The Heavenly Pill Pavilion didn't look like an apothecary. It looked like an Apple Store designed by a megalomaniacal emperor.
The entire five-story pagoda was constructed of gleaming white jade and floor-to-ceiling crystal windows. Inside, floating display pedestals showcased brightly colored pills illuminated by soft, heavenly spotlights. Cultivators in pristine robes milled about, sipping complimentary cucumber-infused spiritual water while soft zither music played in the background.
It reeked of unregulated capitalism.
"Remember the plan, Junior Associate," Lo Yu whispered, crouching behind a decorative shrub across the street. "You are a wealthy, arrogant Young Master from out of town. You demand the Minor Jade-Skin Refining Pill. You get the alchemist to admit his inventory is disorganized. You get out."
I adjusted the collar of Lo Yu's new black silk robes. They fit me decently well, but because the boss refused to bathe, I currently smelled like a confusing mixture of high-end tailoring, boiled cabbage, and regret.
"I have the Shadow-Catching Jade pinned to my lapel," I said, tapping a small black stone disguised as a broach. "But what if the Feds are watching? What if Senior Sister Ho Li-Fan is tailing us? This feels like a setup."
"She is an Inner Court elite, He Lu. She is not hiding in the bushes to audit our tax returns," Lo Yu sighed, slapping the back of my head. "Now go. And do not bring the goat inside. Last time it entered a pharmacy, it ate three pounds of laxative root and weaponized the town square."
I nodded solemnly. I tied the goat's leash to the decorative shrub, took a deep breath, and strutted across the street with the unearned confidence of a man wearing someone else's expensive clothes.
The automatic crystal doors slid open. The sheer density of the Qi-infused air conditioning hit me like a physical wave.
I bypassed the browsing peasants and marched directly to the "Genius Bar" at the back of the pavilion. Standing behind the glowing crystal counter was Grandmaster Pill-Cauldron.
He didn't look like a wise alchemist. He looked like a sleazy tech-bro who sold crypto on the side. His robes were gaudy, covered in gold chains, and his hair was slicked back with so much spiritual oil it was practically a fire hazard. He was currently scrolling through a glowing jade tablet, completely ignoring the line of customers.
I slammed my hand on the crystal counter. "Service! I demand service! I am a very wealthy man with very dry skin!"
Grandmaster Pill-Cauldron didn't even look up from his tablet. "Take a number, pal. The Heavenly Dao of wait times applies to everyone."
"I don't have time for numbers!" I sneered, fully embodying my Young Master persona. "I have a date at the Spring Breeze Pavilion in an hour, and my pores are unacceptably mortal! I need your finest Minor Jade-Skin Refining Pill! And make it quick!"
That got his attention. The Grandmaster looked up, his eyes scanning my expensive (albeit smelly) black silk robes. He immediately plastered on a greasy, salesman smile.
"Ah! A connoisseur of aesthetics!" Pill-Cauldron clapped his hands together. "Of course, Young Master! Though, if you are heading to the red-light district... perhaps you would be interested in our 'Dragon's Pillar Ascending' supplement? It guarantees an increase in Yang-Root stamina by at least twenty breaths!"
I scoffed loudly. Twenty breaths? "You immortal quacks know nothing of the Dao of the Bedroom," I sneered, leaning over the counter. "Stamina is a peasant's metric. The true elite cultivate load size and intensity."
Pill-Cauldron blinked, slowly lowering his jade tablet. "I... I beg your pardon?"
"Listen to me, Grandmaster, for I am about to bestow upon you the Holy Grail Stack," I whispered intensely, my degenerate Earth-memories taking complete control of my mouth. "I spent three weeks testing supplements. I practiced solo-cultivation every other day—exactly twenty minutes of edging the Dantian—maintaining a strict diet and water intake. I have complete results."
Several cultivators in the nearby aisles stopped browsing and slowly turned their heads toward us.
"L-Arginine Spirit Essence. 1000mg. Taken once daily," I recited, my eyes blazing with the fire of a 4chan scholar. "Increase orgasm intensity? No. Increase amount of Yang-Essence? No. But it significantly increased erection firmness. No ill side effects."
