Dragon of the Drunken Lotus

Chapter 2: Cold Swords and Hot Springs

The frantic fluttering of ten thousand wings was the last thing Xianyu Longwei heard before his consciousness dissolved into a hazy, neon-pink blur.

"Longwei! Longwei, speak to me! Don’t go toward the light! Or—well, you are the light, but don’t go toward the other light!"

Fatty Su’s voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a very deep, very damp well. Longwei groaned, his eyelids fluttering. The cool mist of the morning had been replaced by a searing, internal furnace.

"Is... is the sun inside me, Su?" Longwei croaked, his eyes snapping open. "I feel like I’ve swallowed a literal star. A very angry, very spicy star."

"You swallowed a Grade-9 Forbidden Elixir, you absolute moron!" Elder Mo’s roar echoed from the edge of the stage. "Disciples! Form a perimeter! Do not let him escape! That medicinal energy is volatile!"

Longwei scrambled to his feet, his movements jerky and uncoordinated. The pink glow beneath his skin pulsed with every heartbeat, casting long, rhythmic shadows across the stone floor. The butterflies were still there, a swirling, iridescent cloud that followed his every move.

"Volatile?" Longwei gasped, clutching his stomach. "I’m not volatile, I’m melting! I’m actually melting! Su, I need water! A lot of water! Like, an ocean’s worth!"

"The Cold Crystal Lake!" Su shouted, pointing toward the northern peaks. "It’s the only thing cold enough to keep your blood from boiling over! But Longwei, wait! That’s the Inner Circle’s territory! You can’t just—"

"Watch me!" Longwei yelped.

He didn't mean to run. He just wanted to take a step, but the moment his foot hit the stone, the world smeared into a streak of colors. The Drunken Lotus Pill didn't just provide power; it provided a terrifying, drunken momentum. He shot past the grasping hands of the Sect Guards like a pink comet, leaving a trail of shimmering scales and the scent of overwhelming floral sweetness in his wake.

"Hey! Stop! Come back here!"

"Can't stop! Leg's have a mind of their own!" Longwei screamed back over his shoulder, his voice trailing off as he vanished into the dense forest surrounding the arena.

He crashed through the underbrush, feeling no pain, only the mounting, unbearable heat. His robes were already beginning to singe at the edges.

"Okay, okay, Cold Crystal Lake. Left at the big rock... or was it right? Why are the trees dancing? Stop dancing, I’m trying to find a landmark!"

He burst through a final thicket of bamboo, the air suddenly dropping forty degrees. Ahead, the Cold Crystal Lake sat nestled in a basin of jagged, frost-covered stone. The water was a deep, forbidden blue, steam rising where the frigid air met the surface.

"Sweet, sweet, icy salvation," Longwei whimpered.

He didn't look for a path. He didn't check for observers. He simply launched himself off a fifteen-foot ledge with all the grace of a falling sack of flour.

"CANNONBALL!"

SPLASH.

The impact sent a massive plume of water into the air, which instantly turned into a cloud of thick, white steam. Longwei let out a long, shuddering moan of relief as the freezing water hit his skin.

"Oh, yeah. That’s the stuff. I’m a chilled cucumber. I’m a frozen bun. I’m—"

"Who goes there?"

The voice was cold. Not just 'unfriendly' cold, but the kind of cold that made your marrow feel like it was turning into slush.

Longwei froze, treading water. Through the thick veil of steam, a figure began to emerge on the far side of the natural spring. It was a woman, standing on a flat, ice-slicked rock. She wore robes of pale azure, and her hair was a waterfall of ink-black silk that reached her waist. Her eyes, however, were the most terrifying part—sharp, crystalline, and currently narrowed in lethal suspicion.

"Uh... hi?" Longwei waved a glowing pink hand. "Nice weather we’re having? A bit humid, though."

The woman’s hand moved to the hilt of a slender, translucent sword. "This is the Maiden’s Frost Spring. It is a restricted cultivation zone for the Ice Phoenix Pavilion. No male disciple is permitted within three miles. How did you bypass the wards?"

"Wards? Oh, were those the tingly things that felt like a light breeze?" Longwei asked, his brain still fuzzy from the pill. "Look, lady, I’d love to explain the nuances of my trespassing, but I’m currently a human radiator. I think I’m boiling your lake."

"You are an assassin," she stated, her voice dropping an octave. "The Shadow Sect must be getting desperate if they’re sending a glowing, babbling fool to infiltrate my meditation."

"Assassin? Do I look like an assassin?" Longwei gestured to the butterflies that were still circling his head like a magical halo. "I’m literally a lighthouse! I’m the least stealthy person in the history of the world!"

"Enough talk. You will surrender your core or perish," she said. She didn't move her feet, but she drew the sword. The air around her instantly crystallized into thousands of tiny, floating needles of ice. "I am Yuexin Lanqiao. Remember that name as you face your judgment."

"Wait, Lanqiao? As in, the 'Ice Beauty' Lanqiao?" Longwei’s eyes widened. "The one who froze a guy’s tongue to a pillar because he whistled at her? Oh, man, I really picked the wrong pond."

