Chapter 1: The Alchemy Saint’s "Debut"

The air in the practice room was thick with the scent of cheap floor wax and the metallic tang of a dying air conditioner.

On the floor, the body of twenty-year-old Lin Xiao lay cold. Her heart, weakened by a congenital defect and pushed to the brink by an eighteen-hour rehearsal, had finally given out. In the silence of the room, she was a failed trainee—a "talentless" girl who had been cast aside by her prestigious medical family and mocked by the public.

Then, the sky over the city turned a bruised, electric purple.

A bolt of silent, invisible lightning struck the roof of the Star-Reach Entertainment building. It didn't burn the wires; it bypassed the physical world entirely, seeking a vessel.

The Alchemy Saint, Lin Xiao, had been at the pinnacle of the Ninth Tribulation in the Heavenly Realm when her cauldron exploded. She had expected the void. Instead, she felt... cramp.

Her eyes snapped open.

The First "Cultivation" Crisis

Lin Xiao sat up, her long hair spilling over her shoulders like silk. She looked at her hands—frail, pale, and trembling.

"This body..." she whispered, her voice rasping. "The meridians are clogged with... is this fried chicken grease? And the heart... the 'Gate of Life' is practically rusted shut."

She closed her eyes, instinctively reaching for the vast ocean of Qi she once commanded. She found a puddle. A tiny, shallow puddle of spiritual energy.

"Disastrous," she sighed. "I have survived three millennia of war only to be reincarnated as a malnourished dandelion."

The Intruder

The door to the practice room slammed open. A man in a tailored suit—Assistant Yan Chao—rushed in, his eyes glued to a tablet.

"Lin Xiao! Why aren't you at the makeup chair? The CEO has been looking at the live-stream metrics for ten minutes. You’re currently the #1 most searched person on the 'Failure' boards! If you don't show up for the final evaluation, your contract is—"

Yan Chao stopped.

Lin Xiao was looking at him. Her eyes didn't have the usual look of a desperate, teary-eyed trainee. They were deep, ancient, and unnervingly calm.

"Junior," Lin Xiao said, her voice cool. "Your 'Liver Fire' is rising. You have been awake for three sun-cycles. If you do not consume a cooling decoction, you will lose your hair by autumn."

Yan Chao blinked. "My... my hair? Did you just call me 'Junior'? I’m thirty! And I’m the Chief Assistant to Lu Chen!"

"Lu Chen?" Lin Xiao stood up, her movements fluid and hauntingly graceful. "Is he the Sect Leader of this... Star-Reach?"

"He's the CEO! And he's waiting! Move!"

## The CEO's Office: A Meeting of Two Worlds

Lu Chen sat behind a desk made of obsidian-glass. He was a man of cold lines and sharp logic. To him, the world was a series of graphs. Currently, the graph for 'Lin Xiao' was a flat line heading toward zero.

The door opened. Lin Xiao walked in.

She didn't bow. She didn't cry. She walked to the center of the room and sniffed the air.

"This room has good 'Feng Shui'," she noted, looking at a decorative fountain. "But the placement of that metal sculpture is cutting off the energy flow. It is why you have a headache every day at 4 PM."

Lu Chen paused, his pen hovering over a termination contract. He did have a headache every day at 4 PM.

"Lin Xiao," Lu Chen said, his voice like velvet-covered ice. "I don't care about your new 'fortune teller' persona. Your performance yesterday was a disaster. You fainted on stage. The sponsors are calling you 'The Fainting Idol'."

Lin Xiao leaned over his desk. Her face was inches from his. He could smell something strange—not the heavy perfume of other trainees, but the scent of mountain herbs and fresh rain.

"I fainted because the heart in this vessel was broken," she said simply. "I have fixed it. Now, tell me... this 'Idol' path. If I reach the top, will the world become quiet?"

Lu Chen stared into her eyes. For a split second, he felt a strange vibration in the air—like a hum of electricity.

"If you reach the top," Lu Chen said, strangely compelled to answer, "the whole world will listen to you. But quiet? No. It will be the loudest noise you’ve ever heard."

Lin Xiao frowned. "Then I shall have to cultivate the world until it learns to be silent."

## The "Netizen" Explosion (The First Post)

While they spoke, a video was uploaded to a popular forum by a staff member who had filmed her walking down the hallway.

Topic: Is Lin Xiao... okay? Check this video.

User: K-Pop-Detective: "Look at her walk! She’s not even touching the ground fully. It’s like she’s gliding. And what is she wearing? A ripped hoodie, but she looks like she’s wearing a royal robe."

User: Hater_No_1: "She probably just had surgery during the three hours she was 'missing.' Typical."

User: MysterySeeker: "Guys, look at the background of the video. The dying plants in the hallway... did they just sprout new leaves as she walked past them??"

Lin Xiao looked at the "Smart Phone" Yan Chao handed her. On the screen, thousands of tiny hearts were floating up.

"What is this?" she asked.

"Those are likes, Lin Xiao," Yan Chao sighed. "People like you."

Lin Xiao touched the screen. She felt a tiny, microscopic spark of Faith Power enter her fingertip. Her eyes widened.

"This 'Internet'..." she realized, a small, dangerous smile appearing on her face. "It is not a tool. It is a World-Scale Spirit-Gathering Array. If I can conquer this... I won't just ascend. I'll own the Heavens."

"CEO Lu," she said, turning back to the stunned man. "I will stay. But I need a room, a large cauldron, and a high-speed Wi-Fi connection. We have work to do."

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