Explode on the Spot

Lin Xiaoxi was incredibly fast.

Maybe she really had been the school's five-hundred-meter sprint champion, but what she encountered this time was clearly abnormal. Warning bells rang wildly in Lin Xiaoxi's mind, giving her a headache.

Fuck, she was panicking like crazy.

Lin Xiaoxi was a little annoyed. When had I, Lin Baiwan, ever been this miserable?

The fog around her grew thicker and thicker. The grayish-white mist eventually blanketed everything, and Lin Xiaoxi could only see as far as two steps ahead. The campus road beneath her feet, which had not been very long to begin with, became endlessly long, with no end in sight. No matter how slow she was, Lin Xiaoxi realized there was something wrong with the fog.

She stopped, inexplicably reminded of scenes from the movie Silent Hill.

Fuck, now she was even more panicked...

Lin Xiaoxi took a deep breath and shouted to bolster her courage, "What demon or monster is this?! Do you think I'm afraid of you?! I'm telling you, you're in for some bad luck!"

"Heh..."

A soft, feminine male chuckle came from the fog, full of contempt.

Lin Xiaoxi exploded on the spot. "Fuck you, why don't you just explode right where you are?! 'Heh,' my ass!"

The voice in the fog carried a trace of anger. "Such a pretty little girl, but that mouth of yours is filthy. Let me tear it apart."

Lin Xiaoxi was not afraid at all. "Then come at me!"

The fog suddenly churned, becoming wild and menacing. But at that moment, the person hidden within the mist suddenly let out a terrified cry. "...You!"

Before the feminine voice could finish, a blast suddenly rang out from within the fog.

Bang!

A splash of dark-red blood blossomed amid the grayish-white fog. Tainted by the gray mist, that dark-red bloom looked withered and ruined before it was quickly swallowed by the fog.

Lin Xiaoxi stared at the bloodstain in surprise, utterly bewildered.

It really fucking exploded???

The gray fog gradually dispersed. Lin Xiaoxi vaguely saw a tall, burly figure carrying a huge club walking away. She instinctively chased after him, but after only a couple of steps, she lost sight of him. When the fog had fully cleared, she found herself in the open space beside the dormitory. As for the bloody spray and the person who had appeared in the gray fog... both had vanished.

Had she run into a ghost? Lin Xiaoxi shuddered, turned, and ran back to her dorm. She hid under her blanket and did not dare come out.

At the end of the day, she was just a young girl.

The fierceness and bravado she showed while trapped had only been ways to give herself courage. Once it was all over, she was more cowardly and more terrified than anyone.

She pulled out her phone and messaged Li Yao. "Holy shit, Li Yao! I ran into a paranormal incident!"

Li Yao had not been meditating for long when his ringtone woke him. He opened his phone, saw Lin Xiaoxi's message, and frowned, sensing that something was off. "Who the fuck did you sleep with?"

Lin Xiaoxi: "..."

Negative emotions from Lin Xiaoxi +748...

What the hell was wrong with him?! Lin Xiaoxi suddenly did not feel quite as panicked. Even an idiot like Li Yao could live just fine in this world, so why could a Little Fairy like her not live well too? Besides, after calming down, a bold idea suddenly surfaced in Lin Xiaoxi's mind. It was so thrilling that she abruptly became excited!

So she replied to Li Yao, "Go die, you dog of a man!"

Men are All Big Pig Trotters. Not a single one of them could be relied on! Li Yao: "???"

Why was she suddenly insulting him? He sent another message, but she did not reply.

Heh, women.

Li Yao shook his head and put down his phone. He did not think much of Lin Xiaoxi's words. What had happened between him and Lin Xiaowei already counted as a paranormal event, and he was no longer an ordinary person. Yet even he had not encountered any paranormal events so far. But Lin Xiaoxi had? With luck as strong as hers, could she really run into a ghost? Li Yao instinctively did not believe it. He figured Lin Xiaoxi was probably playing Truth or Dare again.

Only this time, she had chosen Dare.

Li Yao entered meditation once more, and the night passed quietly.

In the morning, Li Yao walked out of his bedroom, poured himself some milk in the small kitchen, toasted some bread, and made a yogurt fruit salad. Carrying his breakfast, he turned on the television. The morning news was playing: the provincial capital was safe and sound, the country was peaceful, and the international situation was turbulent... Perfect! After breakfast, Li Yao washed the kitchenware, opened his laptop, found a great deal of information on cancer, organized it into a package, and sent it to Lin Xiaowei.

The research he gathered this time was clearly much more detailed than last time.

It could not be helped. The priorities were different.

Chen Xi's request was merely business to Li Yao, and business he did not particularly need to take.

They were not even close. Agreeing to help had already been generous of him.

Lin Xiaowei did not reply after he sent the information, but Li Yao was not in a hurry.

Instead, he began developing low-grade versions of the Cleansing Potion and Vitality Potion.

The Vitality Potion he had given Li Shishi that day had been the original version. Its effects were powerful and immediate—almost excessively so. It might get banned one day, so Li Yao needed to develop several lower-grade versions.

Several medicinal herbs Lin Xiaowei had sent over from the other world possessed powerful effects on their own. Because that world had a high concentration of spiritual energy, the herbs themselves also contained a trace of it. Once that trace of spiritual energy was refined and blended through an alchemical array, it could be used with maximum efficiency. In other words, alchemy used the effects of "spiritual energy radiation" to deliver the medicine's effects throughout the body to the greatest extent possible, while stimulating the body to respond through spiritual energy.

If the final refinement process was removed, the Cleansing Potion would still detoxify, but its effects would be much weaker.

This was no longer alchemy, but Potionology.

While he was busy, Lin Xiaowei sent him a message. "Cancer can't be cured."

Li Yao: "..."

My thirty million! Lin Xiaowei: "Cancer is essentially the malignant mutation and proliferation of one's own cells, so the Cleansing Potion is basically useless. Cancer is fatal because malignant cancer cells endlessly draw from and damage the patient's body. So my suggestion is this: use chemotherapy to kill the cancer cells, and use the Vitality Potion to enhance the patient's physical condition."

Li Yao nodded.

He understood the principle.

This would be a slow treatment process. The result might be that the patient's immune system and bodily functions gradually recovered, allowing their body to destroy the cancerous lesions on its own.

But...

Would cancer cells absorb the medicinal effects and spiritual energy within the potion, making them harder to kill?

He raised this concern.

Lin Xiaowei was silent for a while before replying, "Your concern is not impossible. The cancer cells might even undergo a second mutation. In fact, our world has similar cases involving cancer-like cells. Once those malignantly proliferating cells spread throughout the body under the influence of spiritual energy, they can produce extremely terrifying consequences..."

Li Yao: "For example?"

Lin Xiaowei: "You probably wouldn't understand the scientific term used here, but in Earth terms—it's the Living Dead."

One update today. A lot of upsetting things happened these past two days, and they all piled up and exploded today, so I'm extremely irritated. I need some quiet. Honestly, life is far too bitter. But the tragedy of adulthood is that you can only chew up that bitterness and swallow it yourself. You do not even have the right to cry.