Pill-Cauldron was staring at me in absolute, horrified fascination. He slowly picked up a jade stylus and began taking frantic notes.
"Korean Ginseng? Trash. Gave me terrible Qi-deviation headaches," I continued rapidly. "But then... we introduced Pygeum Root. 100mg, twice daily. Definite increase in Yang-Essence volume. And as a side note: after five straight weeks of Pygeum, I leak pre-circulation Yang-dew like a damn faucet. It definitely activates the Cowper's Meridian."
"The... the Cowper's Meridian..." Pill-Cauldron muttered, scribbling furiously on his tablet. "Fascinating..."
"But that was just the beginning," I said, slamming my fist on the counter for dramatic effect. "I combined them. Pygeum, Zinc Ore, L-Arginine... and the final key: 1200mg of Lecithin Extract. Much, much bigger loads. An amazing increase in intensity. The Holy Grail of the Yang-Root."
The entire back half of the Heavenly Pill Pavilion was dead silent. A passing Sect Elder had actually dropped his basket of healing herbs.
"I... I have never heard of such an alchemy stack," Grandmaster Pill-Cauldron breathed out, looking at me with genuine, profound reverence. "You are a pioneer, Young Master. A visionary of the Dual Cultivation Dao."
"Damn right I am," I said, adjusting my collar and remembering my actual mission. "Now. Stop trying to upsell me on stamina and give me the Jade-Skin Refining Pill. My elbows are ashy."
"Right away, Grandmaster!" Pill-Cauldron said, elevating my title out of sheer respect.
He turned around to face a massive, completely disorganized wall of hundreds of identical crystal vials. None of them were labeled. They were just tossed into random bins like discount candy.
He didn't even look closely. He blindly reached his hand into a bin marked 'Miscellaneous Enhancements', grabbed a small vial containing a single blue pill, and tossed it onto the counter.
"One Minor Jade-Skin Refining Pill," he said. "That'll be ten mid-grade stones. No refunds. Sign the verbal waiver."
My heart leaped. This was it. He hadn't checked the label. He hadn't verified the pill. I had him dead to rights on camera.
I reached into my pouch, ready to pay the stones and secure the evidence, when the temperature in the entire pavilion suddenly plummeted.
A familiar, biting scent of winter pine and freezing snow washed over the room.
The crystal doors slid open, and Senior Sister Ho Li-Fan walked in.
She was back in her pristine, icy-blue law enforcement robes. Her expression was completely unreadable, radiating absolute, terrifying authority. The other customers in the store immediately parted like the Red Sea, bowing their heads nervously.
My stomach dropped into my shoes. The IRS. The Feds. She found me.
I panicked. I was wearing an illegal recording device. I was impersonating a Young Master. I had just publicly confessed to leaking Yang-dew like a broken faucet in the middle of a crowded pharmacy. If she caught me here, I was going to cultivation prison.
Ho Li-Fan stepped up to the counter, entirely ignoring Grandmaster Pill-Cauldron, and locked her icy blue eyes directly onto me.
"Well," Ho Li-Fan said, her voice dropping into that soft, dangerous register. "If it isn't the Junior Associate. What a... coincidence running into you here."
She put heavy emphasis on the word 'coincidence'. She knew. She absolutely knew this was a sting operation, and she was here to blow my cover and arrest me for vigilantism.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Officer!" I squeaked, my voice cracking. "I am just a regular, law-abiding citizen! Purchasing regular, law-abiding skin-care products!"
Ho Li-Fan raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow, glancing down at the blue pill on the counter. "Skin-care? He Lu, you smell like you've been sleeping in a dumpster. Are you sure you shouldn't be buying soap?"
"It's a bold new musk!" I yelled defensively. "And I have very dry elbows!"
Grandmaster Pill-Cauldron, still recovering from the mind-blowing alchemy revelation I had just given him, tapped the counter respectfully. "Ah, Senior Sister Ho. Do not disrespect the Young Master. He is a pioneer of the Cowper's Meridian."
