cut through the surrounding stench of decay.
Half a tael of “Cold Jade Marrow Powder.”
“Residue from an exploded alchemy furnace,” Xu Qing Xuan said evenly.
“Though impure, it can steady the mind and suppress backlash from pill toxicity.”
“It is worth three Copper Thread mice.”

Chen Lao Jiu’s murky eyes lit up instantly.
Greed surged so strongly that it almost spilled out of his gaze.
Cold Jade Marrow Powder!
Even if it came from alchemy furnace residue, it was still a primary material for refining high-tier pills. Its dense, icy essence had remarkable effects in suppressing fire poison and stabilizing the sea of consciousness. In the black market, it was a treasure that was perpetually in short supply.
His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard, barely restraining the urge to reach out immediately.
A slick smile returned to his face—though now it carried a sharper, more urgent heat.
“Xuan little brother is indeed straightforward! This deal… Old Jiu accepts it!”
He wasted no more words.
With practiced efficiency, he pulled out a palm-sized mouse pouch from within his robes. It was stitched from tough beast hide, its opening tightly sealed with fine interwoven metal threads.
He crouched down and let out a series of short, sharp hissing sounds toward the copper-wire mouse.
The crimson-eyed creature flashed with a hint of intelligence. As if it understood the command, it darted into the pouch in a blur.
Chen Lao Jiu quickly tied it shut.
From his waist, he removed a crude bone token about half the size of a palm, engraved with twisted runes. He handed it, along with the pouch, to Xu Qingxuan.
“The bone token is an ‘Guiding Sigil.’ Crush it, and the Copper Thread inside will know where to go.”
“The pouch can block ordinary tracking for one hour.”
His words came rapidly, his small eyes glinting with calculation.
“The letter? Seal it into the inner lining of the pouch with wax. Don’t let any scent leak out.”

Xu Qing Xuan accepted the cold bone token and the mouse pouch that still carried a faint, acrid scent of rodent musk.
He did not act immediately.
Instead, he placed the bone token and the oil-paper-wrapped Cold Jade Marrow Powder down at Chen Lao Jiu’s feet.
Then, from his inner clothing, he retrieved a thin slice of birch bark—so delicate it seemed almost translucent. It was the edge of his hidden ledger.
A thread of spiritual energy, faint to the point of near-invisibility, gathered at his fingertips like the most precise carving blade.
He began to inscribe.
Rapidly.
No words appeared—only an intricate lattice of lines and point-like symbols, dense and arcane, like a language not meant for eyes.
In an instant, the bark was filled.
This was a secret cipher only their brothers could understand—a code born from childhood games in the back courtyard of the Xu family apothecary. It carried traces of medicinal patterns and the faint imprint of herbal essence.
When he finished, he carefully rolled the bark into a tight slip and inserted it into the prepared inner lining of the mouse pouch.
A faint pulse of spiritual energy.
A single drop of translucent pine resin fell precisely onto the seam, sealing it shut.
The entire process flowed like water—smooth, precise, without a single wasted motion.
Only the faint tremor at his fingertips betrayed the urgency within.
“Southern Wasteland is far. The Thunder Prison is dangerous.”
Xu Qing Xuan returned the sealed pouch to Chen Lao Jiu. Beneath the hood, his gaze was sharp as an ice spike, piercing through the shadow straight into the other man’s eyes.
“The Copper Thread must be delivered to ‘Ding Wei Seven Six.’”
“If it succeeds, three months from now, here—I will repay you with an improved version of the Soil-Nourishing Art.”
He offered a greater bait.
And an invisible pressure.
Chen Lao Jiu’s fleshy face twitched as he felt the weight of it all.
He quickly stuffed the bone token and Cold Jade Marrow Powder into the most hidden inner pocket against his chest, pressing it firmly as if trying to steady his racing heart.
“Rest assured, Xuan little brother!”
“I, Chen Lao Jiu, have survived twenty years in this Medicinal Slag Alley on one word—trust!”
“Ding Wei Seven Six—I will remember it!”
He thumped his chest in guarantee.
Without lingering, he turned and slipped into a narrow side passage stacked with broken baskets. In an instant, he vanished from sight.
Only a faint trace remained in the air—copper-wire mouse musk mixed with Chen Lao Jiu’s cheap incense—quickly swallowed by the alley’s damp darkness.

