Inside the cottage, the atmosphere gradually shifted from initial despair and silence to a strange, fervent excitement filled with calculation.
The gloom on Lin Fan's face was swept away, replaced by the expression of a chief of staff who was strategizing and confident of victory. His usually lazy eyes were now sparkling with the light of wisdom, as if he could see through all the cause and effect in the world and find the thread most beneficial to himself.
Seeing his junior sister still deeply blaming herself for "causing a great disaster," Lin Fan walked up, gently patted her head, his tone full of comfort and encouragement.
"Junior Sister, don't blame yourself anymore. I've just thought about it carefully, deeply, and from all angles, and I've found that this matter, perhaps... is not entirely a bad thing."
Yue Qingqian looked up, her teary eyes full of confusion. She's been taken as a personal disciple by an elder and is about to become the focus of the entire sect. How is that not a bad thing?
Lin Fan smiled faintly, a cunning, fox-like smile.
"You must remember, the word 'crisis' (危机) contains both danger and opportunity," he paced a few steps and began to expound on his newly formed strategic thinking. "The Heavenly Dao wants to use the identity of an 'elder's personal disciple' to push us into the spotlight, to make us lose our autonomy and be forced into all kinds of karma. This intention is extremely sinister! Of course, we cannot let it succeed."
"But," his tone shifted, his eyes shining brightly, "we cannot just take this loss and let it manipulate us! The Heavenly Dao has given us a crisis, so we must find a way to squeeze out ten times, a hundred times the benefit from this crisis to strengthen ourselves! It wants to make us unsafe, so we must use the tools it has given us to make ourselves safer than before!"
He waved his hand grandly and announced with great momentum, "I have decided that the next phase of our Lesser Peak's development core will officially transform from the original 'passive defense strategy' to—'active logistical support and resource plunder strategy'!"
He gave this grand plan a more fitting code name—the "Shearing the Sheep" Plan!
The core of the plan was to perfectly utilize Yue Qingqian's halo as an "alchemy prodigy personal disciple" and the "Hundred Herbs Peak Access Token" to turn the entire, fabulously wealthy Hundred Herbs Peak into their Lesser Peak's backyard garden and free material supplier!
Yue Qingqian was stunned as she listened. The guilt and despair in her heart were gradually replaced by her senior brother's shocking words and the grand blueprint of the plan, and a strange feeling of mixed excitement and anticipation rose within her.
After establishing the new strategic objective, Lin Fan's efficiency was frighteningly high. He immediately dragged out the wooden box full of intelligence from under his bed again, but this time, he took out a blank, several-yard-long beast-hide scroll.
This was not a battle plan, but a "procurement list."
"Junior Sister, come and see." Lin Fan spread the scroll on the ground, picked up a charcoal pencil, and began to write rapidly on it, explaining the true purpose of his list to Yue Qingqian as he wrote.
"First, the upgrade of the defense system." He wrote the four large characters for "Array Materials" at the top of the scroll.
"Look, 'Seven Star Iron Vine' and 'Magnetic Spirit Ore,' these two materials are the core for constructing the 'Lesser Heavenly Cycle Star-Guiding Magnetic Array.' Once this array is set up, it can effectively interfere with all divination, deduction, and tracking-type spells within a hundred-mile radius. In the future, if any old monster wants to spy on us, they will only see a jumble of chaos. You can apply to your cheap master for them on the grounds that 'refining a certain body-tempering pill requires the harmonization of metal and iron qi'."
"And this, 'Thousand Illusions Orchid' and 'Void Nether Flower.' These two are the main ingredients for refining illusion-type pills, but they have a more important use—upgrading our peak's concealment array! As long as we have enough materials, I am confident I can upgrade our current array to the 'Micro-Dust Void Array'! At that time, the entire Lesser Peak will have a slight spatial deflection, and unless a great power tears open the void to personally investigate, no one will be able to find us!"
Yue Qingqian's eyes widened. She had never thought that things she considered just materials for pills could have such incredible uses in her senior brother's hands.
After writing down the array materials, Lin Fan started a new column and wrote down "Pill Materials."
"Second, the upgrade of our personal security system." He wrote down a series of rare spiritual herb names that would make even a Golden Core elder's eyes turn red with envy as he explained, "These are the ones really used for refining pills. But not for you, for me. I will use them to refine the legendary 'Nine Revolutions Feigned Death Pill' and the 'Void-Escaping Blood Shadow Pill.' With these two things, even if I'm cornered by a Nascent Soul old monster, I can escape safely."
Finally, the most important item, he wrote down the word "Knowledge."
"Junior Sister, materials are secondary. The most precious wealth of Hundred Herbs Peak is its Scripture Pavilion, which is not open to the public and houses countless unique alchemy formulas and ancient medicinal classics!" Lin Fan's tone became incomparably solemn. "Since your token allows you to come and go as you please, that place must be your most important destination! Your mission is not to learn alchemy, but to be a 'book thief'! I want you to memorize every single word of all the records inside about ancient array formations, rare treasures and minerals, and even spatial manipulation and long-distance teleportation arrays, and bring them all back to me!"
Looking at the densely packed "procurement list" that almost filled the entire scroll, Yue Qingqian felt her heart pound.
This wasn't just shearing the sheep; this was planning to pack up the entire fat sheep of Hundred Herbs Peak, from its wool to its meat and even its bones, and move it all back to Lesser Peak!
After laying out the grand blueprint, Lin Fan then gave Yue Qingqian detailed tactical guidance for her upcoming "undercover career."
"Remember, your new persona from now on is a 'quirky, socially awkward, but exceptionally talented alchemy prodigy'," he instructed. "You must continue to maintain your image of being frail and sickly, working by fits and starts. When refining pills, you must precisely display your unparalleled control over fire to continuously deepen Elder Liu's impression that you 'are a genius.' But in all other aspects, such as memorizing alchemy formulas, identifying herbs, mastering the timing, etc., you must perform terribly, be clumsy! This way, he will focus all his attention on your only 'shining point,' thereby giving you the greatest degree of freedom to 'explore freely'."
"Junior Sister, you must remember," Lin Fan's expression, at this moment, was filled with a sacred sense of mission, "your future mission at Hundred Herbs Peak is not to learn alchemy. It is to become the most important, most core intelligence officer, procurement agent, and logistics minister of our Lesser Peak's security and defense system!"
"Go, Junior Sister! For the sake of our eternal peace and quiet as shut-ins, strive hard!"
All the guilt and unease in Yue Qingqian's heart had now completely dissipated. In their place was an unprecedented, sacred sense of mission and soaring motivation!
She was no longer a disciple who had caused trouble, but a glorious spy about to go deep behind enemy lines, fighting for the great "cause of staying at home"!