After having his breakthrough, Han Yu was not fully stable yet. He had broken through two stages at once and was still feeling a bit uneasy.
He lay sprawled on the floor, limbs twitching occasionally from the aftershocks of his miraculous breakthrough. He stared blankly at the ceiling, trying to co to terms with the fact that he had just survived soup-based assassination and accidentally beco stronger.
Li i, anwhile, was vibrating with excitent. Not literally—though with her energy levels, it was always a possibility.
"This is incredible!" she exclaid, rummaging through her notes. "That so-called dud pill clearly had latent potential, but it needed a near-death catalyst to activate. We need to test more combinations! Different poisons, alternate timings, possibly exposure to mild electrocution—"
"I’m going ho," Han Yu said flatly, dragging himself to his feet like an elderly man who just fell down a spiritual staircase.
"But there’s so much more to test!" Li i protested. "We’re sitting on a groundbreaking cultivation thod! ’Death Soup Dao’—I can already see the title of the jade manual!"
"That title makes want to punch myself," Han Yu muttered, wobbling toward the door.
"Wait! Co back tomorrow! I have a whole list of alternate poisons we can cycle through. So of them are even mostly legal!"
Han Yu shot her a look that said, ’I know where you sleep and I will hide frogs under your pillow.’
"I have chores tomorrow," he said. "The Sect Master’s laundry isn’t going to fold itself. And I’m pretty sure soone poisoned the mop water again."
Li i simply shrugged, completely unfazed.
"Don’t worry about it. I’ll file an official sect request to make you my personal servant." She said it casually, like she was announcing a minor weather change. "That way, you won’t have to do any more chores. Just serve , test so pills, occasionally survive death stew. Easy job."
Han Yu froze.
His mind raced with panic. Being soone’s personal servant was a big deal. It ant being at their beck and call. It ant potentially dying weekly. It ant fewer freedoms than a frog in a tea jar.
But then he rembered his current life.
Scrubbing floors with toothbrushes made of pine needles.
Being chased across rooftops for offending so random high ranked servant or just because they felt like it.
Or that one ti soone "accidentally" fed him a laxative before a rather long delivery to the other residential peaks.
Becoming Li i’s personal servant might be terrifying... but it would an no more laundry. No more being bullied by the senior servants. No more errand runs to clean the latrines that always seed to be full.
And perhaps most importantly—it would an no one would dare ss with him again.
Li i was a certified lunatic in alchemist robes, but she was feared.
Even the outer sect disciples kept their distance, ever since she’d accidentally created a self-aware dicinal sli that road the Sect library for three days demanding foot rubs.
"...So I just have to work for you?" Han Yu asked warily.
"Yup." Li i bead. "No more random chores. I’ll even assign you your own rat assistant. Warlord Sniffles needs a partner."
Hearing that Han Yu was a bit more surprised.
’She’s a lot more familiar with the rats than I thought.’ Han Yu wondered just how much she knew about them or how much the rats collaborated with her.
He had thought that only the SHH had collaborations with the rats but it didn’t not seem to be fully true. Sure the other servants and even disciples had knonw about the rats, but they rarely interacted. At least not in a cordial way.
Most of the ti it was just so rat chewing on a old talisman brush, or stealing from the disciple’s personal snack stash.
The rats seed to be wary of disciples, but they were sohow cooperating with Li i. Though just like the others, the rats seed to fear her on so level too. So it was hard to tell whether their cooperation was willing or was it just due to overwhelming fear.
The more Han Yu thought about it, the more he found Li i to be mysterious. Whether it be her cultivation, her alchemy skills, her fear in the sect, or her reach among the rat syndicate, it was all strange.
But still he found sothing wrong and Han Yu’s eye twitched. "I’m not commanding a rat troupe."
"You’d be surprised how loyal they are once you pay them in dried fruit."
"...I’ll think about it."
"You already said yes."
"I did not!"
"Your eyes said yes."
Han Yu narrowed his eyes. "My eyes are twitching from soup trauma."
"Sa thing."
He sighed, staring at the moonlight filtering through the trees just outside her little forest hut. For a mont, he imagined walking back to the servant quarters, being mocked for his purple skin from earlier, having soone throw an old boot at him during roll call, and getting assigned to toilet duty again because "he looked too relaxed."
"...Fine," he said finally. "But I want it in writing."
"I already submitted the scroll." Li i grinned.
Han Yu paused. "...When?"
"Ten minutes ago. Right after you ate the soup. I figured the results would be promising."
"You knew I’d say yes?"
"No, I just have really fast handwriting."
Han Yu groaned. "I hate everything."
"Get so rest," Li i said cheerfully, shoving a sack of suspicious herbs into his hands. "Take this. It’ll help you sleep."
"Are they safe?"
"Depends on your definition of safe."
"I’m throwing these into a lake."
As he limped off into the night, bowl still in hand, stomach still bubbling slightly from trauma stew, Han Yu muttered under his breath, "This better co with health insurance."
Back in the hut, Li i smiled, twirling her brush and adding a new title to her notes:
Subject: Han Yu — Durable. Reactive. Possibly immortal. Mildly dramatic.
She tapped her chin thoughtfully.
"Now, where did I leave that box of screamroot powder..."
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