Xu Qing Xuan did not leave immediately.
He remained standing by the reeking pile of medicine baskets, his gaze beneath the brim of his hood sharp and still—like a cold probe.
He scanned the mouth of the side passage where Chen Lao Jiu had disappeared, then slowly shifted toward deeper pockets of shadow further down the alley.
Within those shadows, it felt as though unseen gazes briefly intersected… and then silently withdrew.
He calculated the passage of time in silence.
Only after confirming that no tail had followed Chen Lao Jiu did he finally turn away.
Pulling his medicinal-scented cloak tighter around himself, he blended without a sound into the noisy flow of the main market street.
The air changed.
The cloying sweetness of low-grade pills, the fresh scent of spiritual herbs from roadside stalls, and the faint metallic burn from forging shops all tangled together, diluting the stench of the Slag Alley—but not the gloom in his heart.
Back at Alchemy Chamber B-13, the heavy stone door closed behind him without a sound, sealing off the outside world’s noise.
Inside, the room still carried the scorched aftermath of yesterday’s furnace explosion, along with a faint trace of blood.
The cold stone walls stood silent, bearing witness to what had nearly killed him.
Xu Qingxuan yanked off his stifling cloak.
His pale, handsome face was revealed again—devoid of color, as if drained by exhaustion itself.
Cold sweat gathered at his temples.
The old injury in his dantian and the backlash in his sea of consciousness surged at once, erupting the moment his tightly restrained nerves finally loosened.
He staggered.
One hand slammed against the cold bronze furnace wall to steady himself.
Dry, dark-red bloodstains clung to the furnace surface—already hardened, already silent—but still shocking to the eye.
“Qing Feng…”
The name drifted through the dead silence of the chamber.
It carried a pain that burned inward, as though it could sear the soul from within.
Chen Lao Jiu’s promise still lingered in his ears.
But Thunder Prison Gate was a dragon’s den, a tiger’s lair. And the jade slip of the “Thunder Fiend Art” radiated an ominous pressure that even thinking about made the heart tighten.
A single secret letter—how could it possibly pull his younger brother out of that place alive?
His fingers slowly curled.
No.
That was not enough.
He needed more.
More information.

A resolve like an ice spike pierced through the fog of hesitation.
Xu Qing Xuan sat cross-legged on the cold meditation cushion, forcing his mind into stillness, ignoring the stabbing pain in both his dantian and sea of consciousness.
From his waist, he untied a dull, ash-colored yin-yang jade pendant and gripped it tightly in his palm.
It was cold.
Silent.
Unresponsive.
He drew a slow breath.
Then, he carefully gathered what remained of his divine sense—thin as a dying ember in a windstorm—and, with a determination that bordered on sacrifice, began to feed it into the jade.
Buzz—
The pendant trembled ever so slightly in his palm.
A faint ripple passed across its dull surface, like dust disturbed on still water.
Then silence returned.
But in the next instant—
A terrifying suction force erupted from the jade.
It began to devour his already exhausted divine sense.
Xu Qing Xuan’s sea of consciousness was instantly pierced by countless ice-like needles of pain. His vision darkened. His body trembled uncontrollably.
He clenched his teeth so hard that a thread of blood seeped from the corner of his lips.
Not enough.
Far from enough.
A cold glint flashed across his eyes.
His left hand formed a seal.
At his fingertip, a faint strand of pale green wood spiritual energy condensed—fragile, unstable.
Without hesitation, he pressed it toward his own brow.

“Puh!”
A mouthful of boiling essence blood spurted onto the dull jade pendant.
The moment the blood touched it—
It was as if molten oil had been poured into ice water.
The jade erupted in a blinding burst of ash-white light.
A cold, violent, and utterly chaotic aura surged out along the blood connection, forcing itself into Xu Qingxuan’s sea of consciousness without the slightest restraint.
“BOOM—!”
His sea of consciousness felt as though it had been struck by an invisible hammer.
His vision shattered.
Fragments of distorted, broken images flooded in at impossible speed, tearing apart everything he tried to perceive.
Scene One,
Endless darkness and bloodshed.
A deafening roar mixed with the clash of metal echoed like a tidal wave.
A massive circular abyss constructed from dark violet stone loomed ahead.
At its center, a pool of boiling, brilliant purple lightning plasma churned violently. Above it, crystal formations hung upside down from the dome, spitting out serpentine bolts of destruction.
On the edge of a stone platform lay a charred, curled figure—like a piece of charcoal that had been burned over and over again.
Beneath the scorched skin of his right arm, a web-like black pattern pulsed madly, greedily devouring the surrounding violent lightning energy.
Deep within the pattern, a terrifying blood-red glow flickered faintly.
Scene Two,
A dark, damp passage.
Cages stacked like a beehive.
On a pitch-black arena floor, the same charred figure lay unconscious.
His right hand clutched a black jade box—“Severed Restorative Ointment”—while his left hand lay limp, finally released.
A dark purple jade slip had fallen onto the filthy ground.
Silver lightning runes flowed across its surface, exuding a ferocious, destructive aura.
Threads of corrosive purple energy seeped continuously from it, forcing their way into the unconscious man’s seven orifices.

