Embarrassing?
Honestly — a little.
But mostly, she felt relieved.
If the so-called ghost was herself, then all she needed to worry about when going out at night for Supply Boxes was watching the ground.
The thought sent her blood pumping.
Tonight, even while being cautious and sneaky, she'd found eleven boxes. Without the ghost threat looming over her, wouldn't she be able to find twenty or thirty in an hour?
'Time for bed. Tomorrow, scrub the pot and get straight to work.'
'Oh right — bath first. With all this soot on me, no wonder they thought I was a ghost.'
She smeared a hand across the black ash on her face, then grabbed the bucket and soap and headed to the stream for a personal cleanup.
Refreshed and rejuvenated, she retrieved the clothes she'd hung outside, returned to her room, did a bit more reading, and went to sleep when tiredness hit.
The next morning, Lan Qingyou changed into a T-shirt and — following yesterday's plan — carried the crucible and mortar down to the stream. She grabbed a random stone from the water and used it as a scrubbing tool to start descaling.
Descaling was zero technique, all elbow grease.
After over an hour of scrubbing, she finally got both pieces clean.
After bringing them back, Lan Qingyou returned to the stream with the hospital gown and sundress for a wash.
She only had four outfits now. After washing those two at the stream, even the T-shirt she was wearing needed a rinse.
No choice — while doing laundry, her legs dangled in the water.
Half a day gone on pots, pans, and clothes. Since the cookware needed to air-dry naturally, Lan Qingyou settled in at the desk and browsed the Exchange.
She bought whatever caught her eye. After a while, with nothing else worth grabbing, her gaze drifted to the friends list out of sheer boredom.
She started mindlessly clearing out friend requests.
Ever since she'd begun selling Mana Potions, the requests had never stopped.
Among the messages: threats, pleas, begging, lectures, offers to buy out her entire stock — but almost nobody who just wanted to talk normally.
"Yawn... Is there not a single decent one?"
Finger tapping away on the big screen, Lan Qingyou stifled a yawn.
Then she spotted an interesting message.
The sender had a slightly baby-faced look, probably around eighteen or nineteen.
Gu Xiaobei: "Boss, do you need herbs? I've got about ten-odd pounds of assorted herbs, plus this [Single-Use Filter Blueprint (E)]."
'Oh!'
'A Filter Blueprint!'
The instant she read those words, Lan Qingyou's heart skipped a beat. She added the friend request immediately.
Lan Qingyou: "What's the price for the blueprint?"
She sent it. No reply for over ten minutes.
Normal enough — not everyone worked from home like Lan Qingyou.
So she turned to processing herbs in the meantime.
Herb processing could basically be compared to prepping vegetables: remove anything rotten or bug-eaten; wash the soil off roots and the insect eggs off leaves and petals; and lay the rest out to dry.
One potion dose was 10 milliliters, requiring 10 grams of each type of herb.
That meant she needed to put roughly 4 pounds of material into each pot to break even.
The rest was water.
Making mana water wasn't complicated either. She filled a bucket, poured it into the crucible at the correct ratio, released her own mana to fuse the water's mana thoroughly with its molecules — and she had herself a pot of faintly blue mana water.
One pot cost 50 of her Mana Points. Manageable.
After preparing the mana water, Lan Qingyou returned to the desk to check.
A reply had come.
Gu Xiaobei: "For the blueprint, would 10 Mana Potions work? And the herbs — do you want those too?"
Lan Qingyou replied immediately: "I'll take the herbs too. Here's the deal — I have 10 Mana Potions. Take those for now, send me the blueprint, and I'll pay you the difference tomorrow."
Gu Xiaobei: "Difference? No, ten is enough, ten is totally enough."
Lan Qingyou: "Alchemy is founded on equivalent exchange. A measly ten crude potions doesn't come close to matching this blueprint's value."
Gu Xiaobei: "Boss, you're a real one [thumbs up]."
Lan Qingyou sent the trade request and received the blueprint.
[Single-Use Filter Blueprint (E)]
[Materials: Wood x50, Cotton x5, Charcoal x5, Sand x10, Small Pebbles x50, Cloth x3]
[Effect: Can filter impurities and medicinal residue from water.]
[Description: With this, Mom never has to worry about me drinking dirty water again! But take note — it cannot remove mana from water. Drink mana water at your own risk — stomach problems guaranteed.]
'Right. So that's why the girl couldn't use it herself — it was completely useless for the main problem.'
Because there was no way to remove the mana from water.
Materials were easy enough to source. Aside from cotton and pebbles, everything else was already in her storage.
Pebbles? Simple — grab a handful from the stream.
Cotton was the only tricky one. She'd have to disassemble something.
Luckily she'd bought plenty of cotton products earlier. She snagged the decorative teddy bear, pulled out five tufts of stuffing, and called it done.
The finished filter looked like a large split-barrel design. The upper half's core — the actual filtration component — sat vertically in the middle, while the lower half collected the filtered water.
Basically a home-style gravity-fed water purifier, just without a spout.
With everything ready, Lan Qingyou went out to check on the herbs drying on the terrace.
The surface moisture had been thoroughly sun-dried. Perfect timing for potion-making.
She still didn't have a proper scale, but rough estimation — erring on the side of too much rather than too little — should work fine.
No more dawdling. She opened the window, dumped all the Ascetic Grass and Yellow Tail Flower from the winnowing tray into the crucible, and snapped her fingers. A brilliant flame erupted from the center of the alchemy base.
Cool, right?
In reality, it was simply her mana activating the similarly mana-imbued alchemy array.
Of course, Lan Qingyou hadn't designed it this way to look flashy. It was mainly because her paralyzed legs made it impractical to control the fire manually.
So she used finger snaps instead.
After all, heat control during alchemy was critically important. For example: once the water boiled, immediately switch to low heat. When the herbs' aroma emerged, raise it to medium. After an hour of simmering, drop back to low to prevent boiling dry.
Next came the long, eight-hour brew.
But having done this once before, Lan Qingyou was far better prepared this time.
Food, water, books — and an alarm clock already wound and set.
Eight hours? For someone swimming in an ocean of knowledge, that was nothing.
Especially since — thanks to weightlessness and floating — she didn't need to worry about varicose veins or any other occupational hazards from standing too long.
The reason Lan Qingyou drove herself this hard went beyond simply wanting to survive in this other world. There was one more crucial factor: healing her legs.
The Federation Hospital's cutting-edge technology had failed. So why not try the Karim Continent's alchemy?
She would create the potion that would give her a second chance — with her own hands.
Of course, she knew this was a long and arduous road. That was precisely why she craved knowledge more desperately than anyone.
In this, she was fundamentally different from everyone else.
Even without Albert's alchemy notes leading her into the field, she probably would've ended up on this path anyway.
Because right now, it was the only path open to her.
If she was being honest, had her legs been fine, she'd probably have tossed those books aside without a second glance — just like everyone else.
Was it a blessing in disguise?
In a way, yes.
But if she'd had the choice, Lan Qingyou would much rather have been living with the parents who'd loved her dearly.
Instead of earning this "blessing" the way she had.