"Fine," Li Mei said after a while. "I’ll help you."
He looked up, surprised.
"But on one condition."
"You come 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 smelling like burnt goat spleen, you return."
Han Yu smiled faintly.
Li Mei 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 meridians tingle for a week."
Han Yu swallowed nervously.
"Why does that sound like a threat?"
As the boy contemplated his life choices, Li Mei prepared the pills.
"Alright, Han Yu, swallow it."
"Hey! Choice of words!" Han Yu almost screamed.
"What? Just eat it." Li Mei chuckled.
Li Mei’s voice was cheerful. Too cheerful. Like someone who’d just finished writing her thesis on chemical explosions and was now testing it on a living specimen.
Han Yu looked down at the pill in his hand. It was red, pulsating slightly like it had a heartbeat, and smelled faintly of apricots, sulfur, and betrayal.
"...This one’s safe, right?"
"Absolutely," Li Mei said, holding up a jade tablet. "I only had to add one emergency escape talisman to your shirt this time."
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 moment of silence.
Then his stomach gurgled.
Then his spine buzzed.
Then—like someone had replaced his bones with fireworks—his entire body zipped upright.
"Uh-oh," Li Mei 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, alarmed.
"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 emerged wrapped in someone’s undergarments.
The disciples erupted into laughter.
"Pfffft—he’s wearing Elder Qin’s boxers as a cape!"
"Why is he saluting the bamboo trees?!"
"Someone record this!"
"Anyone got a Visual Recording Jade Slip!"
"I got one! One spirit stone per minute of recording!" Some disciple quickly began to hustle seeing the chance.
"Damned capitalists! Give me that for thirty minutes!"
By the time Li Mei strolled out to find him, Han Yu had collapsed in a bush, eyes wide and giggling at a squirrel that he claimed was whispering "secrets of the cosmos."
Li Mei knelt beside him and checked his pulse.
"Stable. No spiritual backlash. Perfect! That’s a pass."
Han Yu twitched. "Li Mei... the bamboo told me I’m a pigeon..."
"Good job, General Pigeon. Let’s get you back."
As she helped him stagger to his feet, Han Yu noticed something else.
His Soul Core was glowing faintly.
Specifically, the Eight Emotions Energy inside the Lotus was swirling with thick, vibrant yellow mist.
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.
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 Mei 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 embarrassment 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 Mei’s care, the sect wouldn’t dare blame him.
He wasn’t some 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, amusement, even admiration.
He closed his eyes, focusing on the mist circulating in his spiritual sea.
Yellow—Joy—still shimmered brightly.
But now, he could sense two other colors forming threads in his cauldron.
And Dark Blue. Sadness.
As word spread about how he’d become Li Mei’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.
"I heard he’s doing it for cultivation credits..."
"He hasn’t even reached the Inner Court. That’s dedication."
"Someone 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 Mei returned, holding another pill in a sealed jade case.
"You look better," she said cautiously.
"I call this next one the ’Thunder Tofu.’ It might make your voice echo in people’s heads for three days, though."