Elder Mo found them amidst the ruins of the western courtyard, his gourd sloshing with liquid that smelled like fermented peaches and poor life choices. The old man took one look at Ling Tian's transforming arm and snorted.
"Soul-seals," he announced, wiping his mouth with a stained sleeve, "are like my third wife's cooking." He upended the gourd, releasing a stream of amber liquid that hissed violently when it struck the broken tiles, eating through them like acid. "You don't remove the poison - you drown it in something worse."
With a dramatic flourish, the elder produced a peach pit from his soiled robes and tossed it to Ling Tian. The young cultivator caught it awkwardly with his unaffected hand, noticing tiny characters carved into its wrinkled surface.
"This says 'property of the kitchen mistress,'" Ling Tian said, turning the pit over in his palm. "And something about...steamed buns?"
"Precisely!" Elder Mo belched, the scent of overripe fruit washing over them. "Your body's trying to remember what it was before the Key got shoved into it. You need to feed it ordinary things - mundane memories." He poked Ling Tian's mutated arm with his staff, producing a shower of sparks. "This isn't corruption, boy. It's recollection."
Qing'er stepped forward, her sword still unsheathed. "You're suggesting he...cook his way out of this?"
"I'm suggesting he live his way out," the elder corrected, his usual drunken demeanor slipping for one sober moment. "The Key was never meant to be carried like baggage. It was meant to be used like a seasoning."
As if to demonstrate, Ling Tian's claw-hand suddenly spasmed, carving three precise characters into the courtyard's remaining intact tile:
"Salt the fish at dawn."