Ho Li-Fan's face twitched. She looked at me, an expression of profound, disgusted confusion crossing her perfect features. "The what?"
"None of your Fed business!" I declared loudly. I slapped ten mid-grade stones onto the counter, snatched the blue pill, and held it up to the light. "In fact, I am so confident in the Heavenly Pill Pavilion's strict regulatory compliance, I'm going to take this skin pill right now!"
Ho Li-Fan's smirk faltered. "Wait, He Lu, you shouldn't just swallow unregulated—"
I popped the pill into my mouth and swallowed it dry.
I gave her a triumphant, smug grin. "See? Perfectly safe. My skin is already feeling—"
I didn't get to finish the sentence.
The reaction was instantaneous. It didn't feel like skin-care. It felt like someone had just poured liquid concrete directly into my veins.
A profound, terrifying heaviness settled over my body. The ambient Qi in the room rushed into my pores, solidifying my muscles, my joints, and my internal organs. My skin turned a dull, metallic grey.
My triumphant grin froze perfectly in place. I literally could not blink. I couldn't move my fingers. I couldn't even expand my lungs to breathe.
I was completely, utterly paralyzed.
Ho Li-Fan stared at me, her eyes widening in alarm. "He Lu? Are you alright?"
I wanted to scream, 'No! I am a statue! Call an ambulance!' but all that came out was a faint, metallic wheeze.
Grandmaster Pill-Cauldron squinted at me, then looked down at the empty vial. He scratched his oily hair.
"Oops," the Grandmaster muttered.
"Oops?!" Ho Li-Fan snapped, her aura flaring with sudden, terrifying intensity. "What did you give him?!"
"Well, it looks like the bins got mixed up again," Pill-Cauldron said, completely unbothered. "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 for bridge construction."
Ho Li-Fan stared at him in sheer disbelief. "You sold him a construction material?!"
"Hey, he signed the verbal waiver," Pill-Cauldron shrugged. "He'll be fine. The paralysis wears off in about twelve hours. Just don't let a pigeon land on him."
I stood there, a grey, unmoving statue, trapped in my own smug pose, internally screaming with the force of a thousand dying suns.
Suddenly, the crystal doors burst open. Lo Yu sprinted into the pavilion, a look of profound annoyance on his face. He ignored the gasping customers, ignored the terrifying Ice Beauty, and marched straight up to my petrified body.
He knocked his knuckles against my forehead. It made a loud, hollow CLANG, like hitting an anvil.
"Absolute, unmitigated donkey," Lo Yu sighed.
He turned to Grandmaster Pill-Cauldron and pointed an accusatory finger directly at the sleazy alchemist's nose.
"I am Senior Lo Yu, Esquire!" Lo Yu's voice boomed through the high-end pavilion, shattering the peaceful atmosphere. "And you, Grandmaster, have just poisoned my Junior Associate! You are on camera! I have documented proof of your reckless inventory management, your lack of medical oversight, and your gross negligence!"
Pill-Cauldron's oily face suddenly went very pale.
"I represent Fairy Su-Mi of the Soaring Crane Sect!" Lo Yu continued, his voice echoing off the jade walls. "And we are going to sue you for everything this pavilion is worth! I will see you in court, you hack!"
Lo Yu didn't wait for a response. He grabbed the collar of my stiff, iron-like robes. With surprising geriatric strength, he tipped my paralyzed body backward.
I fell flat on my back with a deafening CRASH that cracked the crystal floor tiles. I couldn't bend my knees. I was stiff as a board.
Lo Yu grabbed my ankles and began to unceremoniously drag my rigid body out of the store, my head bouncing painfully against the floorboards with every step. Clonk. Clonk. Clonk.
As I was dragged past Senior Sister Ho Li-Fan, my petrified eyes were locked staring straight up at the ceiling.
She looked down at me, her arms crossed, shaking her head slowly.
"I still can't tell," she whispered to herself as I was dragged out the automatic doors, "if you are the smartest investigator in the city, or the single stupidest man alive."
Clonk. I wanted to tell her it was the latter. I really, really did.