"Die!"

She moved. It wasn't a run; she glided across the surface of the water as if it were solid ground. The ice needles shot forward like a volley of arrows.

"Whoa! Too fast! Too pointy!"

Longwei dived under the water. To his surprise, he didn't just swim; he felt like a torpedo. The pill’s energy reacted to his panic, propelling him across the lake bed with a surge of pink Qi. He surfaced ten feet behind her, gasping for air.

"Missed me! Kind of! My butt is a little cold, but generally, I’m intact!"

Lanqiao spun around, her face a mask of icy fury. "How are you moving like that? My Frost Field should have paralyzed your meridians the moment you touched the water!"

"I don't know! I think the pill is fighting your ice!" Longwei yelled, bobbing in the water. "Can we just call a truce? You go back to your meditation, I’ll stay over here and continue to be a pink glow-stick, and we can both pretend this never happened?"

"Unacceptable. You have seen me in my place of solitude," Lanqiao hissed. She raised her sword, and the lake began to churn. A massive pillar of ice rose from the depths, sweeping toward Longwei. "You will leave this place in a coffin of frost!"

"Why is everyone in this sect so dramatic?" Longwei complained, trying to paddle away. "It’s just a swim! It’s healthy! It’s good for the pores!"

The ice pillar slammed into the water where he’d been a second before. Longwei, propelled by a sudden, involuntary burst of heat from his palms, accidentally did a backflip through the air.

"Did you see that? I’m a gymnast!" he shouted, though his face was pale. "But seriously, stop! You’re gonna hurt someone, and that someone is mostly likely me!"

"That is the intent!"

Lanqiao leaped into the air, her sword glowing with a blinding white light. She descended like a falling star, the tip of her blade aimed squarely at Longwei’s chest.

Longwei scrambled backward, his feet slipping on a submerged rock covered in moss. "Wait, wait! Slippery! Very slippery!"

His arms flailed wildly. As Lanqiao reached the apex of her strike, she landed on the same patch of mossy, ice-slicked rock that Longwei was currently losing his battle with.

"What—?"

Her eyes widened. The 'Ice Beauty' lost her footing.

"Don't grab me! Don't grab me!" Longwei yelled, even as his hands instinctively reached out for balance.

He caught her silk belt. She, in a desperate attempt to stay upright, grabbed his shoulders.

"Let go, you lecherous—!"

"I'm trying! You're the one holding on!"

For a heartbeat, they stood balanced on the edge of a deep underwater shelf, a glowing pink boy and a freezing blue girl, locked in a clumsy, terrified embrace.

Then, physics took over.

They tipped backward.

SPLASH.

The moment they hit the water together, something catastrophic happened. The Drunken Lotus Pill’s extreme, chaotic heat met Lanqiao’s refined, absolute Ice Qi.

HISSSSSS!

The lake didn't just splash. It erupted. A massive pillar of steam shot a hundred feet into the air. The water around them began to churn with violent, white bubbles.

"Ow! Hot! Hot! Hot!" Longwei yelled, his head popping above the surface. "Why is the water boiling? We’re in a giant pot of soup!"

Lanqiao surfaced a foot away, her hair plastered to her face, her usual composure utterly shattered. "My... my Qi... it’s reacting to yours! What did you swallow? It’s like a sun is trying to fuse with an iceberg!"

"I told you! It was a pill! A very, very bad pill!" Longwei reached out, trying to stabilize himself, but as his hand brushed her arm, a literal spark of purple lightning jumped between them. "Whoa! Did you feel that? That was like... static electricity, but for my soul!"

"Don't touch me!" Lanqiao gasped, but she didn't pull away. She couldn't. The swirling vortex of steam and energy had created a vacuum, pulling them closer together. "The energies... they're forming a cycle! If we don't stabilize this, the entire lake is going to explode!"

"Explode? I don't want to explode! I have so many naps I haven't taken yet!" Longwei cried.

"Shut up and hold my hands!" Lanqiao commanded, her face flushing a deep red that had nothing to do with the heat. "We have to balance the temperatures or we’re both going to be vaporized!"

"Okay, okay! Hands! Holding hands! This is very forward of you, Miss Lanqiao, but under the circumstances—"

"Silence, or I’ll kill you the moment we survive this!"

As their fingers locked, the pink glow from Longwei and the blue radiance from Lanqiao merged into a violent, shimmering violet. The water around them turned from a simmer to a roar, the mist becoming so thick that the rest of the world simply ceased to exist.

"Is it supposed to feel like my heart is doing the tango with yours?" Longwei asked, his voice trembling.

"Just... breathe..." Lanqiao whispered, her eyes wide as she felt the foreign, intoxicating power of the Drunken Lotus Pill flowing into her meridians.

Below them, the depths of the Cold Crystal Lake began to glow with an ominous, subterranean light. The fusion had begun, and the Azure Mist Sect was about to find out exactly why that pill had been forbidden for a thousand years.