The alleyway behind the Heavenly Pill Pavilion was completely empty, save for a few stray cats and the distant sound of a man being dragged by his ankles down the cobblestone street.
Senior Sister Ho Li-Fan stood in the shadows, her back pressed flat against the cool brick wall. She clutched the fabric of her pristine, icy-blue robes right over her heart.
Her breathing was incredibly erratic.
"Pygeum… Zinc Ore… 1200mg of Lecithin Extract…" He Lu's words echoed in her mind, repeating on an endless loop. As an elite cultivator, her brain was trained to instantly calculate the flow of Qi, the density of spiritual energy, and the physical limits of the human body.
And her brain was currently calculating the sheer, overwhelming, hydrostatic pressure of the "Holy Grail Stack."
The volume, she thought wildly, her eyes wide. The sheer volume of Yang-Essence he was describing. It defies the Heavenly Dao. If his Cowper's Meridian is truly leaking like a faucet, the resulting tribulation would be… it would be an absolute deluge.
Ho Li-Fan squeezed her thighs together. A profound, unfamiliar heat was blooming in her lower Dantian.
For her entire life, she had cultivated the Dao of Absolute Frost. She was the Ice Beauty. Untouchable. Unmoved by the arrogant young masters who flexed their stamina techniques or wealth. But He Lu? He Lu didn't care about stamina. He Lu had dedicated himself to the mad science of absolute, unrestrained payload.
She imagined it. She pictured his unwashed, cabbage-scented face looking down at her, unleashing a spiritual flood so heavy, so impossibly dense, that it would completely overwrite her Ice Dao. She imagined her perfect, composed expression completely breaking, her eyes rolling back, her mind shattered by the sheer tidal wave of his premium, supplement-enhanced Yang-Essence.
Hsssss. A thick cloud of white steam suddenly billowed out from the collar of her robes. Her Ice aura was literally boiling off her body.
"Stop it," she whispered to herself, frantically fanning her flushed, bright red face with both hands. "He is an idiot. He thinks you are a city guard. He is a dirty, unwashed peasant."
But the steam kept rising. The Ice Beauty of the Jade Water Sect slid down the brick wall, burying her burning face in her hands, completely and utterly compromised by a 4chan copypasta.
Twelve hours later, the paralysis finally wore off.
I woke up face-down on the floorboards of the Lo & He Law Firm. My entire body ached like I had been used as a battering ram, which, knowing Lo Yu, was entirely possible.
I groaned, pushing myself up. "Boss? Are we in prison? Did the Feds raid us?"
"We are in our office, Junior Associate," Lo Yu rasped from his wine-barrel desk. "You miraculously survived your own rampant stupidity. And more importantly, the evidence survived with you."
He tapped the Shadow-Catching Jade sitting on the barrel.
Before I could celebrate, the shattered remains of our doorframe were blocked by a massive, gravity-defying shadow. Fairy Su-Mi wobbled into the room. She was wearing a thick cloak to hide her newly acquired "Twin Peaks," but she still had to grip the doorjamb to keep from tipping forward.
"Seniors," she said, her voice trembling. "I brought the… the retainer."
She reached into her cloak and pulled out a bundle of torn, white silk. It was the ruptured chest-bindings, completely soaked in the panicked sweat of a woman who had just lost her entire martial arts career.
She placed them on the desk.
Lo Yu stood up. The atmosphere in the room immediately shifted into something profoundly heavy and deeply uncomfortable. He leaned over the silk, closed his eyes, and inhaled.
"Ah," Lo Yu whispered, his missing-tooth smile stretching wide. "The sheer tension in these torn threads. The acidic tang of aerodynamic despair. This is not just evidence, Fairy Su-Mi. This is a tragedy written in sweat. The court will weep."
I rubbed my temples, actively trying not to look at the goat, which was currently wearing a makeshift little necktie I had fashioned out of a scrap of blue silk. We had a trial today.
