A week later, Mingwei went back and gave 15 pills to an aloof Yuehao. He had managed to make about 32 pills, a bit better than expected, and decided to keep the balance of 17 pills.

“My turn, right?” Yangmei was quick to catch Mingwei the moment he stepped out of Yuehao’s room.

“Ah, elder sister Yangmei. Certainly.” Mingwei bowed.

“I have some gator cores and greenduck liver too, here, inside my urns.” She pointed to an urn next to her. Based on what Mingwei knew, that urn can store sufficient materials to make about 13-15 pills, though at a 70% yield, that reaps an actual yield of just 10 pills. Or 4 pills, in this world’s methods which has a lower 25% yield. “How many can you make with a full pot?”

“4, or 5.” Mingwei said. “I’ll keep 1 for myself for every 4, usually.”

“Alright, let’s go to your workshop.”

“Oh?” Mingwei paused. “You’re interested in my alchemical processes?”

“I’m not a master of alchemy, so I’d actually like to see for myself. I am the one parting with the materials, no? They aren’t very valuable, but I believe I’d like to do my own due diligence before handing them over to you.”

Mingwei smiled and bowed. “Certainly, Elder sister.”

They walked in silence back to Mingwei’s designated workshop, and entered it. Mingwei was careful to store his extra pills in a secret compartment. After Elder Qing somehow managed to obtain one of his salvaged pills, he wasn’t about to let his high-yield methods be so easily exposed.

“Where do I put it?”

“On the table, elder sister. I’ll get to work soon. Please, make yourself comfortable. I’ll get you some tea before I start.” Mingwei smiled and took some tea from the cabinet, and brewed a hot cup for her.

Then, Mingwei started work. He started with a batch of 5 livers, and it would normally make only 1 to 2 successful pills with this world’s methods. His own method yields between 3 to 4 pills. He had been careful, and he also had been keeping all the wasted outputs. The waste can still be salvaged to some degree, but he’ll get to that only after he’s out of materials.

He started, and Yangmei was watching intently. He surmised she was using some kind of observation technique, but no matter, he was confident in his own ways. So, he got to work.

It took about 8 hours for the first pot to be done. Normally, Mingwei would be done in about 3-4 hours, but he had a few extra steps to take, this time. During this entire time, Yangmei watched.

Then, he was done, and instantly, the contents of the pot revealed itself. Yangmei jumped and went and took a look into the pots. “Four pills! You’ve been scheming! You said only 4 or 5!”

Mingwei just nodded and shrugged naturally. “I’m afraid only one of those pills is any good, sister Yangmei. You may examine the other three if you do not believe me.”

Yangmei paused. There certainly were four pills in the pot, but only one is good? Still, she took a look at the other three pills. Any alchemist, or cultivator will learn one of the very basics about pills, which is that all pills must have a natural balance, that Qi flows naturally through them. The layers often have a clean separated structure. It was one of the general ways any cultivator knew whether a pill was poison or not, though it is not foolproof.

If a pill was off-balance, the Qi cycled would quickly reveal itself to be bad.

And Yangmei frowned. Mingwei was right! Three of the four pills had some Qi imbalance! Mingwei just sighed, took a metal spoon, scooped them up and threw them into a small pouch. “I’ll grind them up before throwing them away, just in case anyone accidentally eats them.”

Well, a cultivator may not fall sick immediately, but unbalanced Qi will cause their body to resist, and for a day or two, unable to cultivate.

Yangmei paused, and reluctantly sat back down. Mingwei went on and made two more rounds of pills. Both batches had two good pills, and two bad pills each. Mingwei threw the bad pills into the pouch.

“So, 5 pills. I will keep one for myself.” Mingwei said, and gave the 4 pills to Yangmei.

Yangmei stared at the pills, and then nodded. “Ah. I see. Alright.” She was satisfied. She had earlier thought it was strange that Yuehao didn’t do any background checks before trusting this young cultivator, but looks like Yuehao knew what he was doing. So, she left.

Meanwhile, Mingwei went back to the 7 bad pills in a pouch, and smiled. He had intentionally coated the pill in an additional bad layer, something easily fixed by just shaving them off. Still, he had a feeling Yangmei may still come back and check, so he decided to leave the ‘bad’ pills in the pouch for now. She would eventually forget.