"Fine," Li i said after a while. "I’ll help you."
He looked up, surprised.
"But on one condition."
"...Anything."
"You co back alive," she said quietly. "No matter what happens, no matter how bad it gets—you return. Even if you have to crawl back missing an arm and slling like burnt goat spleen, you return."
Han Yu smiled faintly.
"I promise."
Li i reached for a drawer and pulled out a black lacquered box covered in talismans.
"Then let’s get to work. I’ve got three pill prototypes that haven’t exploded anyone yet, and one forbidden cultivation booster that might make your veins and ridians tingle for a week."
Han Yu swallowed nervously.
"Why does that sound like a threat?"
Li i grinned.
"Because it is."
"..." Han Yu.
As the boy contemplated his life choices, Li i prepared the pills.
"Alright, Han Yu, swallow it."
"Hey! Choice of words!" Han Yu almost scread.
"What? Just eat it." Li i chuckled.
Li i’s voice was cheerful. Too cheerful. Like soone who’d just finished writing her thesis on chemical explosions and was now testing it on a living specin.
Han Yu looked down at the pill in his hand. It was red, pulsating slightly like it had a heartbeat, and slled faintly of apricots, sulfur, and betrayal.
"...This one’s safe, right?"
"Absolutely," Li i said, holding up a jade tablet. "I only had to add one ergency escape talisman to your shirt this ti."
Han Yu’s face twitched. "That’s not comforting."
"Would you prefer I added two?"
"Fine, fine!" With a deep breath, Han Yu popped the pill into his mouth and swallowed.
There was a mont of silence.
Then his stomach gurgled.
Then his spine buzzed.
Then—like soone had replaced his bones with fireworks—his entire body zipped upright.
"Uh-oh," Li i murmured, backing away.
Han Yu stood stock still.
Then, in a perfectly straight line, he blasted out of the alchemy room.
"~~~~WAAAAAAA—!!!~~~~"
The shriek could be heard echoing through the halls of the division. Han Yu was running. No, sliding. His feet barely touched the ground as he zipped across courtyards, leapt over railings, and ricocheted off stone walls like a human pinball possessed by a very enthusiastic thunder spirit.
Sect disciples looked up, alard.
"Is that—?"
"Wait, isn’t that Han Yu?!"
"Why’s he flapping his arms like that?"
"Look out, he’s coming back around!"
Han Yu looped through the Eastern Courtyard, arms whirling like propellers.
"EVERYTHING IS SO VIBRANT!!" he yelled as he crashed through a laundry line and erged wrapped in soone’s undergarnts.
The disciples erupted into laughter.
"Pfffft—he’s wearing Elder Qin’s boxers as a cape!"
"Why is he saluting the bamboo trees?!"
"Soone record this!"
"Anyone got a Visual Recording Jade Slip!"
"I got one! One spirit stone per minute of recording!" So disciple quickly began to hustle seeing the chance.
"Damned capitalists! Give that for thirty minutes!"
By the ti Li i strolled out to find him, Han Yu had collapsed in a bush, eyes wide and giggling at a squirrel that he claid was whispering "secrets of the cosmos."
Li i knelt beside him and checked his pulse.
"Stable. No spiritual backlash. Perfect! That’s a pass."
Han Yu twitched. "Li i... the bamboo told I’m a pigeon..."
"Good job, General Pigeon. Let’s get you back."
As she helped him stagger to his feet, Han Yu noticed sothing else.
His Soul Core was glowing faintly.
Specifically, the Eight Emotions Energy inside the Lotus was swirling with thick, vibrant yellow mist.
Joy.
He blinked.
All the laughter, all the ridiculousness he had just gone through—it had fed him. He hadn’t noticed it because of his strange state but he had gone past hundreds of people and absorbed it straight from them.
Due to the close proximity the absorption was optimal.
Han Yu’s mind clicked.
’Wait a minute...’
If these side effects made people laugh, cheer, or even feel sorry for him... he could harvest that energy. And right now, he needed every advantage he could get.
Once Li i tucked him back into a guest bed in her lab and handed him a cup of lotus root soup, Han Yu lay back, smiling like a man who’d just figured out how to turn embarrassnt into currency.
He could weaponize this.
The pill tests didn’t just help his cultivation. They were practically a two-for-one deal.
He could refine his Qi cultivation and also use the bizarre side effects to stir emotions in people—harvesting their Eight Emotions Energy in the process.
What’s more, as long as he was under Li i’s care, the sect wouldn’t dare bla him.
He wasn’t so lunatic streaking through the courtyards for fun—he was a tragic, noble volunteer, risking body and dignity to test unstable pills for the good of alchemy!
People would feel pity, amusent, even admiration.
He closed his eyes, focusing on the mist circulating in his spiritual sea.
Yellow—Joy—still shimred brightly.
But now, he could sense two other colors forming threads in his cauldron.
Grey. Surprise.
And Dark Blue. Sadness.
As word spread about how he’d beco Li i’s long-term pill tester—and the side effects he had to endure—disciples who had seen him bouncing off statues or screaming about spiritual pigeons began to feel sorry for him.
"Ai, poor guy..."
"I heard he’s doing it for cultivation credits..."
"He hasn’t even reached the Inner Court. That’s dedication."
"Soone said he barked at a Sect Elder’s dog for three hours before realizing it wasn’t a talking spirit beast..."
The sympathy was flowing in. Along with it, the Sadness energy pooled gently into his Eight Emotions Furnace like rain trickling down the mountain stones.
Even a few Surprise strands flickered in—probably from the sheer audacity of Han Yu’s antics.
He chuckled to himself.
’This... this is genius.’
Li i returned, holding another pill in a sealed jade case.
"You look better," she said cautiously.
"I feel better."
"I call this next one the ’Thunder Tofu.’ It might make your voice echo in people’s heads for three days, though."
Han Yu blinked.
Then grinned.
"Let’s do it."
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