"Let's just go," I sighed. "I want to ruin an alchemist."
The Grand Magistrate's Court was just as intimidating as the first time, though Magistrate Chen looked even more exhausted. The purple bags under his eyes had darkened to a deep plum.
"Case number 403," Magistrate Chen droned, rubbing his face. "Fairy Su-Mi versus the Heavenly Pill Pavilion. Petition for gross negligence, product liability, and… 'destruction of aerodynamic integrity'? What in the Heavens does that mean?"
Across the aisle, Grandmaster Pill-Cauldron was sitting behind a polished mahogany desk. He wasn't alone. He was flanked by three high-priced, incredibly slick corporate Sect Lawyers wearing matching silver robes.
"Your Honor," the lead corporate lawyer said, standing up with a smug smile. "This case is a farce. My client provided the plaintiff with a premium pill. The results speak for themselves. Look at her! She is stunning! The Heavenly Pill Pavilion simply enhanced her natural femininity. There are no damages here. In fact, she should be paying us extra!"
Grandmaster Pill-Cauldron aggressively nodded his oily head.
"Objection!" I yelled, slamming my hands on our desk. "The defense is victim-blaming! They are completely ignoring the physics of the Dao!"
Lo Yu stood up, holding his hand out to silence me. He gave the Magistrate a deep bow.
"Your Honor," Lo Yu rasped, his voice dripping with righteous indignation. "My client is a practitioner of the Soaring Crane Sect. Her martial arts require the weightless grace of a willow leaf. Grandmaster Pill-Cauldron did not enhance her; he strapped two spiritual boulders to her chest without her consent. She can no longer function."
The corporate lawyer scoffed. "Hyperbole! She looks perfectly fine!"
"Fairy Su-Mi," Lo Yu said softly. "Please, demonstrate the Crane Ascends the Heavens stance for the court."
Su-Mi whimpered, but she bravely stood up. She stepped out from behind our desk. The entire gallery leaned forward.
She took a deep breath, drew her practice sword, and attempted to drop into a one-legged crane stance.
For half a second, it looked beautiful.
Then, physics took over.
The massive, heavily-burdened Yin-spheres on her chest pulled her forward with the gravitational force of a dying star. She let out a panicked shriek, her arms windmilling wildly. She pitched completely forward, flew across the aisle, and faceplanted directly into the defense's mahogany desk with a catastrophic CRASH.
The desk splintered in half. Grandmaster Pill-Cauldron shrieked as his jade tablets shattered. Su-Mi lay in the wreckage, sobbing into the wood.
The entire courtroom was dead silent.
Magistrate Chen stared at the destroyed desk, his mouth slightly open. "By the Heavens. She's like a siege weapon."
"I rest my physical case," Lo Yu said smoothly. "Now, for the evidence of negligence. Junior Associate, play the jade."
I grinned, picking up the Shadow-Catching Jade. I pumped a sliver of Qi into it, projecting the glowing, three-dimensional illusion into the center of the courtroom.
I intended to skip to the part where the Grandmaster handed me the pill. But I was still a little clumsy with Qi-control, and the video started playing exactly three minutes too early.
My giant, glowing illusionary face appeared in the center of the courtroom, leaning aggressively over the apothecary counter.
"Pygeum, Zinc Ore, L-Arginine… and the final key: 1200mg of Lecithin Extract," my illusionary voice boomed through the pristine legal hall. "Much, much bigger loads. An amazing increase in intensity. The Holy Grail of the Yang-Root. I leak pre-circulation Yang-dew like a damn faucet!"
The gallery gasped in absolute, horrified shock.
Up in the visitor's balcony, sitting discreetly in the back row, Senior Sister Ho Li-Fan let out a strangled, high-pitched squeak. She violently slapped both hands over her face, her pristine blue robes suddenly radiating a massive cloud of white steam. She leaped out of her seat and literally sprinted out of the courtroom, leaving a trail of melted frost in her wake.