Scene Three,
In the deeper shadows of the passageway, a face covered in centipede-like scars silently emerged.
The murky eyes fixed themselves on the unconscious Xu Qing Feng—especially on the black, pulsating sigil on his right arm, where the “demonic seed” pattern throbbed with faint blood-red light.
Between the scarred figure’s withered fingers was a dark-green root, still clinging with damp soil.
It was crushed without a sound.
Deep green juice seeped out, carrying a faint but nauseatingly earthy stench.
The corner of Scarface’s mouth lifted—slowly, deliberately.
A cold, unnatural smile formed, like a venomous snake locking onto its prey.
“Puh—!!”
Xu Qing Xuan could no longer hold it.
He violently coughed up a mouthful of blood.
But it was not bright red.
It was dark purple, mixed with fragments of internal tissue.
It splattered heavily onto the cold furnace wall, hissing as if it were burning metal.
“Chi—chi—”
The jade pendant’s light instantly extinguished.
What remained was an even deeper, more lifeless gray than before.
A fine crack had appeared across its surface.
His entire body went limp.
He was flung backward, slamming hard into the cold stone wall.
Stars exploded in his vision. A deafening ringing filled his ears.
His organs felt as if they had shifted out of place—twisted, torn, crushed.
His sea of consciousness was no better.
It was as if it had been burned alive, then immediately doused in ice water.
Pain and numbness alternated violently, tearing through him without restraint.
“Haa… haa…”
He gasped for breath.
Each inhale carried the taste of blood and the sensation of his organs splitting apart.
Cold sweat soaked through his thin inner robe, clinging tightly to his skin.
But beneath all of it—
Those clear, icy eyes had not dimmed.
Instead, they burned.
Colder.
Sharper.
More absolute than before.
Fragments of what he had seen forced themselves together inside his shattered consciousness.
The mutation of the demonic pattern on his brother’s arm.
The vicious, corrupting aura from the jade slip.
And that figure in the shadows—like a viper—crushing a strange green root with deliberate intent.
Everything was connecting.
Even through pain.
Even through collapse.

“Thunder Prison Gate…”
It was not a purgatory. It was a demonic pit. A trap.
Every extra moment Xu Qingfeng stayed there brought him one step closer to being reduced to a puppet—or turned to ashes.
He had to be pulled out immediately.
At any cost.
Xu Qingxuan’s bloodstained fingers dug violently into the cracks of the cold stone floor. His fingertips turned pale from the force.
With trembling hands, he forced out the last remaining fragment of birch bark from his robes.
His fingers shook uncontrollably.
Using the dark purple blood foam mixed with fragments of his own life essence still lingering at the corner of his mouth, he began to carve.
Six twisted blood-inked characters were etched onto the bark with sheer willpower,
Thunder Prison is corrupted. Leave immediately!
Each character felt as though it was being carved out of his soul.
Each stroke burned through his very essence.
When it was finished, he rolled the blood-soaked bark tightly and pressed it against his chest.
It was cold.
But those six words burned like molten iron against his heart.
“Wait for me… Qing Feng…”
A hoarse, broken vow echoed through the dead silence of the alchemy chamber.
It was swallowed mercilessly by the stone walls.
Only the thick scent of blood remained, silently telling the story of a brother’s resolve.
His bloodied hand slowly tightened around the cold, dormant jade pendant.
The knuckles creaked faintly under pressure.
Inside Alchemy Chamber B-13, the stone door remained shut.
It sealed away the outside world completely.
Yet thin strands of blood scent still seeped through the cracks, merging with the faint medicinal bitterness outside.
Deep within the chamber, the figure leaning against the cold furnace wall stood like a pine tree in a snowstorm—
On the verge of breaking.
Yet still rooted.
Still refusing to fall.