"Oops," I whispered, frantically tapping the jade. "Fast-forwarding! My apologies to the court! Unrelated medical research!"
I skipped the video forward. The projection shifted to Grandmaster Pill-Cauldron tossing a pill onto the counter.
"One Minor Jade-Skin Refining Pill," the illusionary Grandmaster said, not even looking at the completely disorganized bins behind him. "No refunds. Sign the verbal waiver."
Next, the video showed me swallowing it, instantly turning a dull, metallic grey, and freezing solid.
"Oops," the illusionary Pill-Cauldron muttered. "Looks like the bins got mixed up again. That wasn't a skin-refining pill. That was an 'Immovable Mountain' pill. It's an industrial supplement used by Earth-attribute cultivators to temporarily turn their bodies into load-bearing pillars."
The projection faded out.
I looked at the corporate lawyers. All three of them had their heads buried in their hands. They knew it was over. You can't argue "buyer beware" when your client admits on camera to mixing up skin lotion with bridge-building supplies.
Magistrate Chen rubbed his temples with such force I thought his skin would peel off.
"Grandmaster Pill-Cauldron," the Magistrate said, his voice devoid of all hope. "You sold industrial construction materials as cosmetics. And you turned a Soaring Crane disciple into a human trebuchet."
"She signed a verbal waiver!" Pill-Cauldron squeaked, sweating profusely.
"I am fining the Heavenly Pill Pavilion one thousand mid-grade spirit stones," Magistrate Chen banged his gavel. "Five hundred to Fairy Su-Mi for the utter destruction of her aerodynamics. And five hundred to the Junior Associate for the trauma of being turned into a load-bearing pillar. Furthermore, the Grandmaster's alchemy license is suspended for a year."
Su-Mi gasped, pulling her face out of the splintered desk. "Five hundred stones?! I can buy a gravity-nullifying array for my robes! I can sword-dance again!"
"Court is adjourned," Magistrate Chen groaned, standing up. "And someone tell the goat to stop eating the defense's briefcases."
Bang! We had done it again. We had taken down the biggest corporation in the city.
Lo Yu was already calculating our thirty-percent contingency fee on an abacus he pulled out of his robes. I was practically vibrating with excitement. I was rich. I was finally, truly rich.
"Boss," I said, a manic grin spreading across my face. "Do you know what this means? We don't just have brothel money. We have VIP Brothel money. We have 'buy the whole establishment' money!"
"Do not get ahead of yourself, He Lu," Lo Yu warned, though he was grinning too. "First, we must collect the funds. And secondly, we must secure our new client."
"What new client?" I asked.
Lo Yu pointed his walking—gestured with his hand toward the courtroom doors.
Standing in the doorway, blocking our exit, was a man the size of a mountain. He was wearing the thick, fur-lined armor of the Iron-Hide Beast Taming Sect. His face was covered in scars, and he looked incredibly angry.
He marched directly up to our table, completely ignoring the destroyed defense desk, and slammed a massive, calloused hand down on our paperwork.
"Are you the Litigation Masters who take the weird cases?" the giant rumbled, his voice shaking the floorboards.
I puffed out my chest, jingling the imaginary spirit stones in my pocket. "We are the Lo & He Law Firm. We specialize in weird cases, aerodynamic tragedies, and the Oopsie-Daisy precedent. What can we do for you, big guy?"
The giant leaned down, his face turning a deep, embarrassed shade of red. He looked left, looked right, and then leaned in close.
"I bought a cursed spirit-beast from an underground auction," the giant whispered miserably. "It won't stop seducing my farm animals. I need to sue the auctioneer for emotional distress and agricultural defamation."
I looked at Lo Yu. Lo Yu looked at me. His missing-tooth smile widened into a terrifying crescent moon.
"Step into my office, friend," Lo Yu rasped. "We are going to need a very specific retainer."